Other people's beliefs are usually pretty interesting. Nicholas Cage's movie roles however...

"Put... the bunny... back... in the box."*

Jilli, did you see LOTR: The Return of the King? I have a friend who shares your phobia, but he said RotK was sufficiently non-realistic that it didn't bother him.

You need to see the original Wicker Man if you're going to see / have already seen the hilarious travesty that was the LaBute version. Because it's not just that he made a craptacularly bad movie about how scary life would be if Teh Wimmins were in charge, it's that he made it out of that source material.

And, you know, because it's a good movie. (Ideally, I think people should see the original first, in order to be properly horrified by the remake. But it works almost as well in reverse.)

I liked The Departed well enough, but it's not even remotely in the same league as Children of Men. On rewatch of The Departed, I found myself getting bored and wondering why it was so long. Children of Men, I saw in theatres 4 times and would happily watch it 40 more. There's just SO MUCH THERE.

he said RotK was sufficiently non-realistic that it didn't bother him.

Huh, I had the same reaction for the opposite reason. Shelob, to me, looked like a giant spider would actually look, and wasn't all that scary. Unlike the giant spiders in, say Chamber of Secrets, which looked exactly like the evil phobia-version of giant spiders, and had me hiding under my seat.

Huh, I had the same reaction for the opposite reason. Shelob, to me, looked like a giant spider would actually look, and wasn't all that scary.

Maybe I shouldn't have said "non-realistic" as much as "not at all like the real-world versions, on account of the huge size."

I don't even remember what the Chamber of Secrets ones were like.

Actually, I might have skipped that movie....

I saw the original Wicker Man about 8-ish years ago. I dunno - the whole singing naked chick trying to seduce the cop just seemed silly to me, and kind of took me out of the scary for a while. I kinda' remember liking it more as it got towards the end. I should watch it again, but I don't have a VCR anymore. (You know, those things with the analog signals magnetically encoded into "tape"?)

We saw Michael Clayton last night. It's good for what it is, though the stakes seem a little small. The overall plot and BIGLAW framework was pleasingly thought-out. Lots of fun performances to watch.

wrong thread.

I saw it too, Bon. Liked all the erformances very much, and the script did a couple of unexpected things I liked a lot. First, i thought it was refreshing that Clayton's son was not in danger from the bad guys. He was a well-written kid--articulate when talking about the book he loved, being to ooverwhelmed to talk about his feelings toward his uncle.

I also dug that when Clayton told Marty that uNorth was evil, Marty already knew and his reaction was, "so?"

The original Wicker Man is one of my favorite movies. It is very good, and as Hec says, an early expression of paganism in film.

I dunno - the whole singing naked chick trying to seduce the cop just seemed silly to me,

Take it in context, though tommy. It was not scary to you, but at the time it came out, paganism in general, and sexy singing naked chicks in particular, were pretty darn scary (just by sheer fact of being way outside the norm) to a lot of people back then. Especially the devoutly religious, like Edward Woodward's character was.

Plus the Hippie movement proper had just ended, and there were still raw wounds around the world from that experience. People who weren't themselves Hippies were not generally found of Hippies, so they were scary/hate-worthy.

at the time it came out, paganism in general, and sexy singing naked chicks in particular, were pretty darn scary

Point taken.