Pain-induced insomnia and time warp.  I’ve been struggling to sleep, tossing and turning.  I looked at the clock: 1:47 a.m.  Tossed for a really long time.  Looked at the time again.  12:46 a.m.  So I’m guessing the first one was actually 11:47.  It’s now 1:44 (for real, this time) and I still cannot sleep.

Insomnia.  Insomnia.  Insomnia.

Anyone waiting for my manic swing, as documented here, to end: it has.  Blah.  Vomiting, chills, and depression.

I was a dick at the pharmacy yesterday.  My doctor called in a refill of my Compazine as I’m still on Flagyl, the latter causing nausea.  I drove up to the pharmacy window.

Tech: Josh, it’s too early to pick up your prescription.  You had a ten-day supply filled on the 27th.

Josh: What’s the dosage on that?

Tech: One pill every eight hours.

Josh: Which is three pills a day.  Seven days.

She picked up a calculator.

Tech: Well, to me, seven days is 21 pills.

Which of course just proves my point more.

Josh: OK, six and two-thirds days.  I should be able to pick it up.

Tech: The person who put this into the computer put it in as a ten day supply.

Josh: The person who put that into the computer isn’t very good at math.

Tech: (chuckling) I hope it wasn’t me.  Can you come back later?

Josh: You know, I’m really up a creek here.  I need my Compazine to deal with the nausea from my antibiotics.

So I called later, and spoke to a pharmacist.

Josh: You know, there is a real problem here.  If your staff can make this kind of error, then they can make a dosing error with something I give to my child.

Pharmacist: (broken English) No, it was computer error.

Josh:  Uh uh.  A computer did not divide twenty by three and get ten.  A person did that.

Pharmacist: No, sometime computer make mistakes, and we have catch up.

(I’m really hoping her Latin is better than her English.)

Josh:  Oh, so the computer made this error, is that right?

Pharmacist:  Yes.  We have to put numbers in right columns or computer makes mistake.  I’m very sorry.

So that’s apparently the definition of a computer error.  An “ID-ten-T” error.  I think I need a new pharmacy.

Maybe an unnecessary post, but if you’re worried about me — or employing me — or now, wondering if you should — or married or related to me, however much you might have wished you weren’t this past week, you might want to read.

Detox is not easy.  It’s especially not easy on your own, but one can do it.  At least, I could do it.  I tapered myself off.  I got very agitated, very moody, said some very rude things that I shouldn’t have, made some very poor choices with compensatory drugs I otherwise eschew (e.g., alcohol), but otherwise got through it.  My father, who, bless his heart, reads this blog, informed me that “now you [Joshua] know what it’s like to quit smoking”.  Egads.  Trainspotting to get off nicotine.  And this stuff is legal?  And, as far as I know, subsidized.  What the hell is wrong with this country?

This was nine months of daily Oxycodone, Oxycontin, or Hydromorphone, post-surgically.  The constipation was bad, but the diarrhea has not abated since the detox.  But if you’re a stranger, and you’re looking for support, it can be done.  Warn your family.  Write with a Sharpie on a white t-shirt “I’m detoxing, I’m going to be an asshole for a while.”  Or something.  Whatever you come up with.  With any luck, the detox will hurt your relationships less than the habit.

But a moment on reward centers.  Of the brain.  I still can’t get out of the habit to think, following some large or small accomplishment, “now I deserve an opiate!”  Press the lever.  Get the jolt.  Starve to death.

Poppies are not fun.  A hundred years from now, we’ll look back on it the way we will on leeches, bloodletting, and chemotherapy.  The best we had, but as bad as the disease.

Thanks for bearing with me.  mcgees.org is back.

That took some work.  Time for … um … damn … a cup of tea, I guess.

This is an italic post.  Deal.

I’ll do this Lucas style.  You don’t get to see the first seven chapters.  At least not yet.

