From the deck: Goodbye Transformers and Superbad. Hello dark night of the soul. Throw down your video controller, trade your popcorn for a foreign-sounding coffee, and settle in for some serious talk cinema.

Some I'm looking forward to:

Eastern Promises, from David Cronenberg, follows his double Oscar-nominated A History of Violence. Once again, Viggo Mortensen stars as an ambiguous man of mayhem - this time, a Russian mobster working in London. He crosses paths with a midwife (Naomi Watts) who has discovered an incriminating diary.

I'm Not There. Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) directs this unorthodox biopic of Bob Dylan, who is played by seven different actors, including Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and Christian Bale.

No Country for Old Men. After its debut at Cannes this spring, this film has been generally rated the Coen brothers' best since Fargo, both meditative and startlingly violent. No Country stars Tommy Lee Jones as a Texas sheriff who witnesses a new kind of killer, played by Javier Bardem.

From the Salon blurb for the story by Stan Sinberg: For three years, I "reported" on Elvis and aliens for the Weekly World News. Now it's published its last issue. The checkout aisle -- and my career -- will never be the same.

I'm riding along College St. to my stop, idly looking out the window to my left, when the streetcar comes to an abrupt and shuddering halt.

I look out the front door and and see some blue car inching backward, gradually increasing the gap between itself and the streetcar from mere centimetres to about 1.5 metres.

"Was that guy pulling out?" I ask the TTC operator.

"Yep," she said sarcastically, clearly steamed. "Usually you look before you pull out, but I guess this is the new thing."

I continue to marvel at how some drivers blithely ignore streetcars.

On the other hand, why should streetcar operators be treated any differently? :)

94 per cent!!!

Woo-hoo!

This Globe and Mail article looks at the casualty rates among the national forces in Afghanistan and finds Canadians getting knocked off at a much higher rate than any other country's. IEDs, not combat, are the main reason why.

An 'only in Africa' story -- although having said that, I suppose it could happen wherever there's wild monkeys. Anyways, a group of Vervet monkeys are sexually taunting women in a Kenyan village.

I saw a really interesting documentary earlier this summer: From Mambo To Hip-Hop: A South Bronx Tale. And if you want to see the rough cut of it online, click on through.

Thrill to the sounds of Tito Puente! Marvel at the sight of DJ Kool Herc cruising the Bronx rubble with two giant speakers sticking out of his convertible! You can't go wrong!