The Movie Patron Blog HAS MOVED! This site is lying dormant for now. We’ve teamed up with some other creative people and have regrouped our forces over in the third row. Join us over there for some in depth discussions, daily news items and of course the Cinecast (plus two other podcasts).

     This blog will remain here for static links and Cinecast archive notes, but nothing new will be posted. All of our creative efforts will now be put into RowThree.com. Stop by there and offer up your voice. The intent is for it to be a discussion based movie blog. Not just a news site.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR THE CINECAST, ROW THREE IS WHERE TO FIND THE NEW EPSIODES!

This month’s discussion: Duck You Sucker and Gimme Shelter.

Brush up on both films and join the club!

Comments for this post have been disabled. To leave your thoughts about the show, visit The Movie Club home page or email us at feedback@moviepatron.com - thanks!

NEXT MONTH’S FILMS: Escape from New York and The Last Man on Earth

     As you may have noticed over the past day or two, MoviePatron.com has been having some database issues which cause various aspects of the site to not display properly and/or maybe not at all. We apologize for the inconvenience. This is due to our hosting company switching over all of its existing customers to a new admin platform and new, higher-powered servers.

     For Cinecast listeners, should this happen again in the future, remember that you can download the show from iTunes and you can also stream the show on the Home page (Moviepatron.com). Further instructions on how to subscribe through iTunes can be found by clicking the “Cinecast” button on the top of your screen.

     We hope this won’t happen again in the future (it shouldn’t), but if it does, feel free to email us with any questions or advice you might have to feedback@moviepatron.com.

Thanks for your patience.

     An experimental new type of Podcast is here! Presented by members of Film Junk, The Documentary Blog, MoviePatron and Mad About Movies, this new monthly podcast will feature an in depth discussion of older films we love and/or hate and everything in between.

     Each month we’ll delve into two films you may or may not have seen and just have an in depth discussion about each title. Much like the traditional book club, but we’ll be talking about a far more important medium: film.

     For our first episode, we dive into Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and the fabulous and overlooked Little Children. Remember that since these are older films and we’ll be digging a little deeper into them (including plot points and story details), there will more than likely be spoilers within the discussion.

     Since this is our first attempt at this, please excuse some minor sound issues and stick with us as the show should continue to improve and evolve as we get more practice. We’d love to hear technical feedback, your thoughts on any of the films discussed as well as title suggestions for future episodes. In the meantime, enjoy…

 Movie Club - Ghost Dog & Little Children [87:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Next week: Gimme Shelter and Duck You Sucker (Giù la testa)

You can also subscribe to this show via iTunes

     While bored at work, I spent most of the afternoon revamping my Top 100 films list of all time. You can see the list at any time by clicking on the “Top 100″ button near the top of any page on MoviePatron. But I’m posting it on the blog today for commentary. As written on the Top 100 page, there are some preliminaries regarding this list:

     These are my personal favorite top 100 films of all time. Now first of all, I do not necessarily consider these to be the “best” films of all time. They are simply my favorites. Recently MP contributor, John, made a list of 100 films he’d want with him on a desert island. A good idea I thought. This is sort of my version of that list.
     The list was put together fairly simply. In the fall of 1999, I created a list of all the films that I could remember seeing in my lifetime using “Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever” book. By going through that list (of about 2000 films at the time), I created a sublist of possible contenders for the all time 100 list. I came up with about 160 films, I then weeded out the extra sixty films (which included “Sixth Sense,” “E.T.,” “Blade Runner,” “Wall Street,” “Good Night and Good Luck,” “Blazing Saddles,” “The Game” and many others), and proceeded to rank the remaining 100, which is the list you see here. I try to update the list about every year and a half or so to account for new films I’ve seen and older ones that I’ve lost some interest in.
     Lastly, realize that these are my favorites of all time; therefore, there may be some films that are included in this list simply for nostalgic reasons or because they remind me of my childhood. Also realize that aside from maybe the top 20 films, the others could move up or down a few spots on any given day, depending on my mood.
     Lastly, lastly, this list does not include the Star Wars saga; which is automatic, as the greatest story ever put to film. And no, I did not forget The Godfather, I just don’t see the greatness in it; or Taxi Driver for that matter.