For a world-famous hospital, Cedars-Sinai is abysmal about returning telephone calls.  I called with enough time to get a refill on my Hillbilly Heroin.  I’m post-surgery-times-triplicate, remember.  Couldn’t get my neurologist to return my call.  I’m not sure the message ever made it to his desk.  And I’m not brave enough to really stand up for myself on the phone.  To tell the lady that it is really important to me that the doctor get this message, so that I won’t be in pain.

So that I won’t be in pain.  And so that my entire nervous system doesn’t rebel against me.  But I don’t mention that part.

I get a call back at 4:30 p.m.  The office is open until 5:00.  They’re an hour away.  But my prescription will be waiting for me, and there will probably be someone still there.

You need to titrate off Oxycodone.  You can’t just stop.  You can’t go from months on end, to a day without.  It’s approaching 24 hours.  Is the worst over?  Maybe I should just be done.  No.  I’ve gone off Dilaudid before.  The nights are worse.  I’d be facing a couple nights torment, at least.  And this goddamn pain.  In my neck, down my arm.  Down my arm, which the surgery should have fixed.

I have Pearl Jam’s Live at the Gorge seven-disc boxed set.  You read that right.  Seven discs.  Awesome.  Pearl Jam is a drug.  Sugar is a drug.  Benzodiazapines are drugs, and I’ve already taken two milligrams to blunt the withdrawal.  Seriously considering nicotine.  I don’t fucking smoke.

I make it to the office.  There’s someone there.  I get my Oxy scrip.  I even get my parking validated.  Free.  Awesome.  All this effort, though, and it would have been no extra to get my Lyrica refilled, too.  My non-narcotic Lyrica, to block the nerve pain.  The nerve pain that should be gone, but isn’t.

Driving away, calling my family, on four different phones, to let them know, mission accomplished.  But of course it isn’t.  An hour there, an hour and a half back.  Then drop off the scrip.  Then waiting for half an hour.  That’s where I am now.

There are lyrics jumping out at me from these songs, songs I know by heart, that have never resonated in me before.  I find myself at tears on the drive home.  Maybe it’s the songs.  Maybe it’s the pain.  Maybe it’s the withdrawal.

It’s all three, of course.

“I’d Rather Be Blading,” the license plate says.  “Sports Chalet.”  No kidding.  Endorphins.  When I upgraded to the X-Acto a few chapters ago, it cut really deep.  It’s been months, and it hasn’t healed.  Scarred.  Probably won’t ever heal fully.  Two big stripes and a bunch of little ones, just wristward from the crook of my elbow.

Where does the 710 North go?  Get a sudden urge to not change lanes, to just drive.  There are hours of music left.  Surely it leads somewhere with a pharmacy.  They have all-night ones, you know.

Play C-3.  Let the song protest.  Realize I’m completely out of the loop.  I don’t know anything that’s happened in the world in the last half year.  NPR was my lifeline.  Not a lot of radio reception at home, and sitting at my desk to read The Guardian is painful.  That damn pain again.

Feel the resonance of distance.  In the blood the iron lies.  Never understood that before.  I need to get back into the world.  I need to start reading news, listening to BBC, something.  Rewrite the lyric.  Feel the resonance of distance.  In their blood my iron lies.  I can handle the pain.  I’m driving, aren’t I?  I’ll go to Zazzle, get the t-shirt made.  Get it shipped to me.  Let my shirt protest.

And where the hell does all this perspiration come from?  I haven’t consumed this much fluid in the last three weeks.  I could wring out any garment.  That’s the great thing about comedy.  You can talk about any of the big subjects.  Death, religion … clammy weather.  But the weather’s not clammy.  It’s dry.  I’m clammy.

My family are almost done eating.  Jenn has promised to go get my meds.  And I’ll be dosed again.  My neurologist is a good guy.  He refilled my scrip.  He wants to see me in two weeks, and he’ll titrate me further.  Get down to 5 mg Q4.  That’s down from 15 mg Q4.  Big difference.

