1.) I guess generally I'm sort of fast and at a medium volume. But I sometimes lapse into a mumble.

2.) Also that sort of flat, regionless American thing.

3.) Doesn't really make a difference to me. If I had to pick something I'd say I'm probably best at irritated or cluelessly happy.

4.) Nothing comes to mind.

5.) I'm pretty fluent.

6.) First thing that popped into my head was In Bruges, so I'll go with that, I guess.

I'm so tired of this overused, absurd phrase. I despise the special editions, there's not a single addition that I think helps the films, unless we want to count the digital recompositing work they did on the original elements. But Lucas didn't rape my childhood. Lucas pretty much gave me my childhood. The original Star Wars trilogy was a big part of my life, and a huge inspiration to me.

So he changed the movies, and in my opinion made them worse. And he refuses to release the original versions on blu-ray. The only way I can watch the versions I grew up with is those cruddy 4:3 letterbox DVD bonus feature versions. But that's not raping my childhood. That's pissing me off as an adult. Lucas' behavior today doesn't ripple back in time and affect what the original films did for my childhood. Nothing can take that away. Maybe he's robbing me from reliving that today, but nostalgia is overrated anyhow.

And the best part is... Lucas didn't put the versions I wanted out on blu-ray, so y'know what? I didn't buy them. Because nobody made me. I never have to see Greedo shoot first unless I want to, for some reason.

I feel better after reading this thread. Haven't been won over by these trailers either. I'm REALLY not digging the cinematography on display in the Avengers material we've seen so far. If it's not an action scene (or a low-angle shot, apparently...), they seem to be taking a, "Yeah, whatever, point the camera in the general direction of whoever's talking," kind of stance. With flat lighting, to boot. Joss Whedon devoted a whole featurette on the Serenity DVD to loving on Jack Green and his extended family... why the hell wasn't he contacted for this?

On top of that, of the Avengers ground-work movies I've seen... Iron Man's... And Iron Man 2 told me that talented people could make a bad movie with RDJ's Tony Stark in it, plus the Avengers tie-ins annoyed me. I know I'm can't be the only one getting a Transformers vibe from this trailer, and I'm so bored with superheroes at this point.

As for Joss Whedon, I pretty much take Teague's stance. I think he's a clever guy, and I always like hearing what he has to say, but I don't think I could call myself a Whedon fan. I like Firefly/Serenity and Dr. Horrible (and Toy Story, if that counts). I was sort of excited when they announced that the project was in his hands, if only for the prospect of hearing Robert Downey Jr. do Whedon dialogue. And yet after the trailers I find myself more interested in Cabin in the Woods than Avengers.

All that said... Scarlett Johansson looked seriously gorgeous in this trailer. I want to spend an afternoon with her in a small-town general store and buy her a butter churn or something.

For a while after it came out, I was totally in love with The Dark Knight. I had followed the production intensely, got involved in he viral marketing (and still have the free shit to prove it) and I was just totally amped for it. I saw it at a midnight showing, and again a week later, and I was just crazy about it. But four years later... It's still a very good movie, I think. But personally, I've cooled on superheroes. So there's a loss of luster there. It's far from the masterpiece I initially thought, and I've just lost most of my enthusiasm for it.

But also, upon rewatch, it doesn't hold up so well in comparison to its predecessor. I find myself much preferring Batman Begins. Begins is a very good movie that goes off the rails a bit in the third act. All of The Dark Knight is better than act three of Begins, but nothing in it hits the same highs as the first two-thirds of Begins. I have much the same feelings about the Iron Man movies, actually. Though specifically with Dark Knight, the Joker is better than the movie he's in. I think Heath Ledger deserved every bit of praise he got, and not just because they carted his naked ass out of a hotel room shortly before the release. He created a really interesting character that was straight out of the comics while also startlingly different from the Nicholson and Hamill portrayals.

One of the biggest downsides of The Dark Knight for me, though, are the visuals. If you just look at the film... It's Heat with DeNiro and Pacino in silly costumes. Gotham City is just Chicago, and that's lame. It's a flat, boring-looking movie with an obnoxious blue tint. Which is especially egregious because Begins is so beautiful. It's got atmosphere, there's a very film noir vibe to the photography in that film, and it makes Gotham feel so much more alive to me. Dark Knight needed the Narrows so hard.

And if I'm nit-picking more, Danny Elfman is a much better Batman composer than Hans Zimmer, who I've never cared for, and TDK underutilized the treasure that is Cillian Murphy.

As far as Batman's voice, I didn't have any problem understanding him in Dark Knight. That said, I prefer the Begins voice. Can't understand a damn word that's come out of Bane's mouth so far, though...

So I let my Western boner control me, and I posted before I'd listened to the second half of the commentary. Where you guys both mentioned Assassination of Jesse James and asked about a self-aware Western, the equivalent of Galaxy Quest or Shaun of the Dead, after realizing you couldn't think of one off the top of your heads.

To which I offer up a tentative, Shanghai Noon? I haven't seen it in about a decade, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details. But as I recall, it treats its story fairly straight-faced while simultaneously poking fun at the genre tropes, usually with the Owen Wilson character. It's not on the same level of quality as Galaxy Quest and Shaun of the Dead, but I think it's trying to do the same kind of thing. I remember it being reasonably amusing, if totally disposable. But again... ten years. This is an attempt to answer the question, not a recommendation.

I'll go ahead and recommend The Man With No Name trilogy, or the Dollars trilogy, or whatever one cares to call it. Referring to A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Not REALLY a trilogy in the strictest sense, for those who didn't know. Those were, personally, the movies that showed me I could actually enjoy Westerns, a genre which I had had no interest in up until then. I love Sergio Leone's visual style so much, and the way he's able to build tension in a scene is amazing.

The thing I like about those in relation to Unforgiven is that Eastwood is pretty much playing the same character as he was in those three films. Munny is very much the natural progression of... I'll go with Blondie, because that's my favorite of Eastwood's no names.

I'll also second the recommendation of High Noon and Two Mules For Sister Sara, because why not?

This was hands down my favorite episode of the Intermission. I love hearing honest behind the scenes stories like this, as opposed to the documentaries and commentaries you get on new releases where everybody was great friends and every aspect of the film is amazing. I haven't seen Ark since it was released, but I'll have to check it out again after hearing all this. I don't remember ever noticing any green screen shots beyond the obvious, "that couldn't have been done any other way," kind of stuff.

Definitely hope you guys do more episodes like this. Any chance Dorkman could do one about The Descendants? I read the stuff he posted on his blog, but I think it'd be fascinating to hear more detail there. Although as I recall he maybe had to remove a post about it from his blog or something? So maybe that isn't possible.

I found this really hypnotic:

For anybody who's interested in that sort of thing, fxguide did a really interesting article on the Captain America Skinny Steve stuff they talk about here at length. There are a few cool before and after images, and a pretty in depth description of the process. http://www.fxguide.com/featured/case-st … rica-wimp/

Really enjoyed this episode. Love bake-off stories.

Man, I've been a fan of your stuff for a while, but this is easily my favorite. Very unique, and I have absolutely no idea where it's going. And it could seemingly go ANYWHERE, which makes it exciting. I hope you do more episodes.

Also... love the fedora robot.

I'm interested in seeing a bunch, but there are only five I'm guaranteed to see in theaters. So... good cap, guy.

1.) Seven Psychopaths
2.) Skyfall
3.) Prometheus
4.) The Dark Knight Rises
5.) The Hobbit