Film-watching goals for the summer.

• Continue seeking out the films of Anna Magnani, Sandy Dennis, Madeleine Sherwood and Katharine Hepburn.
• Watch Maria Callas in Pasolini's Medea.
• See more films directed by or starring Orson Welles.
• Keep watching silent comedies by Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin.
• Finish up the Best Picture winners.
• See more with Isabelle Huppert.
• Watch Angels in America.

A Study in Contrasts

Stranger Than Fiction and Magritte

I find it impossible to ignore the similarities between Harold Crick's alternate reality and that of the great surrealist Rene Magritte. What a fitting combination, too; why NOT pay homage to some of the most bizarre mise-en-scenes this side of Dali when you're directing a mainstream film that also manages to respect the viewer's comprehension of the strange?