Damn.  I must look crazed.  Can’t help when I’m happy, look insane.  You can’t look crazy driving up to a pharmacy window to drop of an Oxy scrip.

I know why my friend wouldn’t watch the season finale of “Lost” a second time, even though I hadn’t seen it.  Sometimes you wish actors were just not as good.  Sometimes you wish writers were not as good.  Good music is good, though.  And family is good.  And changing into dry garments is good.

It will be all right.  Give me another month, and I’ll be off the meds.  Gently.  It should be easy.  I’ve gone off Dilaudid.  Just, not all at once.  Take me down gently.  Mom’s climbed up a tree.  Let me down gently.

Compulsive typing is painful.  Had to vent.  Must go rest.  Must go “neck-neutral”, as I’ve trained my family.  Have a down pillow just for that.  It’s yellow.  It’s stained, now, too.  That’s my fault.  But it’s soft.  Soft pillows.  And soon meds.  Meds, and no pain.

Bear with me.

Any botanists, amateur or professional?  What is it in Southern California that has been making my nights miserable for the last month or so (early June to early July) when the windows are left open?  Is there something releasing pollen late at night?  Is there some reason I have to megadose on Benadryl to make it through the night?  Something in San Gabriel / Pasadena to set one’s allergies on full alert?  Note I’m allergic to most weeds, trees, and grasses.

Why do I want to know?  Simple curiosity?  No.  “Find it and kill it”. 

…at 59% of my current weight.

I’m out of the hospital, and the site, with comments, should be working again.

Surgery is on for this Tuesday, 17 October.  The mood?  Pretty much “impending doom”.  Leave comments if you wish.  I may not be able to respond for a while.

My surgery, for all those following developments, has been postponed until the 27th of this month.  It was supposed to be today.  I was all psyched for it, and now I have to get re-psyched in a couple weeks.

Gene for rare disease that turns muscles, tendons, and ligaments into bone found.  The disorder traps people within an exoskeleton, with bone locking the joints.  (via dwarf)

A week ago this past Wednesday, September 29th, I went to my doctor for a routine visit. While he was writing a prescription, I asked him if he’d look in my ear when he was done, “because I’ll forget if I don’t ask you now.” That sentiment would grow to be fairly amusing, the fact that there was a point where I could forget my ear pain. That looks pretty melodramatic on preview, but trust me, it gets better.

He looked in my ear, and told me I had both a middle and external ear infection. He complimented me, remarking that it was quite a feat to pull off both at the same time. He prescribed Amoxicillin for the middle ear infection and Floxin drops for the external ear infection.

By Friday it had gotten pretty uncomfortable. By Saturday it was really bad. I called my doctor’s switchboard, but he was not on call, and I got connected to a really stuffy and dismissive doctor who assured me that Amox was strong enough and to give it a few more days. The next day, Sunday, it was unbearable. I was popping Percocet all day (that was Niall’s birthday.) Immediately after the cake I had to go in the other room and sleep. I called my doctor’s switchboard back, hoping he’d be back on call. He wasn’t, but a third doctor was — for the next twenty minutes, then the dismissive doc would be back. This third doctor was great. When I described the infection she was very concerned and called in Cipro, which I picked up.

I missed work on Monday, loaded up on Percocet. I was out of sick days, so I took a vacation day now that my workplace has become fairly, let’s say, particular about handing out sick days. On Tuesday it was still bad, but I had to go back to work. I called my doctor to ask for a referral to an ENT specialist, and was told that I could self-refer with my insurance. On Wednesday, I saw the specialist. He took one look at my ear and said, and I quote, “You have a terrible ear infection.” He told me to stay on the Cipro but that I could discontinue the Floxin, as the external ear infection had cleared up. He told me that there was lots of infected pus behind my eardrum, and that when the infection had cleared up, I would be left with lots of uninfected pus behind my eardrum, and that my hearing attenuation (about 60% loss of hearing) would last for weeks. He said that the only thing I could do to speed that up would be to “drain” it.