So, without any further ado….I give you…Andrew’s favorite 100 films…see them all!!!!

100) Natural Born killers
99) The Abyss
98) Face/Off
97) Dazed and Confused
96) Glory
95) Silence of the Lambs
94) Starship Troopers
93) Snatch
92) Desperado
91) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
90) Breakfast Club
89) Back to the Future
88) Terminator 2
87) Weird Science
86) Black Hawk Down
85) Titanic
84) Multiplicity
83) Mr. Mom
82) Fantasia 2000
81) Braveheart
80) Forrest Gump

see the rest of the list by unwrapping the text…
UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

     I‘ve put up a new poll over on the sidebar. The results for the old question were not all that surprising. If forced sit and watch a Michael Bay film again, which would you choose. The majority of folks (47%) said “The Rock,” while closely following in second was Transformers with 29% of respondants saying they’d like to watch robots beat each other up again.

     The new question: Of the five films that will be nominated for best picture at next year’s Oscars, how many of them will open in wide release between Sept 1st and Dec 31st? 1, 2, 3, 4 or all 5 of them? I’m tending to think 5. But we’ll see. Vote yourself and then come next March, I’ll re-release the results and see how close we were.

     The Toronto After Dark Film Festival is just a few short weeks away. At last year’s event, I saw 13 feature length films in five days; four of which entered into my top 20 of the year, two in my top 10 and 2 in my top 100 of all time. A film entering my top 100 is not easy, so it was well worth the drive from Minneapolis.

     This year’s festival has expanded to include even more great films (14 feature length and 36 shorts!) and over a longer timeline. With more financial backing and more time, MoviePatron’s coverage should be a bit more extensive this year: including some “on location” cinecasts and interviews with stars, film makers and guest hosts from other movie web sites. And of course Kurt and I will do at least one (probably more) regular length Cinecasts from the event.

     Anyway, to see the seven films announced so far, complete with trailers and synopsis, head over to the Movie Patron After Dark Headquarters for all the info so far. We’ll keep updating it as things progress. Thanks to John from FilmGrotto who scooped up all the info at the Toronto FanExpo.

UPDATE: all TAD previews are now directly commentable.

Current Mood: Esctatic

     Something that I’ve wanted to get done for a long time but could not figure out a system has just taken form. You can now leave comments on any of MoviePatron’s reviews!

     I’ve transferred a good portion of files over to the new ExpressionEngine (v 1.6.0) and it seeems to work well. Not EVERYTHING is there yet. Most of the older, archived reviews are not in there yet; but anything from the main page, DVD page or Recent reviews page are now directly commentable.

     I’m still learning a few things so you may run across a glitch or two (please let me know if you find one) and it’s not yet the most navigable of sites, but over the next few days and weeks it will get better.

     This blog will remain just how it is for now, as will the forums; but eventually, everything will switch over to the new engine and MoviePatron will be almost completely run on EE blog power. As far as how things look or how to maneuver around the site, they should stay basically the same, but it will be nice to have everything in one database that is easily backed up. And again, COMMENT AWAY on any reviews you see fit!

     To anyone who cares, sorry that there will not be a show this week for lots of reasons. Major changes at my “real” job, water skiing injury and just plain wanting to take a break from producing a show (it takes a long time). So I was debating having a show at all, then Kurt talked me into recordind a very short podcast tonight. Then I got home and found my modem fried, so that pretty much puts the nail in that coffin.

     We’ll be back early next week with full blown Cinecast goodness: Bourne, Simpsons, Stardust, Rush Hour 3 (unlikely, but possible), The Ten, and a boatload of DVD recommendations and warnings. Not to mention the summer movie season is finally over which means fall greatness (Oscar bait) is almost upon us!

