I hadn't heard anything about the Max Landis GB3 idea, but holy cow is that a terrible idea. It has the Ghostbusters forgotten again, brings back Gozer (CAUSED by a failed Ghostbuster), and features a slick Michael Bay Ghostbuster team to be rivals with the blue collar heroes (Twister, anyone?). I was actually kind of okay with the opening that revealed some of the origin of Ivo Shandor and Slimer, altho it's not necessary.

The James Bond stuff is interesting. The early Bonds were spy movies, not action movies, and modeled closely on real-life spy stuff from WW2 and the Cold War. EON struck gold with Goldfinger and never looked back. But the Mission: Impossible TV show feature COPIOUS amounts of sneaking. There are endless scenes several minutes long with no dialog; just snare drums and sneaking.

Also, it's so weird how you guys meant to say "The Monster Squad" but you kept saying "The Goonies" for some reason.

/never say die

PERFECT! I will arrange for the orchestra!

Holden! There's something wrong with the forum! No one is congratulating me!

(don't worry. Holden will fix it)

Ooh. I like the idea that the challenges are linked to the prize. The foundation of the idea is that it's a way of choosing a great leader, and the rest become human sacrifices, so as long as that stays intact, the back story would still make sense. The prize should really be a prize, but you're right that the ancient Indian idea of a prize could be very different from ours, and infamy is still fame.

And YES the last movie needs to bring back all the artifacts at once and go crazy. The fans should be like "But they used up all five artifacts in the first four movies, so what are they going to do now? Invent a new one?"

I love Louise and Gene, then Bob and Tina, then Linda, Teddy, and the supporting cast.

Also, I love that they get stand-up comedians to do infrequent characters. It gets great talent and also supports people in what tends to be a feast-or-famine career. I also like that they don't use many celebrity guest stars; they almost always suck on The Simpsons.

Yeah, that's it. I don't remember them being ethical scenarios. But I do remember the moderator constantly changing the scenario. I found that annoying, but it was useful for the purpose. "Hard cases make bad law" tho, as they say.

For my TV show, it would be a looser format (not a real-time discussion in one room) interspersed with video enactments and animation to make it not so boring. Plus, you know, aliens and cavemen instead of telling someone their husband is cheating.

I watched Stripes this afternoon and realized that if you didn't live thru the coke-fueled, unfunny comedies of the late 70s and early 80s you might not be able to fully appreciate this hard-won victory for comedy. Murray and Ramis are gold, and John Candy, PJ Soles, and and Sean Young assist, but the script is up and down and off in different directions for each act. The premise is paper thin (two wise-cracking losers try to get their lives together by joining the army), and the third act is ridiculous. The wonderful Warren Oates and John Larroquette are under-written heavies. But the wise-cracks and many of the gags really are sharp, and no one delivers a monolog like Bill Murray.

Still love it but not as much as some others.

Grand Budapest Hotel. Wonderful. Wes Anderson's take on an Ealing comedy, perhaps, but dripping with Old World style. This is the sort of thing that won't make a huge impact but will be treasured for decades by cinephiles. This is why I love film.

Oh, that's the one I'm thinking of then, not the sequel. 

I think I've said here before that Boondock Saints has long been on my check-it-out-at-your-convenience list, but it seems like the same people recommending it also recommended Bottle Rocket, and I hated Bottle Rocket*. But now it sounds like it has to be different and also interesting for other reasons.

Great episode!

* Sorry, Wes. I loved about everything else you've done.

Pretty charming in small doses. How scripted is this? On a scale of 1-10, I'm going to guess 3.