King Kong, 1976. I'll take Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange over either other cast any day. I'm on record as saying that somebody ought to somehow recut the 1976 and 2005 versions to keep the earlier cast and the later ape.

Jumanji, 1995. People seem to hate it but only ever cite the "unrealistic monkeys" as a reason, but I love it unabashedly.

And also Star Trek, 2009. I'm not blinded by the fact that it is great fun to the fact that it is utterly ridiculous nonsense.

You're right. And I would like to hear Brian-as-apologist. "But wait! This part is good!" "Not really, Brian."

I guess we should have had a clue when the venue was called "Meltdown". Ah well, it was a good run at a tricky idea. Looking forward to the download!

/Spent the free time honing my next Asylum script: *Ibid.: Footnote of Terror

"How do I do footnotes in Chicago style?"

"If he comes after you with a dagger, you go after him with a bullet! That's the Chicago way!"

George Lucas woulda fixed that shit in post. Booya.

Wasn't Marley & Me a tear-jerker? And that one where the black kid is abducted by Sandra Bullock and forced to play football despite his blindness? And everyone goes "Roo-dee! Roo-dee! Roo-dee!" Or whatever. I didn't see it.

I agree that disease-of-the-week movies are out of style, tho.

What?

Right. In a drama/comedy (which are the same thing), you typically want the audience invested in the emotional state of the hero because the stakes aren't otherwise very high. (Will she find love or will her heart be broken?!)

In a genre film, you typically want the audience invested in the physical state of the hero or his family and friends because that's usually what's at stake: you fail, you die.

But in both cases, it's perfectly possible to build in a character arc where the main characters (sometimes including the villain) are revealed and then eventually changed. That's just strong story-telling. But in genre, it's still quite satisfying to present a character who, in the course of the story, merely demonstrates his mettle.

• The Terminator is the best, most obvious example of the genre character arc: Sarah Connor is going to be killed unless she toughens up and fights back.

• In Die Hard, John McClane demonstrates his mettle but also learns something along the way about being a better husband—he actually has a long talk about it over the radio while he's doctoring his bloody feet. Classic.

• In Last Crusade, Indy learns his father wasn't just a neglectful obsessive; he thought he was giving Junior a great childhood. They both learn something about what's important ("Junior... let it go") while killing Nazis.

But does Indy change much by the end of Temple of Doom? Not really. Does Batman ever really learn anything or grow as a person in any movie except perhaps The Dark Knight? This is why Hollywood loves origin stories for superheroes. They provide an obvious opportunity for character growth.

Disaster movies (including zombie apocalypses) are more of the sort where people don't change; they just show what they're really like under pressure. Some step up and become heroes; some betray the others to try to save themselves. When this is done well, it feels like--and maybe even is--a character arc and is really satisfying (loaner MacReady takes charge in The Thing). When it's done badly, you just have nameless victims getting killed until the only one left is the one who didn't take off her top.

There's never any reason not to give a hero an emotional arc. But in genre, and especially in the sequels, it's often hard to do it.

• Dirty Harry doesn't change much in Dirty Harry, but he learns that it's no use working within a system that doesn't work, so he throws away his badge at the end.

• In Magnum Force, he learns that vigilante justice is also unworkable.

• By The Enforcer, Tyne Daly's character is needed to be a character that learns something new, because Callahan has seen it all.

So in sequels, writers usually introduce a new character to be the real center or to help the main character learn a new lesson.

• In Terminator 2, Sarah is pushed aside so that John can be the center of attention and grow into a hero.

• In Aliens, Ripley--whose inner mettle was revealed (along with her panties) in Alien--gets Hicks, Newt, and especially Bishop to help her learn about teamwork, humanity, and trust--all of which were subverted by the first film.

In short, there's nothing like a solid character arc to enhance your genre story, and all the better if the bad guy has an arc of his own.

And that's why Point Break is the greatest film of all time.

Morose women who were lonely teens have long written about lonely and morose teens for lonely and morose teens.

I hate them so much. Let's not let them sit next to us at lunch.

Oh yes, of course. How foolish of me.

Yeah, that's totally a valid question. Teague recognizes that Michael and Brian sometimes talk themselves into a surface analysis. But sometimes it's not so much what happens but how it happens that make it good or bad.

But Brian and Michael did recognize that here and talked about how different character reactions could have provided a perspective that made the movie more fun. I think Teague and Jake just provided that perspective for themselves. That's how I enjoyed Face/Off. ("Why were you laughing?" -- "Come, on! They sewed Nick Cage's face on John Travolta! That was hilarious!")*

Everybody made good points. But that was often true of Crossfire.**

* This statement does not constitute an endorsement of Face/Off.
** This statement does not constitute an endorsement of Pat Buchanan or Robert Novak.

I've already kicked myself for not bringing my DIF shirt on vacation to Europe last year. Totally blew that.