     See you next week with episode #58!

     Just wanted to say thank you to all of you out-of-towners (and out-of-country-ers) who took the time to email or voice chat with me last night to make sure me and mine were OK; what with the crisis in Minneapolis last night. That was really cool and I appreciate you thinking about me. Some of you I’ve never even met in person! Crazy. Thanks again for your thoughts and checking in on me. I appreciate it.

     And still as far as I know, all my friends and family are safe. Thanks again; it’s very heart warming.

Cheers.

     Hey guys, just a heads up on a couple of new movie reviews on the site. I got a chance to check out Black Sheep last night (finally!), so that’s there; but also John Campea’s (of themovieblog.com) documentary, Prince of Peace, God of War. One of the films was pretty good and one was not so good. Head over to the reviews to see which was which.

Black Sheep (review)

Prince of Peace, God of War (review)

     I stumbled across this site last night that knows the rating for every blog or webpage out there in the blogosphere. According to them…

Based on the following criteria:
This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

hell (5x) crappy (1x)

Nice, but I think I might start using more cusses and see if I can get us to at least an “R” rating. Though an NC-17 would be fun too.

     I‘ve been holding off on announcing this until I had confirmed the actual interview. It is now confirmed so I’ll let you know. On Tuesday evening I’ll be interviewing the director of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (Movie Patron Review), Scott Glosserman. This is my first interview so its a big thing for me. I’m really looking forward to chatting with him. I’ll be posting the interview in two parts. Half will be here on the Movie Patron blog and the other half will be at my FilmGrotto.com site. If the audio quality works out I’ll also be providing it to Andrew so he can include in an upcoming Cinecast. It will likely take a few days to type out the interview but as long as everything goes alright it will up by the end of the next week.

     In addition I’m doing an e-mail interview with Nathan Baesel. If you don’t know he is Leslie Vernon. I’ve sent my questions to him and I’m waiting for his response. As soon as I get them I will be posting that interview up also.

     Both of these guys are being really cool by agreeing to do an interview with a movie fan like myself. I for one can’t wait to hear what they have to say.

     MoviePatron Blog has installed a new feature: Click Quick Comments. For those that don’t want to write a bunch and just wanna say good job or whatever, they can click on one of the buttons below and tally a comment for each post. A commenter can click more than one button per post. You can still leave regular comments as always, but now you don’t have to leave your email address or type anything if you just wanna say, “I was here.”

     Is this stupid, cool or neither? Leave some “real” comments or click a button below.

     I don’t have much news right now about movies since I’ve been pretty tied up with family stuff as we have only been in Ottawa for a day and a half and my sister-in-law and her new baby are still in the hospital. I should have some bloggy goodness in the next day or so but I figured I’d just gab for a second before I crash about my first movie going experience in Ottawa. My wife headed off to bed early as she was tired so I ducked out and went to the local AMC theater. It has 24 screens. This is about double anything in Saskatoon and it sure looks like I could theater hop if I wanted to. I had the saltiest popcorn I’ve ever had. I watched Bug (Movie Patron review) which was a cool movie…

UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

     I don’t think I’ve ever been at a movie in Saskatoon where people have walked out. At least 1 couple left after about 30 minutes. I pretty much agree with Andrew and his review. I actually would like to watch it again so I can pick up on stuff and let more of the movie sink in. Oh and make sure you stick around for the credits. Two extra little scenes are shown which I think explain a bit of what was all going on.

     I plan on hitting the AMC theater a few more times this week. The plan is to catch Pirates (I know it will just be okay or will suck but I feel the need to see it), Mr. Brooks, and Ocean’s 13. I also plan on catching Black Book at one of the art house theaters in Ottawa.

     Thanks to everyone who participated in the Star Wars Blog-a-Thon! We got a bunch of great posts and thoughts; as well as some new YouTube videos I’d never seen before. We’re closing down the open enrollment for posting, but feel free to leave comments on already published posts.

