sillstaw

Especially when you consider the whole court case that likely soured him on Hollywood, where Larry Cohen claimed he'd pitched the idea to Fox years before. (If you haven't heard about it: Basically, Alan Moore said that it seemed like they thought Fox had told him to make the comic so they could adapt it, all to avoid paying the original writers. He then had to testify in court, and claimed that he'd have been treated nicer if he had "molested and murdered a busload of retarded children after giving them heroin." In the end, Fox settled out of court, which he saw as an admission of guilt.)

Yeah, I'm not sure why. Part of the reason is probably that, in my teen years, I was so stuck up and pretentious that I probably thought that mere horror films weren't worth my time. I am more open-minded about them now, though. I've heard good things about the first two, though I'm loathe to watch a James Cameron film. (How it is that James Cameron directed one of the good "Alien" movies and David Fincher directed one of the worst is beyond me. Well, besides all the stories about how doomed "Alien 3" was from the beginning.) My main reason for saying that was basically to kind of come in and say, "This is what someone who has no previous experience with the franchise thought." Not that my thoughts were all that helpful, but it seemed like it was worth considering.

Well, he's been directing for years. He's also helmed "Friday Night Lights" (a critical darling, but I was bored by it, likely because I don't care about football at all), "The Kingdom" (which I remember liking well enough), "Hancock" and "The Rundown."

I personally think that if every idea pitched for "Ghostbusters 3" had been made into its own separate sequel, the franchise would rival "The Land Before Time" in number of movies made.

So I saw this movie, and even now, months afterward, I still do not know what my opinion of it is. Full disclosure: I haven't seen any of the other "Alien" movies. (I also haven't seen any of the "Predator" movies, but that's neither here nor there.) Basically, I went in just wanting a good story. I do think it would have been better served if it had decided if it wanted to be a story about people looking for the origins of humanity, or a movie about people getting killed by alien lifeforms. There's probably a decent way to make a movie that does both (I imagine the aliens would have to be more powerful in general, possibly even Lovecraftian), but the way the movie did it came across as if someone tried to meld "2001: A Space Odyssey" with a slasher film.

I don't recall hearing about Spielberg hating the whole movie. Although I do recall hearing that he said he'd work with anyone from the movie again, except for Julia Roberts. As for the scene where Tinkerbell suddenly becomes a regular-sized person, apparently that was done at Roberts' insistence, because she hated having to do all her scenes alone. I like to imagine the cast drew lots to see who had to work with her in the scene.

Yeah, this movie has all sorts of different versions. Versions with more and less hardcore footage, varying lengths for different countries; there might actually be a cut that doesn't make an average person want to give up on food for a few days.

To be honest, the stories of how this movie got made are pretty fun, especially if you like the clashing egos inherent in juicy Hollywood gossip. It's too bad that, of the three people who would have the best stories on it, two of them (producer Bob Guccione and writer Gore Vidal) are dead, and the other (Tinto Brass) might not speak English and is likely too busy making softcore porn to bother. On the other hand, given his career lately, I wouldn't be surprised if Malcolm McDowell did the podcast just to get a sandwich. I mean, anyone who willingly stars on "Franklin & Bash" can't be too choosy.

I have no interest in being an actor or the method of acting, and still I would read that book. That is, if he ever wrote it. I kind of think that, even with his ironic-cult following and his movies getting smaller and smaller, it's still more profitable for him to act than it would be to write a book.

I actually started to ask my sister (who loves Nicolas Sparks) about the book "Safe Haven," but stopped when she got confused by my mentioning ghosts. And I'd wholeheartedly vote for anything involving Nicolas Sparks (go look up the interview where he talks down about Pulitzer prize winner Cormac McCarthy and claims he's on the same level as Hemingway), but I especially want to see "The Lucky One" done. A movie about a soldier who finds a picture of a woman in the middle of a battlefield, then returns home and tracks her down, without mentioning why he's there? Yeah, that's totally romantic and not at all creepy and disturbing.

Multi-week special? Do two or three episodes at a time?

I'll try to get on that. (My problem isn't so much a lack of time as just never thinking about listening to all the podcasts I'm accumulating.) Also, made these while listening to the latest minisode:

I'm kind of thinking that, when people vote, the message they get should be something more unique than "Your vote has been counted." The obvious choice to me is stuff like "Thanks for voting, dumb-dumb!" or "Your vote is In. Sane." Maybe if somebody types in something wrong, it can give a message like, "What I don't get about this is..."

