JonParker

You call it a paraphrase, I call it a lie. What the hell, it's just semantics. Of course, the line immediately preceeding that statement was "I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country. No one gets a veto over our security. No one." No equivocation there, but never let the truth stand in the way of a good wingnut meme, eh? And yes, it's just semantics. I consider waterboarding torture, you consider it fraternity hijinks. I consider members of the US military in charge of a prison to be the US military, you consider them "individuals." And you think I'm consumed with conspiracy theories, and I think you're a whackjob for letting a single line in a movie turn into 5 pages of ranting about how liberals are trying to brainwash movie audiences. And so it goes...

Ok, Matt, I'll take your bait. Here's a lie and slander from your own post: "It reminds me of Kerry saying he thought we should get the UN's persmission before we do anything in our own interest " Kerry never said that. Period. Find me a direct quote from him where he says that. And don't repeat his "global test" line from the debate, because that does not equate with what you claim he said. As for torture, secret prisons, and destroying another nation, you're trying to bait me into a war of semantics. Abu Graib, CIA detainment facilities in Eastern Europe, and Iraq are my answers, which you damn well know.

I'm gonna do my best to ignore the wingnut posts here, mostly because there's simply no way to respond to their lies and slander without going way, way off topic. Suffice it to say that Superman never stood for torture, secret prisons, and destroying other nations on the basis of specious reasoning. I haven't seen the movie yet, although I'm going next week. I didn't care for the original Christopher Reeve movie, although the second one was excellent. Terence Stamp made a much more menacing villain than Hackman, and the reduced roles of Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine made it much less campy. The George Reeves series was good in the beginning, but got silly in the third and fourth seasons. Smallville is true to the character, but at times starts to resemble "Dawson's Creek."

My most memorable was taking a large dose of a halluginogenic substance before going to see "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." I was becoming seriously disturbed by my hands for some reason, and I felt a huge sigh of relief when the movie started. I could deal with Klingons. My best was taking a date to a revival of "The Big Sleep. There was no one around when we went in, so I made some noise. A guy came out of the back, and I asked him if he was showing the movie. "Sure, if you want to see it," he said, so we sat there in the middle of a deserted theater watching Bogie and Bacall. When my girlfriend and I went to see "The Two Towers," there was a man behind us talking in Farsi with a low voice through the whole movie. I turned around to ask him to be quiet, and saw that he was watching the movie but murmuring to another man sitting beside him. I realized that he was translating for his friend, and didn't have the heart to ask him to stop.

Going east on 495 around Washington DC, somewhere around Connecticut Avenue you can see the spires of the Mormon Temple rising over the beltway. For years graffiti artists have spray painted one of the bridges over the highway at that spot with the words "Surrender Dorothy!"

Given the way the news media has rolled over and exposed its throat the last few year, I think you'd be better off reading blogs.

TCMprogrammer has already said that the uncut version will be shown on TCM sometime this year.

"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" was released the same day. It's a beautiful two disk set, with a commentary by Roger Ebert and another by the cast (Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, John Lazar, etc). I'm not sure what's on the second disk yet, but it's apparently got some documentaries and other stuff. This is the single best movie ever made. Period.

Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck.

No longer like a toad in this foul cellar shall I secrete the venom of hatred, for you shall bring me love!

My favorite Ernest Thesiger role is in "The Old Dark House," which is also a really great movie. I agree though, he had a really distinctive look.

I'm not a big fan of the Troma stuff. There's a big difference between trying to make a bad-but-funny movie and making one because of sheer incompetence. The latter are my favorites.

The MST3K version of Manos is available on a two DVD set with "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" for like 20 bucks or something. It's well worth it.

Jumpraven, I agree with you on Sin City, Lord of the Rings and Elephant. I enjoyed Spiderman I and Batman Begins, but I hated Spiderman 2. Napoleon Dynamite seems to be well loved, but it was a bit too much like making fun of losers in high school for my taste. Sadly, I havent seen most of the rest of your list, but I keep meaning to Netflix most of them.

