...and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

(Image courtesy of (stolen from) Filmbrain and Francis Ford Coppola. Thank you both, gentlemen.)

Well, I hope a holiday week with only a stunning picture of Gloria Grahame and 40 or so other lovely and/or interesting faces wasn't too unpleasant! I didn't actually intend to take a full week off from SLIFR, but it kind of turned out that way, I guess. Work did its hardy best to intervene, as did the spirit and fun of the season-- we took our girls to the seaside chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes where the Mrs. and I were married for Christmas Eve services; I'm trying to teach my oldest daughter how to ride the new bike she got on Christmas morning; and I spent a good portion of this past weekend desperately trying to catch up on as many year-end releases and other likely list-makers as I could, with pretty happy results (my last Friday night of 2006 was whiled away here.

Right now it's very early Sunday morning-- I got up and came into the office so I could work on my ten-best list, but as it's already 7:00 a.m. and I'm just starting, it really seems unlikely that I'll actually have anything posted until tomorrow. In that event, I didn't want the actual end of the year to pass without officially wishing everyone who stumbles across this page today and tomorrow-- the regulars, the lurkers and the first-timers-- all the best of everything in the new year. I have reason to believe/hope that 2007 will be a year that brings at least the start of tremendous positive change for me and for my family, and I hope for nothing less than that for all of you-- a brisk new breeze blowing in the right direction, if you need it; continued prosperity, if you have it; new challenges to brighten and enhance our lives and the lives of everyone around us; and maybe even a slate of great new movies, along with the chance to actually see them. (Here's to better distribution and more free time! Clink!)

Next up: My Best Films of the Year, and Then Some...