At the movies: Insidious Chapter 3.

It's back.The little horror franchise that could keeps thwarting expectations (especially after that dumb shit in the second one), and I'll happily proclaim this chapter the best in the series. It's a prequel, which is fine, because the Lambert family's story is not quite as interesting as Elise Rainier and the Spectral Sightings boys. Truthfully, I'd like to see the series focusing on them, either theatrically or on one of those subscription-based networks that have yet to find the right kind of serialized horror (no offense to Hemlock Grove, whose first season is a fun mess and whose second season is actually good, like a real TV show).

At the movies: The Crazies.

The truly great thing about this film is that it will unsettle you regardless of whatever political or social perspective you may be living with.

There isn’t a single fear that isn’t skillfully exploited by this film (and, truthfully, its superior 1973 incarnation), and it so often goes the less conventional route in its pursuit of making you jump at least one and a half times every reel, that by the end of it your nerves are a wreck. As always, it seems, there’s some dodgy CGI and an emphasis on traditional family that marks it as a product of the early twenty-first century, but you can tell that a decent amount of care went into crafting this film.

A military plane has crashed in a small Iowa town, and from it has come Trixie, an experimental virus that eats away at inhibitions and the superego, leaving the id in charge and nothing standing between our most depraved violent thoughts and society at large. Neither a zombie film nor a slasher movie, The Crazies is a film to get deep into your brain, playing horrifying games with your sense of self and of society. With the best unconventional use of a car wash since Cronenberg’s Crash and some remarkably tense and cruel sequences. More than worth your time.

You can also check out the original at Nashville's Belcourt on April 2nd and 3rd.

Seconded, Mr. Ebert.

Astute, as he often can be, in a way that combines intelligence and populism. There isn't a day that goes by without me worrying that the shoe is going to drop and I find myself with no film writing gig whatsoever. I guess I'm fortunate, but I am so utterly freaked out by the way that modern journalism is tilting.

"Picture it... Sicily."

We've lost our first Golden Girl.

Estelle Getty had quite a few other roles in her life (Mannequin, Tootsie, Torch Song Trilogy on Broadway), but she was always going to be Sophia Petrillo, the foul-mouthed voice of common sense and doyenne of cutting to the chase on The Golden Girls and, metonymically, all of American life from '85 up until '92.

She was so good on The Golden Girls that I actually made my mother go see Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot in the theatre during its five minute theatrical engagement.

And she is now the first of the Golden Girls to leave us. And she died horribly, just as she lived horribly over the past few years. Lewy Body Dementia... as cruel as Alzheimer's, but not as well known. No red carpet galas for LBD (though there is an Association, and I just bet they rename themselves The Estelle Getty Foundation for LBD Research and Awareness, and if they don't, then some rich people need to get on it), and the woman who showed us a glorious and independent life in the golden years was unable to enjoy her own.

The saddest thing about Estelle Getty's death is merely what it demonstrates about the world. I loved The Golden Girls because it showed me what strong friendship could mean, and how as long as you had a network of people who cared about you to rely on, you could handle anything life threw at you (as long as there was cheesecake and sex to be had). And even that can be taken away by the vicissitudes of the body.

Maybe the Cathars were right.

Hats off to you, Miss Estelle Getty. One way or another, at least the paralyzing fear is gone.