For the last Star Wars post, I’ll be submitting to you our top ten Star Wars moments within the next couple of days. Until then, we’ll now be returning to our regularaly scheduled program, but maybe we’ll do this again sometime for something else. It was a lot of fun (and a lot of work). Thanks again everyone. This was great!

Episode #48 is here and Kurt gets the “good” microphone this week.

 Episode 48 [119:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode, Andrew and Kurt discuss:

-DVD picks of the week
-Worst and best films from 5 household name directors
-Star Wars nostalgia talk
…and the usual tangents. - see the show notes below for info on the director’s cut of this extremely long podcast.

Unwrap the complete Show Notes by clicking on this link…
UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

These are the show notes for Cinecast Episode #48.

NOTICE: Kurt and I felt that this show became FAR too bloviating and long. So we’ve trimmed down our rants to a slightly more comfortable 2 hours. For those of you (cough** Ross **cough) that would like the director’s cut of well over 2 1/2 hours, you can download that show HERE (which is also available on the iTunes subscription page

     In the show notes, topics we discussed in the director’s cut (that are edited out of the normal show) will be in a grey color.
Remember, if you’d like to hear these topics, download the director’s cut.

Bumper music from Oceansize and Squirrel Nut Zippers.

“Tracks” - -
Intro Music: 0:00 - 3:20
Opening Remarks/Announcements: 0:23 - 5:49
DVD Picks: 5:50 - 19:50
Best of/Worst of from 5 Top directors: 19:51 - 1:27:36
Star Wars nostalgia talk: 1:27:37 - 1:55:36
Closing Comments: 1:55:37 - 1:58:43
Outro Music: 1:56:33 - 1:59:11

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In-House Announcements:

     Join us on Facebook: Much cleaner and nicer than MySpace and easy to keep in touch. A lot more fun too as more people join everyday. HERE’S the link to our group - NOTE: Facebook will ask you to login or start an account to use this feature.

     You can post suggestions, comments, thoughts, even questions or topics you’d like discussed on the weekly Cinecast right here on the blog in the comments section. You can also now leave audio comments. Damn cool; leave as many as you like.

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DVD Picks of the Week:

Andrew picks Apocalypto:
Andrew’s Review
Blockbuster
Netflix

Kurt picks The Third Man:
Blockbuster
Netflix

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Other DVDs this week:
Roots (4 Disc sp. ed.)
Letters from Iwo Jima
Flags of Our Fathers
Venus
Epic Movie
Fay Grim

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Big Name Directors and their Best of/Worst of:

Andrew’s Picks…
Roman Polanski
- - Best: The Pianist
- - Worst: don’t have one (maybe The Ninth Gate)
Ridley Scott
- - Best: Blade Runner, Black Hawk Down
- - Worst: Kingdom of Heaven and oh yeah, Hannibal sucks too
- - - when I mention American Gangster, I meant Denzel is the ANtagonist. Not the PROtagonist.
Oliver Stone
- - Best: JFK
- - Worst: Alexander
Steven Spielberg
- - Best: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan
- - Worst: War of the Worlds
Stanley Kubrick
- - Best: A Clockwork Orange
- - Least favorite: Spartacus

Andrew’s 3 most recognizable Music Scores:
Jaws, Star Wars Main Theme, Superman

Kurt’s Picks…
Roman Polanski
- - Best: Chinatown - 2nd place: Death and the Maiden
- - Worst: The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth are in my Neck
Ridley Scott
- - Best: Blade Runner, Alien
- - Worst: Hannibal
Oliver Stone
- - Best: Talk Radio
- - Worst: Any Given Sunday
Steven Spielberg
- - Best: Jaws
- - Worst: A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)
Stanley Kubrick
- - Best: Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- - Least favorite: Spartacus

