…or the works of Guy Gavriel Kay.
Dan Simmons’ Hyperion is much better than Dune. In fact, it’s probably the best science fiction ever written.
Robert E. Heinlein had some good ideas and could produce some decent prose, but when it came to plot and chracters he was a very mediocre writer.
Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke were just like Heinlein, only without the decent prose.
I’ll take Dragonlance over Harry Potter any day of the week.
Napoleon Dynamite was dreadful.
The most beautiful women making movies now are:
Kate Winslet
Drew Barrymore
Selma Hayek
Scarlett Johansson
In that order. I’ve probably fallen in love with 90% of Drew Barrymore’s characters. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as it were.
Vastly overrated, wouldn’t watch again:
The Shining
Blade Runner
American Beauty
Jackie Brown
Survivor
Didn’t get much out of, don’t hate but also don’t see what the fuss is about:
Taxi Driver
Seven
Donnie Darko
Fargo
WKRP in Cincinnati
Don’t understand the hate, these things are great despite some flaws:
Titanic
**Starship Troopers **
**Friends ** (and I love Janice and her voice)
**Everybody Loves Raymond ** (Debra is great)
Married with Children (and the show was greatly improved when Steve Rhodes left, and more so when Jefferson Darcy joined)
Random thoughts:
While generally crap, there are some very funny scenes in some of Adam Sandler’s movies.
Lord of the Rings is a great three hour movie spread out over 175 hours.
It really doesn’t matter who shot first.
Julia Roberts, Calista Flockhart, and Kate Moss are very attractive women.
Uma Thurman, Cameron Diaz, Mena Suvari, and Selma Blair are not.
In 30 years, SNL has aired about four hours of humorous material. The four hours includes Robert Smigel, Jack Handy, and Mr Bill.
All said with hand on the heart sincerity:
“Showgirls” was a very clever indictment of the vapidity and fundamental self-prostitution underlying “the american dream”.
Serie A is a waaaaaay higher standard of football and of entertainment than the English Premier league
The overall quality and entertainment value of english football has measureably decreased since the Premiership came in
Nicole Kidman is a talentess anti-actor. How is it she still gets work?
Phil Ceretta and Max Greevey kicked Lennie Briscoe’s ass
The designated hitter rule is a perversion fo the laws of God, man and nature
Harry Potter is not only turgid crap written by a seveth rate writer, it may well encourage functional illiteracy instead of curing it
“Licence to Kill” was a rockin’ James Bond film, and Timothy Dalton was a rockin’ James Bond
David Moyes should be sacked - right now! He is incompetent. (spoken as a life time Tofffeeman, this)
Tom Baker waaaay overtayed his welcome as Dr Who and was never as good as Jon Pertwee anyway. Most of the time, he wasn’t even as good as Peter Davison.
Helen Hunt is much prettier than Jodie Foster
mm
Tolkien was a believer in a conventionalism of fantasy, who not only followed conventions but instituted his own bizarre nouveaux-conventions, which have unfortunately caught on. I suggest Piers Anthony as an alternative.
Alan Moore’s Watchmen was largely a concentration of elements found in other “adult-themed” comics of the era. It does not completely succeed as a deconstruction of the superhero form, for it is primarily horror writing, & it has only a single super-powered individual surrounded by masked mystery-men. Also, he treated the Charlton trademarks with unwarranted disrespect, for which he deserves a hiss.
Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is unmitigated crap, so bad as to seem to lend credence to the argument that copyrights should be forever. And the artist, what’s-'is-face is unbelievably bad. He was bad on Marshal Law, & he’s still bad.
Shakespeare’s real strength was in goofy comedy. The Comedy of Errors is a masterpiece of farce. Romeo & Juliet reads like a comedy before being turned tragic at the end for arbitrary reasons, & is therefore unsatisfying.
The Beatles were a better songwriting band than performing band, as a whole. Most Beatles songs can be improved by being covered by a decent rock band.
James Bond was really only worth one book/movie. The literary/cinematic world would be vastly better off if it had one Bond title and twenty Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang adventures.
Some of Kid Rock’s music is engaging and fun to listen to.
I agree wholeheartedly. You see, my stepmother is from Thailand and she cooks it in authentic Thai style. That is to say, it stinks up the entire house.
