Go. See. This. Movie.

2004-03-10 at 9:41 p.m.

Don't read a single article, watch a single ad, sit through a single preview, for "Eternal Spotlight of the Spotless Mind" (or "Endless Summer of the Spotlight Mind" or "Eternal Stoplight of the Swapless Mind" or whatever it is). Seriously, don't read the reviews, watch the plot summaries, or go to IMDB or Aint-it-cool-news or Rotten Tomatoes or anything. Just don't don't don't. Just go see it.

Of course, if you're like me, you can't resist the spoilers and the reviews and the speculation.

But this movie was so intensely beautiful, so bizarrely romantic, so heartbreakingly and thoroughly captivating and so clearly the product of a twisted-in-on-itself mind, that everyone has to go see it. Seriously. Hire a babysitter, drop the kid off at Grandma's, hell, leave her alone with a pack of matches and the oven on. It's that worth it. (I was kidding about the matches and the oven, by the way. Really, don't do that.) (But it would almost be worth it.) (No, I'm so kidding about that part.)

And I don't want to tell you about the movie more than I already have (in the event you aren't a total spoiler whore like I am, and you actually have a spine or whatever) so you really just have to trust me. I wish I hadn't seen anything about it so that I could be to totally surprised by what I saw, so that it was an organic and fresh experience.

Let me just say this:

I love movies. I love going to them. I love romance, I love comedy, I love action, documentary, fantasy, if it's good, well done? There isn't a type of movie I can categorically dislike. I can also mock mercilessly (cf Bad Boys II--not, I might add, my choice at the video store) when the occasion calls for it (and boy howdy did it ever). But other than that, I bring no great critique credentials to the virtual table here.

So there's no particular reason to value my judgement over, say, Uncle Ebert's, or even Crazy Great Uncle Shalit's.

I just need to say this: I cannot recall a time I walked out of a movie so wholly and completely satisfied and moved and just enthralled by a movie as much as I was by this one tonight. I am running out of adverbs here, people! That's how excited and emotional I am here!

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