Kurt’s 3 most recognizable Music Scores:
Jaws, The Good The Bad and The Ugly (great choice say I), The Emperor’s March (Empire Strikes Back)

Bottom 5 Directors Who have wasted Julianne Moore:
Steven Spielberg - The Lost Word
Ivan Reitman - Evolution
Ridley Scott - Hannibal
Gus Van Sant - Psycho (his shot-by-shot remake)
Richard Donner - Assassins

Top 5 Directors who let Julianne Moore shine:
Robert Altman - Short Cuts
The Coen’s - The Big Lebowski
Todd Haynes - Safe (also Far From Heaven)
P.T. Anderson - Boogie Nights (also Magnolia)
Alfonso Cuaron - Children of Men

Upcoming DVD set of Blade Runner - super special edition:

films discussed briefly in our director’s cut: Death and the Maiden, A Good Year, Natural Born Killers, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Saving Private Ryan, Open Range, Full Metal Jacket

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Star Wars 30th Anniversary:

Stop back to the Blog Friday for the Star Wars Blog-a-thon and POST YOUR OWN ARTICLE!

Andrew Ranks:
A New Hope (5/5)
Return of the Jedi (4.5/5)
Empire Strikes Back (4.5/5)
Revenge of the Sith (4/5)
Attack of the Clones (3.5/5)
The Phantom Menace (2.5/5)

Kurt Ranks:
Empire (5/5)
Starwars (4/5)
Attack of the Clones (3/5)
Return of the Jedi (2.5/5)
The Phantom Menace (1/5)
Revenge of the Sith (0.5/5) - WRONG

Andrew’s VERY LONG and comprehensive review of Revenge of the Sith

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Todd (founder/editor of Twitchfilm.net) at Cannes

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This Week’s Homework:

Rest yourself before listening to this complete Cinecast

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Comments or questions?
feedback@moviepatron.com (general)
andrew@moviepatron.com
kurt@moviepatron.com
- - Kurt’s BLOG - This week, the fantastic “unusual, Aussie” western, The Proposition

     If you have the time and a microphone, you can now attach upto a 30 second voice comment in the comments section of any post. It seems to work fine for me (I tested it and you can listen to an example in the comments section below).

Some instructions:

1) IMPORTANT - You have to include at least SOME text to attach the audio to your comment (don’t know why, but whatever). You can write a novel if you wish, or just type “audio” or your name or something.
2) In the comment area, just click on “Insert Audio Comment”
3) A java applet (neat little lady bug walking animation thingy) will appear.
4) Click record and you’ll see the counter start - start talking into your mic (speak fairly loudly and clearly)
5) Click “Stop” when you’re done with your comment.
6) Click “ATTACH AUDIO” - this is the part that takes a bit of time (a percentage indicator goes to tell you how far along you are in your upload)
7) Click “SUBMIT COMMENT”
8) Sit back in the knowledge that your voice will be heard by nearly 5 whole people in the next week. Wow!

Some requirements:

- Hi-speed internet service (not really a requirement, but with my DSL line it took about 2 minutes to upload a 30 second clip).
- A microphone. Go figure.
- Some clicking of “yes” and “run control” buttons. The first time I did this a pop-up came up and asked me if I wanted to run some active-x controls or whatever. Just click yes and it should work fine. You shouldn’t have to do that ever again I don’t think.
- Some patience. When you click record or post, it may seem like nothing is happening, but it is just thinking. Give it a second and something will work.
- If it doesn’t work for you, don’t email me. I likely have no idea what to do or how to fix it. I’m shocked I got it to work so easily as it is. However, if this is seriously messing up your computer maybe it isn’t something I want active on our blog quite yet, so let me know if that’s the case (andrew@moviepatron.com)
- 30 seconds are free to record and upload. I think there is a way to pay for more time if you want to; but I don’t think it would be worth it.

