So I tried a Ouija Board for the first time a few nights ago. A friend brought it over, so we turned off all the lights, spread the board out on my living floor, lit some candles and some suspicious-smelling "incense," and gave it a go.

It didn't take long before the pointer-thingie (OK, it's called a "planchette") started moving around. I sure wasn't moving it. I barely touched it at all, and there were times that I thought it would slip out from under my fingertips. My friend swears up and down that she wasn't moving it either, and that, like me, she just had a feather-light touch on it.

We asked a few "yes" or "no" questions, which the board seemed to answer easily enough, to the point that it really felt like it could understand us. But any time the planchette moved to the letters to spell something out, all we got was gibberish. We tried sticking to yes-no questions, but it was like playing an especially frustrating game of 20 questions.

So if all this didn't make for a weird enough evening, it all took an even more bizarre turn. At one point, my friend asked a question, and the planchette moved to the "L" and then the "A" then the "L" then the "A" and so on. Just back and forth, L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A. It did this every time we asked a question. We kept trying to guess what it was saying. "Are you singing?" "Is this about Los Angeles?" "Is this about someone named Al?" All we got for our troubles was L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A-L-A.

And that was it. My big supernatural experience. My friend assures me that it's not always gibberish, and that sometimes the board offers genuine messages and helpful advice. We'll see.

(What does any of this have to with movies and/or DVDs? Nothing, I guess, so here's a link to Judge Naugle's review of Amityville 3-D, in which the characters use a board in one scene. Enjoy.)

Last year, director Makoto Shinkai (Voices of a Distant Star) won the annual Mainichi Film Award for Best Animated Film for his latest work, The Place Promised in Our Early Days. For this award, the film beat out favorites such as Katsuhiro Otomo’s Steamboy and Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. It also broke numerous attendance records during its opening weekend. Now, this thoughtful sci-fi hit arrives in North America for all to see, but does it take flight?

After a brutal civil war in a near-future Japan, the country has been divided in two, with a massive sea separating both halves. After growing up one side, all two best friends know about the other side is what they can see: a giant tower in the distance, rising out of sight. The boys are engineers in training, and are building their own small plane, with the hopes of someday flying across the sea and visiting the tower in person. They let a young girl in on their secret, and the three of them make a promise to fly to that tower someday.

Then, fast forward a few years. As young adults, our protagonists have drifted apart, and one has disappeared altogether. Political strife leads to resumed fighting among both halves of the country. In a high-tech laboratory, scientists aim their instruments on the mysterious tower, which holds secrets that change the world. Drifting back into each others’ lives, our heroes decide to keep their childhood promise, no matter what the risk.

If you’re one of the ones who doesn’t “get” what the big deal about this anime stuff is, this film is a good place to start. It has a lot of makes anime popular. The visuals are absolutely top notch. The colors jump of the screen, and character movements and facial expressions are fluid and detailed. The storyline is serious and ponderous, devoid of any slapstick silliness. There is a science fiction element to the plot, but it takes a back seat to the characters and their interactions.

Other elements that make anime popular aren’t here, though. If you’re hoping for giant robots or butt-kicking kung fu, this isn’t where to go. The mood in The Place Promised in Our Early Days is a ponderous, melancholy one. If you want an alternative to Disney-style kiddie fare, then this could be just what you’re looking for. But if you want an action-packed sci-fi roller coaster ride, try Appleseed instead.

Keeping up with all the visual eye candy, the 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is nearly flawless. The sound comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround in both English and Japanese, and makes full use of all the speakers. I just about flew out of my chair when a realistic gunshot sound effect came out of the left rear speaker behind me. Subtitles are in English. There are no extras.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days arrived in stores on July 12, 2005, courtesy of ADV Films. For more information, go here or here. Give it a rental if you're in the mood for something different.

From the always venerable Merchant Ivory Productions comes Merci Docteur Rey, a comedy about parents and children, Americans and the French, opera and murder. It’ll hit store shelves on Aug. 9, 2005, courtesy of Image Entertainment.

An American opera singer (Dianne Wiest, Edward Scissorhands) and her 20-something son (Stanislas Merhar, Adolphe) are living together in Paris, and yet growing farther apart. She spends her days prepping in front of the mirror, while he’s made a hobby out of experimenting with personal ads. Meanwhile, an actress (Jane Birkin, The Last September) finds her neuroses in overdrive after the untimely death of her therapist. Naturally, everyone’s lives get mixed with up with each other. Secrets are kept, identities are mistaken, dead bodies start piling up, and what’s that jar of mayonnaise doing there?

This is a somewhat confused film. The script is quite witty, with several clever lines and running jokes. But the actors deliver all their lines with such a feeling of world-weary dread that it’s difficult to wring any genuine laughs from their performances. Back in full Bullets Over Broadway mode, Wiest fares better than the rest, and is as good as she always is. Plot-wise, much of what happens depends on a handful of highly improbable coincidences, which are likely to get the most forgiving filmgoers’ heads spin. Visually, though, the movie is a real treat, with bright vibrant colors in almost every scene, helped along by a pristine DVD transfer. Likewise, the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround is solid, with no evident flaws.

