It IS a good point, particularly since Minnelli was (and is) widely believed to be gay, but never admitted it. (And he did, after all father children.) Combined with the fact that he grew up as an "artistic" kid in a time and place where that wasn't prized, it could kind of make this quasi-autobiographical. But…

If you're a Vincente Minnelli fan
these two movies represent the most frustrating aspect of his career: While his contemporaries were breaking away from the old studio system, he stayed tied to it. (Two Weeks is still a very good movie that's a victim of MGM's careless recutting, but there was no way Tea And…

Wait…
Nobody has explicitly praised the paraphrased Barton Fink quote yet? Fine, I'll do it: Good job, O'Neal.

I, too, love Barry's Kong score. Not necessarily his best—On Her Majesty's Secret Service will always have that honor—but right up there, certainly.

Yeah, the nice thing about the novelizations was that you could actually imagine the dialogue being recited with some sort of emotion. The show had a great cast—Landau, Bain, Nick Tate, plus guest stars like Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Leo McKern—but EVERYBODY read their lines in the same stilted monotone.

I had the lunchbox!
Also, an Eagle One model kit, several novelizations and a subscription to the comic book. So ten-year-old me must have liked it, though I have very few concrete memories of the show itself. And when I watch it now, I understand why: It's incredibly dull.

Weisenheimery?
Now I know what word I'm going to work into every conversation I have today.

"Buried" is right, Mosca. I was listening to Rumour And Sigh the other day, and while from a songwriting standpoint it is consistently one of Thompson's finest works, Froom's overbearing sound renders some of it nearly unlistenable. And don't even get me started on Mirror Blue.

The Richard Thompson connection
Has no one mentioned Rafferty's gig producing the original (never completed) version of Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights? There were apparently big blowups in the studio, with RT resenting Rafferty's attempts to impose his own sound on the songs. Understandable but a…

Agree with all of this. There's nothing cornier and phonier than biopics of great artists, but Topsy-Turvy feels so utterly vital and alive. I kind of dreaded seeing it when it came out—not a fan of operetta, and while I respected Leigh's earlier films, they weren't exactly fun—but this is just about perfection all…

"Elegance" is the right word, Airbag. That whole movie is amazingly stylish, but is never so fussy or self-conscious about it that it kills the comedy. And Sellers! He gave better performances in other movies, but he was never so pants-wettingly funny as he was in this.

I don't really want to defend her, exactly, because she seems frankly to be dumb as a post, but it seems like any intellectual curiosity she may have ever had was snuffed out by circumstances beyond her control. Sure, she's following her mom's script right now, but at some point in her life, might she not wise up? …

I've seen more of this show than I care to admit…
…although I guess I'm kind of admitting it here, aren't I? Anyway, you've nailed the appeal of this thing completely, Todd—even as you recognize how unbelievably cheesy it is, you also realize how easy it is to get pulled in.

Too many to mention…but I'll mention some anyway.

There's no possible way to single one out, because I love them all. But i do want to give some particular love to Wayne & Wanda.

Guest Stars
One of the greatest things about The Muppet Show was the wide variety of guest they booked. Peter Sellers! John Cleese! Debbie Harry! It seems like they could get anybody they wanted, and they always fit right in.

One of my favorite things in Matinee is the final image, a shot of a helicopter held for an uncomfortably long time, its whirring blades drowning out the song on the soundtrack. Its vaguely insect-like appearance recalls the Mant-like giant critters that frightened the children of the era while simultaneously…

It's too bad he doesn't have a part in True Grit. I mean: Goodman. A Western. What do you need, a road map?

Don't know if the lions were sedated or not (most likely they were, especially since standards against animal cruelty were much lower at the time), but that would have been nothing for Keaton, who was willing to do just about any damn fool thing, no matter how dangerous, to get a laugh. He wasn't just a genius, he…

Too many good things about Matinee…
…so I'll just focus on John Goodman's amazing performance. He's larger than life and disarmingly sincere at the same time, and, as Keith says, you want to believe every word he says, even as you suspect you're being conned. But Goodman manages to make you think he actually DOES…