Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

* David Chute sees a lot going on in the work of the overlooked-by-the-mainstream Tyler ("Madea Goes to Jail") Perry.

* Whatever happened to femmes fatales?

* Lemmus Lemmus watches some thrillers.

* Film journalist Anne Thompson has been giving her own FlipCam a workout.

* Fave-of-mine Bill Kauffman considers the basketball movie "Hoosiers" one of the few American movies to get small-town America right. (FvBlowhard and I both agree: here and here.)

* Roger Ebert rhapsodizes about French filmmaker Agnes Varda, who is now 80 years old. I like a lot of Varda's work too.

* New York magazine profiles loose-cannon film critic Armond White.

* Toby Young wonders why documentaries are often so much better than fiction films.

* MBlowhard Rewind: I watched (and recommended) some trashy-arty movies.

Best,

Michael