1) Steven Spielberg was smart enough to realize that FX-just-because-you-can is a moviemaking dead-end. Is Zemeckis trying to pick up his slack or something? WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? was a perfect blend of smart script and ace special effects--and as far as RZ should have gone in that direction.

2) The most entertaining thing about THE POLAR EXPRESS (movie) was the studio/moviemakers' determined attempts to hype it into being a new holiday "classic." :) Otherwise, the movie had no plot, no interesting characters, and was (as another poster noted) sublimely creepy to watch. IIRC, some critic called it TRIUMPH OF THE ELVES, and they were dead-on.

>(Hey, if Angelina Jolie was naked, how the hell did the movie get a PG-13 rating?)<

Boy, some people are so ungrateful. Instead of leaving you and other parents stranded in the middle of what could be Kiddie Movie Hell, the moviemakers were kind enough to toss in Jolie so you folks will have an additional reason to see this besides giving the kids something to do. (Granted, RZ and crew are probably more after the teen-guy audience, but be thankful for small favors, okay? ;))

I saw the pix for MATW before I knew who was in it, and Kidman looks amazingly like LG.

...that the names "Diallo" and "Dorismond" aren't enough right their to torpedo any claim Giuliani makes about how effective policing was during his tenure. But keeping the "savages" down seems to play all too well in the heartland, so...

>The Bionic Woman gets cancelled.

There, I have saved you hundreds of wasted hours with a couple of spoilers.<

And for that heads-up alone, Nick, you should be right thankful to Anonymous...:)

MONSTER HOUSE was good mostly because of its script, which gave the characters some real, believeable personalities. But the figures still had soulless-looking eyes and not-expressive-enough faces which brought me up short any number of times.

...doing BEOWULF in motion-capture and passing it off as an animated movie is a nifty way to 1) make it incredibly violent; 2) get a PG-13 rating, which guarantees maximum audience. You get the best of both worlds--violence/sex and the most profitable audience.

So, it's okay with you that Diallo and Dorismond were innocent of any wrongdoing--but got shot just on general principle? Yeah, those black folks...always expendable. Who cares if they were innocent--surely they must have been guilty of _something_. They are all savages, after all, so they all deserve to feel the boot of a law-and-order guy like Rudy on their neck 24/7. You have no shame about proving yourself a racist ignorant prat, do you?

>I can't always tell whether men are in love with me or my face, mostly because they can't always tell, either, and being in love with my face lasts about 1.5 - 2 years. Then they wake up one morning and realize that I'm an actual human being with actual strengths and weaknesses, not to mention a personality of her own. Infatuation won't get anyone over that hump.<

The gorgeous (and much-married) actress Rita Hayworth noted that the biggest reasons for her lack of luck in love was that men "went to bed with Gilda (her sexiest screen character), and woke up with me."

It has always been a puzzlement to me why so many men have a hard time treating women as equals--and why they hate women who aren't the "ideal" so much. There always seemed to be something personal in their dislike, as if women had done something to them. And I never could understand why some men disliked women who didn't buy into the beauty myth, for example, or wanted to be single mothers or live their lives without men being the center of said lives. Upon reading your piece, I now know why that attitude exists...

>if I am considering a man to represent me, I am likely to vote for him if I can identify with him. Is he like me? Does he represent my aspirations? Is he the kind of man I want to be? Whereas, with a woman I would ask myself, will she meet my needs? Will she give me what I want? Will she do for me?<

Because a good woman, a _real_ woman is one who meets those guys' needs and exists for them. A woman who won't get with the "program" and insists on doing what she wants is someone to hate, insult, or stamp out, if at all possible.