     That’s it. If you meet all those minor requirements, give it a whirl. Aside from the patience part, this is far easier than typing out ideas. Just remember, once it’s there, the whole world will be able to hear it. Oh yeah, this isn’t a kid’s site, so you can pretty much say whatever you want, but I will delete anything that is overly harsh or I just deem not OK in my opinion (talking about raping Nazis would be an example of something that IS okay).

     Have fun and give us your feedback on this new feature. So far I love it!

     With the new BLOG upgrades, we are now able to implement a player for our podcast, or as we like to call them - Cinecasts. This is a new feature and we’re still struggling with all the ins and outs, but this should be a fully functional and user friendly way of getting the show each week. You can stream the show right here, or stream it through a pop-up to continue doing whatever you want with our show running in the background; or download the entire mp3 to your hard drive or mp3 playing device.

     You can also leave comments about the show right here which is something I’ve wanted for a long time and haven’t quite figured out how to do… and now it’s here! And also introducing audio comments see THIS POST for instructions and help on audio commenting.

     This whole thing will be tweaked here and there as we go along in the next few weeks, but I think this is a nice improvement/addition to our site that makes things that much easier for us and you. Leave your comments below if you’d like.

So without any further ado, let’s see what this thing looks and sounds like…

 Episode 47 [88:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode, Andrew and Kurt discuss:
28 Weeks Later
DVD releases
Die Hard 4 new trailer
Stephen King adaptations and more…

JUST CLICK “UNWRAP TEXT” BELOW FOR THE COMPLETE SHOW NOTES.

UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

These are the show notes for Cinecast Episode #47.

with bumper music from 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later.

“Tracks” - -
Intro Music: 0:00 - 1:48
Opening Remarks: 1:48 - 4:05
28 Weeks Later: 4:10 - 45:15
DVD Releases: 45:15 - 1:02:25
Stephen King Tangent: 1:02:30 - 1:10:20
Die Hard 4 Trailer: 1:10:30 - 1:16:50
Previewing listener
generated topics and
films opening this weekend: 1:16:50 - 1:26:35
Closing Comments: 1:26:35 - 1:27:43
Outro Music: 1:27:03 - 1:28:55

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In-House Announcements:

Join us on Facebook: Much cleaner and nicer than myspace and easy to keep in touch. A lot more fun too as more people join everyday. HERE’S the link to our group - NOTE: Facebook will ask you to login or start an account to use this feature.

You can post suggestions, comments, thoughts, even questions or topics you’d like discussed on the weekly Cinecast.

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Review of 28 Weeks Later:

Andrew’s Review

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s Intacto (IMDb)

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DVD Pick of the Week:

PAN’S LABYRINTH
Andrew’s Review
Kurt’s Review

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Other DVDs this week:
The Fountain

Seraphim Falls

Stomp the Yard

Creepshow 3

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Stephen King IMDb profile and Filmography

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Die Hard IV:

Release Date: 6/27
Official Site

Original Die Hard Trailer:

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Other films mentioned:

Waitress - Nathan Fillion (IMDb)
Jindabyne
Fay Grimm

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Homework:

Rent Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s (director of 28 Weeks Later) Intacto…
Blockbuster
Netflix

…and for extra credit, read Stephen King’s short story, “The Long Walk.” You’ll find it in a larger book of stories called “The Bachman Books.” This is both Andrew and Kurt’s favorite Stephen King story bar none. It’s devilishly simple, but amazingly impactful and exciting.

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Comments or questions?
feedback@moviepatron.com (general)
andrew@moviepatron.com
kurt@moviepatron.com
- - Kurt’s BLOG

     This is just a quick post asking all the readers if there is any specific things they would like to see covered here on the blog? I read about 10-20+ websites with movie news every day and they often lead me to other sites. So far I’ve been keeping most movie posts fairly mainstream. Do we have any readers who are totally into the independent scene? How about news about DVDs in addition to just stuff that is going to be out in theaters? Or would you all like me to just continue posting about anything that catches my eye that I feel the general web going movie audience would like to know about?