• Scheduling the first major presidential debate on a Friday initially seemed like a mistake to me, as I figured most Americans would rather go out tonight than spend the eve of their weekend thinking about politics. Yet now I’m hearing about debate-watching parties, and Variety expects the event to curb moviegoing tonight — that is if the debate even happens. But even if it wasn’t going to be only teens populating the multiplex tonight, Eagle Eye would still rule the weekend, as is currently predicted.
• Continuing the studio’s push of The Dark Knight for Oscar, Warner Bros. is giving Academy members the option of being shipped a Blu-Ray screener, which will showcase the film’s Imax-friendly ratio changes, in order for voters to have “the best possible chance to see what we did technically.” Or members could actually go see films as they’re meant to be seen on the big screen. Fortunately, TDK is also being rereleased in January.
• Helen Mirren will star as a retired Mossad agent who must return to the job in John Madden’s The Debt, a remake of the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov. Though it’s probably more Munich than 007, as long as Mirren’s playing a role reminding me of Daniel Craig, I’m hoping there’ll be a gratuitous scene featuring a bikini-clad Mirren ascending from the sea.
• Nick Nolte will guide a pair of newly orphaned vacationing children in the indie Arcadia Lost, which sounds to me like a Greek-set Walkabout meets The Earthling, a film that most made me cry as a child due to the way Ricky Shroder’s parents die in a terrible Winnebago accident.

I just read Marie-Claire’s entertainment guilt “confession,” (in the form of a comment on our blog) and loved it. I can completely imagine myself in the same scenarios.

But it got me thinking about Munich, the film that sat unwatched on Marie-Claire’s coffee table for more than a month. I have a relationship with Munich that’s different from Marie-Claire’s. I’ve actually seen it twice. (OK, I know Paul and some others who have very little affection for the film are cringing at the thought. Get this: It was actually up for trial in the spout.com Worst Movie Ever group. Harsh. But I digress.) The first time I saw Munich was in the theater, with my dad, brother, and uncle, who were all home for the holidays. We went pretty much because we wanted to go the movies and it was the best thing showing that none of us had yet seen.

The second time I saw Munich, just recently, I rented it because my boyfriend, Jason, and I had been talking a lot about Israel and I wanted him to see the movie as additional fodder for our conversations. Of course, it isn’t a documentary, but I still think it provides an interesting look at some history of the Jewish state, the people’s deep sense of pride, and their efforts to protect their community from getting walked all over. Jason and I ended up having a really good discussion about the difficult political and cultural situations they’re finding themselves in, yet how violence begets violence, and doesn’t solve problems.

So this is what I ended up wondering about, in regards to the “entertainment guilt” concept: Do the films we end up seeing as a result of an “I-should-really-see-this-even-if-I’m-not-in-the-mood” attitude end up feeding more interesting thought and discussion than the films we tend to feel like seeing? If so, should we discipline ourselves to watch these more difficult films as a part of our continuing education? Can anyone think of a purely fun, entertaining, easy-to-watch film that spurred some great discussion? I’m sure there must be some, but I can’t think of any right now…