Oh. Yeah, okay, I see that point. The pirate kings (or whatever it was) wasn't strictly necessary to the film, you're right. But I liked the expansion of the plot into the old, dying myths versus the coming future, best symbolized by the Kraken's totally anticlimactic and off-screen death. I think it's a legitimate argument that it's a bit late in the trilogy to go gettin' all thematic, but again, I liked it just because it was different. I liked that the third movie wasn't just the second movie only longer.

(And now I'm putting the lie to my own statement before about not being able to tell them apart, 'cause the more I think about it, the more the differences are apparent to me.)

<very small voice>Well, I liked it.</very small voice>

I've got a weird mental block with "The Crow." I've seen it several times, including in the theater when it came out originally. I like it just fine; it's a good movie. But every single time it comes up, I'm all, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that."

It's like I lack the ability to remember from one day to the next that this movie exists.

I think we covered this when we were talking about Karen Gillan and Billie Piper. If I remember correctly, the conclusion we all came to was that some people are just wrong.

Very interesting observation. All I could think of when I was watching "Aguirre" was Terence Malick.

(Well. And "Apocalypse Now," obviously. I don't remember the timeline well enough to know if "Aguirre" could have influenced Coppola directly. "Aguirre" was 72, "Apocalypse" was 79, but wasn't "Apocalypse" in prepro for a couple hundred years?)

You can do better than that. Gimme a minute, I'll find you something.

Sure, knock yourself out.

Haven't seen "Boys Don't Cry" since the first time, which wasn't long after it came out. I remember being affected by it, but I don't remember how exactly. Haven't seen "Lord of the Flies" at all, never heard of "Pizza."

I hate giving up on a movie. I'll stick with a movie through thick and thin, out of pure stubbornness most of the time. But just last weekend, I bailed on one: "Ninja Assassin." I get that there are people who dug it, but I was just bored out of my socks.

All geeks are pretentious douchebags. Comes with the territory. The trick to not being totally unbearable is to know just when to stop taking yourself so damn seriously.

I continue to struggle with that last part.

One of my most prized possessions is a hardcover copy of my all-time favorite novel, bought for two dollars from a used bookstore long after it had gone out of print. The dust jacket is ragged, the pages are musty and slightly yellowed, there are coffee stains on the inside front cover, and I love it with an almost sexual intensity.

For me, it boils down to the simplistic and undefinable notion of "worth it." To pick a topic that's come up on the forum recently, I think I paid $20 or so for my DVD of The Fountain. Maybe it was even less, like $15 or whatever; I honestly don't remember. But my hand to god, I would have paid a hundred. Maybe even two hundred. I love the movie just that much.

Yes, I dropped sixty bucks on this game, and I might end up regretting it somewhat. Like you, Teague, I'm just not a video-game guy for the most part. I can probably count on both hands the total number of video games I've ever played in my entire life. But so far I've heard nothing but good things about this one, and it's a very lazy weekend, and sixty bucks really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, so … well, here we are.

The defaults for my laptop, which I think are "medium" all the way across the board. The opening cinematic was very nice — if ironmanny, but didn't I see it circulating on the Web before Iron Man was released? — but the scenes with Raynor in the bar are really bad CG. Maybe it's all real-time rendered or something, which raises the question of my-god-why. Quantity over quality or something? I'd skip them, if I weren't such a whore for plot.

And as for it being a better game than Goldeneye, I can't say yet. I spent sooooo much time at my best friend's house after his divorce playing Goldeneye with him, or just keeping him company while he played. Video-game therapy is what that was. I mean, it's fun so far (after the first two missions), but for me it's too early to say.

I was gonna include the two Matrix sequels, but frankly I don't need that kind of flame war today.