The working title of the 24 movie is said to be "120 Minutes, With Credits."

I'm kinda skeptical about any movie I hear about being "in the works" -- so few pan out -- but Hollywood seems to be in the mood to make movies out of running tv shows now. X-Files, Firefly movie (okay, that ended a year ago; close enough).

They're basically sequels but without the huge costs associated with bringing the original cast of the hit first movie back. Just a bunch of TV actors thrilled to be on the big screen, plus a built-in audience, and lots of virtually free promotion. Can't make a fortune with them, but likely to turn a fair profit.

What's the draw of going to see a movie you can just basically see on TV for free? Well, we'll get to see Jack Bauer's naked ass. Finally. I've been waiting for an eyeful of his fine junk since Young Guns.

She's also got her own list of the most overrated movies ever. I'm not sure who rates Wild Wild West all that highly, though, Jen.

That's like calling Kurt Rambis the most overrated NBA player of all time.

Posted by: Ace at 09:02 AM | Comments (2)
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Click.

Lorie Byrd collects up the best essays on 9/11 from the past four years, as well as terrible pictures from that black day.

And... Sign the Take Back the Memorial petition, to prevent the September 11th Memorial from being used to denigrate America and apologize for terrorism.

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 AM | Comments (84)
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Laura keeps bringing up underated good-bad movies, and I told her to start a thread, but she didn't, so here it is.

Over on JeffG's site, someone mentioned Nighthawks.

Day-amn, I used to looooove that frickin' movie.

Clarification: These don't have to be "bad" movies that are actually good. They can just be woefully underrated.

Posted by: Ace at 09:46 PM | Comments (130)
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Rest easy, any more looters will be forced to watch "I Am Sam."

Posted by: Harry Callahan at 07:47 PM | Comments (20)
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Karol says Good Will Hunting. I was smart enough to stay clear of that one, myself.

So-- which movies are overrated? Let's keep this on prestige-type Oscar-bait kind of movies; I don't want you geeks and morons to generate into a 400 post discussion about whether Star Trek IV is funny and whimsical or just a corny rehash of Time After Time.

My nominee:

Brazil.

I don't get it. I just don't get it. And I'm a Python fan (and a fan of 1984, too).

But it's just this movie that goes out of its way to be whimsical and weeeeeiiird.

After that, you can put up most of Terry Gilliam's other movies too, including The Fisher King, although I'm pretty sure that's one of those supposedly "fantastic" movies -- highly critically acclaimed at the time -- that no one remembers a year and a half later.

He peaked with Time Bandits, and, I hate to say it, but that wasn't all that either.

And... I've never seen the whole thing, but I've seen enough to confidently say that Network sucks my left nard, and Paddy Chayevsky may be the genius everyone says, but this piece of self-satisfied monkeystool isn't evidence in favor of that.

Oh-- and Godfather II is boring. There, I said it. Godfather kicked all kinds of ass, but I'm convinced that those who claim GII is better are just trying to start trouble with me.

Exorcist? Not scary. At all. Just sort of slow and boring punctuated by periods of unpleasantness. The only fun part is looking for the not-quite-subliminal death-faces.

And, just to take care of this quickly: All of Woody Allen's "serious" films (except Hannah and her Sisters); all of Woody Allen's comedic/serious films; all Woody Allen films after the thing with his daughter-slash-wife, except Manhattan Murder Mystery.

All of Robert Redford's "serious" films.

All of Harrison Ford's "serious" films, with a partial exception for Witness, which wasn't really all that serious, but also wasn't really all that good.

Oh, and This Piece of Crap: Pulp Fiction. Resevoir Dogs great, True Romance one of my favorite movies, then everyone jumped on the bandwagon and deemed this piece of crap the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It's a bad movie, guys.

Posted by: Ace at 07:41 PM | Comments (180)
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In the New York Times, by Bruce Babbit, former Secretary of Something That Doesn't Matter.

(Okay, the Interior. Whatever.)

Just saying... commenters had this proposal yesterday.

