Your plans this Friday night

You are seeing Pan's Labyrinth. Seriously. Go now. I saw it last night and was absolutely floored. It's a fable, told in the grand, grotesque tradition of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, about history and war and childhood and imagination. It has the magic of Cinema Paradiso or Whale Rider, and the intensity and urgency of Schindler's List. Definitely not for kids, and not for the squeamish (quote from my roommate, who saw me squirm through the particularly brutal parts: "How are you going to get through medical school?"), but this movie offers so much more than blood and guts (giant frog guts, in this case) that I can't even describe the experience. It reminds you how powerful movies can be; I started crying maybe halfway through and didn't stop til the credits came up. In the good way that that happens.