I did that to a chicken when I was a kid. Very traumatic. Didn't phase grandpa, tho.

Blade Runner is one film that started out as "meh" and then really grew on me. It's essentially film noir: no one in the film is innocent—not even Rachael. And Deckard is the ultimate human protagonist: he fails.

However, I cannot stand the cuts with the unicorn origami. Since Deckard dreams of unicorns but tells no one, Gaff's use of the unicorn suggests he knows what is in Deckard's dreams, just as Deckard knew all about Rachael's dreams—meaning Deckard is a replicant duped into retiring other replicants. But that utterly ruins the theme of Deckard as the fallible human foil to Roy Batty's subhuman-superhuman.

Worse, why dream of unicorns? They can't be real dreams, like Rachael's were, copied from a real person, so they must represent something. So what does a unicorn represent? Some unattainable fantasy, like extra life? Deckard doesn't have that fantasy—Batty does. But more to the point: the short story is called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". (Deckard once owned a real sheep.) So why not have him dream of sheep?

I love the LotR books, altho even as a teenager I saw the leisurely attitude Tolkein took toward pacing. His goal wasn't a rip-roaring adventure, tho. It was immersion in this world he created. I adored the languages, the genealogies, and all the other stuff in the appendices.

Jeffery's paragraph is the very hinge of the whole epic. Sam is the one character in all Middle Earth who confronts the power of the ring on its own terms and beats it. Note the phrase "untameable save by some mighty will". Who is that will? It's not Frodo (he succumbs in the end), and it's not Gandalf or Aragorn (they keep away from the ring). It's Sam.

What I love about this movie is the way Will Smith and the aliens pull off a straight-up action adventure in the middle of what is otherwise Mars Attacks. And then you've got Goldblum, straddling those two worlds as only Goldblum can.

Make no mistake: I think it's a terrible film. I just love Will Smith.

I was misinformed. All the ladies in Paris were fully dressed.

Hey, did you know they have this giant frickin' antenna in the middle of the city? Also, they have an arch that doesn't, you know, arch over anything. Crazy town, man. On the plus side: pretty nice subway system.

Yes, but it's like when people say "we don't need no steenking badges." They aren't quoting Treasure of the Sierra Madre. They're quoting Blazing Saddles, because that's the movie they heard it in. And for generations, English speakers have studied Shakespeare above all, and cribbed his turns of phrase endlessly.

And so it will be with Mel Brooks in 400 years.

I've always had a fondness for this piece called "You are Quoting Shakespeare".

And I've long harbored a hope that one day Mr. Burns on The Simpsons would tell Smithers to call for a "taximeter cabriolet".

The one set to "A Little Less Conversation" makes me remember how much I love Keanu Reeves. I just wish I loved his movies as much.

And the same for Elvis, actually. Keanu is like Elvis + Harrison Ford / 5.

If you want to group them that way, then you have to hark back to Pygmalion, which means that My Fair Lady and Frankenstein are the "same" story. Now, while that would be an awesome movie, I say the ending counts. As long as Eliza Doolittle does not go on a rampage and have to be brought down by torches and pitchforks, they are different stories. Fundamentally, we're talking about every parent's fear of being a bad parent (Frankenstein) vs every child's desire for independence and fulfillment (Pinocchio).

EDIT: I don't know what I point I was trying to make with that. I wrote it in a rush in an airport concourse.

Strange Days deserves some attention if not love.

Wait, are we passing on the bad-to-great one?

The Beatles (pre-Epstein), George Michael, and Madonna matured. The Monkeys learned to play and write. And Styx had a change of members and label (Grand Illusion was their fifth album!).

I'll have to catch up with it later. I'll be on a cruise ship in the Adriatic.

Meh. Altho I'm from a small town to the south, I tell people I'm from South Bend, Indiana, because they maybe have heard of that (Notre Dame University and all). But when I went to the Netherlands I told people I was from "around Chicago". You adjust to your audience.

I'm rather more knowledgeable about the UK than the average Joe because I'm steeped in English literature and British comedy. Even so, I view all of Europe like vintage Universal horror movies: an English-speaking, tweed-wearing, castle-owning, steam-train-riding pastiche.

On the other hand, more than one Dutchman said to me, "Chicago? Oh! Al Capone!"