MondayCity

Maybe Paul's parents' broom closet, which he used for a studio for last year's holiday mini ep, was booked up all week for recording a Steely Dan album.

Someone fucking call Kirk Cameron to save the Christmas episode!

I hate to be that guy, but I think that the people who survived a fall from the Golden Gate Bridge all fell from the clearance height of about 220 ft, not the tower height of 746 ft. However, Zorin was a genetic marvel, and he might have had a parachute somewhere on his person, so hell yeah, let's say he survived and bring him back. Or, they had another one of him all along, made from the same genetic material. I don't care how they do it, but I agree with you, they really should bring Walken back.

I kept laughing at the length of Bond's shin in this poster. Then I noticed that it is the same width as Tanya's waist, and now I am appalled. But if you just focus on Bond's shin, it is really funny.

The film title, but not the plot, was based on the Ian Fleming short story, "From a View to a Kill," but the film producers dropped the word "From" out of the title. It appears that the short story is about Bond traveling from Versailles to a duel with an assassin. Maybe the title of the story meant that Bond was going from a view (i.e., the view of Versailles) to a kill (the death of the assassin) AND that the journey was being taken with the intention of making a kill or from the perspective of making a kill. However, given that the film is not about one particular journey to make one particular killing, the first interpretation of the title does not work for the movie--hence dropping the word "From.".

Roger Ebert may have been wrong about the defect in Zorin's microchip plot. In an article by Joe Fay, entitled, "Target Silicon Valley: Why A View To A Kill Actually Made Sense," posted on October 8, 2012, on the IT website "The Register," the author wrote, "By 1984, when filming of A View to a Kill was underway, the chip business was worth $24bn and US firms accounted for between 50 to 60 per cent of this. It’s fair to assume that much of that was designed, if not completely manufactured in the Valley." Who should you believe, Ebert or this other nerd? Now, I'm going to try to find a retrospective look at the movie on a blimp website. Maybe that will also challenge the doubters.

Made soda come out of my nose. Thank you, Jamie.

Jamie: Nice effort, but too subtle. Try again. Maybe watch the chicken scene in "LOL" and come back to us.

Strongly agree. I love when they go down rabbit holes like pasta robot, "Sleepaway Camp" opening, monkey rights. The butterfly discussion is an instant classic rabbit hole. I also love when they go into character, like the Pacino/cab driver or Hello, Lauren bits in the "88 Minutes" ep or Kroll's imitation of the costumers in "Justin to Kelly" or the phone call about the band sticker on the shovel in "Jack Frost." The map table contractors might be my favorite imagined dialogue ever.

Favorite action scene: Five minutes of Bond gingerly carrying his girlfriend down a ladder.

Moore's over-expressive eye work and other facial contortions were a vestigial acting technique from all his roles in the silent film era. By the way, the crazy ladder truck bit was also popular before talkies were invented.

Serious question: Why is Bond trying to stop Zorin alone? I mean, as soon as Zorin kills Tibbett and tries to kill Bond, you don't need a spy anymore. Just call in back up, arrest Zorin, and stop his criminal operations, whatever they happen to be.

At his age, Moore-Bond should have been looking for someone named "Karen Soulmate." Admittedly, I am on the cautious side, but my preference for Bond girl name would be "H. Ivy Negatiff."

No. I was saying that the good agent suggested roles in movies 1, 3, and 5; and the bad agent suggested roles in movies 2, 4, and 6. It's a split personality thing. But since you asked, I live in a universe narrated by Morgan Freeman.

"A View to a Kill" is basically Walken doing a great Walken imitation, surrounded by a pretty bad movie. I would put this Walken performance almost up there with "Seven Psychopaths," "Suicide Kings," "Biloxi Blues," and "Annie Hall." His smile right before he dies is an AWESOME choice. I might take Walken and Barden as the best Bond villains. By the way, check out Walken's IMDB. WTF? "The Deer Hunter," "Balls of Fury," "King of New York," "The Country Bears," "Domino," "Kangaroo Jack," etc.? My theory is that Walken has two agents, one who went to NYU film school and one who is illiterate and hates him.

It's pronounced "Skyfail," because Bond is completely ineffective and allows the deaths of almost everyone he tries to protect. He even let's the Bond girl get killed after two short scenes, neither of which involved physical intimacy. "The name is 'Bond,' 'Ernest Bond'."

