And the award for best use of silence in a film goes to...

... certainly not me, who coughed my way through a double feature this afternoon.

The Oaks Theater was showing Michael Clayton and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly back to back, and I could see them both for $12 (now how much would you pay!). Even though MC was on my "no thanks" list I figured $5 for 2 hours of George Clooney couldn't be a bad thing. Plus, Her Maj would NOT shut up this morning, I had a pile of work glaring at me that I desperately wanted to avoid, and I really needed to get out of the house.

I was pleasantly surprised with MC (as I was with The Departed last year), and while I will be shocked if MC wins any of the awards with the possible exception of Best Original Screenplay, Clooney's performance was stellar throughout and especially during the last ten minutes. In the last 90 seconds (watch through the initial credits) you could've heard a pin drop in the theater.

And it was a surprisingly easy transition between that and DBB, which was just plain lovely and heartbreaking and inspiring. Dear lord, if I *ever* complain about anything ever again, remind me of this man. Except for the imagination scenes, it was impossible to believe that any of them were acting, that they weren't just filming a documentary. (And by that I mean the kind of documentary where you can hear what he is saying to himself, in his head. You know.)

I think I got even sicker throughout the day, but if it saves me plowing through Variety.com, HollywoodReporter.com, the NYT Carpetbagger blog and Nikki Fincke's Deadline Hollywood (as my crazy friend who [used to have] too much time on his hands recommended in order to win the Oscar poll), well, it was time well spent.