The photo of Andre made me smile.

Dicks.

Let's see 'em.

Thanks for the spoiler Doc!

The fourth pillar of Islam is Zakat, or communal charity.  Everyone gives a percentage of their wealth to a communal pool that can be used by anyone in need.  Decidedly un-hooey like.

I'm in a strange spot.  I certainly don't believe in the singular, masculine, consciousness as defined in virtually all monotheistic religions.  Nor do I believe that the universe expresses itself in a pantheon of fizziness as most pantheistic religions claim.  I certainly do not believe in any kind of afterlife, nor in any particular creation myth.  But I harbor no animosity to any believer of any kind.  I make no value judgment on their intellect, how they came to their faith, or how they express it.  Are a lot of believers dumb?  Fucking duh.  Who the fuck cares?  I share a lot of opinions with my non-believer friends, but I get very antsy when through their arguments they express their beliefs as an expression of virtue or intellectual gift.   

Because bottom line, it's the action that matters.  I don't give a crap what the nicest, strongest, most caring people I know do on Sundays or read in their off time, as long as they continue to live a virtous life based on deed.  Nor do I give a whit if some douchebag makes very cogent arguments that I personally agree with if he's still a douchebag (no one here, obviously).  Religion or non belief are merely expressions of our character, not the fount of it.  We cling to belief systems that fit our character.  If you were raised one way, you'll eventually land on what you were always meant to be someday (just like my Grandmother, raised atheist, became a baptist, and just like my father, raised baptist, became agnostic). 

For my part, people know that I'm a Soto sect Zen Buddhist.  That is not my religion, as Buddhism isn't one, nor does it try to be one.  It doesn't address creation myth nor afterlife.  But through it's study I've realized some hard truths.  None of us are special.  No one is unique.  Sure, if you look closely you see some differences, but if you zoom out, we are all (believer and non alike) silly humans doing silly human shit.  If I zoom in super tight on a 10'000 fps camera footage of rain, I could probably make out differences in each rain drop.  But I don't go "Wow, look at the millions of falling unique puddles," I say, "Huh...rain".

I would never say "I am humble," because the mere act of doing so is a giant face palm.  I would say that I strive for humilty. So approaching this argument of believers vs non, I will say, who the fuck am I to even give a crap about how people arrive at their beliefs.  It's one thing to recognize that yes, belevers by and large may in fact exercise less mental agility than non.  It's another thing to take pride in it though, and relish in the difference like it makes you special somehow.  Dorkman mentions preferring the Renaissance to the modern middle east.  I would submit that in the grand story of our species, both periods are tiny blips that again, don't matter to much.  Neither was ultimately the defining moments in our existence.  Religion and non-belief are nothing new, and the story of our species will not be determined by faith.  All we want to do is punch, fuck, eat, and sleep.  Our belief systems are built around those things.  And regardless of how much they actually do it, a hardcore believer wants to punch and or fuck as many things as I do.   So regardless of how much my ego tells me, at the end of the day, I'm not in any way significantly different from a believer.

She Brianed Me With Science.

Ten years later they'll mellow their sound out and call themselves Cunt Faggots 9/11 Starship.

I would be a bit hesitant to do that.  I think our glossary sets up our terms and provides context for what we look for, but I think if there's one lesson we've learned over the course of our run is that there's no real recipe for a good movie.  I view it as that good movies tend to have certain things in common, as opposed to there being some sort of instruction manual for a good film.  There are many films where things technically shouldn't work, but sometimes do.  Sometimes a movie doesn't break any rules at all, but can still lack a certain magic that would make it memorable.  The path to a bad movie is a lot easier to identify than that of a good one.  Maybe my fellow DiF'ers disagree, but that's how I see it.

I like the trend of John Hurt as Dr. Rex McPkAnk being in all of these.

Happy Madison proudly presents Assault and Batteries!

Smip Parph (Dana Carvey) is an idiot with a heart of gold, working as a copper smelter.  His life is made up of slipping on things and constantly accidentally(?) peeing on his grandmother(Sharon Stone), until one day when he accidentally discovers an illegal AA battery counterfeit ring.  These batteries stink!  They don't even last 5 minutes!  Smip is brutally, and understandably gunned down and peed on, until his smoking body is discovered by Dr. Rex McPkAnk (John Hurt), an Army General AND a Laser Scientist.  He rebuilds the bumbling, lovable idiot Smip, into a Cyborg armed to the teeth with revenge and lasers that shoot chainsaws.  After a cybernetically enhanced love scene with his childhood crush, Emma (Ruth Buzzy) Smip heads off for one last case.  On his way, he trips.

Your movie is: Memories of a memory

Ugh.  This again.

I would not be here, if not for Star Wars.  As much as I rightfully bitch about what good ole' MeatBeard has made in the last 20 years, I cannot understate how huge Star Wars was on my life, and I reckon most if your lives as well.  Every time I hear this throw the baby with the bathwater mentality, I just laugh.   If you truly gained more pain from the prequels than joy from the OT, then you deserve what you get.  For my money, George made 3 SW movies I like, and 3 I didn't.  George's filmography from here on out could be special special editions of the OT where he digitally adds himself in the movie, wearing a Jimmy Carter mask and buttfucking every character on screen, every time they're on camera, and I STILL wouldn't get rid of Star Wars.