Subject: Signs

Bart:  I was amused by your assessment that Signs was derivative of three movies.
I thought it was derivative of five movies, all different than yours:

1.  Independence Day (obvious comparison, though at least in that campy crappo movie
     the aliens's purposes were clear, and they were defeated, rather than just mysteriously going away);

2.  Close Encounters (aliens trying to take little blonde boy out of house);

3.  Field of Dreams (supernatural things happening in cornfields)

4.  The Natural (hero picks out his special baseball bat and whacks away --
      I could almost hear Joaquim Phoenix say "pick me out a winner, Bobby")

5.  The Wizard of Oz ("I'm melting...")

Here's some other observations.  Why is it that a race of creatures can conquer intergalactic travel
while at the same time be seemingly helpless against wood and nails?  Why do aliens that are alergic
to water come to a planet that is 90% water; don't they have telescopes?  For that matter, since water
is the building block of life, how is it that living things in human form (indeed, the size of Shaquille O'Neal)
are allergic to water; was that explained to us and I just missed it?  Why did they need to get in that
particular house; were there no other people on the planet they could eat, like, say, in a population center?
Another few miles into suburban Philadelphia and they could have eaten M. Knight -- I would have enjoyed that.

Awful, awful, awful.  It was all about building suspense, but science fiction should be interesting in concept
and provoke thought, not just be a backdrop for suspense.  M. Knight Sha-Na-Na needs to get out of the
business of script-writing.

Howard

 Is the teaming of John Madden and Al Michaels (R-Nazi) working?
 I'm not sure it is.

 It's too early to say for sure, but it's safe to say there's no chemistry there.
 John was better with Pat Summerall, and I'm happy that Dennis Miller (R-Nazi)
 has lost both of his high-profile jobs right after he turned Bush toady.

 We'll re-visit the subject once the season gets underway.

 'Embarrassed' candidate leaves race
   Bates leaves school board race because of his 1994 sex charge

  Click  Here

  Excerpt:
 Don Bates, who proclaimed himself one of the "God guys" in his campaign for School Board,
 quit the race Friday after the Times confronted him with his having been arrested and charged
 with masturbating in public at the Crystal River Mall in 1994.

 Subject: Begala and the worms

 Bart,

 I don't know if you watched that live or read a transcript, but Begala *did* say Mezcal.
 I remember being impressed that he knew the difference. My brother taught me way back
 about ten years ago, and  I always watch for people to make that mistake.

 It was one of the first times I had a chance to watch in a few weeks.
 I can get mad at Paul for several things recently, but not that.

 Joe
 

 Joe, thanks, that's good news.
 Koresh knows Paul's batting average could use the points.

Subject: Signs- I loved it

I would guess that one reason some people did not like this movie is because
they expected it to be one thing when it turned out to be another entirely.
It was portrayed in the trailers as an alien film, a la "X-Files", but that was only
a small part of it. It's basically genre-less, or more specifically, it falls into multiple
genres simultaneously- science fiction, suspense thriller, horror, and family drama.

The film's intention (to the best of my knowledge) was to look at the effect of a
significant event in an intimate way: to watch a family's reaction to the bizarre and
confusing events that take place around them. If you think that the movie is *about*
an alien invasion, you've missed the point. The alien invasion is just a metaphor for
being completely unable to control the circumstances in your life, and the real point
was how these people responded to that. Did they lose their faith, regain it, or find
a new faith? I think it was very much about human beings and the crazy things that
happen to us, and how we deal with them.

I also appreciated that Shymanalan was clearly drawing on several classics in
filmmaking, including Hitchcock (the opening credits and score was classic Hitch,
and several scenes were shot almost identically to "The Birds"), "The Wizard of Oz",
"The Day the Earth Stood Still", and of course "X-Files". It was an interesting homage
to classic films, as well as being downright entertaining. I actually screamed out loud
three times-- I NEVER do that in the theater.

No comment on Mel's acting. He's so handsome that I can not be objective on this.
The rest of the cast was very solid, in my opinion. I did agree with one of your critiques
-- why didn't they just pour water on the alien? Then again, to return to my original
hypothesis, I think that perhaps we are supposed to allow for the fact that 1) human
behavior isn't always logical, especially under such stressful circumstances, and 2) it was
all "pre-determined" as seen by Mel's late wife.

Cynthia