Someone on the IMDB boards once posited that ST:TMP was '2001' if HAL had gone through the star gate instead of Dave. I thought that was pretty profound.

What ST:TMP desperately needed was another couple of months from the studio; Robert Wise begged the Paramount execs for more time, but they'd already committed to a Christmas opening and wouldn't budge. What got released was the best they could do with what they had. If you've got the inclination, the Director's Cut…

I'd say it sounds like something off of a Roger Waters solo album.

Nah, he was an idiot. And nowadays he's a Trump supporter to boot.

I actually did have a proto-hipster friend a long time ago who considered everything they did post-Syd to be 'not really Pink Floyd.'

… which is the same list as Songs Containing a Sax Solo.

I suppose this is what happens when a bunch of studio hacks throw a bunch of shit at the wall and EVERYTHING sticks.

Thanks for the insight! I was hoping to find out what the average Russian would make of something as absurd as Rocky IV or Rambo III.

Beautiful landscapes once you get away from the cities, though…

Most definitely! The second one is the best of the bunch.

The Architect's big scene just pissed me off, not because it deflated the role of The One or anything, but because it was so badly written that it lost any punch that such a crucial reveal could and should have had. I hate to say it, but even PT-era George Lucas could have handled that scene better.

Hear hear! It's awfully nice that, in addition to being funny and entertaining, the Deadpool movie also somehow represents a victory for the little guy.

I'm waiting for some studio lawyer to make a filing mistake leading to multiple studios simultaneously having the rights to the same character(s). Imagine a world where Fox, Marvel, and Sony each have a completely unrelated Spider-Man movie in the theaters at the same time.

Agreed, I'm getting a lot out of it. And I'd like to think that whatever the Russian equivalent of the AV Club is, they're running a similar series dissecting the American pop culture of the time. No doubt they're scratching their heads about a great many things.

Thanks for sharing that bit of amazingness, but this isn't Ted Cruz's bag; all the bad guys are white.

I think this was the first Clint movie I ever saw, only because HBO and Showtime used to show it continuously in the early days. I also remember it spawned the first video game I ever encountered that cost 50 cents to play instead of a quarter.

"Their 'war' is done by computer; variables are counted up, death tolls are assigned, and each side is held responsible for killing off the assigned number of its own citizens."

Nothing new for me, but the Other Half had never seen The Matrix, so we watched it together. Mostly it holds up surprisingly well 17 (!!!) years later; on the CGI front, it's the smaller moments that didn't age well; when the Agents put the bug in Neo's stomach, it's hilariously bad-looking, but the big scenes still…

I haven't seen BvS:DoJ yet; I can't decide if I want to skip it because it looks awful or if I really, really want to see it because it looks awful. But how exactly does any mere mortal stand a chance in a fight against Superman without cheating and being an asshole?

Given that Snyder can fuck up seemingly any beloved character or property, what happens when he gets his hands on something that everybody already hates?