I guess I'll be the voice of experience....

[old man voice]
Everybody ought to see Buster Keaton's The General, Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush, and the Marx Brothers' Night at the Opera just to see if they like that sort of thing, because there's a bunch more where that came from. Similarly, Bob Hope was once a funny guy. Check out Ghost Breakers or My Favorite Blonde before his Road movies with Bing Crosby.

His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby are the classic screwball comedies. But I'd highly recommend One, Two, Three, a rapid-fire James Cagney screwball that I like better than Billy Wilder's more acclaimed ones, Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment.

Arthur fell out of favor for depicting a funny drunk. Silver Streak and Stir Crazy are from the same period, if you like Richard Pryor. Hopscotch is kind of a forgotten classic of clever comedy. I love Foul Play and the original The Italian Job, both of which are mixed with adventure.

On the nebbish end of the scale, some people swear by early- to mid-Woody Allen, particularly Annie Hall. I'm not one of them. If you like the absurdity of Airplane, you'd probably like Top Secret, and don't overlook the first Naked Gun and even Police Academy 1 and maybe 2.

Creeping into the modern era, I suggest The Survivors, Trading Places, and Stripes, which are kind of second-tier to the big guns like Ghostbusters but shouldn't be overlooked.

For stuff made after you were born, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, A Fish Called Wanda, and My Cousin Vinnie were huge when they came out and seem to be a bit forgotten. Along those lines, I have a weakness for Drowning Mona that I can't explain, so I'll mention it.

If you're willing to go to television-on-video and like stuff that requires you be smart to enjoy it, then Red Dwarf and The Blackadder should be added to anything labeled Monty Python as genius-level Britcom.

Others can recommend stuff from the 90s and beyond.
[/old man voice]

Oh, that wasn't a riddle. It was a quote. I guess we're at an impasse. I can't compete with you physically. And you're no match for my brains.

Correct, of course.

The Thing?

Sorry, I left Buckaroo Banzai expecting someone else to answer, but it appears that this battle of wits has come down to you, and it has come down to me.

Have you ever heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons.

Yeah. I'd rather see a thread for the movie as soon as it is recorded so discussion can go there, since anyone in the chatroom has effectively heard the commentary. Or better still, create an episode thread for them when they are announced for recording, rather than just making this thread longer and longer with pre-discussion of each film.

Whoa. That's a very interesting way of looking at things. I don't think I like "Fictional History" tho. There's a lot more going on in them than just fake history. Wild Wild West probably belongs in Science, for instance.

And isn't Fantasy Universe the same as a wonderland? If you did Alice in Wonderland, is that where it would go?

EDIT: Wait! Moby Dick was an ALIEN?! HOLY SHIT!

No no! Good shooting form is not to flinch, altho that's probably a lot harder with a flintlock, so it actually would be appropriate.

I just always thought it was funny that, in Lethal Weapon, Gibson flinches badly every time he fires even tho he's supposed to be a world-class sniper while Glover actually shows quite good form and doesn't blink when he shoot. Schwarzenegger was also quite a blinker—even when he played a robot killing machine.

/slightly saddened at putting that last statement in the past tense

If Emma Thompson had traded the family cow for the magic typewriter at the beginning, that would have been AWESOME.

Or an old Asian man could have told her not to get it wet or feed it after midnight. Or Harrison Ford could have explained it and simultaneously scoffed at it three or four ways. Or Morpheus... Or Spock Prime... Or Optimus Prime... Or Casper Gutman... Or Doc Brown... Or a video of a clone of Emma Thompson... Or a legend at the beginning... Or Superman's dad... Or an e-mail that Emma Thompson only skimmed... Or...

"Wading" really threw me off, but otherwise cool.

Full-out Tall Gear

Cop out?! What are you talking about?! Before putting his plan in motion, he tunneled under every cell in the prison without anyone noticing and then arranged to get sent to that prison when he was caught. Simple!

My choice would probably be Die Hard. Such a great setup, fantastic hero, and one the greatest villains of all time very nearly ruined by the relentless, cartoonish idiocy of the police. I'd have McClane unable to raise the alarm for longer, then have the cops act sensibly but be stymied by Gruber's brilliant planning and ability to improvise.

