Spielberg now says that the reason for Roy abandoning his family was because he didn't understand the implications, not having had a family of his own. He now says that, were he to make the movie today, Roy would never have done that.

However, I think it works very well dramatically. Roy's whole arc is about obsession, and him leaving his family without notice is a great way to address it. The movie ignores the family, just like Roy does. Roy is the protagonist, and if the audience feels bad about him leaving his family, they can't be happy about Roy making it to Devil's Tower.

Oh, and by the way, since it apparently was missed for the second time, (I tried in the live chat, Teague left the room. I tried in this thread, you all started talking about Alice in Wonderland porn), YOU GUYS SHOULD TOTALLY DO 'CLOSE ENCOUNTERS'.

Then again, 12 Angry Men isn't a musical, and it certainly doesn't have elaborate dance numbers and set pieces. Also, Sidney Lumet is a good filmmaker. Chris Columbus, I think we can all agree, is not.

I remember hearing an interview with Peter Morgan about Frost/Nixon, in which he said that he had written the original play with the idea that it would be extremely difficult to adapt to film. He went on to praise Ron Howard for doing just that. Again, that's because Ron Howard knows how to shoot a movie. I was watching the second Potter film the other night, and there are some really terrible shots that I had never noticed before. Sorry Chris Columbus, you just aren't that great.

I was biased against it from the start. I hate Rent. The characters that I don't find insufferable are totally wasted. Everybody loves Angel so much, but it baffles me as to why. I mean, Angel kills the cat at the beginning! Literally! Angel murders a dog for money! How am I supposed to like any character who does that, and how am I supposed to feel bad when that character dies?

Ugh. I don't want to be all elitist, like "Oh, those bohemian folks in New York, wasting their lives on ART," because I don't really feel that way. But the characters feel completely flat. Why is Collins in the story? Oh, you know. 'Cause. The only really interesting, sympathetic characters are Roger, Mimi, and Mark, but Mark does absolutely nothing, and Roger and Mimi's plot is totally wasted to make room for Joanne and Maureen, who, once again, do nothing interesting. It's fine to have multiple plotlines, as long as they are somewhat interesting, but Joanne and Maureen aren't.

That said, the music is absolutely fantastic. It's everything that I want in a contemporary musical. I just wish that it had a decent story to go along with it.

The other big reason that they did Casablanca was because their fans accused them of hating every movie that they riffed, so they did a film that was an undeniable classic. This, in turn, caused some of those same fans to start hating Casablanca. (Is there a facepalm emoticon?)

Ooh, ooh! Do Close Encounters!

*sigh* I'll buy The Sixth Sense. How's that?

You guys should do The Happening.

I totally agree. It's not as though I love Spider-Man 2 despite it having flaws. I just don't see the flaws at all. Then again, I haven't seen it in five years, so maybe I've missed something that DiF will enlighten me on.

I see the video. It plays perfectly.

My DVD is coming on Wednesday from Amazon. Yes, you guys got a dollar from it.

You guys should do Cloverfield.