I would make some snarky retort about how it's a movie about angsty high school girls, but realistically....

That really doesn't get used as often as it should.

I gotta side with Trey here. Fillion's fanbase may be virulent, but it could be killed with a liberal application of penicillin.

And Castle was fun for a while, but the show has gone all weird by forgetting that it's best when it's half comedy, not half Lifetime movie. At this point, I'd rather watch a Nikki Heat TV show. She gets laid.

/grumpy for no reason 

Has somebody said Dreamcatcher yet? Because I'm watching it now, and talk about multiple magic beans.... This movie is about 4 completely different ideas smooshed together, and it couldn't find a consistent tone with a pitch pipe.

But its provenance is gold: Stephen King, William Goldman, Lawrence Kasdan, and an A-list cast that includes Morgan Freeman AND Tom Sizemore as black ops helicopter pilots.

Yeah, John may be thinking of a sweet spot in the early-to-mid-'70s when things had loosened up, but that was short-lived.

In the studio era, one guy ran the studio, but he had a hell of a lot to say about the movies that got made there. He assigned the cast and crew, and they made his picture. Movies were carefully crafted around stars and starlets... or they were thrown together in a few months because there was a crew sitting around earning a salary with nothing to shoot.

Once the studio system collapsed, the studios got taken over by corporations who really did let film makers have a lot of leeway but also started demanding more certainty of profit. And thanks to Jaws and Star Wars, everybody thought they could make a blockbuster.... AND they mostly didn't want to shoot on the back lot or on a cheap and reliable sound stage.

You could remake Casablanca today for $1 million plus cast salaries. AND HAVE DINOSAURS.

Looks great, but kind of clumsy in a standard 1024-wide display.

I think DIF works best as an in-room discussion, but I've certainly enjoyed plenty of commentaries that used Skype's high-quality audio. TalkShoe still sucks balls, tho.

John Pavlich with Tysto over Skype, with Pavlich's side using the Skype recording (via Call Graph)...
http://www.tysto.com/podpress_trac/web/ … -Tysto.mp3

John Pavlich with Tysto over Skype, with the local recordings composited together...
http://www.tysto.com/podpress_trac/web/ … -Tysto.mp3

The differences in John's voice are noticeable but minimal. The microphone makes a substantial difference, of course. Pavlich uses a Blue Snoball. Tysto uses a Samson CO3U. PotterFicWeekly uses Skype with a variety of headsets and desk mikes of varying quality.

Cultdom Collective uses TalkShoe with, I believe, headsets...
http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-54821/TS-544382.mp3

But nothing beats the Down in Front pro-style mixing board setup. Smooth like butter.

No problem.

I liked Cherry and Dakota too, but I don't feel like they're all that compelling as characters. But I also don't think that Planet Terror is trying to tics all the boxes for critics. Rodriguez is generally pretty good at tiptoeing around my inner critic without rousing him from his nap. QT always shakes him awake and hands him a coffee.

/tries not to look up cake porn

When I first saw them, I liked Planet Terror more because it was fun. But I found myself thinking about Death Proof more, especially in terms of how it plays with tension, expectations, and structure. If the challenge was "make a grindhouse-style picture that doesn't suck" both are winners.

QT often bugs me because of how he too often has his characters parrot his own sentiments (and Abernathy, Stuntman Mike, and Zoe are ALL doing it in DP). But RR often bugs me because of how he sometimes goes over the top from ridiculously cool to ridiculously dumb.

Yeah, just decide more in advance what the topic will be and let the discussion play out, whether it's 25 minutes or 30 minutes or 45 minutes. But I certainly wouldn't want it to devolve either into "What did you do/watch this week?" or "Top 5 greatest movies about dogs" or whatever.

I think the Final Cut Pro debacle might make for an interesting episode. I know nothing of the software, but I think the dynamic from insiders is interesting (as long as it's not a total bitch session, that is).

"Trends in visual effects" might also be good. What will define this period of movies in terms of effects look? Particle effects? Wonky green screen? Lifeless motion capture? (Like opticals defined the 30s and 40s, rear projection and bad models defined the 50s, avoidance of effects defined the 60s, etc.)

I'm also interested in things that still hinder the movie industry. It's always amazed me that it's apparently cheaper to hire a guy (plus orchestra) to score a whole movie than to license pop songs—even ones that weren't big hits. (If nothing else, it seems like old movie scores would be recycled.) It seems like even crappy low budget films have good visual effects, props, costumes, "film stock," and sound, so what do the Robert Rodriguezes of tomorrow or even the major productions still struggle with?

This may help....

World Time Zones at Zarban.com

(Down in Front is in the Pacific time zone.)

Better still: since he was the voice of Robin on Magnum PI, it means you're only three steps away from TOM SELLECK.