commence the comments

A lot more comments have been posted since Marc & Kim talked about this blog on the radio. Thanks to all who made my day by posting something!

Kudos especially to reader Pam Mc. On Saturday she posted comments on 14 different blog entries as she spent the day catching up on my rambling thoughts:

Ok, now that I've finally caught up with everything you've posted, I want to say that I really have enjoyed your blog and I will continue to read it. Keep up the wonderful work and take care. I'll be "commenting" to ya soon. :) Oh btw.....how do you find the time to do EVERYTHING you do???

Reader Amy W. reacted strongly to the mention of Penn & Teller on Saturday:

[in] the Episode of Penn & Teller's Bull--- on P.E.T.A, they GROSSLY misrepresented P.E.T.A. Now, I realize that SOME people who support P.E.T.A are fanatics and give people like myself who support animal rights and are actively involved in animal rescue a bad name. Not everyone who supports animals' rights are psychos that throw paint on furs.

My thoughts on "United 93" and "Mission: Impossible" inspired a reader named Ray to write:

I went to see United 93 this past weekend because I agree with the individual who commented that it is too soon to forget this tragedy. I was impressed with the movie, however I agree that recognizing a few of the actors distracted from the overall feel of the movie...
While I was enjoying this movie, the rest of the group I was with was in the movie theater next to me, taking in MI:3...I refused to watch it. While I agree that JJ Abrams is amazing, Tom Cruise and the past two movies are not...and did we really need a third one??

While I wrote that the first two "Mission: Impossible" movies crapped on everything I loved about the original TV series, an article in The Hollywood Reporter says it more politely:

From the start though, the "Mission" series rejected mythology. The first movie killed off the character of Jim Phelps, the one link to the 1960s TV series. On the big screen, the franchise chose to bet primarily on its star Tom Cruise, surrounded by spectacular explosions.

Part of the appeal of the old TV series was that it established a team of covert operatives -- Martin Landau's master of disguise, Barbara Bain's femme fatal, Greg Morris' tech expert and Peter Lupus' strong man. Then each week, it combined their expertise in different combinations in jigsaw puzzle plots. On the big screen, though, each of the films essentially has erased all memory of its predecessor -- only Ving Rhames has teamed with Cruise in all three movies. In effect, each of the movies has been a stand-alone entertainment.

"Mission: Impossible" is a show that needs to be on DVD.