Rrgh. The Chicago Tribune contacted me today to ask if I want to interview Woody Allen tomorrow for them. Only hell yes! Except that I didn't attend the screening of his latest film because I wasn't reviewing it and didn't think I needed to see it right away, and no screeners are available, so I can't do it. Woe!

That aside, I keep meaning to post about Monday, when I had, like, a dozen people over and fed them enchiladas and chocolate pecan pie and showed them The Orphanage because I wanted to be responsible for as many people as possible having the squeaky squirming experience I did, and I wasn't sure how many of them were really going to head out into theaters in January to see a Spanish-language horror film.

I put The Orphanage on my top-ten films list for the year because it simply struck me as one of the best-crafted films I saw all year, particularly in terms of effectiveness at doing exactly what it set out to do. I had trepidations, beforehand ("Is everyone going to think I'm a ninny for rating a li'l horror film this highly?") and afterward. ("Was it really that good, or am I overrating it because it scared the hell out of me?")

Seeing it the second time through, I'm confident that I made the right decision. The second time through, I knew where all the scares were, and they weren't still scary. (Well, except for one beautifully directed scene which we all had to goggle over afterward.) Though I wasn't actually looking at the screen for some of the big shocks; I was watching other people's faces, which is not a luxury I often get in movies. Movies are generally too immersive for me to spend much time studying other people watching them, but if you ever get the chance to do it, particularly in a really good movie that people are into — hence unaware of their surroundings, including people looking at them, and also hence not twisting their faces into masks of skeptism, disappointment, and annoyance over what they're watching — I recommend it. A good movie softens people's faces and brings down their guard almost as much as sleep…

But anyway. Yeah. Second time through, I liked the film even more in terms of pure craft. Virtually every scene has a specific narrative purpose. Virtually every line has a double meaning. It's just really well-written and well-put-together, and watching it a second time made me pretty happy.

But listening to magdalene1 squeak with terror throughout made me even happier. Hey, as I pointed out at some point, I went through this film WITHOUT friends around. I feel no pity.

Afterward, a discussion of the film broke out, complete with musings on the cast for the inevitable American remake. Chris insisted that the "immediately remake any remotely popular foreign film in English" culture is dead, and that The Orphanage probably wouldn't be remade any time soon; today, Cass found proof that he's wrong, and that New Line is handling the remake. Sigh. Betcha version #2 won't be anywhere near as good.

I'm-a feelin': mixed feelings