From: arthur@alum.calberkeley.org   
      
   On 1/12/2026 4:23 AM, The True Melissa wrote:   
   > Verily, in article , did weberm@polaris.net   
   > deliver unto us this message:   
   >> FANTASY ISLAND:   
   >> "The Prince; The Sheriff". The crown prince of a small European country   
   >> wants the experience of being an average man to better understand what   
   >> his people go through; and a New York City cop tracks down his   
   >> partner's killers -- with the intent to obtain an eye for an eye.   
   >>   
   >> What did you watch?   
   >>   
   >   
   > I caught that one a couple of years ago. I thought the cop story was   
   > more interesting. I liked how they handled the prince story, though,   
   > particularly that it wasn't about romance.   
   >   
   > Over the past few days, I watched Roofman, a movie available on   
   > Paramount Plus.   
      
   I didn't know this was available to stream.  I want to see this.  I   
   heard the trailers were misleading and it's actually good.   
      
   A guy escapes from prison and hides in the ceiling of a   
   > Toys R Us (it's a new movie, but it's set a bit in the past). There's a   
   > pretty and nice store clerk for him to fall in love with, and also a   
   > crabby store manager who might reform. It wasn't as amusing as I'd   
   > hoped.   
      
   :-/   
      
      
   There was a lot of filler, and it was rather predictable overall,   
   > but it was decent and watchable. I didn't realize until the closing   
   > credits that it was based on a true story.   
   >   
   > I watched a Bob's Burgers rerun, "The Secret Ceramics Room of Secrets."   
   > I like this one. Louise goes nuts, which is usually a good plot impetus.   
   > I followed it with "Sleeping with the Frenemy," a Tina episode, which is   
   > okay. I went on to watch a few others from season 8, which is a solid   
   > season in general.   
   >   
   > I also went back into Krapopolis   
      
   I refuse to accept that's the actual name of a TV show!  LOL   
      
   and watched "Nike (the Goddess)." This   
   > was pretty good. I did think it was lame that none of them could think   
   > of a sincere compliment. "Stupendous, you're one of the bravest people I   
   > know. Hippocampus, you're truly brilliant. Ty, you have the biggest   
   > heart in Greece." Done. Still, if I can believe that all three of them   
   > had brain freeze, the rest of the episode was good.   
   >   
   > What did everyone else watch?   
   >   
      
   Over the past few days I've been making my way through the Kevin Smith   
   movies in my collection.  I won't go through all of them, but highlights   
   included:   
      
   Dazed and Confused (4K disc) - Yeah, I know this is not a Kevin Smith   
   movie.  It was written and directed by Richard Linklater, but it's a   
   movie set in high school featuring several actors who later star in   
   Kevin Smith movies including Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren.  So I decided   
   to start my Kevin Smithathon off with this one.  It was mostly   
   background noise with the director's commentary.   
      
      
   Clerks (blu-ray) - Kevin Smith's first movie.  It held up very well all   
   things considered.   
      
      
   Mallrats (4K disc) - This was Smith's second movie.  I watched a new 4K   
   disc which included an extended cut I'd never seen before.  The extended   
   cut has about 30 minutes of new footage, and most of that new footage   
   (about 20 minutes) takes place before they even go to the mall.  It   
   involves this ridiculous, not funny, subplot where the main character is   
   thought to be a terrorist who tried to assassinate the governor.  All   
   references to this subplot were deleted from the movie.  Smith did an   
   introduction before the extended cut where he basically says the studio   
   hired a professional movie editor to cut the movie, and the professional   
   editor removed all this nonsense. But when he was given permission to do   
   his own edit, he literally just put back in every frame of film that was   
   shot.   
      
   (Skipping recaps of Smith movies I watched.)   
      
   Jersey Girl - I mention this one not because I did watch it, but because   
   I *wanted* to watch it and the only place that had it was some no name   
   low rent streaming service, that kept messing up the stream, until I   
   gave up on it.  And this is why I own my movies on disc!  I actually had   
   a similar issue with Clerks II.  I do own the disc, but the disc had   
   playback issues, and with nowhere to stream for free, I found myself   
   forced to watch clips of scenes on YouTube whenever the disc would   
   freeze up.  Fortunately, the disc would freeze at key scenes that were   
   available to watch on YouTube.   
      
      
   (Skipping recaps of Smith movies I watched.)   
      
      
   Clerks III (4K disc) - This was my first time watching Clerks III since   
   I saw it in the theater.  This is somewhat autobiographical and has   
   Randal (Jeff Anderson) deciding to make a low budget black and white   
   movie about his life as a clerk.  It holds up very well and closes out   
   the chapter on those characters.   
      
      
   The 4:30 Movie (Streamed on DVR) - This is Kevin Smith's latest movie.   
   It came out a couple of years ago.  I missed it in the theater, but I   
   think it wasn't actually showing near me.  This is another   
   autobiographical movie, but this one is set in the mid 80s and is about   
   a teenage boy who is obsessed with movies and the friends he hangs   
   around with.  It was an OK movie.  Lots of cameos from the regulars.   
   Steven Spielberg basically did the same thing with his own   
   autobiography, "The Fablemans."  But while The Fablemans spans years of   
   Spielberg's childhood, The 4:30 Movie is just a day in the life of a   
   movie obsessed kid.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)