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I Saw A Good Movie

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The film "Shattered Glass" is about a real "journalist", Stephen Glass.

The DVD even has the actual CBS "60 Minutes" segment that aired on the subject. IMO it is imperative that you watch this segment before the movie. The movie is not a documentary but it seemingly tries to stay true to the story (why would they have the "60 Minutes" segment in the DVD for everyone to see?)

This film tells the true story of fraudulent Washington, D.C. journalist Stephen Glass (Christensen), who rose to meteoric heights as a young writer in his 20s, becoming a staff writer at "The New Republic" for three years (1995-1998), where 27 of his 41 published stories were either partially or completely made up. Looking for a short cut to fame, Glass concocted sources, quotes and even entire stories, but his deception did not go unnoticed forever, and eventually, his world came crumbling down...

IMHO not even the NY Times screwed up as much.

That's where I learned that The New Republic is (was?) the "in-flight magazine of Air Force One".
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Hi
please see the Movie "RETURN TO ME " you will like it.
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This weekend I watched -

The Butterfly Effect - Hmm, samey, so-so.
Runaway Jury - Very good! Well worth renting.
Stargate SG-1 Season 8 Premier - Good to see this show back, its going to be hard beating Season 7.

Played -
Front Mission 3 (Playstation) - Good strategy action.
Full Spectrum Warrior (XBox) - Just finished this game. Apparently part of it is used in the US Army for training in urban environments? Very good game, although I dont know if its worth playing through again in the unlocked "authentic US Army" mode.

Read -
Halo: First Strike - Yep, none of this high brow stuff for me


Mark
[ July 12, 2004: Message edited by: Mark Fletcher ]
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I wasted my money on Van Helsing.
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Yeah, I'm enjoying Full Spectrum Warrior too, only on chapter 7 though.

If you liked this style of game (squad based, tactical etc), keep an eye out for "Close Combat: First to Fight" and "Ghost Recon 2", each due later this year.
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Stargate SG-1 Season 8 Premier - Good to see this show back, its going to be hard beating Season 7.

Not really. Sci-Fi Channel will be airing a 4-hour Farscape miniseries starting October 17.

Nonetheless, thanks for posting this. I knew SGA was premiering this Friday, but I overlooked that SG-1 was this week. Fortunately I can still catch the rerun this Friday .
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Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Stargate SG-1 Season 8 Premier - Good to see this show back, its going to be hard beating Season 7.

Not really. Sci-Fi Channel will be airing a 4-hour Farscape miniseries starting October 17.

Nonetheless, thanks for posting this. I knew SGA was premiering this Friday, but I overlooked that SG-1 was this week. Fortunately I can still catch the rerun this Friday .



Farscape? Bah! Muppets in Space more like

Heres hoping SG-A doesnt bomb. *crosses fingers*
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I saw the premier of the 4400 on USA the other day -- looked pretty entertaining.
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Originally posted by Jessica Sant:
I saw the premier of the 4400 on USA the other day -- looked pretty entertaining.



Yeah I saw an ad for that when I was watching the SG-1 premier, is it a bit like Taken?

Mark
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dunno, never seen Taken -- sorry
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[Mark]: Farscape? Bah! Muppets in Space more like

What are you, some sort of frelling sebacean supremacist? A PK spy, more likely. You probably watch dren like Enterprise too. Away with you!
[ July 13, 2004: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
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never much into SG1. Seen a few episodes and found them rather contrived.

I'm more of a Trekkie, monday night is the only night I really watch TV when there's 3 episodes on one after the other (which is the only SciFi regularly shown on TV here at all b.t.w. apart from rotating series which is sometimes SG1, sometimes something else probably depending on what the station could license the cheapest).

No SciFi channel or anything interesting (cable company removed both Discovery and NGC and replaced them with 24 hour shopping channels, plans to remove CNN (our only source of outside news) and replace it with a 4th 24 hour music channel were luckily blocked by government intervention when it turned out the cable company had contracted to provide at least one 24 hour news channel and they'd already killed SkyNews for a Moroccan channel to please the few hundred north Africans in the city).
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Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
[Mark]: Farscape? Bah! Muppets in Space more like

What are you, some sort of frelling sebacean supremacist? A PK spy, more likely. You probably watch dren like Enterprise too. Away with you!

[ July 13, 2004: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]



Hey!

Theres no need to drag Enterprise into this. Enterprise is a perfectly good show, even if you ignore the fact that they switched the theme tune in Season 3 to some country and western pap that sounds like it was sung by Billy Ray Cyrus. The plot arc for season 3 was actually quite good, the characters developed quite a bit. Even if season 3 did end with Space Nazis...

Um.... hang on a tic....

DAMN YOU BERMAN! DAMN YOU TO HELL! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD PLOT ARC!!! WHY COULDNT THEY JUST GO BACK TO EARTH!!! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO INCLUDE SPACE NAZIS!!! SADGFSDFASDFASDFASDF%$^&�$&$%&�^�$^"�
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Then again things could be worse.

Could be watching re-runs of "Babylon 5"...
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Anyone catch the remake of Battlestar Galactica ?

I really enjoyed that TV movie, and it looked like they were going for "if this is a hit, let's do a TV series..."

Anyone know if that's happened ?
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[Mark F]: Theres no need to drag Enterprise into this.

I actually don't have much against Enterprise. It's generally watchable. I can't get too worked up about it either way, really.

they switched the theme tune in Season 3 to some country and western pap that sounds like it was sung by Billy Ray Cyrus.

Hmmm, it doesn't sound much like C&W to me. I still prefer the original version. I was dismayed when I first heard the theme would be a pop song rather than the traditional symphonic fare (preferably by Goldsmith), but after I heard it (and saw the visuals) I was pretty happy with it. Dunno why they felt they had to speed it up. They did something similar with the majestic DS9 theme - sped it up for no reason, and added some throbbing low notes to cater to the two or three people in the world who wanted to dance to the DS9 theme for some reason.

