Two movies created by different subsidiaries of Disney. Wreck-It Ralph feels very Pixar-esque, despite being produced by Disney Animation Studios. Brave, on the other hand, is Pixar's attempt at imitating classic Disney fairy tales.

Wreck-It Ralph is the more interesting story of the two. Brave may be more timeless, but it's not very original (just a standard Disney princess tale).

The Mulder-less seasons of The X-Files were really awkward. Most people agree that the show jumped the shark sometime before that (Season 6 feels like a major turning point), but losing Mulder and his charisma was the very last straw for me.

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The string of letters that Mike couldn't pronounce (and I don't blame him for that) is probably Łódź (it's a large city in Poland and, since 2010, a sister city of LA). Most of the people who created Hollywood in early 20th century were Jews from Łódź. For the past few years David Lynch has been trying to create his film studio in Łódź, but now he's conflicted with the city's current mayor.

No, it's not Cyrillic, it's just Latin with diacritics. The Polish alphabet (like most European alphabets) is a derivation of the Latin script (it uses almost all letters of the English alphabet plus 9 letters with diacritics: ą, ć, ę, ł, ó, ń, ś, ź and ż). We never used Cyrillic, although theoretically it could work pretty well for Polish.
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German balloon fetish was mentioned in The Dark Crystal, but... balloon crucifixion? Now it's gotten really interesting. From now on, every WAYDM commentary should have a section dedicated to weird shit you can do with balloons.

Apparently some clueless studio executives think that Mars is unpopular among viewers right now (it might've been mentioned in the John Carter WAYDM commentary).

Michael Rennie was ill
The day the Earth stood still
But he told us where we stand...

Despite the obvious Cold War overtones, the movie holds up surprisingly well (especially when compared to other sci-fi movies of the 50s - most of them are downright unwatchable). The 2008 remake was bland and completely unnecessary (even though Keanu Reeves was an interesting casting choice), but the original is worth recommending. Don't be fooled by the poster - it's not some cheesy B-movie, but probably the best Hollywood sci-fi film of the decade.

I haven't been able to avoid the spoilers for the ending (the film is 9 years old), but I was pleasantly surprised by Million Dollar Baby nonetheless. In some respects, the movie feels like typical Oscar bait (a few standard heart-wrenching tropes are used), but overall, it's a pretty solid drama with good performances. If you're tired of 'splody action movies, Million Dollar Baby will provide some welcome relief.

When I was a preschooler, Fraggle Rock was on TV. The Gorgs scared the hell out of me. I was lucky they didn't air The Dark Crystal back then, 'cause those fucking puppets are even more creepy.

You mentioned On the Silver Globe... There's a fascinating story behind it. It was our most ambitious sci-fi movie project of the communist era, an adaptation of The Lunar Trilogy (novels from early 20th century by Jerzy Żuławski, the director's great-uncle; AFAIK, they were never translated into English). They've been shooting it for almost two years at locations all over the communist world - in Georgia, Mongolia, Ukraine and Poland. The only "special effects" were on-set explosions (the DP risked his life by running through them with a handheld camera) and a color correction pass (made to achieve an otherworldly look). There were no optical effects, because nobody in Poland knew how to do them properly. Nobody knew how to make realistic creatures either, so extraterrestial fish were created by putting feathers on eels and carps. Aliens were played by humans in cheesy costumes with wings (and lightbulbs in the foreheads).

After approximately 80% of the film were completed, the production was shut down by the Vice-Minister of Culture, supposedly because of budget overruns (the real reason was the "politically subversive" message of the movie). The spaceship mockup was abandoned on location somewhere in the Caucasus mountains, where it was found years later and mistaken for a crashed UFO. All other materials were supposed to be destroyed, but the negative survived in some warehouse under a heating radiator. 10 years later it was found and edited together with a voice-over filling in the gaps (the missing scenes couldn't be filmed, because some of the actors died). Since the director loved Star Wars, the alien Aviy was given a Vader-like voice.

Nobody in Poland (except for hardcore movie geeks) remembers the film today. Even TV channels dedicated to obscure Polish films don't like to air it. It was a little more popular around the world (among art fags, not the general audience). George Lucas purportedly liked it

Don't worry, Teague, NOBODY understands On the Silver Globe. The dialogue doesn't make more sense in the original Polish. Even David Lynch films are more comprehensible.

It's not the best comic book movie of all time. It's not even the best comic book movie of 2012... but it's a step in the right direction. The Amazing Spider-Man is entertaining enough to keep me awake and realistic enough to keep me interested. A definite improvement over the Sam Raimi trilogy.

Since I had nothing else to do, I watched Red Planet again. It's somewhat less pretentious than Mission To Mars and a little more entertaining, but still not a great movie. And it makes the same mistake - it assumes that the viewer doesn't remember what happened 15 minutes earlier. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two films.

I decided to revisit it just to analyze its flaws. Here's the biggest one: the movie doesn't trust the audience. The evolution CGI sequence is explained by unnecessary dialogue instead of relying on visual storytelling. Basically, it's the Space Odyssey series for idiots. There are visual "homages" to both 2001 and 2010 and a direct quote from the latter film (although, to be fair, the "piece of cake" line might've been accidental). In the 1950s, Mission To Mars would've been very impressive (especially when compared to typical sci-fi flicks of the era), but now it just feels hokey, dated and derivative.

I watched this again today. It's a rather straightforward story that's moderately entertaining, but not very imaginative. After all, it's an ancient tale, so maybe we shouldn't expect it to resemble a Chris Nolan film... but I kept thinking that the plot is a little too simplistic. Troy seems to have taken the path of least resistance more often than not. The Olympic gods don't even appear. And what's the deal with Achilles and Patroclus being cousins? IIRC, their relationship was usually portrayed... quite differently

Not an awful movie, but nothing to write home about either.

Is the Director's Cut any better? Has anyone seen it?

1. A really awesome adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. There were two attempts so far, but... The David Lynch movie leaves much to be desired and the TV miniseries had an inadequate budget.

2. A Babylon 5 movie. No, not another TV movie... A proper, big-budget theatrical release. The budget should be big enough to resurrect all Babylon 5 actors who passed away.

3. A film adaptation of Deus Ex (it's a PC FPS/RPG game from 2000). It's a dystopian vision of the future inspired by the zeitgeist of the 1990s, I don't know how well it would've worked for modern audiences... but I'd love to watch it.

No, it's not the same... I agree that my example is rather extreme. But the overall attitude is somewhat similar. Texting in a theater may seem innocent compared to outright vandalism, but they're both symptoms of a "fuck you, I'm more important than all of you" attitude.

Kids need to be taught some manners and that Disney experiment is a step in the wrong direction. Yeah, I know... I sound like an old prick

As long as this "audience participation" is confined to special screenings, I'm fine with that. But little kids may not understand the concept of a "special screening" and develop wrong habits (some already did). We wouldn't want Rocky Horror behavior at all screenings, right?