'Grizzly Man' Timothy Treadwell was almost Woody Harrelson's character on Cheers. Instead, he was eaten by a bear.

Clarification - I meant Leiter shows up in the Facts of Death as an ally. He fights alongside Bond in his handi-capable helicopter of death.

I hadn't heard of Snelling's book, and never got around to reading Thrilling Cities. Thanks, Keith, for letting me know what I'm missing!

I mostly agree with Mr. Tobias' assessment of the ending - obvious yet nonsensical - as well as Eric, your description of why it doesn't carry emotional weight. It's surprising to me, though, how much artistic considration we're giving this movie, talking about it in terms of 'detachment' and 'style' as if they are…

"The film's level of ironic detachment makes you wonder why you're bothering with it" - that was mostly my reaction, combined with a general confusion about what was going on and a disappointment with the movie's failure to engage. It just didn't seem worth the effort to decipher.

It's the new Kevin Bacon game - such and such was in a movie that was basically the same as one with so and so, who was in a movie that was the equivalent of one that starred Tom Sizemore.

Just ordered it. Thanks, cokebabies, for alerting me to its existence! I've mostly read about Romero's fall online, it'll be no doubt enjoyable to get a more detailed account.

Perhaps Romero had a similar problem to M. Night Shyamalan - early successes that led to celebrity status in a creatively powerful (and demanding) aspect of the entertainment industry that is usually more comfortable 'behind the scenes.'

I love Fincher (Benjamin Button excluded), but for better or worse, The Social Network seems as if he's deliberately trying to engineer a My Year of Flops entry.

The Orson Wells Mythos is that he was always supremely talented, but for various reasons couldn't get his projects funded and/or off the ground. But even around the relative time he was playing Unicron and drunkenly failing to advertise wine, he made 'F for Fake', which is all kinds of brilliance: great subject…

The Shyamalan solution is simple: have him direct a script someone else wrote, then wrench the project away from him midway through post-production. I don't know why more studios haven't figured it out, let alone how they've managed to still encourage in him such an amazing level of clout and celebrity after all the…

When I think of the post-Beatles quality gap, I think of John. I never bothered to pick up McCartney's solo albums, but he did have a smattering of listenable singles after the end of the Beatles. I did, however, listen to Lennon's "Legend" greatest hits album, though, and in my opinion the only decent song is…

My bad. Sometime I may give the movie another go.

Easy there - I'm not picking on veterans, and to be honest, I'm going off of feelings I had for the movie when I watched it, which has been a while. But the impression I got from the movie is that it bills itself as a consideration of the horrors of war, and has an ending that argues against considering the…

Meh, I'll say it: Saving Private Ryan has amazing opening and ending battles, but otherwise is arguably just as thematically shallow as Pearl Harbor and twice as pretentious. Two hours of 'war is hell' that ends with the heroes shooting that treacherous German soldier they released earlier while heroic music swells…

Shortly after The Mask came out, there was talk of a sequel. I recall Nintendo Power magazine even had a contest where the winner would get to be an extra in said movie that didn't quite happen. Had The Mask 2, starring Jim Carrey, been released before 1997-ish, there would have been an audience all over that stuff,…

I, too, thought the Ken / Pete rivalry has always been one-sided. Pete constantly feels like he needs to best Ken, whereas Ken doesn't really care. In this episode, Ken again showed he's above this pettiness - Ken recognizes that Pete will be his superior in the office, and if Pete needs to think he's finally "won" to…

The one I'm envious of is King Kong w/ Ray Harryhausen. That's a screening to keep in your memory and tell the grandkids about.

My theater-going highlight of the summer:

Iron Man 2 was good until it decided it needed to be an action movie. Robert Downey Jr. at al in character, shooting the shit made for some great fun, but man - there used to be a time when a few men in supersuits fighting an army of robots meant something, dammit. Now its just ho hum, splosions, look! and roll…