A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

NOTES ON NOTES ON A SCANDAL: Yes, you should see this movie, but you should know as little about it as possible coming. The marketing really spoils things, but I'm not quite sure how you make the movie a compelling sell without giving away the twist -- it'd be like trying to promote Titanic without mentioning that the boat sinks. Still, I can say this much:

1. Judi Dench is stunningly good, in a glamour-free, fierce performance. And Bill Nighy does enough to get the Oscar nomination he's deserved for a few years.
2. It is very, very weird to see one's own (obscure, old, text-message friendly) cell phone have a prominent role in a movie in which its particular functionality is an issue.
3. STFU, Obtrusive Philip Glass Score.
4. Watch how Judi Dench's lighting suddenly becomes so much warmer, and less chilly and natural, once she figures out her big move mid-film.
   
5. This is a book that is, I think, impossible to adapt completely to the screen, because the language of cinema may not accommodate the existence of an unreliable narrator. In a movie, we know to believe that which we see, so I don't know how one pulls off the trick of the novel in not making us realize until later what's been going on the whole time. So instead of a narrator lying to herself, what we feel instead are her lies to the others around her. With that limitation, it's well worth your time.