Last night's Cinema 2.0 movie was Invasion, a rather odd sci-fi movie from Canada, starring Campbell Scott and Tom Everett Scott. (The first thing everyone says when Tom Everett Scott makes his first appearance on screen: "Hey, wasn't he in That Thing You Do?" The second thing everyone says: "Why is he kissing his sister like that?")

Invasion is something of a parody of '50s sci-fi movies and has lots of odd images and moments. The audience laughed all the way through (as they have for every Cinema 2.0) but fairly often they were laughing at something on screen, not at the cast's wit. The cast, understandably, felt a little slighted and would prefer to not to be outdone in wackiness by the movie itself. And it's very true that I think our best movie was last week's Harrad Experiment, which is a very plain movie (mostly just people talking) which gave the cast lots of room to create.

So, a lesson for the future (if there is a future for Cinema 2.0). But, and still, the audience was laughing.

The future, for now, for Cinema 2.0 is that next week is closing night. We've got a special treat in store. For now I'll just say "Robert Van Winkle". There'll be some sort of closing night party I'm sure.

Addendum:Two things I forgot to mention: when I went downstairs to warm up with the cast at 7:48 there were about 7 people in the house and so I made noises about "the house looks a little light, but I'm sure we'll have a great energy anyway, yadda, yadda, etc, etc". When we came upstairs at 8:02 or so, the house was pretty full, so the question was moot. I'm glad all those people showed up right on time.

And the suggestion for the night was "Mathematics." I had told the cast that I was going to get a completely random suggestion and that they should ignore it as quickly as possible. They got back at me by using math terms constantly and vigorously.