Pete at A Perfectly Cromulent Blog has been going through the movies on Bravo's list of The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. He posted comments on many (but not all) of the 100 today.

But that's not really what my post is about. Go read Pete's post, if the 100 movies are what you're interested in. Instead, I wanted to talk about something that's always bothered me about #59 on the list, Fatal Attraction. One thing necessary to make a good story is a willing suspension of disbelief. And I never could suspend my disbelief in Fatal Attraction, for the reason so eloquently stated by Pete in his post:

Then again, Adrian Lyne's AIDS allegory makes you think twice about something you shouldn't be doing in the first place. Namely, fooling around on the toothsome Anne Archer with the mannish Glenn Close.

That fatal flaw undermined my ability to get into this movie at all. I just simply couldn't believe that any man would be stupid enough to cheat on:

with:

Gimme a break.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 183 words, total size 2 kb.

Lawren at Martinis, Persistence, and a Smile points us to yet another top-100 list of movies (this one in Time magazine).

On a related note, Jeff Goldstein has been assembling the compleat canon of essential 70s movies over the past week or so, too.

The Time list is below the fold, and I have bolded the ones I've seen (italicizing the ones I plan to see):
more...

Posted by: JohnL at 12:03 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 454 words, total size 4 kb.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Hoist a Dos Equis and eat some good Mexican food.

Cinco de mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day, as some in the blogosphere seem to believe. Instead it celebrates Mexico's surprise defeat of a French expeditionary force in 1862. From the Wikipedia article:

The battle between the French and Mexican armies occurred on May 5 when Zaragoza's ill-equipped militia of 4,500 men encountered the better armed French force. However, Zaragoza's small and nimble cavalry units were able to prevent French dragoons from taking the field and overwhelming the Mexican infantry. With the dragoons removed from the main attack, the Mexicans routed the remaining French soldiers with a combination of their tenacity, inhospitable terrain, and a stampede of cattle set off by local peasants. The invasion was stopped and crushed.

I really love that bit about the stampede of cattle helping to do in the bad guys, which reminds me of one of my favorite Westerns.

Unfortunately for the Mexicans, the French returned in greater numbers and won a rare victory in 1864, installing Archduke Maximillian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico. His reign ended three years later as all good tyrants' reigns should end: in front of a firing squad. His wife, understandably, went mad.

So even if you're not into sharing a fun excuse to celebrate our nation's considerable Hispanic heritage, you can at least celebrate a French defeat, right?

Posted by: JohnL at 09:18 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 245 words, total size 2 kb.

Do you read Engrish.com? You really should. It requires a 10-second commitment per day to take in a picture depicting a humorously incorrect or inappropriate use of the English language.

In the extended entry, you'll see a recent posting (from April 29 -- I copied the pic, since I couldn't figure out where it would end up in the site's long-term archives), which plays on the juvenile pronunciation of the seventh planet's name. more...

Posted by: JohnL at 12:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

Via Bryan's Basement, an interesting link to many pictures of abandoned Japanese buildings. Bryan made exactly the comment I would have, expressing surprise that these sites had not been rebuilt or recycled in some way, given the scarcity of land in Japan.

My favorite was this abandoned amusement park (at least I think that's what it is), including the creepy Gulliver lying before Mt. Fuji (see in extended entry).
more...

Posted by: JohnL at 11:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.