Much as The Paper Chase had inspired a generation of law school freshmen a couple years before, All the President’s Men inspired a wave of “investigative journalists”, of which my friend was perhaps an unusually committed example. He was constantly at odds with the elderly faculty overseer of the paper over his desire…

I would only add to this that a friend of mine on my suburban Philly high school newspaper did his own investigative article on Action Park in 1981. His finding was that while safety was indeed horrendously lax, the number of lawsuits against the park was substantially amplified by the park’s eagerness to settle…

I was a little too old for an awakening, but it was a lot more enjoyable than most of the other fantasy flicks in its weight class.

He wasn’t creeped out by that tribe of bat creatures and their dining habits?

Peter Schilling and Major Tom comes to mind

Indeed. I can’t bring myself to fault Spielberg for not going with the cheap evil-industrialist cliche, whatever modern sentiments might crave.

But what’s still not widely understood is that the Mesozoic Era spanned an enormous 180+ million years. Over that interval, the skirts evolved from ankle-length to mini, and back again, several times.

There actually was a “button H” which was in the hidden console that deployed a joystick controller for the pigeon drone. “H” released it into one-way homing mode.

I don’t really recall any reference to race marshals at all, short of maybe enforcement against offenses directly visible from the finish line. Outright vehicular assaults were definitely considered unsporting, but apparently pretty effective given how many shady racers and teams practiced them.

Contrary to the way the movie handled things, in the original show, cross-country “rally” races were Speed’s most common venue. There were a few closed-track races referenced, but by far the majority of the episodes were focused on cross-country, where aggressive action against other drivers, gadget-assisted or not,…

Beat me to it. It was clearly what Wells was emulating with The Invisible Man, and I don’t think the point is nearly as narrow as “male entitlement”. But here we are.

Nicholson was weaned, of course, on Roger Corman’s sets. So he probably had no problem with grueling shoots. Though I doubt incessant retakes were likely an issue on Corman’s budgets.

Remember that The Razor’s Edge had just been released in 1984. Murray was definitely interested in “real” dramatic acting. Had that film not bombed so resoundingly alongside the fantastic success of Ghostbusters, he might well have been interested in this. That said, the “Kubrick experience” may well have inspired him…

Not as visceral, but I remember a few groans (perhaps including my own) when he ditches the Swiss Army Knife while trying to catch his flight.

More fun that you might realize, since the Dam Busters mascot is actually slightly significant to the plot, leaving the characters’ motivations kind of hard to understand if you just remove all references to him.

I love so many of his roles, and so many of his smaller ones were dramatically amplified by his presence (Kung Fu Panda’s father could easily have been completely forgettable). I’d like to add mention here of one of his larger stand-out parts — as the sleazy private eye, Shin, in 1987's Black Widow.

Indeed!

I think the name was clearly used a lot more casually, albeit thoughtlessly, even 60 years ago, much less 100. Recall that it was also the name of the mascot dog of the “Dam Busters” bomber squadron, which has made for some awkward editing of TV airings of the 1955 movie about them.

The pivotal kidnappings that trigger the angry mobs were apparently perpetrated in a Norwegian neighborhood, which I think he describes as one of the roughneck buffer zones between Red Hook and more respectable New York. I think what I might have confabulated from was his reference to the difficulty in interrogating…

The Rats in the Walls, as I recall.