—- and Lyman didn’t fool anyone when he went undercover as a choir director. Play some of their songs backward, I dare ya.

Oh, and - not sure who the publisher was, but I once owned a book that collected all 5 Ripley novels. Can that be true? I don’t remember it as a boxed set, just a massive one-volume book. At any rate, at some point in my life what I read, over a week or more, was all Ripley, all the time, until I was finished with…

Much of what the BBC played before the 80s was wiped out to reuse tape.

The 2002 Ripley’s Game, with John Malkovich as Ripley, is worth a look. But Matt Damon was a revelation in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I think the best portrayal possible of the man*. Part of that is that Damon is so fresh-faced and innocent seeming, part of it is that the script allows us to see him almost unraveling…

Two things about JP - when Crichton was interviewed, just after the book came out, and Spielberg was in line to do the movie, he was asked how they’d do the dinosaurs. Crichton said “well, we thought of computer animation, and stop-motion, and other things. Steven said he thought it would better to just build them...”…

She was so, so good. She completely made Days of Heaven. As beautiful as the movie is (and it is), without her character and narration, the movie would have been ... I don’t know. Not nothing, but not the wonder that it is.

Oh, MAN is it a good book. The comparison with True Grit is spot on. (Charles Portis just died recently - he only wrote a few novels, and True Grit was his best, but - try Masters of Atlantis if you get a chance.)

Psh. When Your President is 86 he’ll be able to sink a 500 foot putt!

Is Jim Davis still the primary author for these strips?

I must say, Duma Key is not one of my favorites of his (it’s good, surely not awful), but its depiction of Florida is effective. So it’s not like he doesn’t get use out of the state as he does with Maine.

sci-fi/fantasy cowboys roaming a post-apocalyptic planet in hopes of killing an evil wizard

I know she didn’t write the line about “I don’t know - DO they?” after the bad guy asks if those heels of hers are painful (or whatever) but she sure as hell delivered it right.  I’m generally pretty lukewarm toward her but she was one of the best things about that movie - stole every scene she was in.

Haven’t seen the movie in years (well, my kids grew up) and I remember thinking it was ... funny enough. Now, the novel, Madame Doubtfire, is not nearly such a laff riot. It’s a nice, poignant divorced-family YA novel. As I recall, at NO point are the children fooled - they keep up the pretense with their mom, who,…

Scorsese recommends the psychological horror film The Innocents

This paves the way for MY gender-bending take on a classic. yes, it’s Seven Brothers for Seven Brides.

In dog years he’d have to do 700 of those fucking deeds!

I liked Zombieland fine the first time I saw it, and thought I liked it a lot. But on second viewing... It’s okay. I mean, funny in many ways with some clever bits, but it’s not as eminently rewatchable as Shaun of the Dead (which, wisely, has no sequels, just more movies with the same crowd....).

One time I locked myself out of an online account because I couldn’t answer the question about where I was born

new, non-racist song the cats sing

I really really liked him as Rooster Cogburn, which, as a lifelong John Wayne and True Grit enthusiast... is.... surprisingly not hard to admit.