Today is more of a dialogue piece, which I think is fun to toss in every now and then. I preface my blog with these comments since I’ve been going a little cameo-crazy lately. I don’t want to disappoint anyone who was expecting to see The Harlem Globetrotters or Don Knotts show up in the comic this week.

Not much to report movie-wise at the moment except Des Moines is finally getting some really good indie movies in the local theaters that I need to sprint out and see before some big budget number bumps them off the screens.

Top on my list is Sideways, a slightly more adult (re: middle aged) drama written and directed by Alexander Payne. If the name sounds familiar, he did Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt. Payne finally gets out of Omaha for this picture, taking us into the sun-baked hills of California wine country. Extra points for casting Paul “Pig Vomit” Giamatti – my favorite silver screen neurotic.

I’m also hyped to see Primer and The Machinist.

Primer is kind of hard to explain. Filmed for only $7,000, it’s the tale of two inventors who accidentally create a time-travel device. Basically the movie is a sci-fi morality tale in the vein of an old Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode, exploring what the technology does to the friends and the knowledge of themselves.

The Machinist is also a creepy indie starring the soon-to-be Batman, Christian Bale. Basically a descent into madness, Bale plays a blue collar industrial worker who is suffering from insomnia and hasn’t slept in over a year. The story isn’t grabbing my attention as much as the reports that Bale lost 63 pounds for the role and the physical transformation is shocking. What can I say? Curiosity got the cat.

No guarantee that I’ll see any of these movies before they leave town. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Spanglish and The Aviator all come out this week. Next week is my birthday and then Christmas. Busy times ahead.

The government needs to make some sort of food-pyramid type of chart to help me balance the big budget studio pictures stuff with the mind-tweaking indie fare.