I was reading some restaurant reviews in the Boise Weekly and one review of a Thai place said “try the larb.” I pray that’s Americanized larb. I’ve had the authentic item. If one day I’m held at gunpoint and forced to choose between eating a plate of larb or starring as the bottom in a scheisse video, well, I’ll pick the latter hot lunch.
Also, the last episode of Seinfeld is without a doubt the best series finale I’ve ever watched.
1920s style death-rays just don’t work.
Cindy was the coolest Brady.
Although this thread is meant to be cathartic, I suppose, some of you people are making my eyes bleed.
I am going to give it another try, since I really, really want to like it, but the first time around, I found Firefly to be dull and unimaginative. I’m taping the reruns on Sci-Fi, hoping that the second time will be the charm. Some of my SF-loving friends think I am horribly warped and awful, and I’d love to be able to speak to them again about this show without getting glared at.
Some of these have already been used , but I don’t care . Still my opinions , so I will repeat . 
Rap should have a “C” permanantly in front of it .
Pulp Fiction sucked . Really , really hard .
People that don’t like animals cannot be trusted .
Stephen King seems to have forgotten how to write .
There may be more to come . My mind is blanking .
Rock and roll is currently dead (though is has undergone several resurrections and may well rise again). Hip hop is where it’s at right now-- it’s the new rock, and everyone should just accept that and move on. If you think you’re listening to rock, you’re probably listening to classic rock, older bands who’ve been around for a while (and may well suck boulders now but you won’t admit it), or that emo crap that’s passing itself off as “new” rock.
*Blade Runner * (The Director’s Cut) is the best sci-fi movie ever made.
Joaquin Phoenix, Ewan McGregor, and Matt Damon are frickin’ uglier than sin. There are guys who change my oil at Jiffy Lube who are better looking, and that’s not a compliment. This is not to say they are bad actors; no, they are just very unattractive.
Kevin Smith is a hack and he sucks. None of his movies are any good. He is so full of crap that he should be ridden out of Hollywood on a rail. Clerks is his best movie and the actors are so wooden they might as well be holding their scripts in their hands and doing a cold reading. When will he go away?
Tom Cruise’s best movie is Legend.
Steven Spielberg generally fails to thrill me, with a few exceptions of course. He doesn’t suck, but he is overrated as hell.
Requiem for a Dream was the *Reefer Madness * of its generation-- a highly improbable cautionary tale for our times. What an over the top, ludicrous, vile stream of manipulative nonsense that movie was, replete with excessively hip gimmickry. A triumph of style over substance. Ellen Burstyn and Jennifer Connelly were wasted.
Thomas Harris’s *Hannibal * is a great book. The filmmakers should have used the ending from the book.
Jack Kirby was one of the greatest comic book artists ever, but as a writer, after he quit working with Stan Lee, he sucked. His “Third World” stuff is atrocious hackwork. He heads the list of artists who should never have written, which also includes Steve Ditko and Todd MacFarlane.
Romance novels are entertaining. The genre has better authors than mainstream fiction.
Firefly sucked.
ST:DS9 was better than ST:NG, but neither was outstanding.
M.A.S.H. the TV series was abysmal, the movie was so-so.
LOTR needed an editor, badly.
Enders Game is not a good book.
Arrgh! When will I learn preview is my friend?
ST:DS9 = ST: DS9
*Friends * was consistently entertaining.
The movies Clint Eastwood has directed are boring.
Alice In Wonderland is creepy. (The Disney classic, not the book. Never read the book b/c I disliked the film so much.)
O Brother Where Art Thou is a thoroughly awful, stupid, boring film and the soundtrack is even worse.
I don’t get Brad Pitt As Sex Symbol. At all. He looks to me like a fine example of Prehistoric Man, and his acting has never done much for me either.
Moby Dick is really, really, really, really boring. It was a flop when it was published for a REASON.
Oh, here’s one that has earned me no end of enmity, IRL or otherwise.
I cannot forgive someone who values the life of an animal over a human being. There’s not much difference, but there’s a hell of a lot of difference.
Also, fuck squirrels. It took forever (and a dying sugar maple) to get them away from the birdfeeder.