Tuesday, 26 March 2002 | Recommendations

An unusually high rate of movie-watching over the past several days has put me on the other end of these: Following, a film by Christopher Nolan (the director of Memento) about a man who follows and observes random people; Donnie Darko, a film about a delusional boy who gets orders from a sinister rabbit named Frank; and Annie Hall, a Woody Allen film that friends have insisted that I see so that I will understand their recurring references to it.

I enjoyed all of them, but the one that I would recommend—the one I'll probably end up buying—is Donnie Darko. It's a really incredible movie that's satisfying on a lot of different levels. I knew very little about any of these films before I watched them, and I think I like that method: avoid the reviews and be surprised. So far it's working, at least. I suppose it's inevitable that a bad surprise will find me.

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This afternoon the man in the floppy hat gave me a green glass vintage soda bottle with three wild lilies poking out of it. Apparently the soda that came in it, Dr. Enuf, is an eastern Tennessee concoction that isn't common outside of its own tri-city region. So says the bottle: "Dr. Enuf…is enough...[It's] the staff of life!" Wow, with that claim, I'm sorry I don't get to try it. I wonder what they put in it to make it the staff of life.

It seems I'm not the only one on floppy hat man's gift-list. Sometimes he brings Steve Styrofoam cups of chili, and last week he brought the new editor a rose and a block of homemade hook cheese. No one can figure out just why he does this. There's a rumor that he's friendly.