(Feeling bad because I mostly listen to just the minisodes nowadays)

Astonishingly, the director of this movie hadn't done a movie since 1980's "The Stunt Man," which was nominated for three Oscars. And since this movie, the only thing he's done was a documentary about that movie. Additionally, as pointed out in Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops review of this, the screenwriter went on to direct "Shattered Glass" and "Breach." Also, I loved how Rabin put it about the big "twist" ending (SPOILERS, if you care):

I watched a video review of this movie, and to be honest, this seems like such a perfect choice. It's so beautifully crazy that I'm surprised I haven't watched it yet. Or, as someone on another forum put it, "People need Shocker like plants need water and sunshine."

To be fair, the reason he got his name removed has nothing to do with the quality of the film. "The Lawnmower Man" is the title of one of his short stories, but it's about a man hiring a lawnmower service, only to find that the man running it is a satyr who eats the grass mowed while naked; the man is then killed as a sacrifice to Pan when he tries to call the cops. Shockingly, this story doesn't appear to have been written during his alcohol-and-drug addiction days. Needless to say, the movie is so completely different that King didn't want to be associated with it, even if the premise at least is a million times more interesting and plausible as a feature film than his story. As such, he sued to get his name off, and won. But yeah, I saw the movie (to give you an idea of how long ago it was, I watched it on the Sci-Fi channel and not SyFy), and it's pretty bad. Not sure if it would fit the podcast, but yeah.

Fun facts about this movie: The director initially planned an R-rated horror film about a half-cartoon-half-human monster. When he sold it to the studio, however, the producer decided to rewrite the film, without consulting the director. To give you an idea of just how far it deviated from his idea, at one point Kim Basinger told him she hoped to show the movie to sick children in hospitals. (I doubt she ever did, considering how much that would violate the Geneva Conventions.) The director's original choice for the cartoonist lead was Brad Pitt. The studio insisted on having Gabriel Byrne as the male lead. He also wanted Drew Barrymore to play Holli Would; not doing so remains one of her finest career decisions.

I haven't seen this movie (as evidenced from my thread about why there haven't been any Madonna movies covered by the show), but thanks to the Agony Booth's recap and the amazing book "Fiasco," I know way too much about the production of it. This movie was made when Sean Penn and Madonna were married, which further proves that playing romantic partners in a movie is a surefire way to kill a celebrity relationship. (See also: "Gigli.") Additionally, this was also made at the time that Sean Penn was known for getting violent whenever paparazzi showed up—which, considering he was married to Madonna, basically meant he was attacking photographers and gossip reporters often. He even got arrested for it one time. Also, one really depressing tidbit: George Harrison produced this under his HandMade Films production label, did some of the music for it, and even appears as a nightclub singer. It may have been hard to follow up the Beatles and "Life of Brian," but dang. The last bit of trivia I can remember perfectly is why Madonna got interested in the movie in the first place: The script sent to her had a yellow cover, and she loves the color yellow.

Honestly, from what I've heard about "The Box" and "Donnie Darko," and from seeing "Southland Tales," I think they'd be safe in just dedicating an entire episode to Richard Kelly. It doesn't sound like he's doing anything other than just reusing the same "Look at me, I'm such a smart filmmaker, my movies don't even have to make sense!" tricks over and over.

One of my friends from high school told me this story, quoted in its entirety: "I saw 'The Marine' with my dad. Halfway through, I leaned over to him and said, 'I'm sorry.'" Also, what little I know about wrestling is what I've read on TVTropes, so it's amazing that (as this review points out) the WWE cast one of their biggest stars in a movie that plays against his in-ring character so lamely. They have some trash-talking ego villain playing a dead-serious hero who never even seems to crack a smile. According to the IMDb, it's "This guy is like the Terminator." And astonishingly, somebody else says the line, and Robert Patrick just reacts to it. Does the WWE just not get how in-jokes work?

I have to ask, which season are you talking about? What with this whole "every season is a new story" gimmick, it's hard to know whether you're asking about the first season (which, based solely off the pilot, was made to get Dylan McDermott naked as much as possible) or the second one.

I don't think the "machine vs. horse" chase is in the movie. I have heard that there's an exploding dog house, though, so make of that what you will.

The same poll also had as options "Skyline," which they reviewed, and "Jonah Hex," which Paul has said isn't a fun-bad movie, but just bad. ("Jonah Hex" actually won the poll, if I recall correctly.)

I don't know. At least World War II happened.