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ThomasC, going by your location info, you've got every excuse to trade up now and become a Steelers fan! ;) I went to the game in Cincy three weeks ago and met a bunch of people from Miami of Ohio who clarified that they're pulling for Roethlisberger and his team by proxy. Personally, I...

Malcolm, I enjoy a bunch of the titles on your list of bought-but-yet-to-be-watched, but your comments on the films you've watched suggests that some of the conventions and styles that characterize older Hollywood films don't connect with you. Is there any way you can return some of those to...

Right on, Alex. It's completely optimistic. The rumored alternate ending-- now there's an ending of despair. The ending to the original Night-- there's a cynical ending. This one ends hopefully and just right, in my view. What other ending would be appropriate given everything else that came...

Thanks for the review. Does anyone know of a fansite with a fairly exhaustive list of the differences between the theatrical and director's cuts? Thanks for any help.

I'm a little perplexed by that chat response. Yeah, it's a Tod Browning film, but it's neither a horror film nor a Halloween film. They should release it some other time of the year. Like...now! ;)

I read the book to my daughter last year. Dahl had a sensibility in dealing with vice that couldn't be further from that of today's children's authors, who wouldn't dream of deriding kids for being fat or TV gluttons. Poking fun at compulsive TV-watching probably doesn't help you get that...

Apologies if this was mentioned previously, but the song "Pretty" by The Cranberries is now forever associated in my mind with the third act of a bad Robert Altman movie.

My guess-- and it's just a guess-- is that the original was 1.37:1 and it was cropped ever-so-slightly to fit 1.33:1, but that any alteration requires the "This film has been reformatted" notice. There's a similar notice on WB's Strangers on a Train DVD, and that was apparently shaved from...

I've got the C/T-S version, and would also be interested in seeing side-by-sides. I believe the trailer is included in the current version. As far as I can tell, the lone new special feature is the 6 minute making-of bit. It's a pity MGM didn't instead purchase Branaugh's Hamlet and...

I thought of this thread last night while watching Decalogue: 2. I won't spoil much, but the story involves, in part, a woman pondering what to do about her pregnancy. Most of the pondering is done while smoking.

This show continues to disappoint. I stopped watching fairly soon after the Shannon Elizabeth rip-off of the old A-Ha video. I tuned in again last night to see if I'd been unduly harsh. I don't think I was. Has anybody found anything to like about this show?

I think the message they're trying to convey in those party scenes, Shawn, is that many people there are smoking. It's probably an accurate portrayal. If it's an inaccurate portrayal, it may err on the side of overstating the smoking simply because, to a nonsmoker, being at a restaurant or party...

I haven't seen the movie to which you refer, but I have difficulty imagining that any movie that shows a person smoking heavily while pregnant and being preoccupied with the habit to the point of smoking immediately post-partum isn't trying to blatantly say that the habit is demonstrative of the...

Mike, don't be concerned that the ending is eating away at you. It does that to everybody who I've discussed the movie with, irrespective of their thoughts concerning faith and their own beliefs. It's a supremely beautiful scene. I don't know if any other movie has ever made me inhale sharply...

As yesterday's link was broken, here's the real link to the column that takes on the parity thing. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/tmq/021112.html

Gregg Easterbrook's espn NFL column (Tuesday Morning Qaurterback) did a pretty compelling dissection of the parity myth Link Removed [note- espn.com's not responding. I'll add the link later]. In sum, he found there isn't any greater parity now than there ever was. There have always been a lot...

My copy of the new Image release of Stalker is in transit. Has anyone seen this yet? If so, can you let me know what your impressions are regarding sound quality (I understand the original mono soundtrack has finally been included), image quality and framing? Any help would be much...

I didn't really enjoy either of the two episodes they showed last week, but I liked the second one better than the first. The first episode's theme is, in no uncertain terms, a fairly blatant rip-off of the theme explored in the Vic Morrow segment of the TZ movie. Why in the world they would...

I'll add to the chorus of praise for the movie. One element of the film that I've really come to admire is the way that Lynch knitted it from the TV pilot, and the way that all of the engenue/detective story/bumbling hitman/mob guys conventions that would have presumably been the focus of the...

Most of the reasons why I loved it have already been mentioned, but I'll add one more. A typical convention in horror movies is that the audience knows more about the danger than the on-screen actors. We know that the seemingly benevolent person who offers a ride is really a killer, or we know...

I won't purport to speak for Rich, because he's made an excellent point on his own, but I think that his list, which includes both ardent believers (like Dreyer and Tarkovsky) and skeptics illustrates that it isn't simply a matter of true believers making lousy filmmakers. I don't doubt the...

Well, having never seen an actual zombie before, they seemed OK to me. ;)

I love Dawn of the Dead. I think of it every time I go into the Monroeville Mall to pick something up. The skating rink has been gone for over twenty years, and it's being remodeled, but the essential structure abides. It was a perfect movie for a kid in his teens. My friends and I used to...

Wait'll you guys find out this "mom" was an MGM operative charged with finding a way to make sure MGM found a way to sell every remaining Swamp Thing DVD still available on the shelves. It's just creative marketing. ;) Actually, MGM's now got a totally win-win situation. First, they knew what...

Yeah, the set design all around was pretty great. Certainly some of the more intricate and detail-oriented sets around. I've been wanting to see it again to take another look at that great board game closet. Margot's bookshelves are arranged by playwright. That great shade of pink in the...

I don't know whether this joint release was the plan from the start or whether it was a relatively last-minute deal, but it's a good move for both companies sales-wise. Tenenbaums is an internet-geek favorite, so the folks likely to buy it are fairly informed consumers who knew about the...

I think La Strada is a good starter Fellini.

Perhaps editing awards are based on quantity rather than quality.

Patrick L said:

My kids wanted each of us to have one Spidey temp tattoo from the Pop Tarts box, so we each got a Spidey head. Twelve days later, I'm the only one who still has the remnants hanging around. We also fished a Spidey water-squirting web-shooter (no organics here) out of a box of Smacks.