Addendum to yesterday's post: Jennifer Aniston can't act. Wait, I wrote that already. Oh, well, . . .

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Halloween, a time for fake scares and very real candy. Today, Brittany is wearing one of Nicole's old dance costumes - a nun, and I am dying to hear how it went over with the Catholic set at her new school. She was very self-conscious this morning, worrying whether any of the other Grade 6s will be dressing up. She's been having trouble adjusting - pre-teen girls are, in plain language, bitches, and Britt has a knack for getting the worst out of people - and I hope at least one of the cool kids shows up in costume. Brittany wants so badly to be cool, but she just doesn't have it in her.

Nicole, on the other hand, is naturally cool, just very relaxed with who she is and where she fits in the world. Her costume is something she calls Spider-Girl, which is an extension of a spiderish outfit given to her by an older friend a few months back. To this she has added some very Nicole-like touches, and though it looks ridiculous, she pulls it off with her usual aplomb. The kid just oozes style.

My new office, which seems to make an event out of everything, is strangely silent so far on the Halloween front. This is in stark contrast to a firm I worked at for over 10 years, where every year someone would get in costume and deliver little treat bags. Having been that person one year, I can tell you that there is little satisfaction in the job, and smelling the sweat of past participants on the costume adds nothing to the experience. Gotta love that candy, though.

While "The Departed" (see yesterday's post) suffered from comparison to the source materials, three older movies that I have finally seen this year suffered when compared to their reputations. Those three are "Alien", "Stripes" and "Office Space". In the case of "Alien", it's hard to be too shocked when you've heard about the most gruesome death (namely, John Hurt's) and know that only one character survives the beast's wrath. Still, it was a beautiful thing to watch, and was satisfying in ways much better than cheap thrills could be - not that I'm against cheap thrills. (Hell, if it weren't for cheap thrills, I think I'd be leading a pretty thrill-free life.) As for "Stripes", this may be blasphemy, but it just wasn't funny. Maybe when I was a teenager I would have found this humorous, but I'm a little past that point now. And I have nothing against dumb comedy - among my favorite movies of the last few years are "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and "Dodgeball", which now that I think about it are both actually pretty clever - okay, maybe I don't like dumb comedies, and "Stripes" is pretty dumb. Still, John Candy, God rest his flabby soul, was his usual brilliant self, and there were a good number of naked women, so I can't say my two hours in front of the telly were totally wasted.

And then there is "Office Space", which I thought was a good movie, clever and subversive and very knowing. It just wasn't the life-changing event I was prepared for. If you don't think cinema can change your life, talk to someone who got laid after his girl spent an evening swooning during "Titanic". I didn't expect to get laid after "Office Space" - although it would have been nice - but I didn't expect the bland nothingness I felt either. It was a good time at the movies - no more, no less. Or maybe it was Jennifer Aniston's fault. The girl can't act, although at least she was still cute then. But it isn't nearly enough to justify her casting. Gary Cole, on the other hand, continues to prove that he can do no wrong.

So, best intentions, and all that stuff. A little movie talk, to get things rolling - again. I saw "The Departed" yesterday, this being a movie I had no intention of seeing until the weight of critical praise forced me into action. You see, one of the best movies I saw in 2005 was - bad dubbing and all - "Infernal Affairs", the Hong Kong precursor of Scorsese's latest wade into the annals of American crime. I so enjoyed "Infernal Affairs", with it's twisting loyalties and belief systems, with Andy Lau's tortured good bad guy and Tony Leung's even more tortured bad good guy. I had never seen either actor before, only learning after the fact that they are Asia's Clooney and Pitt or - aiming just a little higher - Redford and Newman. Great flick.

So, "The Departed". Good movie, but no "Infernal Affairs". It's Scorsese, so it's given more credence than it might otherwise, and Jack Nicholson is great - but he's still Jack, and I think his persona is now so larger than life that even a talent as prodigious as his cannot overcome that. DiCaprio is also very good, Damon less so. I am baffled over why Mark Wahlberg is getting such good play for this - good but not great - while Alec Baldwin shows yet again why he really is one of the cinema's best. Ray Winstone and Vera Farmiga were great, and Kristen Dalton, as Jack's Mrs., is too damned sexy for words.

But that ending. "Infernal Affairs" ends with the hero dead and the non-hero turned good getting away with his past crimes, although they led directly to the death of the hero and a lot of other guys, good and bad. Here, the bad guy ends up just as dead as the good guy, and before that, unlike the Andy Lau character's genuine doubt about his place in the crime world and good-guy leanings, the Damon character turns on Nicholson only for his own self-preservation. This is perhaps a truer glimpse into the criminal mind, but it isn't nearly as satisfying a cinematic experience.

And then, that last shot. As the Damon character lies dead or dying on the floor of his apartment, a rat walks across his window sill, with the golden done of the Massachusetts state capital building in the distance. So, in a movie about rats, our last image is of a rat in front of the place where politicians hang out. Geez, Marty, was a sign too subtle for you? I felt embarrassed for him. I hope this isn't the one that finally lands the Oscar, although based on early returns I suspect it will be. Imagine that clip at an AFI tribute.

Proving, of course, that moviegoers are if nothing creatures of the moment, within weeks of its release, 27,074 voters on IMDb have given "The Departed" an average score of 8.5 out of 10, making it the 55th greatest movie ever made (although the actual list gives a score of 8.3). Better than "The Maltese Falcon" (56), "Reservoir Dogs" (63), "Singin' in the Rain" (67), "Some Like It Hot" (75), and a whole bunch of other great films, like, for example, "Raging Bull" (81). There are certainly flaws with this list (aptly summed up by the fact that "The Shawshank Redemption" is considered the second greatest film ever made by these voters), but it does say something about how quickly this movie has been acclaimed as a work worthy of careful consideration. When, in truth, it lacks the depth and humanity of the original. It's second rate Scorsese, which still makes it better than most everything else out there, but let's stop pretending he's saved the cinema.

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On the subject of great movies, my ten favorite films seen this year, in chronological order by release date, are:

The 39 Steps (1935)
Laura (1944)
Alphaville (1965)
The Conversation (1974)
Ran (1985)
Jackie Brown (1997)
Donnie Darko (2001)
Dirty Pretty Things (2003)
The Rage in Placid Lake (2003)
The House of Flying Daggers (2004)

If the rest of the year goes well, I'll have at least 30 more movies to consider in putting together my year-end top ten. In addition to "The Departed", this weekend I watched "Fun with Dick and Jane" (the remake, hardly worth mentioning) and "Just Like Heaven" (lot's of fun, with a side-splitting line in the last act from the ever reliable Donal Logue).