(David Lynch, Moby, Laura Dawn, Daron Murphy)

"I didn't want to say this over the phone, but the universe sometimes makes it difficult for people to get here." My wife, Laura, and I had just arrived backstage at the rec center of the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. And our host, a very nice man named Bob, was apologizing for the fact that we'd had to endure 13 miserable hours of economy airline travel to find ourselves in this spot.

Laura's a singer and I'm a guitarist. We'd been invited to perform a few songs with our friend Moby (that bald-headed electronic music guy) at a special weekend to raise awareness of the benefits of Transcendental Meditation, hosted by film director David Lynch. If you're a fan of David Lynch, you might know that he is hugely into TM and has been promoting its cause through an eponymous foundation for the past few years.

For those of you who've never thought to explore any of the other 10 dimensions, Transcendental Meditation is basically a relaxation technique involving the mental repetition of a personal mantra. TM was created by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi -- the same guy who people like the Beatles, Donovan, Mia Farrow, and Mike Love traveled to India to study under in the 60s. Neither Moby nor Laura nor I had any real familiarity with TM (well, my hippie parents did have me try it briefly as a kid in the late 70s, but that's another story). But Lynch, who's a pal of Moby, thought his music captured the spirit. So he asked us to come, and there we were.

The Maharishi University of Management sits quietly among the tree-lined streets of old-fashioned, all-American Fairfield. We were staying out past the corn, just a couple of miles away, in an area called Vedic City, where houses are built to the specifications of "natural law" (kind of a TM feng-shui). The school is incorporated right into the old town. And except for the huge, gold-topped, flying-saucer-like meditation domes on the campus front lawn, Maharishi U. looks like any humble, Middle American college.

"Backstage" was a small garage in the parking lot behind the rec center whose perimeter had been blocked off with crime scene tape -- kind of like a location from Twin Peaks. Inside, David Lynch sat smoking a cigarette, fabulously suited and coiffed, like a handsome Hollywood version of a 50s MIT professor. He was surrounded by admiring members of the University, prepping him for an imminent Q&A session with the crowd of a thousand or so students and visitors who'd gathered for the weekend.

Hearing Lynch answer questions about his work and spirituality inside the auditorium, it was immediately apparent that his devotion to Transcendental Meditation is passionate and sincere. He explained that every human being possesses a "well of creativity and bliss waiting to be tapped," and TM is the way to get there. None of the audience members bothered to inquire as to how that well of bliss has translated into some of the most unsettling and psychologically violent films in recent popular culture. So I asked Lynch about this later in the weekend. "That's just me," he explained. "You don't have to go to a dark place to tell a story about one." Well there ya go!

After Lynch, world-renowned quantum physicist John Hagelin took the stage for an hour-long lecture on TM's ability to connect its devotees with something called the Unified Field, basically the primordial ooze of the universe. He showed pictures of brain scans from well-adjusted people who've practiced TM (nice brains) and from sociopathic criminals with mental problems who've never meditated (brains full of creepy-looking black spots) and explained how TM is the only way for us to engage the entirety of our mental faculties. Until this point, I'd always thought at least the better part of my mind had been functioning. Now I'm certain that is not the case.

Later that night, we took in a performance by the legendary psychedelic troubadour, Donovan, who sang hits like "Mellow Yellow," "Season of the Witch," and "Hurdy Gurdy Man" while playing a green acoustic guitar emblazoned with the image of a proud Celtic stag. Just before his performance, Laura and I played some songs with Moby, who caused quite a stir by using the "F" word while onstage. The kids loved it, proving that the "F" word never goes out of style, even amongst the enlightened.

The most surreal and fantastic moment of the evening, though, came when David Lynch was told that the kids from Maharishi High were having their prom that night, and had to miss the concert. So Lynch volunteered to go down to the prom and crown the King and Queen himself. Donovan and Moby and Laura and I went with him. And after Lynch performed the crowning, we played a blues jam for the kids, who seemed alternatively delighted and confused.

Despite the out and out weirdness of these events, I must say without any irony that the citizens of Fairfield are seriously on to something. Not only did these people know how to have a good time, but they were some of the nicest, smartest, and most vibrant folks I've met in a very long time. And whether or not it has anything to do with Transcendental Meditation, an outsize portion of them just happened to be conspicuously good looking. Deserving of further investigation? I think so.

Thank you, universe, for allowing us to get to Fairfield. Something tells me the journey has only just begun... --DARON MURPHY

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Karl Markovics (left) in The Counterfeiters

Almost two weeks on, this year's biggest Oscar controversy is still rippling: the fact that the four acting awards went to Europeans, not Americans. It's a hypocritical quibble, considering the short shrift the Academy habitually gives to foreign films. Elevated to Best Picture nominee only 8 times, the jingoism-infused category forces diplomatic corps from around the globe to hawk their nations' wares to the tiny percentage of voters who won't base their decision on titles alone.

