Gone With The Wind @ MindSay 
We hear about the war between the states in school all the time. But do we ever hear the Southerners' point of view? Hearing them calling the Yankees devils, I feel a little more in perspective. Wars suck for both sides. People died, people were starving, there were idiots.
On both sides, people thought they were right. Yankees thought Confederates were the Devil's spawn, and that goes the other way too. All we hear about in school though, is the Northern point of view. I'm sure as Halifax not saying I agree with the South. Maybe we should know more what they were thinking though. The war had some good. I really don't think wars are good, but it's good that slavery's over. It'd be really sad if it was still going like it did.
So what has Gone With the Wind done to me? Besides giving me one more love story, that I confess, I really like, it's shown me what the South might have thought. They were the enemy then. But they were human too. They made mistakes, like everyone does.
So you can laugh when I say what I'm reading. You can't say I'm racist for saying that. I promise that I'm not. If you think I am, please don't reply and yell to me about it. I had family on both sides of the war.
Again, while you're laughing, think about it. Maybe you'll read it. That'd be pretty cool. The copy I have looks like a dictionary. Red cover and everything. And it is a love story. But it's a war story too. And there's nothing romantic about war, unless you fancy dying for a cause that you think is worth it and having your widow cry her eyes out.
The scene is a spacious hotel lobby. Two chairs facing each other separated by a beautifully polished talbe. In the center of the table is a bottle of Cognac and two glasses, on half full the other half empty. The man acoss from me lights up a cigar in one flowing movement. His name Dr. Samuel P. Chase.
Claudio Falconi: Dr. Chase-
Dr. Chase: Please, call me Sam.
CF: Sammy, tell the readers a little bit about your company, dBi.
DC: Well, at dBi (dead Baby idustries) we grant emergency contraceptive "opearations" to all those who so render our services, regardless of race, religion, creed, sexual orientation or gender.
CF: Gender? Last i heard or read only females can produce children (fetuses).
DC: That is correc, but if a male would want contraceptive measures to be taken, dBi would admit him under our wing, no questions asked.
CF: I see. Now there are right wing conservative and left wing communists attacking you and your company. If you could tell them one thing, what would it be?
DC: (jumps onto the table) I HATE LIARS!!! (sits back down) and fetuses.
CF: Hmmm... Interesting, why fetuses?
DC: Have you ever seen a pregenant woman? Say at about her seventh month of pregnancy, she starts ballooning. Why? Why is this formerly beautiful woman turning into a Stay Puft Marshmellow?
CF: So you hate fetuses because they make "hot babes" fat.
DC: Yes. And they become children.
CF: I s-
DC: I hate children.
CF: I don't blame you, kill the little brats I say.
DC: Yes!
CF: But now tell us about your products.
DC: Well, as you know dBi invented the portable staircase. What you do with that is take your wife to the top and tell her to look down, then you push her off. Like in Gone with the Wind.
CF: Genius. Pure Genius.
DC: We also perform after birth abortions.
CF: How do you manage that?
DC: (chuckles) Very carefully, sometimes the little bastards fight back. I had one that hid in the oven last week.
CF: Oh, really? A one week old baby hid in the oven?
DC: (smiles sheepishly) Ok, so I threw it in the oven.
CF: Good thinking. So you baked it?
DC: Yes, but that was after I "aborted" it. You see there's a particular method I prefer. I pin the body to the floor, sometimes using four inch spikes and I drive my heel into its skull. The pressure causes the head to explode and thus, exterminates the little rascal. Of course this is extremely messy, so I lay some plastic down.
CF: Wow. Any other methods?
DC: Saran Wrap.
CF: Saran Wrap?
DC: Wrap the little bastard in that plastic and watch it slowly pass from this world.
CF: You truly are an evil genius. Thank you Dr. Chase, it has been a pleasure.
And so the interview was concluded. Dr. Chase sat in that lobby lobby for another four and half hours, where he shot various psychoactive drugs and "dropped" about a gallon of acid. He died on the way to the hospital. One day later he rose from the dead, beating not only Jesus, Jackie Wald and Chuck Norris but also Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.
Film critic Roger Ebert received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame June 23. Congrats and yay! Someone truly more deserving than Seacrest. Annette Bening, Steve Martin, Ray Romano and Charlize Theron are among the stars who will receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006.
German film critics are protesting Paramount for implementing a worldwide embargo preventing reviewers from publishing their critiques of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds until the film's global release date June 29. The critics called the embargo a "violation of basic constitutional rights." Is the movie that bad?! Tom Cruise hosted a special screening of the War of the Worlds for hundreds of fans in Los Angeles June 20. Laurence Fishburne and Philip Seymour Hoffman are joining Cruise and Keri Russell for writer-director J.J. Abrams' upcoming Mission: Impossible 3. Two good additions.