Now, when I was a kid in Japan I used to get terrible ear infections. On one doctor’s visit, they lanced both of my eardrums. It was one of the three most painful times in my life, joining the time I had a stent in my ureter after kidney stone surgery and the time I plunged my hand through hot coals at a barbecue. I was not interested. He told me I could come in to see him as a “courtesy” on Friday, even though he normally did not see patients then.

Wednesday night I started getting a lot of drainage from the ear. Clear, slightly yellow watery discharge, and the most unbelievably foul-looking greenish-gray discharge the consistency of Dijon mustard. I told Jenn I though my eardrum had broken. Bless her heart, she didn’t believe me.

Today, Friday, I saw the ENT again.  And he told me that my eardrum had ruptured in two places. Apparently a dual rupture happens less than 1% of the time that the eardrum ruptures. One hole was half a millimeter in size, the other was small enough that he could only see it with the microscope that I believe he really enjoyed sticking down my ear. He explained that he never really got to see these ruptures, as they normally happened in children and they wouldn’t let him stick a microscope in their ears. He noted that my ear infection is “as bad as they get in an adult,” and was convinced I had contracted it from my infant son, even though my son hasn’t been sick and is almost never around other children.

He then proceeded to suck the foul stuff through the hole in my eardrum with a long vacuum. That was really loud and rather uncomfortable. He then prescribed Ciprodex drops, which consists of Cipro and a steroid. When I put the drops in, they go through the hole in my eardrum, which is the entire point — but I can taste them as they pour down my eustachian tube, which is a mind-blowing experience.

I’ve been given a “less than 10%” chance that I’ll have permanent hearing damage as a result. That’s still a pretty high threshold, as my boss noted, but my hearing’s already much, much better after having the stuff sucked out. As long as the hearing doesn’t get any worse, I could probably learn to live with this maybe 10% loss of hearing. But I hope it gets better; my hearing is very important to me.

I think I’m going to take it easy this weekend.

Something’s wrong. I have been able to sleep for one of the last 38 hours. I’m lying down, in the dark, trying to go to sleep, and I can’t. The only caffeine I’ve had is tea, about a liter, 18 hours ago. I’m not taking any other stimulants. I’ve even taken 15 mg of Ambien (I took 15 mg last night as well.) It just slows my mental processes, it doesn’t actually help me get to sleep. It’s like I’m in some perverse medical experiment in which critical parts of my brain have been removed. My eyes are burning, my muscles are tired, but I cannot sleep.

I’m going to go brew a pot of a chamomile tisane. I’m going to warm up my Chinese buckwheat hulls neck pillow that’s laced with herbs that I suppose are supposed to do something. It’s a relaxation device, so maybe they’re supposed to be relaxing herbs. It’s also a therapeutic device, so maybe they’re analgesic herbs. Or just “aromatherapy”. At this point I don’t care that much, it will just be nice to have something warm on my neck. I’ll turn out the lights. I’ll put something quiet on the radio or television.

Wish me luck.  Post to the message boards with any ideas.

(I did finally end up getting to sleep.)

I’m feeling better, by the way.

I spoke too soon.  All my symptoms are back, and they’re worse.

I’ve been sick for the last four days. I missed work on Thursday and Friday with a bad cold. Many of the cold symptoms have faded, but I think I’ve gotten a secondary ear infection on my congested ears. I used to get them all the time, and this feels like that. In a just universe adulthood would banish these pesky things.

New medical privacy laws have gone into effect recently.  It used to be that at my pharmacy, when one picked up a prescription, a sticker printed with your name, the date, and the medicine name was affixed to a clipboard.  A little box was provided for you to sign for receipt.  A little glance upwards was all that was required to see the names — and prescriptions — of the people in line ahead of you.  No longer is this permitted.  Likewise, at the the medical testing facility where I have gone to have blood drawn, your name and the prescribed tests were written on a sheet that anyone visiting the office could see.  This, too, is now forbidden.