If I couldn't do it with the young Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, then I'd choose Citizen Kane and cast Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johannson and put in a bunch of explosions, sex, and possibly sexplosions.

You didn't say the goal was improving on the original artistically.

Say Anything?

Okay, here it is. But I have to confess, the third act is a little wonky....

THE HAND THAT HUNG THE STARS

PROLOG
An Earth-like planet is discovered in the Qualus Eminus star system by a team led by Paul Festerberg, a brilliant but eccentric scientist who often takes off his socks and shoes in meetings "to help him think". The planet is named "Qualus 1". They keep the discovery silent until they can form some theories about it.

ACT 1
Paul gets pressured by US government officials about rumors of an incredible discovery. Paul formally reveals Qualus 1 to top officials. They vow to keep it secret until they know more. Qualus 1 is so similar to Earth that the only conclusion is that they were both designed and built by a race of superpowerful aliens for the purpose of experimenting with life. Paul discovers that the location of Qualus 1 is one of several locations pointed to by mysterious signals detected on the moon several years earlier and the reason his team was asked to target it.

An old discovery, more than a decade old, suggesting that humans have serial numbers embedded in their DNA is revived. Paul seeks out its discoverer, Braille Cardreve (his parents were deaf), an authority on forms of communication, who has been in and out of mental institutions. The going theory is that humans were designed for Earth by the aliens.

At Lymon's urging, the officials get Paul together with Kate Joss, the head of the mission to build a permanent base on the moon called "Holdfast". A hatch has been discovered on the moon in a region being cleared for the base. A large temporary base called "Wirework" already exists there for "astrotechs" doing the work.

ACT 2
The astrotechs' investigation of the hatch triggers a mysterious event, resulting in the hologram of a tall, thin-necked, humanoid alien appearing before the astronauts. Holograms of the aliens begin appearing randomly on earth. They do and say nothing. The news about Qualus 1 gets out. This and the appearance of aliens throws the world into turmoil.

Paul is called on the carpet by the President of the United States. Paul, Kate, and Braille urge the US leadership to make a public statement. The president makes a momentous speech explaining that mankind is on the verge of the most important discovery in history: our own origin. The turmoil is not completely resolved, but a mysterious "situation in Chechnya" that had been worrying officials happily dissolves.

Astrotechs open the hatch and look around inside. Enormous and mysterious equipment points at but does not penetrate the ceiling. Man-sized pods appear to be control stations. It is a giant, abandoned, radio observatory for watching Earth. Mission commander Mark Lollibrae gets into a pod and finds his consciousness suddenly transported to Earth. He shifts his thoughts to the United Nations building in New York. In seconds, he is able to appear in front of the UN delegates and make an address to the world community—in the holographic form of one of the aliens. This throws the world back into turmoil.

ACT 3
From their investigation of the observatory, the team discovers that the aliens left their own DNA samples. The astrotechs secure the samples and send them back to Earth. After analyzing the alien DNA, they find that it is essentially human. Meanwhile, Paul's team discovers a third Earth-like planet, creating great confusion among the scientific community as well as the public.

Then Paul's great-uncle dies, and he inherits a small circus of performing animals, including four ducks, three dog clowns, two ponies, a chimp, a dancing bear, and a Bengal tiger. They are delivered to his small apartment. Paul quits his job at NASA and tries to sell them on eBay. But when a buyer for the tiger arrives, Paul finds that he can't steel his heart to separate them.

Macaroni the pony gets sick with comical sneezes, and Paul take him to a beautiful large animal veterinarian named Keesha Callum. The two go on a date, but the circus animals follow them and create havoc in the restaurant. Keesha suggests Paul take his circus to her parents' farm. They have a great time, altho Keesha's father John, who builds model yachts, is repeatedly comically frightened or frustrated by the animals' antics.

But Senator Pete Randolph—who has learned that Marvin the dancing bear came from Russia and has wears a collar that was used to smuggle secret communications technology and suspects that it's still there—has Marvin kidnapped. Paul and Keesha race to stop the NSA agents smuggling Marvin out of the country, and all the circus animals help in a madcap last-minute rescue that results in Paul and Keesha confessing their love for one another. Paul and Keesha move to her parents' farm together with the animals. Keesha's father John even finds ways the animals can help him build his model yachts.