Planet Terror doesn't really lend itself to a lot of scene-by-scene analysis—which is probably why no one has ever done a commentary for it before. But I watch the movie with nearly every commentary I listen to, and I want to hear mostly about that movie. DIF is very good at not straying too far from that.

There was a part in the middle of this one where I was agreeing with John that the panel hadn't actually talked about the movie for a long stretch, but it was in the middle where not much was going on but monster-fighting.

EDIT...

Right. That's great stuff. For me, there was just more rambling about Tarantino and such than seemed relevant. Again, this is not the best movie to use as an example, because I certainly wouldn't have much to say about what was going on in each scene.

I liked Muppets From Space. My 8yo niece recently instituted a strict no muppet policy, so lately we've watched Frankenstein, The Goonies, The Wizard of Oz, and Austin Powers*. My niece and nephew had no problems with the opening of Oz, or all of Frankenstein, for that matter, but I'm sure it's a matter of conditioning. Next up are Gremlins and King Kong.

* Austin Powers, like Top Secret, required some fast-forwarding.**

** If I made movies, I would totally make family-friendly versions whenever possible and make them an extra on the DVD. I bet that would add more sales than hokey "unrated" versions do. Plus it's immediately useful as a TV edit.

Selleck as Indy would have required John Williams to drop in some hella sweet wacka-wacka guitar.

Pulp Fiction's weak link is QT himself, who joins M Night Shyamalan in the short list of directors who have tried but should not act.

One of the things I adore about Hot Fuzz is the way Simon Pegg isn't the specimen of physical perfection that you'd expect from a US supercop movie, like Will Smith in Bad Boys or Bruce Willis in Die Hard. But Pegg absolutely sells the character from that first march toward the camera in the opening.

/man crush

It's obvious that the Asylum modernizes classics because it's much cheaper than making period costumes and sets. It used to be just the opposite for the Brits, who had lots of Shakespearean costumes and old buildings lying around. (But Ian McKellan's Richard III was brought up to the 1940s and worked brilliantly.)

But I don't think any of the Musketeers movies have worked very well (including the Michael York one, IMO). I suspect the problem is that the story is a rip-roaring action tale, and any movie director who is good at doing action is no good at period drama, so they make the characters too ironic and flippant and self-aware. Anderson will be no exception.

They should make a movie about the candy bar instead.

Honestly, Paul WS Anderson, I don't want to hate you. I really don't. But you're not helping.

Happy birthday. Here is a baby owl.

re: subtitles... The subtitles on the DVD release of Bullitt had the trauma surgeon saying "get some balm" rather than "Metzenbaum" which are surgical scissors.

In the 2002 DVD release of Casablanca, the English subs say the letters of transit were signed by "General de Gaulle" (free French), which is stupid. The French subs say "General Weygand" (Vichy French), which is correct. (Roger Ebert complaining about the screenwriters' "mistake" in his commentary is one of the main things that made my close personal friend Tysto want do to fan commentaries.)

Those two things tell me that—at least sometimes—subtitles are created by watching the movie and guessing at the dialog.

Either way, Kee's life is going to involve a lot of medical poking and prodding. If they'd gone public, she could have lived a half-way normal life as a celebrity like Baby Diego. But Theo delivers her into the hands of a secretive organization with a hazy agenda whose best method of getting the most important person alive out of the UK was "walk her thru a civil war and put her in a row boat. Don't be late. We're not waiting."

However, my biggest problem is still with Theo. Redxavier credits him with acting to escape the farm, but he does so ONLY because he finds they're going to kill him and use the girl for political purposes. The only things he does that aren't driven by money or survival are staying with Kee after the reveal in the barn and going after Kee when the bad guys snatch her in the refugee camp. In both cases, there is zero internal conflict—he has a miserable life and would have to be heartless to say no.

Worse, Theo is surrounded by a civil war and NEVER EVEN PICKS UP A WEAPON. He fails to get a bulletproof vest for Kee because he panics and flees instead of stripping Syd's body. He even fails to get SHOES even tho he has a car, money, and plenty of time before AND after going to Jasper's. He is a TERRIBLE HERO.

Just caught up with this and didn't care for it. Yes, it looks great and is effective on a (manipulative) emotional level, but otherwise it's dreadful. Aside from the bleakness of the setting, which just doesn't interest me, especially because it doesn't interest the protagonist (it's literally just a series of obstacles), it's the fact that the protagonist is utterly passive and uninteresting.

He gets involved because only a complete bastard wouldn't care about the only pregnancy in 19 years. He's executing some half-assed hand-me-down plan cobbled together for him by two different people that takes him right thru the heart of a civil war zone.

And he's delivering the girl to—as far as I can tell—elves who will take her to a magical land of plenty, where she and her baby absolutely will not be subjected to a torturous array of medical tests, the way the British government would. Good luck with that.

Also, I hate Guernica. THAT IS NOT WHAT PEOPLE LOOK LIKE, PICASSO.

I say we all pitch in and buy Teague a Zoom H2...

Run a line out from the mixing board to Zoom's line-in. No more lost recordings.