I really really liked the Zaphod casting in this one -- he was just the wacky, mad, bad & dangerous to know that in my heart I was looking for.

Unfortunately for me, since I came to it first through the radio series, then the TV series, I was expecting a much more leisurely paced, more detailed experience. Which didn't make it a bad movie, only one that didn't live up to my very high expectations.

HHGttG was ranked worst movie of the year by one of the EW critics. I thought that was ridiculous.

That is ridiculous. Whatev.

I thought Zooey Deschanel was great, and that they sort of combined Trillian with Fenchurch for the movie.

And yes, I still sing the song every now and then.

I just got home from seeing Munich. And on a totally shallow level, Eric Bana must have legs that are about three inches long, because he's got the longest torso in the galaxy. I swear, you could have landed planes on his back muscles.

I totally didn't recognize Ciaran Hinds, the whole movie long (like, I knew I knew him, but had no idea from where) till I saw his name in the credits. Daniel Craig, I recognized, but didn't know he could pull off an Afrikaner accent till he did it.

It's a fairly OTT movie, earnest and discursive, and I think some of the flashbacks were mistakes. But, not a bad movie; and considering it's Steven Spielberg, the OTT did not make me homicidal, so that is progress.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin isn't quite a well-realized as that show, but not much is.

Can you explain this statement, Corwood? I loved 40-Year-Old Virgin and I loved F&G yet I think they're different things, having different aims. So I wouldn't compare them except for how well they each achieved their different objectives.

Not too much to explain, Spi. Both were made by some of the same people, so it hardly seems to me too outlandish to contrast them, as you yourself have done.

I was just trying to get a handle on how you thought 40 could have been better-realized. For the style of approach that it had (it's much broader comedy than F&G), I thought the characters were well-drawn.

Well, F&G certainly could have been more broadly drawn if the writers had wanted to go that way, but it wasn't, which is what I suspect most of us who loved it thought special about it. Undeclared, however, was pretty broad at times, and seems closer in spirit to 40YOV. Both were good when good, but uneven overall, especially compared to F&G. YMMV.

Right. I don't F&G was meant to be broad. In fact, it's so damned great *because* it feels realistic. It has humor and pain and feels very much like what going to high school in the early '80s felt like. I just wanted to see if I could get you to elaborate on what you felt wasn't fully-realized in 40. Not because I'm trying to argue with you but because I'm genuinely interested in the details of your opinion.

I only saw one ep of Undeclared and didn't like it as well as F&G but I think I'll be returning to it after how much I dug 40.

I just wanted to see if I could get you to elaborate on what you felt wasn't fully-realized in 40

I gotcha. I think we're using the same term differently. I'm comparing the movie with the tv show on my own internal (and therefore perfect, natch) scale of realization, not the internal logic of each. I don't know what would have made 40YOV better, but it wasn't anywhere as close to perfect as F&G.

On other fronts, I caught Rollergirls on cable tonight, which is a surprisingly affecting documentary tv show about the TX Rollergirls here in Austin.

I'm almost through Undeclared, and I've really enjoyed it.