The overall point — the protection of personal information — has not necessarily sunk into everyone’s heads yet.  My physician still hollers things across the office: “Could you check to see if Josh has received his second Hep B vaccine yet?”  And the techs at my pharmacy seem not to have grokked the gestalt yet.  To wit, a telephone conversation I just had:

Me:  Hi, I’m checking to see if I’ve forgotten to pick up any prescriptions.

Tech:  What’s the name?

Me:  McGee.  Joshua.

Tech:  The last thing I show is from the 19th.  Have you picked anything up since the 19th?

I suddenly wondered how much information she was ready to give out over the telephone.

Me:  Err, I don’t know, what was it I picked up on the 19th?

Tech:  No, it was a call from the 19th.  That was the Lorazepam.  Want me to check if you’ve picked it up yet?

Bingo.  That’s a psychotropic med, but they were comfortable revealing it to someone on the line who merely mentioned my name.  I was calling from work, so it’s not as if caller ID betrayed me.  And I’m sure there’s no chance she recognized my voice: that sort of service has pretty much disappeared, and I’ve only been using this pharmacy since March anyway.  I suspect I could have gotten more information from her: other meds, other dates, prescribing doctors.  Which makes one wonder, who really cares about those little stickers if I can get all of this over the telephone?  And what self-respecting private investigator would bother raiding your trash if this is all free for the asking?

I have been having bad back and neck pain recently.  It has interfered with work and sleep, restricted my range of motion, and left me very uncomfortable.  It feels like certain joints need to have pressure relieved (i.e., it feels like my back and neck need to ‘pop’.)  Unfortunately I could not trigger this on my own.

One day last week it got very bad, and out of desperation I decided to call a chiropractor, something I had never done before.  I first called my insurance company (I have the Aetna EPO plan) and asked if chiropractic care was covered.  “Yes,” they responded, “with a $40 copay.”  That struck me as rather steep, but hey, I was hurting.  I asked how to go about seeing a chiropractor, and was told to choose a name from an online list of in-network providers, and was told that eligibility was based on “medical necessity.”  I asked how necessity was determined, and was told that it was based on the report of the chiropractor.

I chose Jean M. Duffy from their list (I’ll also write “Jean Duffy” here in case someone is using a search engine looking for her) and made an appointment for later that day.  I had, in short, probably the worst clinical visit in my entire life.  The receptionist was unprofessional, the office was severely over-heated, Duffy insisted on teasing me about word choices even though I was in obvious pain.  She struck me as unintelligent and unresponsive.  She was fairly dismissive when I voiced concern about the use of high-velocity popping, which is widely regarded as unnecessary and quite dangerous.  I got a challenge to “define that precisely” for her, then was told in a doctor-knows-best tone that she did “what she decided was necessary”.  At the end of a long questioning process she performed some perfunctory stretching of my neck and back, proceeded to perform exactly two manual manipulations (one in my neck and one in my mid-back), and told me I was done.  When I expressed surprise at this (not the least of which because I was still in pain) I was given a lecture about chiropractic not being a “pill” that “fixes something immediately”.  Sorry, Jean, but the prospect of immediate relief is the only thing that took me to a chiropractor in the first place.  If I wanted slow-but-sure recovery I’d do physical therapy, something with which I had great success a year ago after an injury.  She then iced my back and neck for under five minutes, a quarter of the time that I was iced at physical therapy.

I was asked to make a follow-up appointment two days hence.  I was hesitant to do so because I was unsure I would be coming back, so I asked if I could call tomorrow and make a follow-up appointment.  “No,” Jean said, “It would be better for you to make an appointment and cancel it if you need to.”  (”Sure,” I thought, “that way you could charge me for the missed visit if the notification period is less than 24 hours.”)  I went up to the receptionist without Jean.  She asked me to make an appointment and I repeated my desire to call tomorrow to re-schedule.  The receptionist agreed and I left.