My favorite Russell Crowe film is "LA Confidential." The last movie I went to see in a theater was "The Notorious Bettie Page." Very good flick.

That sounds like a good one. Probably as good as Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964). It's better. Or worse, depending on your POV.

Oh crap. i forgot to mention Eugene Pallette. He was always great, even when the movie wasnt.

I always smile and say aloud "Hey Nat!" when I see Nat Pendleton in a film. Seriously. I've been a fan since I first saw him in "Penthouse" with Warner Baxter. Marie Dressler is the classic "oddly appealing" actress. I think Tor Johnson is fun to watch.

The Manitou (1978) Good one. That is painfully bad. Another one that deserves inclusion: Rudy Ray Moore in 1975's "Dolemite." There's a bad cult classic for you.

I'm with Rocky Road on "I Married A Monster.." Good flick. However, I thought of another one: Corman's 1957 classic "The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent." Come to think of it, you could just cut and paste Corman's entire oeuvre from IMDB onto the list. And let's not forget "The Wild Angels," which started the whole AIP Hell's Angels cycle.

I have a Panasonic DMR-EH50 which in theory will only accept 8X disks. I've been using 16X Memorex media in it, and it works fine with only a couple of coasters out of 200 or so movies. Firmware can help, but so can switching brands of media. I do think it's a good idea if you can afford it to get a machine with an internal hard drive. I record to the hard drive, then dub the DVDs from there. If I lose a DVD or two along the way, I haven't lost the movie.

Your comments on this topic, on the other hand, provide an excellent examination of the matter: "modern" advertising of a "classical" work (when the work itself is not compromised) is perfectly acceptable, saavy and enjoyable when done properly. It is also a way to get and keep viewers interested. Nickelodeon repackaged old sitcoms with smart and funny marketing, and made such a success of it that they ended up creating the TV Land channel. Frankly, I'd like to see TCM follow in their footsteps. It's certainly a better way of bringing in younger viewers than having a bunch of teens sitting around talking.

I totally agree. Superfly is a superior film in every way. Not to mention the fantastic Curtis Mayfield soundtrack -- just writing that managed to get "Freddy's Dead" stuck in my head.

As someone whose politics, without changing much, qualified me as a political moderate in 1986 and a ranting whackjob Bush-and-America hating moonbat in 2006, I think it makes more difference to me with modern film than it does when watching classic movies. Wayne was a chickenhawk, but I still love The Searchers and Stagecoach. Eugene Pallette was a far right wing loony, but I love watching him on screen. It does factor into my enjoyment of modern films and TV though. I can't watch an episode of Frasier since I heard Kelsey Grammar playing kissy-face with Sean Hannity. I've lost all respect for Dennis Hopper as well. Part of this is disgust over the misery and death that the modern Republican party is bringing to our soldiers and the Middle East -- it's not just politics, it's human lives. Part of it is that since the GOP took over, there is no value in trying to bridge the aisle -- they govern as though the half of the country that disagrees with them doesn't exist. It's difficult for me to find anything to like about those on the right in this atmosphere, and that extends to actors. I strongly disagree with those who think that stars should not comment on politics. I comment on politics all the time in other forums, and the fact that my job has nothing to to with politics is irrelevant. It's the same with a movie star -- they have an absolute right to express their opinion and raise funds for their candidates. The fact that the press wants to cover it is not something we should hold against them, although we're certainly justified in finding those views abhorrent.

Kevin Brownlow did a five and a half hour restoration with a Carl Davis score, expanded from his 1981 restoration. Francis Ford Coppola has exclusive rights to the three and a half hour version with a score by his father, Carmine Coppola. When Brownlow showed his restoration in London, Coppola sued to stop it. Brownlow went ahead with the showing anyway, but until the legal issues are resolved, the longer version is unavailable. It's a damn shame that audiences aren't being allowed to see the most complete version of this masterpiece.