Mamet's very hit or miss for me. His flicks are clever and dense, but often emotionally frigid.

This, exactly, plus all the gender-issues discomfort and the unpleasantness of having to consciously turn off the gender-issues part of my brain in order to let the rest of my brain become fully engaged.

I know, I know, Neil LaBute, ptui, but I have such a big irrational crazy love for Nurse Betty. I heart Renee Zellweger and Morgan Freeman to little bitty bits in it, Tia Texada is marvelous, and Crispin Glover goes way outside his normal range and plays someone demonstrably not Crispin Glover. I realize that between the LaBute and the Zellweger this movie is probably dead, DEAD to most of the Buffistas and that it may in fact be just me and P-C against the rest of the world, but I love it anyway.

::wraps arms protectively around "Nurse Betty," glares pugnaciously at the entire rest of the world::

I liked it, too. Although in an uncomfortable way...I'm in fandoms, too, you know. And if I met Secor, I'd scream out "Timmy!" I know I would... (I do actually know he's not Tim, though) But Morgan Freeman as hitman...might as well send me an invitation to see that movie. Hitmen are good times around our house, though.

I liked Nurse Betty, but I would have liked it more if its middle hadn't hinged on an implied rape. Actually, it wasn't implied; it was real; but the circumstances of it being rape (involving identity, rather than force) seem to have made the director think he could slide right past those implications untouched. Which, he couldn't.

If I come down with amnesia for parts of it, it's a good enough film.

As a member of my gender, I think he's an asshole.

Actually, erika, this sentence is fine just as it's written. You are the member of your gender to whom the modifier refers. t /even more pedantic

Ooh, can I stack another glass on the pedanti...city? On its own the sentence is perfectly fine; the possibility of semantic ambiguity occurs in its coupling with the previous sentence.

See, this is actually a good thing because each pedant makes the last one look better by comparison. Linguistic hot potato.

I live to exploit semantic ambiguities, even imputing them where they don't belong if it makes for a good dirty joke.

As a writer of dialogue, I admire Mamet. As a member of my gender, I think he's an asshole.

See, there's no problem with this, imho. Erika's a writer, as well as a woman. I read her initial comment thus:

"[Speaking] as a writer of dialogue, I admire Mamet. [Speaking] as a member of my gender, I think he's an asshole."

See? It works perfectly nicely as is.

I live to exploit semantic ambiguities, even imputing them where they don't belong if it makes for a good dirty joke.

Oh yeah, me too. Also, I'll just make shit up and insist that's what people said, if it makes good riffing fun.

Well, it's not like I'm ever short of Actual Dirty Stuff in my posts...but I guess I'm just flattered you like to play with my stuff.And sometimes I'm really not clear enough, and you guys are so smart and I went to a state university you have to be dead not to get into, so I have Schrodinger's Class Issues...it's not like I mind getting my chain yanked.

ME Russell saw The Man with the Screaming Brain, Bruce Campbell's directorial debut:

So how’s “Screaming Brain”? Well, it’s really, really, really silly — basically what you’d expect from a no-budget “Sci-Fi Original Movie” starring Bruce Campbell. It’s a slapstick comedy about a millionaire who’s killed by a gorgeous gypsy, then has part of a Russian cab driver’s brain put in his head by a mad scientist played by Stacy Keach (!). Wacky chases, break-dancing robots and “All of Me”-style gags ensue.