My neck was still in pain and still had limited range of motion.  When I got out to my car I simply turned my neck to the right and it ‘popped’ again, and instantly felt better.  A simple turn of the neck, not a forced turn, and yet Jean did not perform this.  I suppose it’s possible that her work on my neck allowed the later pop, and that that pop could not have occurred otherwise, but I’m skeptical.  I was annoyed leaving the office, and thought to myself that the only thing left would be to find out she was a crook as well, that she’d find a way to charge me more money than she had said.

The next day she called me and told me that she had contacted my insurance company and they refused to pay, saying I needed a referral for chiropractic care, the exact opposite of what I had been told on the phone.

“All I can say is I hope you got someone’s name,” she said.  “We’ll just have to send you a bill.”  I asked how much.  “$50,” she said.  “Just $10 more than your copay.”

I’ll just pay it.  It’s not worth fighting for $10.  And it may be true.  But I won’t be surprised if I find that Aetna has also paid that $10 after all.

I had never gone to a chiropractor before for a couple of reasons.  One, the theoretical basis of their medicine is absurd and discounted by the traditional medical community.  Two, after my father injured his neck some ten years ago he considered going to a chiropractor but went to a specialist and got an x-ray instead.  He was told by the specialist that with his condition, had he gone to a chiropractor he would have ended up a quadriplegic.  So why did I go?  Good question.  All I can claim in my defense was extreme pain, and the anecdotal evidence of friends who have received immediate relief from chiropractic care.  But one is again reminded, in this story, that even pain is no excuse to abandon reason and logic.

Devotees of chiropractic will rightly point out that this is one sample point, one practitioner, and should not be used to make a judgment on the whole discipline.  But next time, if I ever go to a chiropractor again, I will do so strictly based on a referral from a friend.  But will I go again at all?  Probably not.

Two hours ago I drank two liters of 100% juice, ate several pieces of bread and some cheese.  Walking around the building a few minutes ago I felt so dizzy that I thought I would fall down.  I went to the nurse’s station (one of the perks of Rockwell Scientific.)  My blood pressure is fine (diastolic a bit high), no sign of ear infection.  So the nurse took my blood sugar level.

67.  Two hours after a meal my blood sugar level should be between 110 and 170.  65 to 110 is the normal range for a fasting reading.  I called my doctor.  I’m waiting to hear back.

More to come as it unfolds.

OK, I just heard back.  The verdict?  Eat more protein, and more regularly.  Seems a bit facile, but it’s worth a shot.

I just read an article in the Washington Post about a new drug called Modafinil.  This pill allows the user to stay awake and alert for 40 hours at a time.

Its neurological focus is precise, unlike stimulants such as caffeine and amphetamine.  It targets regions of the brain believed to regulate wakefulness, avoiding the jittery and addictive side effects of other drugs.  One “can’t get high on modafinil.  There’s no euphoria to it. When they first take it, a lot of test subjects figure they must have gotten the placebo. When this stuff takes over, it takes over.  Gently, not violently.  No apparent loss of acuity.  But you have definitely kicked into a gear you didn’t know you had.”  And it does not hinder your ability to sleep if you desire.

University of Pennsylvania sleep researcher David Dinges, among others, questions the long-term safety of this drug, and wonders if the drug will at all affect the phenomonon of long-term fatigue accumulation.  But he is looking forward.  “The more far-out question is: What if we eventually had something that was absolutely safe that could substitute for sleep?” he wonders.  “Is that the direction we want to go?  Many would say yes.  I don’t know what the implications are for our species.  Probably not bad. … Should humans try to live without sleep? I don’t know. We’re already trying to do that.”

The author wrote the article in 30+ straight hours after having taken Modafinil.  Near the end he notes that he is tired but not sleepy.  “Interesting to imagine a future in which those are two distinctly separate things,” he notes.