Now if you want to talk country and western themes to science fiction shows, you've gotta see Firefly... I positively hated the music at first, but it grew on me over time.

Could be watching re-runs of "Babylon 5"...

You are beyond redemption, Mr. Fletcher.

[Mike C]: Anyone catch the remake of Battlestar Galactica ?

I did, and enjoyed it. To be fair, I had low expectations going in, so it was easier to impress me. I had fond memories of BG from when I was a kid (even though I could still spot quite a few flaws at age 10). But I saw the whole series again on the Sci-Fi Channel a few years ago - most episodes have not aged well. I suppose it's the fact that I was't overly fond of the original that allowed me to enjoy the remake. Many of the more... ummm... committed fans were rather upset at some of the changes made. But I thought they did pretty well, really...

I really enjoyed that TV movie, and it looked like they were going for "if this is a hit, let's do a TV series..."

Anyone know if that's happened ?


Yep.

http://scifi.com/battlestar/
[ July 14, 2004: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
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Originally posted by Mark Fletcher:
DAMN YOU BERMAN! DAMN YOU TO HELL! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD PLOT ARC!!! WHY COULDNT THEY JUST GO BACK TO EARTH!!! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO INCLUDE SPACE NAZIS!!! SADGFSDFASDFASDFASDF%$^&�$&$%&�^�$^"�

Space Nazis

I'm thinking the next season will be something like The Philadelphia Experiment, where they have loads of dilemas about whether or not to stop the war, the holocaust, Hiroshima etc, have lame adventures of the Holodeck type (of course substituting Sherlock Holmes, Chicago gangsters and cowboys with WWII scenarios :roll: ), then end up back on Earth in their own time after achieving and changing nothing. Pointless. I can't wait ... Yes, damn you Berman (and the other one) for your complete lack of inspiration.
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Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
To be fair, I had low expectations going in, so it was easier to impress me.

Same here, and thought it was excellent. Very watchable, even quite moving in places. I then went and watched some of the original episodes, the two-parter where they make their first contact with humans. That was very, very funny So camp, and the women characterisations were shocking.
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Originally posted by Jim Yingst:

Could be watching re-runs of "Babylon 5"...

You are beyond redemption, Mr. Fletcher.



I should probably clarify my stance on Babylon 5. Almost a decade ago when Babylon 5 hit its stride mid season 3, it seemed that the series and its creator, JMS, could do no wrong. Babylon 5 was something novel in the Sci fi TV genre; it was a television series with a story arc spanning five seasons.

The problem was, mid season 4, the television company (Warner at the time IIRC) funding the show wasnt too sure about renewing Babylon 5 for a fifth season. So JMS had to effectively wrap up the five season arc in four seasons. Hence the Shadow War was wrapped up mid season 4, Earth was liberated near the end of season 4 and we had The Deconstruction of Fallen Stars as the season 4 finale. "Deconstruction" was nothing like the normal "Cliffhanger" finales that were evident in the previous three seasons; it was just a convenient way of wrapping up the whole Babylon 5 story (we see humanity in the end ascending to something like the Vorlons).

In the end Babylon 5 did have a fifth season, which was funded by TNT, but IMHO was no where near as good as the previous four seasons.

IMHO Babylon 5 is a flawed product, corrupted by the indecision over the renewal for a fifth season. That isnt JMS's fault of course, but the TV execs at Warner.

So everytime I view Babylon 5 I have these sad feelings that the series never realised its full potential. Its also distressing to see JMS write drek such as "Crusade" and the laughable "Legend of the Rangers".

Mark

(Who keeps spelling Babylon as Bablyon )
[ July 15, 2004: Message edited by: Mark Fletcher ]
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The Battlestar Galactica remake that Sci Fi put out last year was brilliant.

My favourite scene was the part where the surviving freighters and liners with jump drives have to leave their non jump capable counterparts to be massacred by the cylons... very tense!
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How is "Walking Tall"? :roll:
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Well heck, Mark, if you'd just made a derogatory comment about watching season 5 of B5, I'd have known what you meant. Unlike you, I don't think it tainted the whole series - just the last year. (And well, yes, the last part of season 4 was a bit rushed.) There were still some cool bits that last year - just not nearly as many as in the previous seasons. Mostly because of the uncertainty of renewal, I fully agree. Well, I suspect Byron and the Goth Teeps would have been the lamest characters ever, reardless. But presumably Joe would have had some other plotlines going an at the same time to distract us from that. B5 worked best with overlapping plotlines. While one was coming to a head, groundwork was being laid for several others. Resolving so many things at the end of S4 left a big void at the beginning of S5, and they never fully recovered. I think Joe was pretty burnt out by then - the effort of the previous four years (plus what, five our so?) had taken its toll. Which carried into Crusade as well. Which is too bad, because I saw a lot of potential in that series. Gideon, Galen, and Max were great characters, with great actors. There were a couple unproduced scripts which used to be available online, but no more. One featured the return of Bester (!!!) while the other exposed relationships between the Shadows and EarthGov, as well as the Technomages. Great fun. Who knows, maybe one day... Most of the TV movies were substandard at best, except for "In the Beginning..." which totally rocked. Sadly it was downhill from there, and "Legend of the Rangers" was quite forgettable. So I understand where you're coming from. But for me, that in no way diminishes the impact of the first four seasons. You can just pretend that "Sleeping In Light" was the S4 finale, and there were no more. Well, "In The Beginning" and "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" make nice bookends. But really, while the decline in season 5 is lamentable, it doesn't really detract from the previous seasons, for me.
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