Frankly, my dear, I do give a damn: The line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" from Gone With the Wind was named the American Film Institute's (AFI) number one quote on its "100 Years... 100 Quotes" list and special, which aired June 21 on CBS. Casablanca had the most entries at six, with "Here's looking at you, kid" at number five, the highest-ranked one from that particular movie.
Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's Plan B production company have entered a first-look agreement that gives Paramount an exclusive first bid at producing projects developed by Plan B over the next three years. Paramount Pictures Chairman and CEO Brad Grey is the third founding member of Plan B. Warner Bros' Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Plan B's first endeavor, hits theaters July 15.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invited 112 members of the film industry to become members. Members of AMPAS vote on who should be nominated for and win Oscars. Gael Garcia Bernal, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sophie Okonedo, Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard, Imelda Staunton and Ziyi Zhang are the foreign actors that got in. American actors Thomas Haden Church, Jennifer Coolidge, Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti and Mykelti Williamson were extended invitations as well. Five directors got in: Alejandro Amenabar, Marc Forster, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Andy Tennant and Joel Zwick. Paramount CEO Brad Grey, Spider-Man producer Avi Arad, Robert Rodriguez's producer-wife Elizabeth Avellan, Crash creator Paul Haggis, The Motorcycle Diaries writer Jose Rivera and School of Rock writer and co-star Mike White were also invited to join AMPAS. On June 22, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted against granting a consortium of stunt performers their request for an Oscar in their field. Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar received a Bunuel's Razor Award for the Best Spanish Film of 2004 for his latest hit, Bad Education. Again, congrats and yay!
The Los Angeles trial for the case of a photographer accused of trying to extort money from Cameron Diaz via racy photos of her taken before she was famous started June 23. Diaz's Charlie's Angels co-star Lucy Liu will star opposite Cedric the Entertainer in Les Mayfield's action comedy The Cleaner. Liu plays an FBI agent posing as a waitress to Cedric's amnesiac janitor who thinks he's an undercover agent. Liu will also executive produce and star in the independent thriller Devil to Pay. Diaz's pop star boyfriend Justin Timberlake is in talks to join Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson in the film Black Snake Moan. Ricci and Jackson are good, but I don't know about Timberlake - or the title for that matter.
Fox and Marvel Enterprises are suing Sony and Revolution Studios over Sony's new comic book satire Zoom, starring Tim Allen, which will hit theaters around the same time as Fox's X3. Fox and Marvel claim that Zoom rips off elements of the X-Men.
An offer not to be refused: Marlon Brando's personal effects, including his driver's licenses and a notated script for The Godfather, are going up for auction at Christie's June 30 in a sale expected to fetch more than $1 million.
O star Mekhi Phifer will star in and make his directorial debut on Sony's indie comedy Easier, Softer Way, which also stars Maura Tierney, Scott Grimes, John C. McGinley, Ronnie Warner, Terry Crews and Mo Collins. Easier follows two hapless pot heads involved in a scheme to rip off a mysterious character called Mr. Big after the duo sours on rehab. Something tells me this has nothing to do with Sex and the City's Chris Noth.
AMC Theaters and Loews Cineplex Entertainment announced June 21 that they will merge. I only have one question: Loews does the Ultimate Film Fanatic competition, so does that mean that the AMC theaters, which we have in St. Louis, will have the competition too?!
The producers of Ray are developing a biopic on legendary comic Rodney Dangerfield, who passed away last year, based in part on his memoir It's Not Easy Being Me.
James Earl Jones, who is best known for voicing the menacing Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies is suffering from pneumonia. May the force be with him.
Sarah Michelle Gellar will star in the film adaptation of the Electronic Arts videogame American McGee's Alice, a twisted take on Alice in Wonderland in which Alice has grown up to become a disturbed young woman. I would be too after all that sh*t.
A Los Angeles prosecutor told a judge June 22 that actor Tom Sizemore violated his probation by trying to fake a drug test, not reporting to his probation officer, missing counseling sessions and not advising authorities of his new address. The judge may send Sizemore back to jail when the hearing resumes. Dude, you're screwed.
Zack Sinclair, the man convicted of stalking Mel Gibson, was sentenced to three years in state prison June 22. Lucyna Turyk-Wawrynowicz, a housekeeper who worked for Manhattan's rich and famous, has been charged with stealing from clients including Candice Bergen and Robert DeNiro's wife.
-Catherine Krummey, MovieCat Cinema
'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.'
- Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, Gone With the Wind
The #1 US movie quote according to the American Institute of Film.
And to think that they were going to take out that line because it was risky.
Also in the top 100 were two other Gone with the Wind quotes from Vivien Leigh (Scarlett O'Hara):
After all, tomorrow is another day (#31)
As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again (#59)
Makes me want to watch Gone with the Wind for the 50-somethingth time now...