I am terrifically excited about a drug such as this.  I have a medical condition that causes sleepiness.  I take a prescription drug for it that also causes sleepiness, and I have to time consumption of the drug carefully.  I, like many people, never feel that I have enough time in the day to pursue all my interests.  And as a believer in mortality, I do not want to look back at a life in which I spent a third of the time unconscious.  The ability to sleep only every other night, or less, is fantastic.

I am scared of a fen-phen style story unwinding.  If the drug decreases lifespans significantly the good effect is nullified.  But if safe, consider the ability to sleep for recreation, but never to be chained to a pillow.  How exciting.

Sleep research is, in general, exciting.  It is a mystery to me.  We live in a world with electric lighting, plenty of food, medicines; if our daily unconsciousness was evolutionarily advantageous simply for resource management, then the physiological necessity is obsolete.  I wonder if something is going on other than forcing a physical recuperation process.  But what? 

Sick this week, I have had time to watch quite a few films.  Some were excellent, some mediocre, a couple pretty bad.  In case it is of interest (and to keep my brother happy by making a long post) I offer a review here.  Ranking movies quantitatively can be near-impossible (not to mention foolish), but I do my best to rank the following films in descending order of my preference.

1. Cabaret Balkan: This film is entitled Bure Baruta in the Serbo-Croatian.  It is difficult to keep this review anything but an exercise in superlatives.  The plot is deeply symbolic, with each of the characters seemingly an archetype, or, as one reviewer put it, “an aspect of the Balkan psyche.”  My knowledge of the specific history of the region is limited so many of the references are probably lost on me, but many themes are comprehensible without context: perceived emasculation under an oppressive regime, the resort of a traumatized people to absurdism, a status quo of mutually accepted violence smoothly escalating to murder, the blinding effects of nationalism.  In one vignette, the author seems to contend that “Western cleverness” cannot be transposed into the Balkans, which is something to ruminate on.  Despite a few heavy-handed allegories (for instance, the young activist who takes a bus full of people hostage, intent on making the passengers aware of their surroundings and angry at injustices, and is killed by the official driver just as his message begins to sink in) the symbolism is effective.  The use of an absurdist, effeminate, decadent cabaret performer as the vehicle for direct authorial voice intrigues me.  The film is marked by magnificent acting (excepting a few minor characters), especially from Nebojsa Milovanovic, Mirjani Jokovic, Aleksandar Bercek, and Nebojsa Glogovac; the former two offered portrayals that I expect to be seared into my memory for life.  I rated this movie 9 at IMDB.
2. Memento: I don’t remember the last time a suspense film has been this effective for me.  It takes the feeling of the last minutes of The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, or Se7en and extends it over a two-hour film.  I recommend you do not de-Rot13 the following unless you have seen the movie already.  N srj cbvagf bs cflpubybtl ner n ovg jrnx (pna bar ernyyl ratenva pbzcyrk ireony zrzbevrf guebhtu pbaqvgvbavat?) naq guvf gnxrf njnl sebz gur chapu bs gur raqvat fyvtugyl.  Ohg V jnf pnhtug hc va gur pyrirearff, gur gehr fhfcrafr nf gb jung jnf tbvat ba, naq gur terng npgvat.  Gur fpevcg frrzf irel rnfl gb jevgr cbbeyl naq irel qvssvphyg gb jevgr jryy.  Puevfgbcure Abyna (jub nyfb qverpgrq vg) unf jevggra vg jvgu terng fxvyy.  I strongly recommend seeing it without even reading the back of the box.  I rated this movie 9 at IMDB.