Things get a little tricky when going over the language options. See, about half the movie is spoken in English, and the other half in French, depending on what the scene is and which characters are involved. There are three subtitle options. “None” gives you English subtitles for just the French dialogue. “English” provides these subtitles for every line regardless of the language. “Spanish” does the same, except, you know, in Spanish. But if you’re French, and you want to enjoy this French movie translated into French, then that’s just tough merde.

So Merci Doctuer Rey is amusing but falls just short of being a great comedy. For more info, go here or here.

I got some bad news tonight. As of this evening, my long-running webcomic New In Town has officially ceased to exist.

After more than a year of frustrated e-mails and phone calls, all as a result of problems with transferring my domain name from one service to the other, I learned tonight that they sold some other bastard my domain name. So, three years-plus of hard work on that silly little comic, and it's all gone now.

A longitme comic book fan, I fell in love with the idea of webcomics after reading Scott McCloud's Reinventing Comics. Here, it seemed, was a way for writers and artists to express themselves and develop an audience without having to negotiate the complicated and expensive publishing process. It promised to breathe new life into the then (and still) dried up independent comics scene. This was the way to get my voice heard, and now it's over.

Everybody's telling me to "buckle up" and start the whole thing over again, with a whole new domain name, etc. But I'm wondering: What's the point? Doesn't the fact that this has happened just prove that dreams don't come true?

The world didn’t know what hit it in 1977. I remember seeing ads for Star Wars, not understanding what I was even looking at. A bunch of guys in white metal suits running around, strangely-shaped objects whizzing back and forth in space, some girl with a funky hairdo, and so on. But my parents assured me that this might be something I’d like, so I agreed to see it.

At the beginning of the movie, I still wasn’t sold. What’s this “a long time ago” business? What was with the big words floating through space? But then it all changed with that opening shot. Seeing that huge Star Destroyer fill the entire screen blew my mind. The movie that followed was the high adventure stuff my imaginative young self had always dreamed of. Ever since that day, I’ve lived and breathed Star Wars.

I waited in the lines for Empire. Anybody else remember those lines? The ones that circled around the theater three times, where everyone brought folding chairs and such while waiting to get in? They were even longer for Return of the Jedi. We got up at dawn to stand in a similar line at 6 a.m. to get tickets. Kind of a pain in the butt, really, but the excitement in the air couldn’t be beat. In 1997, I was in LA attempting to “make it big” in the entertainment industry, but instead I just made myself miserable. Seeing the Special Editions on the big screen was one of the few things that kept me sane during such a difficult time. Then there was 1999 and the totally nutso amount of hype for Episode I. The movie has its flaws, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and I saw it 21 times that summer. By the time Attack of the Clones came out, it was a dark time for fandom. I felt like the world’s last remaining Star Wars fan. Just mentioning the films to someone in 2002 opened the floodgates of bitter gripes and spiteful nitpicks.

And today, May 19, 2005, I saw Revenge of the Sith. Knee-jerk reaction: I need to see it again. The movie is packed with so much information, so much detail, and so much emotion (you heard me) that it’s going to take another viewing or two (or 20) before I’ve really absorbed it all. But yes, it does pack an emotional punch. As the story builds to its climax, jumping back and forth between two big fight scenes, I really felt heartbroken for the characters, knowing the inevitability of what was about to happen.

But overall, as of today, as of right now, I loved the movie. Why? Because it’s Star Wars, dammit!

From what I’ve read of people’s reactions, there seems to be a lot of melancholy about this being the last film. Yes, it is kind of sad that this series we’ve followed for almost 30 years has concluded, but all this talk about “our time is over” needs to stop. Remember that quote from John Lennon about how the Beatles never really broke up because we can listen to their records any time we want? I feel that way about Star Wars. These six films will live forever. Long after we’re all gone, kids will still be discovering them and enjoying them all over again.

And there’s another way to look at it. Now that Star Wars has come to a close, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to look forward to in the future, or that “our time” has come and gone. What it says to me is that the world is now primed and ready for the next big thing. I have no idea what it will be or what form it will take, but I just know it’s right around the corner. I'm certain of it. It’ll be new and exciting, and like nothing we’ve ever seen. We won’t know what hit us.

I can’t wait.

In response to Judge Arseneau's response to me:

I did not daintily sniff the DVD in some sort of fetishistic ritual. Instead, the second I took off the wrapper, all the oxygen in the room was instantly consumed by the overpowering odor of old lady cigarettes. For a minute there, I thought the whole house had been covered by a big tent so this DVD could kill termites.

The stench was so strong, I've since gotten rid of the disc. Whatever the future has in store for me, I guess my destiny just does not involve owning Jurassic Park at this time.

So the other day I spotted a used copy of Jurassic Park for only $5. Since I didn't already own it, I figured now is a good a time as any.

But then I get it home and take off the cellophane, and what do I discover? The thing smells like cigarettes! Both the case and the disc. And it's not just a cigarette smell, but a really disgusting old-lady-with-yellow-teeth-and-bloodshot-eyes cigarette smell.

I've heard of movies that stink, but this is ridiculous.

I've been getting feedback about my review of Spaceballs, which apparently a lot of you have read. There's been some talk about what I said in my review about how the notorious "nose joke" appears mis-framed. Seems this is not the fault of the DVD. It's thanks to a phenomenon called "overscan." Turns out there's a little teeny bit of picture that gets cut off by a lot of TVs, including mine (and I have a really nice TV!) On most movies, it makes little difference, but in Spaceballs, the visual punchline to the "nose joke" is way, way over to the right side of the screen, where it's cut off by your TV. At least that's how I understand it right now. I'll keep on investigating.

Thanks to Paul and Matt for pointing this out to me.

So I spent yesterday at the Comic Book Convention at the Radisson Hotel in Boston. Now, other big cities get to have these huge conventions where movie stars unveil secrets about their upcoming summer blockbusters, but all we get here are suspicious-looking guys selling the dustiest of dusty old collectibles. But I’m not writing to complain about that. Nor am I writing to brag about how I filled several gaps in my collection, including some sweet Paul Ryan issues of X-Men.

Instead, I’m writing because yesterday I came face-to-face with the whole video piracy thing. About one third of the convention was bootlegs, bootlegs, and more bootlegs. I’ll refrain from mentioning what I did or didn’t purchase, but seeing all this stuff for sale raised a lot of questions. Not in a “bootlegs are crippling the film industry” way, but in a “what’s a lone consumer to do” sort of way.

On the one hand, some of this stuff is a real goldmine. I saw goodies on sale that are likely never to see a legitimate release on DVD. The original, pre-special edition Star Wars trilogy was on hand, with gorgeous widescreen transfers and 5.1 sound. (Copies of the notorious Holiday Special were also abundant.) Or how about the 2004 Lost in Space TV pilot, directed by none other than John Woo? A little lower on scale was the mid-1990s Generation X made-for-TV movie, which wasn’t good, exactly, but still fun in a campy way. And speaking of campy, I drooled over plenty of niche nostalgia two-disc sets such as Mighty Orbots: the Complete Series, Galaxy High: the Complete Series, and Drak Pack: the Complete Series.

I theorize that a potential buyer would not feel too guilty about purchasing the above items, because this is probably only way to own them on DVD. In this case, it seems the studios are shooting themselves in the foot by letting bootleggers profit off of them. Warner Bros. allegedly poured $2 million into that Lost in Space pilot. Even if there’s no series, why not make it an official direct-to-video release and throw the fans a bone? The studio would probably make that $2 million back in a heartbeat.

But, looking around the convention, I saw some behavior that had me thinking maybe these bootleggers really are the bad guys. Copies of Sin City were everywhere, along with other movies still in theaters, such as Sahara and even Miss Congeniality 2. We’ve all heard stories about how these things are made by people sneaking camcorders into theaters, so the video and audio are bound to be horrible. But I saw person after person after person forking over $20 for Sin City, which will surely be on an excellent DVD for the same price sometime this summer, and half that price used by Christmastime. I can’t help but feel for all those folks who bought it yesterday. My guess is last night they sat down to enjoy some Frank Miller goodness, and instead cried out, “I’ve been ripped off!”

So, the question for me is not whether bootlegged DVDs are killing Hollywood. My question is: what’s an ordinary consumer to do when he’s confronted with this stuff?

Or maybe I should just stop worrying. Like they said in Shock Treatment, “Eliminate confusion and hide inside a brand new role.” Not that I watched it last night on an illegal DVD or anything.

I’d like to tell you about how I spent Monday, March 14.

Why that day? Well, for starters, it was my first day at my new job. Instead of the building where I work, they sent me to the other side of the state to corporate headquarters, where unnaturally peppy human resources people told me all about health insurance options and 401K plans, not a word of which I understood. Then they brought out the safety video. You should’ve seen this thing. It was nothing but 30 minutes of stuntmen slipping on wet floors, falling down stairs, tripping over wires, and so on. I kept expecting Troy McClure from The Simpsons to show up.

So I managed to grab a quick lunch and then drove all the way out to the city where I’m actually working. I hate that first day on the job thing, where you get introduced to everyone all at once, and where you can’t do anything except sit there and have people show you how to do everything. Also, as a newspaper editor, I not only had to learn the ins and outs of a new company, but I had to get to know the entire town that I'll be covering. So I finished off the afternoon with a crash course on my town’s officials, its history, who all the contacts are, etc. By the time 5 p.m. rolled around, I stumbled home with my brain suffering from total information overload.

That night, to relax, I did what I always do: sit my butt down in front of the computer. Still mentally exhausted from a long day, imagine what it did to my mental state when I saw an e-mail from Michael Stailey at DVD Verdict, telling me, “You got the job.” Suddenly, instead of just being “Skyle” in the Jury Room, the powers that be liked my submission pieces, and they asked me to become one of the big guns: a Judge!

I’ve said this already, but now I’m saying it publicly: Thanks to Mike Jackson, Michael Stailey, and all the other judges for their support and for this amazing opportunity. There’s some high standards to meet here, and I’ll do everything I can to meet them.

And the next time someone tells you that your whole life can change in just one day, you better believe it.