“Do these balloons blow up into funny shapes?”

Ah, The Mist. Most unnecessarily downer ending maybe ever. Even King was like “damn...”

I remember being annoyed at its theatrical release, which seemed weak-sauce compared to the build-up it was getting. Maybe the studio (Paramount?) got test audience results and got cold feet at the last minute. Portman, Thompson, and Isaac were all hot... they and the author were all out on a press tour. Garland was…

At least they brought in someone who’s used to being negatively compared to someone else.

I imagine someone with a broom handle off to the side nudging them and saying, “Show some fucking chemistry!”

You can just make as many films as you want, you know.

I sometimes work in kids TV and see no harm in this. The sets I’ve worked on have been safe and well managed, but it’s not uncommon for crew to forget that kids are nearby and, well, kids. So the normally harmless conversations on set between adults with swearing, jokes about getting wasted at the weekend, bitching…

I took a look at Robert Redford. Almost you know. Depends on how you feel about his #1... “Ordinary People.” Numbers 3 & 4 are all-time greats, though: “A River Runs Through It” and “Quiz Show.”

There are few better examples of, as the kids say, “fumbling the bag” in Hollywood today. She was a unicorn as a plus sized woman who was allowed to be characterized as both sexy, and fearsomely tough. She had the field all to herself, and would have had no competition until the arrival of Kali Reis the last couple of…

I remember back before the movie (or the Mandalorian) came out, quite a few comic-reading friends on forums kept insisting that she’d be a great pick to play Wonder Woman. A hearty lol in retrospect.

Perhaps a footnote but also indicative who just who he is day-to-day, moment-to-moment. It’s like finding out he’s one of those guys who puts five one-dollar bills on the table when he eats out and tells the server that’s the tip and he’s going to subtract one dollar every time something he doesn’t like happens. 

My personal favorite regular bringdown feature for Maher is that - no matter how “wise/pithy/deep” his big finish to New Rules makes him feel, he *has* to follow it up with “Hey folks, I’ll be at the Chuckle Hut in Yorba Linda and the Ha-Ha Room in Albuquerque next week...” It must drive him nuts.

Favorites: “Marion, we gotta get outta here... duck!” at the start of the Cairo Sequence. Nothing beats a punch POV filmed from the thrower’s elbow as the punch goes back in deep - center frame. This one is simple & perfect.

How do you do a list like this, and not include Back To The Future?

Okay, so - George McFly punched Biff so hard that Biff spun around twice before he fell, which was the first thing I thought of when I saw this list.

I had to think on this. I think the wrong note in Popeye is Robert Altman. Which kinda sucks because he put the whole thing together at a time when people would back anything he did. Everything in the movie: the cast, the sets, the songs, even - you could argue - the script - was solid, it just felt like everything…

“Annie” got mostly 3 star reviews, but it went way over budget. Iirc it broke even-ish. It’s a fine enough version.

It was weird and perfect and, somehow, a musical. 

the Altman Popeye rips, ya joyless hacks

A by-the-book actioner that’s sunk by indifferent performances, muddled storylines, and stilted dialogue.