I love Chinatown but I'm just not up to launching a defense of it, either.

Fred, you should really see The Godfather uncut. It's too good for network TV.

And I can't stand The Graduate, with all its phoney-baloney "realism" and pseudo-conflicts. Maybe it connected with some people from the late 60s, but I suspect it was the same crowd who liked Love Story.

Anyone seen Amateur by Hal Hartley? This is one wacky movie.

I love that movie.

Maybe it connected with some people from the late 60s, but I suspect it was the same crowd who liked Love Story.

Well, my parents love The Graduate, and can't stand Love Story. Sadly, my sample size renders this study statistically insignificant.

Well, you have more statistics than my conjectured sample.

Time to do a Student's t-test, paired!

Wizard News has a couple of casting rumors/spoilers for HPGoF tonight.

Well, you have more statistics than my conjectured sample.

Sometimes I want to get a list of all the movies my parents do like, just so I can see if there's any method to the madness.

Thus far, with a couple of exceptions such as The African Queen, the common bond between movies seems to be Were Released While They Were My Age More or Less. (They're also big fans of A Man for All Seasons and Five Easy Pieces.)

I haven't puzzled out what makes this one of the best screenplays ever, but again, I liked it.

As a screenplay and movie, it is one of the most perfect examples of story structure ever made. Beyond that, I personally enjoyed it for its this-is-way-more-messed-up-than-you-think. Plus the whole not-happy-ending.

I really liked the way The Graduate was directed, but I think it's more an interesting period piece than a Great Movie.

but I suspect it was the same crowd who liked Love Story.

I liked LS. As a pleasant couple of hours, not as anything that has any resemblance to real life.

It's a '40s melodrama in '70 costume.

And will try Godfather uncut.

A psychopath is not the same thing as a psychotic. "Psychopath" is the obsolete term for sociopath, or somebody incapable of moral formation and empathy.

"Psychopath" has been used a lot through the history of psychology, to mean a lot of things. When it was used in the 19th C, it tended to be applied to anybody who was violently insane, especially the sclerotic ranters. It got refined to mean antisocial personality disorder (empathy-lacking egocentricity) in the 20th C.

FWIW, I don't think Batman has zero empathy; he doesn't strike me as impulsive; and he acknowledges standards, rules and needs other than his own. (And goes on to blow them away sometimes, but acknowledges that's what he is doing.) But it is true that his pain is more important than other people's pain, and he's got a melodramatic streak a mile wide, and he courts fame (traipsing about the city in a cape) but denies it (secret identity). He defines himself by how other people (law-breakers) see him, rather than by how he sees himself. In pre-sidekick canon, he doesn't form many close relationships, and those he does form are with people who serve his needs (Alfred) rather than his equals. I think there's evidence for wondering whether he has a narcissistic personality disorder, although that's the sort of nuanced interpretation that will vary depending on who is writing it.

Agreed 'psychotic' as a term has lost most of its meaning -- we use it to mean "I fear you" and not to mean a specific symptom. Certainly, Batman knows what is real and what isn't, and doesn't show signs of hallucinations or delusions.