Anyone reviewing Python should have at hand Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words (Pantheon, 1989, two volumes, trade paperback). How else are you going to get the spelling correct, in episode 6, of the name of that should've-been-famous composer Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern … (about 100 syllables omitted)…

Anyone reviewing Python should have at hand Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words (Pantheon, 1989, two volumes, trade paperback). How else are you going to get the spelling correct, in episode 6, of the name of that should've-been-famous composer Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern … (about 100 syllables omitted)…

That's some body of work, although the only one of his movies I saw during its theatrical release was Magic; Lauter gets to deliver the only line from that movie I still remember: "Did you FUCK him?!" (to Ann-Margret in reference to Anthony Hopkins).

That's some body of work, although the only one of his movies I saw during its theatrical release was Magic; Lauter gets to deliver the only line from that movie I still remember: "Did you FUCK him?!" (to Ann-Margret in reference to Anthony Hopkins).

The star of "It's a Bird" - he received top billing in big letters -
was Jack Cassidy as a never-heard-of-before-or-since Daily Planet
columnist named Max Mencken; other new characters included a comedy
villain, Dr. Sedgwick, as well as Linda Lavin's character Sydney (which I recall as
being a larger role than Lois…

The star of "It's a Bird" - he received top billing in big letters -
was Jack Cassidy as a never-heard-of-before-or-since Daily Planet
columnist named Max Mencken; other new characters included a comedy
villain, Dr. Sedgwick, as well as Linda Lavin's character Sydney (which I recall as
being a larger role than Lois…

Thanks for the details - I saw the show on Broadway (spring 1966) and still have the program, and had no idea there was a 1970s-ized TV version.

Thanks for the details - I saw the show on Broadway (spring 1966) and still have the program, and had no idea there was a 1970s-ized TV version.

A movie with exceptionally good piano faking is The Competition (1980), with Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving (and other actors) as pianists. Excellent editing as well - Prokofiev's third piano concerto (about 30 minutes at full length) is boiled down to perhaps 5 or 6 minutes in Amy Irving's competition-winning…

A movie with exceptionally good piano faking is The Competition (1980), with Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving (and other actors) as pianists. Excellent editing as well - Prokofiev's third piano concerto (about 30 minutes at full length) is boiled down to perhaps 5 or 6 minutes in Amy Irving's competition-winning…

The narration in American Beauty occurs in at least one other place besides the beginning and end, at the start of the long final sequence: "Remember those posters that said, 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life'? Well, that's true of every day but one - the day you die."

The narration in American Beauty occurs in at least one other place besides the beginning and end, at the start of the long final sequence: "Remember those posters that said, 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life'? Well, that's true of every day but one - the day you die."

Um, Snidely? "You're revulsion is palpable" is, I assure you, all wrong - with regard to good depictions of sexuality in good novels, whether obliquely or not. What I was reacting to isn't unique to Heinlein and can also be seen in the 1960s work of other male writers of his generation such as John O'Hara, who were…

Um, Snidely? "You're revulsion is palpable" is, I assure you, all wrong - with regard to good depictions of sexuality in good novels, whether obliquely or not. What I was reacting to isn't unique to Heinlein and can also be seen in the 1960s work of other male writers of his generation such as John O'Hara, who were…

Well, it concerns the strangest, most cringe-inducing, writing about sex that I've ever read. Heinlein's later novels would have been better if he'd kept within the 1950s strictures, rather than taking advantage of the new freedoms offered by U.S. fiction publishers in the 1960s (as so many authors did then).

Well, it concerns the strangest, most cringe-inducing, writing about sex that I've ever read. Heinlein's later novels would have been better if he'd kept within the 1950s strictures, rather than taking advantage of the new freedoms offered by U.S. fiction publishers in the 1960s (as so many authors did then).

Sorry, a few points are not quite correct here.

Sorry, a few points are not quite correct here.

Well, "the well-rounded characters that Heinlein didn't create" is certainly a good reason why any adaptation of Starship Troopers is bound to disappoint. Johnnie Rico, the narrator of the novel, is much more two-dimensional than most other Heinlein characters, and other people with whom he interacts are barely…

Well, "the well-rounded characters that Heinlein didn't create" is certainly a good reason why any adaptation of Starship Troopers is bound to disappoint. Johnnie Rico, the narrator of the novel, is much more two-dimensional than most other Heinlein characters, and other people with whom he interacts are barely…