Damn, we're fast.

Posted by: Ace at 03:58 PM | Comments (7)
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Strong Content Advisory for both unflinching discriptions of the tapes as well as some risque video captures from them.

Cripes, it almost makes me want to destroy my own cache of sex-with-hookers videotapes.

Almost.

Thanks to Steve From HB, who makes a guest appearance on one of the tapes as "Tina from Catalina."

Posted by: Ace at 03:23 PM | Comments (28)
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Instapundit thinks (as others he links think) that the LLMSM is being very inconsistent in demanding to show Katrina's dead after citing "taste" for its reason in avoiding showing the victims of 9/11.

And then, of course, there was CNN's famously self-interested decision to avoid showing Saddam's dead.

I think some of Katrina's dead should be photographed and shown to the public. As they say, one picture is worth a thousand words.

So: Yes, I disagree with the military's/civilian authorities' position on this. No special efforts should be taken to keep the press out, other than, for example, safety concerns.

But that still leaves the press in the curious position of being very interested in showing some dead bodies but not others.

Tomorrow is the 9/11 anniversary. How many falling bodies will we see? How many charred corpses being pulled from the rubble?

Zero.

Over at Hit & Run, Julian Sanchez says that this is justifiable, as we wouldn't want to "inflame" the public and send them out beating up or killing Arabs. I suppose there's little concern about an inflamed mob lynching the first hurricane it comes across.

I don't know. So the press serves as our censor, determining which images we're capable of handling? Which are too dangerous to air?

If I'm going to have a censor at all, fuck, I think I trust the military more. I'd prefer if neither were trying to protect me from dangerous images, but I'm afraid I don't buy the press' claim that they, and they alone, have the wisdom to censor judiciously.

Once you've conceded the need for censorship, it's just a question of who gets to have the fun. Pardon me if I'm not part of the bandwagon to cede even further control of information to our fair-and-balanced, neutral-and-objective, painstakingly fact-checked press.

Are Some Conservatives Being Inconsistent, Too? I think they are. I don't think you can say "We should have shown more footage of the dead of 9/11" and then cite the need to protect the families of Katrina's victims from seeing their loved ones in the media.

Either you protect all families from such distress or none of them.

I wouldn't want to cause a grieving family any more stress, but quite frankly, if you've lost a loved one, I'd say that's your biggest concern right there, and viewing a photograph of the dead would cause only a trivially-incremental amount of additional grief.

Further-- some tragedies are just to big to protect people in this fashion. 9/11, and Katrina, are national tragedies, and the public interest in either is both great and justifiable.

Look, we show the pictures of people killed in murders and car accidents all the time. Few seem concerned that those victims have families as well. Now we're going to say that the families killed in an epic national disaster should not be exposed to further hurt?

So let the press in. Show the bodies of those killed in Katrina. It is important to witness the full horror of the disaster.

And then let's talk about the press' permanent embargo on showing the bodies of the victims of Islamofascist terrorism.

Update: The feds won't bar reporters from snapping photos of the dead, though they also won't allow them on rescue missions (which is their right, it seems to me).

CNN brought the suit against FEMA. FEMA gave up, prudently.

I don't suppose there's any way to bring suit against CNN to force it to report on all of Saddam's killings in the years it avoided doing so to keep its precious Baghdad bureau open, huh?

Posted by: Ace at 03:04 PM | Comments (20)
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And his name is Tony Ferrari, aka "Grandpa Love."

Make sure you take the personality quiz. I was immediately accepted for membership in the order of the Children of the Multiprismed Love.

Thanks to Bob, which is a palindrome, by way of NRO, which is an acronym.

Posted by: Ace at 12:41 PM | Comments (11)
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Says Monument's Resemblance to Lynching-Noose "Purely Inadvertant;" Explains He Just Finds the Shape of the Braided Loop "Aesthetically Pleasing"

Well! If a Marxist says so, it must be true!

Posted by: Ace at 10:26 AM | Comments (3)
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