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.

I saw 30 Days of Night yesterday. While I appreciate the more animalistic, predatory take on vampires, I was thrown out of the movie when it occurred to me that people with the light coats and clothing we saw would have frozen to death in their attic by day 3 without electric heat or the ability to safely have a fire burning. And by an airport closing down for a month because it got dark, as if the planes were solar powered. And by people choosing to stay through the long night with senile parents and small children .

The Departed twisted more than its source material did, and I don't think the extra back and forth added anything.

Yeah, that scene with Marty -- really all the scenes with Marty-- rang true even though it shouldn't.

In defense work like this there's generally something shady, so I'm surprised that Clayton had to be told, particularly given his job. But the fact that Marty was pretty sanguine about it, even though he is a good guy, rang true to his character.

I couldn't sleep last night-- stupid coffee ice cream, never again-- so I thought a lot about the movie and whether a job like Clayton's could exist, even though it really doesn't in a typical firm. And I realized that it is a leap of faith to buy into his job, but it's not a bad idea. He does what big firms do-- take care of smaller problems for firm clients-- only centralized in one person. If you hired someone with his contacts, it wouldn't be a bad idea to employ him in that role. I thought throughout that someone with his special skills wouldn't be quite as debased as he made himself out to be-- and Marty points that out later, which pleased me. (Though, with his background, he could be billing at least a million five a year, so it doesn't quite ring true that Marty considers litigators a dime a dozen.)

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.

I did see it, somehow managed to keep my eyes open the whole time, and was completely freaked out by it. I have NEVER seen the spider scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and I don't think I ever will.

Pete is probably going to go see The Mist, which means he can report back on where it will fall on the Freak Jilli Out scale.