I have two half-watched films at home, and I'm feeling guilty. It's an extension of the stern admonition that you have to finish everything on your plate I suppose.

There are excuses of course - and I think good ones too.

The first film is a DVD of the new St Trinians movie sent direct from Britain by my sister. (Thank you!) It's a series which got started at the Ealing Studios back in the gloom of the 1950's, based on the cartoons of Ronald Searle. It tells the story of an anarchic girls school which strikes terror into the hearts of the government education authorities. It's a very British thing I suppose. (I mentioned it to Mark Wheat and his eyes lit up.)

Anyway, a new film only comes along ever decade or so, and even though I can guess the plot pretty much (there's always a field hockey match which turns into a battle scene a la Braveheart,) I have been limiting myself to a little at a time. I'm 35 minutes in, and just watching a few scenes at a time.

The second film is "Mon Oncle" the Academy Award winning Jacques Tati film from 1958, which satirizes modern efficiencies. It's such a wonderful gentle story, with more than a little steel in its spine, floating along on some gallic jazz. It's great, but exhaustion made my eyes droop when I was half way through and I haven't had time to finish it yet.

I feel bad about it, but I have to admit I'm enjoying looking forward to finishing them both. Here's a little Tati.

It sounds like there was quite a turnout for the open casting call for the Coen Brothers movie "A Serious Man" in Minneapolis recently.

The search is on for a 12 year old boy a 16 year old girls and an 80 year old man to play a rabbi.

Apparently there were more than 500 people there before noon on the big day, and there have been several days of call backs since. The final selections will be made by next month.

We heard from the sister of one aspiring actor who said they allowed to keep a page of the script to which she read at the call back, which to her mind was pretty cool in itself.

Anyone else have anything to report?

I've been working my way through Milos Forman's memoir "Turnaround" in recent days. He tells of his childhood and how things changed when the Gestapo took away his parents.

He began living out of a suitcase, moving between family members and friends. He says that's where he made a few discoveries about life.

He writes: "I found out that being a rebel and raising hell is a huge existential luxury, and I suppose that I grew up to be more of a diplomat than anything else. I learned to read people's moods and to understand what they felt even if they didn't fully understand it themselves. I noticed that people don't always believe in doing the things they do, that there often is a gap between who they think they are, and who they really are."

"I didn't know it at the time, but I see now that living out of a suitcase gave me a very good training for my future training as a director."

Sitting in the neighborhood film emporium last evening, I chanced across the trailer for "The Dark Knight Returns."

It was more than a little disquieting. There, in demented make-up as the Joker, stood the late Heath Ledger, grinning like a deathhead. It made for painful watching.

The Global Lens series is now underway at the Walker Art Center.

I chatted with Santosh Daniel today, the Program Director for the Global Film Initiative, the San Francisco-based organization sponsoring the series.

The idea behind the Initiative is that cinema is a way of helping cultures understand one another, and there is an especial need for such understanding in the US.

To quote the Initiatives mission statement:

Ironically, it is the United States, and especially its youth, that suffers disproportionately from this lack of exposure to other cultures. The stability of America's ethnic mosaic depends on deep cross-cultural understanding, particularly between young Americans and the children of recently arrived immigrants. A comprehensive effort to give value to stories from every corner of the world plays a vital role in promoting tolerance in all areas of human behavior.

The Initiative gets its money from private individuals, and Daniel says the sums are large enough to free the initiative from most fundraising chores. The funding goes towards sponsoring film making in other countries, and the screening of films around the U.S.

There is also an important educational element to the screening program. A number of the films are aimed at young people, and free screenings and discussions are available. There is also the Bluescreen initiative which adds an educational component for some of the films.

The Global Lens series at the Walker runs through May 18th. You can hear our conversation here.

Thanks to my colleague John Birge who shipped this site to me. The Internet Movie Car database gathers images of cars which appear in movies and lists them with pictures.

It's a huge task, and while I have to wonder what the use is right now of a list of Honda Odyssey vans in movies, it might be a treasure trove for some archeologist of the future. And it's always good to see pictures of a Triumph Herald, even if it's described as a "minor action vehicle or used in only a short scene."

The Parkway in Minneapolis launches its Homegrown series next Monday. The idea is to feature local film makers. The program kicks off with "Bill's Big Pumpkins" and James Vculek's North Shore mystery "Two Harbors."

You can get a sense of what's on offer from the series trailer....

I stumbled across this on YouTube: a combination of a favorite film, "Children of Men" with a favorite philosopher film critic Slavoj Zizek. This internet thing might catch on!

The folks at MSPIFF are continuing to cycle through some of the festival films, blending them in with the run of "Blindsight" which opens at the end of the week.

Fri., May 9
7 p.m. - Blindsight
9 p.m. - Manual of Love 2

Sat., May 10
3 p.m. - Blindsight
5 p.m. - Citizen Havel
7 p.m. - Blindsight
9 p.m. - Strawberry Shortcake

Sun., May 11
3 p.m. - Blindsight
5 p.m. - Tirador
7 p.m. - Blindsight
9 p.m. - My Best Enemy

Mon., May 12
7 p.m. - Blindsight
9 p.m. - We Shall Overcome

Tues., May 13
7 p.m. - Blindsight
9 p.m. - Circumcise Me!/Winterland

Garth Jennings says he isn't worried about the competition from Iron man for his film "Son of Rambow." Of course he said what he said before Robert Downey and friends pulled in $100 million over the weekend.

There is some interesting discussion going on in the industry about how this years box office is down. The LA Times puts an optimistic spin on it as does the London Times. But Backstage sees bleaker times ahead for Hollywood.