boolean root beer float

Back in the early 00s, I had the supreme pleasure of discovering Alec Guinness as George Smiley in the BBC’s miniseries masterpiece Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from 1979, then the sequel and conclusion three years later, Smiley’s People, not as transcendent but then again, how could it equal, let alone surpass, perfection.

Around 2010, my first reaction upon hearing of a remake was of complete disdain - “here is an already perfect miniseries, what is it with this incessant compulsion to remake everything?”
So I didn’t watch the Gary Oldman movie until a couple of years after it came out, it was playing on TV and decided to give it a try.

To my utter astonishment, I realized I was watching what was to become my favorite film of the entire decade. What an achievement!
Now I love the film and the miniseries equally, as separate mountaintops.

Imagine going from sleeping in this, to sleeping in a prison bunk.
The drop-off must be astonishingly jarring.
What an idiot. This is what happens when your appetites and cravings are a bottomless pit, while lacking any self-control and any sense of scale.

It’s like Pi (yeah, that one, 3.1416)…
Whether it’s a tiny circle or one the size of the universe, Pi remains constant. Like with this guy, the appetite remains this constant mindless thing at every size and price level.

Crazy to think that Jaws was rated PG, but it’s true.

Now there’s some food for thought… The Exorcist could have been the first modern blockbuster, it had all the ingredients, only it was one year too early, the immediate precursor before they tried what they did with Jaws.

Yes they did, indeedy!

Take MGM during the heyday of the old studio system, it had almost 30 soundstages on the lot, always active or under construction and would be cranking films out constantly, and that doesn’t include location shooting around the wildly different environments near LA - deserts and chaparral, forests and mountains, etc.

Now add to that Warner, RKO (later renamed to Universal), Paramount, United Artists, etc.
Directors and stars were under contract for wages, would be in several films each and every year.

Now add to that all the lower budget studios cranking out cheap-o b-movies, mostly horror and noir.

Would you say that kid’s wearing an Op or a Lightning Bolt shirt?
I’m going with Lightning Bolt, because I don’t remember such huge collar on Op shirts. Of course, my memory could be glitching.

Remember how Op shirts were everywhere? Conversely, Lightning Bolt shirts were harder to come by, therefore cooler.
Meanwhile, with pants it was the opposite. Lightning Bolt was everywhere, Op was scarcer.

But zooming in on the texture of some background buildings, I’d bring it back to L.A.

That’s Paulie, his first cousin Sal owns a meat-packing business.
“LPT for ya, Paulie: steer clear of the capicola until further notice, capisce?”

Ah yes… the good ol’ days!
Exactly like the type of picture that would have been part of an Internet K-hole massive photo-dump a couple of decades ago.

I think you mean jeans.

Last seen in 1980

Right around the time when the so-called “greatest” generation and the silent generation electorally told liberal Democrats to go fuck themselves and die, over several consecutive elections in which the baby boomers sleepwalked just like all the non-voting idiots of today.

Bluntly manipulative melodramatic tripe that ejects me completely from the movie, just as with Titanic. James Cameron decided to keep churning out the modern cgi version of a top hat-wearing villain cackling and twirling his mustache as he leaves the damsel tied to the train tracks, and it is kind of dismaying that he got so thoroughly rewarded for it.

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Archeologists: “This was probably for ceremonial use, in fertility rites”.

“What happened?”
“The new proton burped out a couple of leptons and switched back to a particle similar to the the old proton.”

Then later that night, in fact nearly every night…
“this is not happening this is not happening thisisnothappening MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB LITTLELAMB LITTLELAMB…!”

Yes, the title is typically bad, unfortunately.

Then in the article itself, I was hoping for a mention of the difference between regular ol’ Darwinian evolution, and the internal dynamics that fueled the Ediacaran and Cambrian explosions of sudden biodiversity.

Frida?

Try and control those rabidly ignorant bigots you force-fed with anti-science, anti-reason raw red meat, let’s see how that goes.
This is 'Murica! Muh freehdum!