Movie Roundup

My Neighbor Totoro--A gentle, idyllic anime about a young girl who moves to the country with her father and little sister while her mother recovers from an unspecified illness. She adjusts to her new surroundings with the help of some (possibly imaginary) supernatural creatures. Basically the same theme Miyazaki treated in Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away, and I'd say it's about as good as the former.

Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns--This documentary about They Might Be Giants is informative but only skims the surface of its subject. I could well believe, though, that despite their cleverness, the two Johns have no depth to begin with; their unrelenting flippancy and ironic accordion make them basically a hip NYC version of Weird Al Yankovic.

Trainspotting--Combines Pulp Fiction's gritty yet ultimately romanticized portrayal of wisecracking underworld types with some drug-induced surrealism á la Naked Lunch, with the requisite retro-alternative soundtrack (Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, etc.). Not a bad film, but perhaps overhyped when it came out in the mid-90s. And whatever happened to Kelly MacDonald? She looked great in that schoolgirl uniform--or out of it, for that matter.