Karate Kid in a no brainer.

It epitomizes the 80's for me.  The Reagan era optimism, the music, the fashion (check out Macchio wearing camo pants, with a TUCKED in flannel shirt with no belt) the dialogue (you couldn't just leave well enough alone, could ya, ya little twerp!).  Everything screams 80's.

Beyond that, its a classic Campbell heroes journey and actually very accurate in its depiction of  Martial Arts philosophy, if not techniques.  Make no mistake, the fighting in Karate Kid is not good in a quantifiable sense.  But as a story of a fatherloss son and a sonless father who find each other, and how the student can be just as important to the teacher, its unparalleled.

Runner up is Real Genius.  I have so much affection for the tone of that movie.  It wasn't nerds vs jocks, it was nerds vs other nerds, with national security and college as a backdrop.

I'm not gonna lie Beldar...there's not a LOT of interest in Anime from the cast members, but stranger things have happened.  I wouldn't mind something larger and historical though, like an Akira or a Princess Mononoke.

If anyone comes after Brian or calls him Ladymouth, you can expect THIS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RugI_SBO … r_embedded

I defend you, Brian.

Creatively screwed over is kind of objective.  Examples?

Yes.  AI posits the theory that humans are the real monsters/heartless machines.  A theme that has never been explored in cinema before, especially in every zombie movie ever.

And your theory about how subversive and misanthropic a film it would be would hold water if not for the fact that Spielberg completely cuts the legs out from underneath his own argument in the last act.  You want brutal and nihilistc?  *Spoiler* leave Haley at the bottom of the ocean.  Pull out, fade to black, credits.  That would have taken my breath away and I wold have thought the movie brilliant.  But no.  We have to have the hollywood ending where this MACHINE that is not actually capable of feeling at all, but is by the films own admission just a complicated series of algorithms, gets an alien family that loves him and the happy ending after an extra long life.  Nothing about that is subversive.  Nothing about that is challenging.  Nothing about that is brutal.  He experiences hardship before being treated to heaven.  That's nihilism, that is the book of Job.

No, I meant to say he also works in the normal film industry in that I do too.  He does NOT work in porn.

Heh.  I used to work at Playboy TV and I have many friends in the porn biz, so here we go.

1)  One of my best friends had a 4 way with 3 other girls.  I independently verified this.   

2)  The first girl I slept with (who was also a virgin) later went on to have a 3 year relationship with a woman.  For valentines day one year, they had a "photoset" of them having sex done by a photographer friend of theirs.  By the end of it, he had to excuse himself to the restroom. 

3)  Around 1999, I was training in Jiu Jitsu at Jean Jacques Machado's school here in the valley.  The valley is where all your porn comes from.  Therefore, we had a few industry pros train at our school, like Vince Voyeur.   Vince is a cool guy, and we used to go over to his place in Calabassas to watch fights.  There was another guy I trained with named Alan.  Nice as can be, very good at Jiu Jitsu, but would not SHUT UP.  He was always talking to Vince about the industry, and Vince would oblige him.  One day I come into class and as I'm stretching out, Alan is going on about how Vince let him appear in a scene.  "Holy shit, you got laid?" I asked.  "No!  I was just like an extra in the scene.  It was with Vince and Belladonna." he said.  I asked him where they shot it, with a tiny bit of dread creeping into my brain.  "Right here!" Alan said, not seeing a problem at all with this.  I had never done a kip up before, bt there's a first time for anything.  "Tell me you fucking cleaned up afterwards..." I begged.  Alan assured me he used a quarter bottle of bleach on the mats afterwards, and even pointed out where on the mats Vince violated Bella.  Like I said, he's a nice guy.

4)  I worked on all 3 seasons of Flavor of Love.  In season 2, Flav and the girl dubbed "New York" retired for an evening in his bedroom, presumably to discuss how the policies of Margaret Thatcher were closer to political theorist Michael Oakeshott than to her American counterpart Ronald Reagan.  In actuallity, they wanted to fuck.  And fuck they did, behind privacy of closed doors.....WITH THEIR MIC'S STILL ON.  I spent 20 minutes on a meeting with my bosses of how much of New York screaming "THAT SHIT IS PROPER!" we could bleep without losing it's overall effectiveness.

5)  I was at a "Porn Premiere" party for a friend of mine (whose name, no bullshit, was SAL GENOA) who was making his directorial debut.  He was a buddy of mine from my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class.  The place I train at, I also train with Joe Rogan, and he is a friend of mine of many years.  Joe, myself, and some guys from my school  were hanging out and all we kept hearing about was how the "star," of the film, Gia Paloma,  was going to show up soon.  We got constant updates of her status; how she was on her way, the limo was running late, etc.  No one gave a shit.   Now, what was unique about this "premiere," was that it was held outside, in the parking lot of Anabolic studios, and the film was projected onto a 40 ft wall on the side of the studio.  We all found it odd that it was an audience of mostly guys, watching a porn outside, but whatever.  My friend Erwann also works in the normal film industry, so all night we were comparing Sal's work to that of an early Truffaut or Goddard.  Anyway, the scene with Gia eventually comes up, and sure enough, her scene consists of her getting gorilla fucked in every orifice imaginable.  Just then, a limo pulls up.  "She's here, everyone!" screamed some insane person.  The first person to step out was not in fact Gia, but a regular looking dude whose face went so white he officially became a reflective surface in the dark.  A beat later out steps Gia, who looks at the guy and says the greatest sentence ever:

"Oh....I was gonna tell you..."

I have never before or since heard Joe laugh that goddamn hard.  Joe spent the rest of the party talking to the dude because he had to know the whole story.  He ended up getting a picture with both of them by the end of the night (which I don't have anymore) and he's smiling so big you think he met Santa Claus.

Oh, and top 5 musicians/groups that started bad but became great.

I would love to do Ratatouille since I love Pixar and I love to cook.  Gattaca I have a lot of love for.Serenity is inevitable.  AI I hate worse than Cloe hates Pan's Labrynth.  Seriously, I'm a nice enough guy but I turn into a relentless hate machine when that movie is even mentioned.

That's fascinating.  Why does a persons build matter in respect to their ability to make ha-ha's?

My wife moved out here from Buffalo to pursue dance.  I work in LA as an editor, and therefore I have to be in the city.  I'd love to live in San Diego or move back to Hawaii, but that's just not in the cads for the foreseeable forever.

Oddly enough, when I met my wife, her brother was graduating high school and not sure what to do with his life.  He visited, and saw what I did, and he absolutely fell in love with film.  He even interned as a highlight editor for Buffalo Sabres games.  He's leaning more towards being a shooter these days, but he's got a real eye and some raw talent that he's sharpening up.  Him and his girlfriend are probably going to move out here  when he graduates from UB.  So with both of their kids eventually living out here, my in laws are probably going to end up retiring out here in ten years or so.

Dr. Dre is iffy...he had already rapped and produced 3 NWA albums by that point.  Not sure if it counts.