3. Genghis Blues: Like many people, I expect, I was first introduced to the culture and music of Tuva through Richard Feynman’s books.  A few years back I purchased Deep in the Heart of Tuva from the always-cool Ellipsis Arts….  The mini-book that accompanies the CD discussed the fascinating Tuvan rituals and culture.  When Genghis Blues, a film chronicling blues musician Paul Pena’s trip to Tuva debuted at Sundance, I knew I had to see it.  Unfortunately I missed it in the theatres, and I have waited until this week to see it.  It is a charming, sometimes heartbreaking, at all times amazing story.  Pena, who is blind, taught himself Tuvan throatsinging by ear; he also taught himself the Tuvan language at home using an electronic text reader, translating Tuvan texts letter-by-letter into Russian, then translating from the Russian to English (no Tuvan-to-English dictionaries existed.)  The film, though marred at times by amateurish photography, shows the beauty and generosity of Tuva and its people, the courage and devotion of Pena, and the enchanting and haunting Tuvan throatsinging in a more in-depth fashion than I have yet seen.  I highly recommend this film, which I rated 8 at IMDB.
4. The Gift: This film, about a psychic woman’s investigation of a murder, is one of those films in which the quality of the final product is far better than it has any right to be.  Based on a cheesy, formulaic plot and featuring uninterestingly-written characters, this film is redeemed by the top-notch acting talent who imbue the characters with magnificent depth.  The always-amazing chameleon Cate Blanchett provides a convincing portrayal, as do Giovanni Ribisi and Greg Kinnear (who is showing himself to be quite a talented actor.)  Katie Holmes is miscast (about five years to young for the role) and Keanu Reeves (an actor whose performances I sometimes respect) is barely competent, but they are made up for by the trio I mentioned first.  The plot could have been ten times better, but the acting talents commandeer the reins and turn a cheesy pseudo-suspense film into an interesting, if predictable, character-driven story.  The acting leads me to rate this as high as 6.5; this turns into 6 on IMDB’s scale.
5. Willow: I have not seen this charming family-film fantasy since the late ’80s, when I enjoyed it much more.  There are charming touches to be sure (the dwarf Nelwyn referring to the normal Homo sapiens as “giants” and using miniature horses as mounts, for instance) but the film in general comes up lacking.  Sets look cheap and unimpressive, there are plenty of obvious façades, and the plot lacks a true climax.    Val Kilmer as Madmartigan, the self-proclaimed “greatest swordsman who ever lived” is fun to watch, as is (for entirely different reasons) the gorgeous Joanne Whalley, but the good points are not enough for me to rate this above 5 at IMDB.
6. Vatel: This film is a period-piece-for-the-sake-of-making-a-period piece, an overindulgent costume drama, a story in search of a plot.  The sad and depressing elements of it are simply not balanced by sufficient quality, and I was left thinking “that’s it?” at the end of it.  Uma Thurman and Gerard Depardieu are both talented actors, but they are given nothing to work with in this film and (unlike in The Gift, reviewed above) predictably make nothing of it.  There is a certain foolishness that embraces swooning, unrequited love stories regardless of how trite and vacuous they are; this film falls into that category.  “Oh, isn’t this film lovely and romantic?”  Well, frankly, no.  This gets a 4 from me.
7. The 6th Day: OK, what can I say?  This is the enantiomorph of Vatel, which I review above.  Perhaps to satisfy some cosmic symmetry, this film provides the vacuous, trite “guy film” counterpart to the vacuous, trite “chick flick”.  Cheesy psuedoscience runs through it, the kind that makes one wish they hadn’t bothered trying to explain the premise in the first place.  Arnold is Arnold, true to form.  The jokes are lame, the effects high-budget but unoriginal, the script the thinnest vellum placed over a camp-wannabee star vehicle. Arnold intones, in his strong bass, “You cloned the wrong man!”  You now have the entirety of the story as well as a large serving of the cheese, and you have saved yourself the $4.50 you might have spent renting the DVD.  This gets a generous 4 from me.

Out of curiosity I checked IMDB’s user ratings of these films; aside from moving Cabaret Balkan from slot #1 to slot #3, my ordering is the same as the ordering of the amassed IMDB scores: