Drugs can be a bitch.

EDIt - reminds me of when Nixon and other government figures truely feared Lennon for his voting influence with anti-war youth and made the FBI investige him with the full (expensive) fireworks. Except the observing FBI agents reported that Lennon effectively was too stoned to be a threat.

I know many locals (appleonya for one) agreed with me with the boat movie's trite story. Yet so did AVATAR, and yet both made insane business everywhere, and I literally mean everywhere. As trite as that story can be, I suppose audiences at every corner from NYC to a oasis in Libya to huts in Tibet relate to that "universal" story in regards to the social-economical divides and romance. (Plus boobs.)

I want to be a dismissive snob for why TITANIC still holds insane power hold on audiences apparently, but...money don't lie.

I remember back in '98, Siskel & Ebert actually did an episode debating why that movie was being so damn successful at unprecedented levels. (Most movies then, as still the norm today, make most of their money on opening weekend. TITANIC weekend after weekend was increasingly doing better business.) You can find that clip on YouTube, but I suppose the late Siskel explained that phenomenon best, after observing his young daughters watch that movie: People are re-discovering, and that new generation is learning, that movies aren't television.

Anyway, those $$$ figures I pointed out how much has changed in Hollywood in the last 15 years. Even as late as the 1990s, America was the majority market/$$$ for studios with foreign territories the extra gravy. Now it's reversed. America is merely just another market. Consider that the TITANIC re-release has done over $40 million in the states, which is splendid business for a movie that's available on DVD and TV, or on par with the recent Disney re-releases. The re-release totals world-wide so far? $190 million.

In 1998, Russia and Chinese were fresh new Hollywood markets just opening up. TITANIC had the Russian record for years with a mere $7 million. Now that's the re-release's opening weekend in Russia. China especially, with over 1 billion folks, could someday threaten to become a more important box-office turf than America.

Wait a minute. Not that it's either here nor there, BUT as I recall, Lennon said that "The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ." I remember the buzz that remark started but I don't recall him saying he WAS Jesus Christ.


TIS

I don't either.

I don't believe he ever did. Since his death there have been a lot of revisionist history. In fact, prior to the anniversary of his 70th birthday FOX Newsbroadcast a report about someone's theory that Lennon was actually a conservative at the time of his death. The theory was based on some serious stretching of facts and inferences that weren't fully supported by facts in my mind.

I've listened to many Lennon interviews from the post-Beatle years and I find them fascinating not just because of the content, but for his ability to answer a question so candidly, completely, and succinctly.

One of the sources of this story was his childhood best friend Pete Shotton, an executive at Apple Corp. He was partying with John the night before and was also present at the meeting. According to his account the other Beatles were very worried. Shotton was also one of the original Quarrymen.

Adult films aren't known for their award-winning storylines, but they can bring all kinds of plot twists into real life. An Egyptian man who was cruising the X-rated parts of the internet thought he recognized one of the actresses. Because he was married to her. "I found 11 films showing my wife in indecent scenes with her lover," he says. "It was the first time I watched a porno film and I did this just out of curiosity." We'll ignore that his "first time" might've been an 11 movie marathon and instead kind of feel bad for the guy. Not only did his wife admit it, she said she never really loved him anyway. Total mood-killer.

We have been watching a show over here, one of our venerable TV newscasters Sir Trevor Macdonald has been travelling up the Mississippi, New Orleans, meeting Morgan Freeman at Clarksdale, Memphis with Beale Street, Elvis and the whole FedEx operation.

A very informative and quality show!!

In Field of Dreams, why did the young doc turn into the old doc?

It's called aging. It happens to everyone. Except Adriana LaCerva.

Of course, in Adriana's case that's true. But, Ray picked him up as as young man, right, and he played ball with the ghosts as a young man. I missed the part that explains that he was the elderly doc. How did he become young again?

Spoiler Alert Below!

Costner was following a vision about a marginal player of a past era, named Moonlight Graham, who never got to play. Searching for the present day Graham, Costner learned that he had become a well-respected, small town doctor, who had died years earlier. Nonetheless, when the confused Costner stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, he encountered the aged ghost of kindly Doc Graham. Costner tried to convince him to return to Iowa with him, that he was supposed to bring him to the field to relive his dream, but Graham declined.

On the drive to Iowa with Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones), they picked up a young hitchhiker, and soon discovered that the kid was the young ghost of Moonlight Graham, lost in the 1920s,who said that he heard there were some teams in the farm towns looking for players.

They took him to the field where he joined the other ghosts for a game, and got the at-bat he had always dreamed of during his life.

After playing on the field, he was compelled to leave the field to provide medical care for Costner's daughter. At that moment he turned into the aged doctor, never able to return to play again.

I think I got it right.

Thanks Kly. I thought it might be something like that.

Opening next-week overseas, assembling for America on the 4th, getting good reviews so far, here comes the summer!

The Avengers tracking $150+ million opening weekend

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/the-avengers-dark-knight-rises-box-office-312398

Does anyone remember the 1983 TV production of The Day After? It was about the day after a nuclear war. In this presidential election year I happened to think about it and the huge controversy it spawned. The controversy centered on what some perceived as its anti-war message which really wasn't there. I was visiting my sister in Florida at the time and I got into a discussion with my niece (who was in ROTC) about it.

I wouldn't say Anti-War as much as Anti-nuclear weapons. ("Anti-proliferation" doesn't sound accurate either.) It's only controversial if one considers fully engaged nuclear war between the super powers to be winnable. That's undisputable. Certainly affected one viewer by his own admission: Ronald Reagan who 4 years later oversaw the ratification of the INF Treaty.

A really good, powerful(and depressing) movie. And a TV production at that!

Harken back to ye ole days of the 80s!

Dallas returns to TV in June.

The original run of DALLAS arguably has one of the most random series finales ever.

~I guess with DALLAS back, J.R. did beat the Devil. Attaboy!

The days of big hair and even bigger shoulder pads.

Like a few movies that I like, I never seem to get to watch them all the way through. Godzilla with Matthew Broderick is one of them. Near the movie's end when the sumbarines fire at Godzilla, he encounters a wall that I presume is below the NY waterline. He claws at it and then the torpedoes hit. He falls to the bottom. What was he clawing at and why? Was he just trying to escape? He seemed to be a pretty bright beast.

You're putting more thought into this than Roland Emmerich did. Remember his previous movie had humans defeating the technologically light years advanced alien invaders by hacking into their mainframes with 1996 laptop technology.

All I remember about that GODZILLA picture was just how it felt so dumb, rather boring actually for a monster movie. And I don't "dumb" like the original Japanese exports, which at least had a cartoonish dimension to these giant (men in rubber suit) monsters beat the shit out of each other and humanity is fucked six ways to sunday. Oh and aliens too. Kids loved them at comic bookish face value, and adults liked the unintentional campy sillyness.

I do however also remember Emmerich casting the government "boobs" in the Mayor and his aide with Siskel & Ebert look-a-likes as revenge for them hating his previous pictures, even using the "Thumbs Down" gesture. You can look up their (unsurprising) panning on YouTube, where they complained that they were insulted.

Not for being ridiculed, but for not getting eating or stamped by Godzilla.

We have just watched the HBO mini series JOHN ADAMS. A little bit slow at times but very good otherwise. Paul Giammati (not sure if i have spelt that right) is a tremendous actor and i loved the theme tune!!

News about the long-term Pixar movie slate out of CinemaCon earlier today from Disney. Brave is out in a few months, with the prequel Monsters University out next summer. But what beyond that for Pixar?

The Good Dinosaur – This Pixar comedy is from director Bob Peterson, co-director Peter Sohn and producer John Walker. According to Pixar, it’s about what would happen “if the cataclysmic asteroid that forever changed life on Earth actually missed the planet completely and giant dinosaurs never became extinct?” It will be released in the U.S. on May 30, 2014.

Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside The Mind — From Disney-Pixar’s announcement: “Pixar takes audiences on incredible journeys into extraordinary worlds: from the darkest depths of the ocean to the top of the tepui mountains in South America; from the fictional metropolis of Monstropolis to a futuristic fantasy of outer space. From director Pete Docter (“Up,” “Monsters, Inc.”) and producer Jonas Rivera (“Up”), the inventive new film will take you to a place that everyone knows, but no one has ever seen: the world inside the human mind.” The film is slated for release June 19, 2015.

Untitled Pixar Movie About Dia De Los Muertos — Per Disney-Pixar: “From director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla K. Anderson, the filmmaking team behind the Academy Award-winning Toy Story 3, comes a wholly original Pixar Animation Studios film that delves into the vibrant holiday of Día de los Muertos. No release date yet.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/disney-pixar-muppets-animation-titles/

Disney also announced that Jack White is scoring the Johnny Depp/Gore Verbinski blockbuster TONTO & THE LONE RANGER out next summer.

If you know, you know I'm not exactly a strong Seth McFarlane fan. But I'll admit it, this made me laugh.

http://youtu.be/aGW5gpMU9yo

I know there are a number of "Shawshank Redemption" fans out there. I saw something on and IMDB message board that intrigued me. If Andy is innocent, whose redemption is the film about? Is it Red's? Or is it really Andy's since he said that, although he didn't pull the trigger, his wife would not have been killed if he had been a better husband?

I always took it to be about both.

I'm watching the ending of Field of Dreams. Has anyone done the math on the ages of Ray and his father? Does it seem like his father was just a generation too early to have fathered Ray?

I never did the math, but his father was supposed to be older than usual.

Ray's father was 56 years old when Ray was born in 1952.