I think there's a case to be made that we would get along pretty OK if the CIA were dissolved. They have fucked up everything they touched six ways from Sunday, from Central America to South America to overthrowing a democratically elected government in Iran to helping get us into Vietnam. They also failed to stop…

Nicholas II? Fuck no, he wasn't "reform-minded". His problem was that he believed in autocracy but he was far too weak to actually be an autocrat. Alexander II was the reformer and Alexander III was the repressive autocrat and Nicholas II was the worst of both worlds.

'Basically he thought the Prague Spring of "socialism with a human face" was a good idea'

No one guessed that it was all going to come down but Gorbachev was certainly seen as a new sort of leader. He became very popular in the West even as his own people grew to hate him.

There's a great book called "Revolution 1989" that goes into detail about how Reagan understood that Gorbachev was on the level and wanted to deal with him. Bush on the other hand was utterly clueless and even went so far as to try and put the brakes on the big unraveling of 1989 because he was afraid of instability.…

Oh Jesus, Martin Sheen, shut the fuck up.

Indeed. It isn't a comic book movie. It has very few special effects (and the ones that it did have were notoriously unconvincing, namely, the fake shark).

Yep. Neither Jaws nor Star Wars killed anything. The Deer Hunter won the big prize the year after Star Wars and Apocalypse Now came out the year after that. It was Heaven's Gate that killed New Hollywood.

We may need a film version of "It Can't Happen Here"

The Iranians invading our embassy in November 1979 didn't help.

Susan Sarandon's breasts probably should have won it for "Atlantic City".

Of course the Alcatraz escapees did not make it. If they had reached land, at least one of them would have been eventually caught.

I just went to a blog I did not want to visit because I accidentally clicked on the link hidden in this post.

I can't say I remember any nasty comments about Long but yes, the whole "Cheers" cast was drunk on the air. Rhea Perlman cursed and Ted Danson said "You swore!" in Drunk Voice. Good times.

Reno? People plan to go to Reno? I thought people only went there when their car ran out of gas on I-80.

I haven't seen this film in a long time, but IIRC, I agree. Strained and mostly unfunny.

Robey? The chick from that terrible Friday the 13th TV show?

"Do your impersonation of David Caruso's career!"

I think our ancestors of the distant past probably knew that trains are three dimensional, are in color, and make sound.

"slowly dwindling in debt"