This year's winner, Austria's The Counterfeiters, now in theaters, is a decent film, buoyed by Karl Markovics's lead performance. He plays Sally Sorowitsch, a talented currency forger conscripted by the Nazis in a real-life scheme to flood the American and British economies in the waning days of World War II. Sorowitsch's skills, and those of several fellow Jewish captives, are rewarded with preferential treatment, relative to the conditions elsewhere in the concentration camp (rarely seen, but ever audible). The problem is that these moral quandaries -- survivor guilt; terrifying knowledge that a successful forgery buttresses the Nazi war machine -- are muddled by Stefan Ruzowitzky's documentary-like direction, a ham-fisted score (you half expect SS officers to twirl handlebar mustaches) and one-note supporting characters. As little angels and devils on Sally's shoulders, they reduce an existential dilemma to children's morality tale.

That these shortcomings were overlooked makes the omission of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days from even the pre-nomination shortlist determined by the Academy (part of the Byzantine Foreign Language voting process) that much more inexcusable. 4 Months's Romanian director Cristian Mungiu created a flawless film about another crippling test of character, that was, in not just my opinion, the best movie of the year -- perhaps of the last several. No one looks to the Oscars for fairness, but must they so consistently advertise their isolationist indifference? --NICHOLAS MOSQUERA

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The talk-of-the-town at this year's Sundance festival was Polanski: Wanted and Desired, produced by Steven Sodergergh and directed and written by documentarian Marina Zenovich. Thorough and thought provoking, the film details what happened the night Polanski allegedly had sex with Samantha Geimer, a 13-year-old girl, and pieces together the events leading up to February 1, 1978 -- when the famed director hopped on a plane from California to France and never returned. The film specifically focuses on the judge on the case, Laurence J. Rittenband, painting him as a press-hungry monster. Although Polanski was not interviewed for the documentary, his attorney Douglas Dalton and close friends were. Others who were interviewed include: the bailiff, the district attorney Roger Gunson and Samantha Geimer, now in her early 40s. The film also includes some incredibly stylish archival footage of Polanski and Sharon Tate. It won the Sundance "Documentary Editing Award," and was nominated for "The Grand Jury Prize." The documentary also kicked off the limited bidding wars this year, and was acquired domestically by HBO and internationally by Weinstein Company. --EMILY CREED

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At first glance, being an Orthodox Jew and a championship-caliber prizefighter could not seem more at odds. But boxing is rarely just about fists -- with fighters bringing politics, race and religion into the ring. In Orthodox Stance, now playing at New York City's Cinema Village, documentary filmmaker Jason Hutt tells the story of a young boxer determined to become, in a fan's words, "the best Jewish fighter since Samson."

Stance follows Dmitriy Salita, now 25, through the first three years of his professional boxing career. Salita's family had emigrated from the Ukraine when he was nine to avoid religious persecution, only to have the young Jew taunted by his American schoolmates for his poverty, foreign language and odd clothing. In an effort to learn self-defense, he studied karate and was introduced to a boxing club by his brother.

After losing his mother to cancer in 1999, Salita became as dedicated to Orthodox Judaism as he was to boxing, despite not growing up in a deeply religious household. He became the 2001 New York City Golden Gloves winner and U.S. Under-19 Amateur National Champion, but turned pro in order to avoid the scheduling conflicts between amateur bouts and his observance of the Sabbath ("If anybody wants a whupping from me, they got to wait until after sundown," he says). Once a pro, Salita's requested that promoters abstain from using ring card girls and Budweiser product placements, for fear that his rabbi might see. As Hutt's camera catches every intimate detail of the fighter's life -- in the ring, on the road, and in the synagogue -- it's clear that Salita is following an unorthodox path towards boxing greatness. --BARRETT BAFFERT

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This Oscar season, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood has struck gold (and oil) with critics -- Entertainment Weekly called the film a "new American epic and instant modern classic." Variety and the New York Times have named it a must-see for 2008.

Daniel Day-Lewis portrays Daniel Plainview, the scruffy California silver-searcher-turned-oil-man, and has already been awarded the Critic's Choice Award and Golden Globe for best actor. But the applause doesn't stop there. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) just announced today that Day-Lewis is in the running for its Best Actor award. And he's expected to earn yet another accolade when Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 22. (He previously won in 1990 for My Left Foot). But Day-Lewis isn't into the awards or Hollywood scene, as he tells Sophie Dahl in February's issue of Men's Vogue.  He's a man that plays by his own rules. -- EMILY TAN

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