It's hard to keep my mind on work today, because like a lot of you I have people coming over for Thanksgiving dinner and I'm trying to remember where my nice tablecloth is, and how the heck you make gravy. (One year I entirely forgot about the gravy. I do not recommend this.) But in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, I've also got thankfulness on the mind -- for my family and friends, for my good fortune in still having a job writing for a newspaper, and for a few movie-related things:

-- Wes Anderson, for crossing over so gracefully from live-action to animated film, and for making "Fantastic Mr. Fox" such a magical pleasure.
-- Diet Coke, just because.
-- George Clooney, ditto.
-- Jane Campion, because no other filmmaker out there would have the guts to make a dazzlingly beautiful movie about a consumptive 19th-century English poet
-- The mural at the Seven Gables, because I love to watch it roll up so neatly, every time
-- Every actor who's ever made me laugh out loud (most recently: Anna Kendrick in "Up in the Air," just last night). It's a gift, every time.
-- Every cinematographer whose dazzling paintings-with-light have taken my breath away, most recently Eduard Grau ("A Single Man") and Javier Aguirresarobe ("The Road" and "New Moon" -- which, say what you will, looked gorgeous)
-- Nicholas Hoult, the kid from "About a Boy," for growing up so nicely in "A Single Man"
-- Drew Barrymore, because she always makes me smile
-- That great movie, just around the corner, that I haven't seen yet. It's what makes my job so much fun.
-- And, especially, everyone who takes time in their busy day to read Popcorn & Prejudice, which started out as a little Oscar-season experiment and now is part of my daily routine, with today marking post number 323. Thank you all for reading (and chiming in!), and may you all have a joyous Thanksgiving with your loved ones.

Something else I'm thankful for:

Myrna Loy's spectacular entrance into a bar in "The Thin Man," a movie that I watch every year and that never grows old. (I love the line of dialogue that's cut here -- "He's well-trained. He'll behave himself" -- and the way her fur collar stands up like a sail.)