Yeah, I was really crabby when I wrote that. I agree with your approach. I can enjoy a Fast & Furious or a Bond movie for what it is. I tend to watch Jaws whenever it's on, and I'll rush to out to the next Star Wars movie. But I get frustrated when a movie seems to be elevated beyond entertainment if that is all it is. For example, it doesn't bug me that "Titanic" was successful because people seemed to keep it in perspective as pure entertainment. I grew up during an era of movies like "Five Easy Pieces," "Harold & Maude," "Carnal Knowledge," "The Last Detail," "Save the Tiger"--truly thoughtful movies. Then Jaws came along and changed everything. That's ok, but let's make our movies work a little harder before we call them "great." By the way, these are just an old man-child's rantings, and I hate when someone presents opinion as fact, so I fully recognize that I could be wrong about everything (except that I DO know that this all used to be farm land as far as the eye could see, and know it's just apartments and strip malls). Stan, thanks for your respectful reply and tolerance.

I like the medium, but I think that most movies are dumb. I also think that movie consumers, the industry, and even many critics tend to reward dumb movies, which suppresses the market and resources for smart movies. Therefore, I appreciate things like HDTGM and MST3K that help people view movies with more of a critical eye--while also making us laugh. I loved "Love" but hated "Gravity". I was mesmerized by "The Thin Red Line," but detested "Saving Private Ryan." I was fascinated by "Gummo" and "Toad Road," but just irritated by "Pulp Fiction" (meaningless, faux clever), "Gladiator" (bloated, formulaic revenge pic that ignored the amazing intellectual legacy of Marcus Aurelius) and "Forest Gump" (disingenuous glorification of stupidity). Also, I never want to see another movie written by someone who has read Syd Field or "Save The Cat." Have you seen the amazing "Werckmeister Harmonies"? Probably not, because all the theaters were showing "Gladiator," which won the Oscar that year! Aaaaaaarghh!

Quasar, you had me at novitiate nun. This gem is now on Netflix. It's beautiful. It was definitely worth taking an intermission from Raid 2 to watch this. Also, if you always want to know what is in the vicinity of the five or six feet above a character's head, this movie is for you. In all honesty, five stars.

Speaking of Christopher Walken, doesn't it seem a bit risky to cast him in a live broadcast of a children's story? If he forgets a line, he might lapse into an improvisation like, "I'm . . . I'm gonna . . . eviscerate you . . . Lost Boys . . . with my hook . . . one by one . . . until one of you Benjamin Button fucks . . . tells me where Peter Pansy is hiding his cross-dressing ass and that angel dust--[corrects himself and finally raises his voice] fairy dust, goddammit!"

Happy Thanksgiving. I didn't want to start a new thread, so I am putting this here. I am very thankful for HDTGM, Paul, June, Jason, the interns, the engineers, and bad movies, of course, but I am also thankful for this board and all the regulars who post throughout the week. You make me laugh and often introduce me to other entertainment I didn't know about. My Thanksgiving resolution is: Now that I have figured out how to "like" a post on my phone, I will show my appreciation more often. I hope you all have a great day and watch a turkey with family and friends.

Thank you, tib20011, for the tip about Johnny Mnemonic on Netflix. I watched it last night and fell in love with it. It is an insane, (unintentionally) hilarious mess. It's a perfect 10 HDTGM movie. Everyone who can hear my voice, if you have not seen Johnny Mnemonic, watch it on Netflix this weekend while you still can!

JB Smoove; Leslie Bibb; Kumail Nanjiani again; and I second David Cross.

"The Night They Saved Christmas" (1984): Jaclyn Smith and her kids try to help Santa stop an oil company from blowing up Santa's home by telling the oil company exec where the oil is really located (i.e., at a different polar site where drilling will not interfere with Santa's Christmas-related activities). Art Carney plays Santa (straight up, not a "Twilight Zone" rummy Santa) and Paul Williams plays an elf. It was made for TV, but I think the whole movie is on YouTube. This thing gets pretty dark at times. When this was broadcast, my girlfriend (now my wife) and I were seniors in college and had just moved in together. We were spending our first Christmas together. We cuddled up to watch the network's Jaclyn Smith Christmas offering, and we essentially got Shell Oil shelling Santa until Paul Williams abducts some kids to convince the only permanent Charlie's Angel to get on a snowmobile and--I can't remember all this, but her husband in it is Paul Le Mat at his least charismatic. That was 30 years ago, and that movie still pisses me off!

As with Jason and June, the real audience could not be there, so Paul had to get a guest audience. In retrospect, choosing the studio audience from " The Big Bang Theory" was probably a mistake.