Friday

This has been great. Of the last ten winters, this year's has far and away impressed me the most. Last winter was a dud for the few weeks I was in town to see it. For the next two years, barring vacations, I will live in a part of the world that doesn't even have seasons as I know them. In southern Vietnam, the official two seasons every year are "rainy" and "dry," with temperatures approximating August in North Carolina throughout both of them. After the last two years in Monterrey, 2007 was my one shot to see a real, whole winter until the beginning of 2010. So the fact that it has been routinely below freezing, and that I've witnessed some eight or nine snowfalls, over the last three months exceeded all expectation. Its done my heart good. Today, despite low temperatures and the freezing rain, I met Sunshine after classes, in Rosslyn, and we headed off to Silver Springs, Maryland to see the Last Winter,* an ostensible horror film of ulterior ecological concern; and, by the way, part of the 15th Annual Environmental Film Festival in DC.* In a remote Alaskan outpost, one mega-conglomerate schemes to start drilling--regardless of some wonky test readings taken in the permafrost. Then the small crew starts to go crazy: seeing shapes amass in the wasteland, going into the subzero butt-naked, etc. Starring Ron Pearlman. The movie was a little preachy, but all the acting and filmmaking were great. There was a little too many of the whiz-bang attention-getting editing doodads pervasive in modern horror, plus a highly eye-rolling tack-on afterthought that rather clunked. Otherwise, I recommend it. After our screening, the director (Larry Fessenden) answered questions. The experience was well worth having to walk home in the falling ice. [Cavin]