The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Ever see this on VH-1? Basically, we tally up nominations to make a list and then vote certain movies off the list until only the best remain! Here's how we're going to do it, round 1: You each get to nominate three movies under the category of Best Popcorn Flick (must be brainless, possibly pointless and utterly redeeming in the end), and after three days, the ten movies with the most votes each will be placed on...THE LIST!!!

In Round 2, you each get one vote for a movie to knock off the list, but it doesn't count if you don't provide as brutal a reason why as you possibly can!

Finally, Round 3 is where the top five movies remain, and votes between each one will determine the true tOWS best popcorn flick of all time.

Ready...set...Go!</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana, tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Rock, and I'll think of a third later.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>For my nominations, I choose Big Trouble in Little China, Earth Girls Are Easy, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off!</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Ronin, The Legend of Drunken Master, and Starship Troopers.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Naked Gun 2 1/2, Orgazmo, National Lampoons senior trip</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Hmmm, maybe we should limit it to comedies...this is just too scattered!</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>The Rock, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Wargames. Eh, I can think of a ton actually...</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: left; '>Ferris Beuller, Clerks, The Rock</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>Legally Blonde, Mafia (the campy one about the retired gangsters).... can't think of a 3rd right now</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Spaceballs, Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, Clerks</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Comedies, eh? Army of Darkness, Freaked, Spaceballs.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Oh, by the way, you can change your votes...I'm going to replace Ferris Bueller with Army of Darkness</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>No, make it Earth Girls Are Easy that I'll replace</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Baskerville; text-align: left; '>Clerks, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Porky's</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "comic sans MS"; text-align: left; '>Brainless? Easy : Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Highlander, Galaxy Quest. Ignore posts below. =8^)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>No changing rules midstream.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Clerks, Mallrats, Half-Baked.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I'm sticking with my original selections, but I just want to say that Pee Wee's Big Adventure is an "honorable" choice. :)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Shouldn't this been in Q'aires? It's slow enough over there as it is.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt arial; text-align: left; '>Army of Darkness, Big Trouble in Little China, and Monty Python & the Holy Grail.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Add your choices!</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Commando, Starship Troopers & Repo Man.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>After reading the other choices people picked, I know mine are the best. I almost said Commando three times because it IS the all-time Popcorn movie king and none of you picked it once. I like some of the other choices mentioned, but Commando wins.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>:^]</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Face/Off, Spaceballs, Army of Darkness</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Man, if you thought Starship Troopers was brainless, you missed the entire point of the film</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Geez, what is it with you guys and Starship Troopers? Did NO ONE get it?</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>ST had a point? I gotta hear this. ;)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Yes, yes, I enjoyed the film's satiric take on Heinlein's militarism, but that doesn't stop me from liking it as cream-puff sci-fi.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Better get some people to change their votes...anything with only one vote gets dropped. (never seen it myself)</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Wait a minute, Barret, do you smoke? Half-Baked is like a doofus stoner rallying cry.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Maybe I should just fucking DELETE IT? EH, SINE?? ; )</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>*laughs at Sine*</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana, tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Satire. Didn't you notice how overboard they went with the fascism and the news reels reminiscint of WWII? And the whole thing with their instructor going to war was pretty much the opposite of what happened in All Quite on the Western Front.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Yeah, I saw that but I couldn't figure out what they were satirizing. I mean, surely it takes more than a nazi uniform to do a satire of facism. It's like they started to do a satire, but only went halfway. And it didn't help that none of that was in the book (heh, don't get me started on THAT)..</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Rent the DVD and litsten to the commentary. Intersting stuff.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>NOt to mention the whole social commentary (the idea that facism rules over democracy in the end) and the re-enactment of Vietnam when they land on Klendathu</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>There's a lot more than that. Watch it again and remember some of the history you were taught. They do a lot of re-enactment of historical events from WW2 to Vietnam</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Oh, don't get me wrong, it is great as a cream-puff as well. That's the initial appeal of it. There's just SO much more if you decide to actually look, more than just the blatant facism elements</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana, tahoma; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I don't smoke, and I consider Half Baked a riot. It has Dave Chapelle and Jim Brewer, how can you go wrong?</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>All right! I'm stopping the voting...any more votes in the next few hours will count, but for now, round 2.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'd watch it again, but everyone I know (myself included) has only ever seen that movie high.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>You underestimate the power of Dave. :P</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Yeah, I should probably do that. Maybe listening to the director explain what they were going for will help...</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Give me specifics, man. This wishing and washing around the subject doesn't help! There's nothing about the movie (except for the pseudo-nazi costumes and commericals) made me think of any history...</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>So it was a satire on Heinlein's book? OK, I can kind of see that. I still say any historical satire just is there (or just fails badly)...</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I'll second that!</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>1) When they invade Klendathu, that's basically what happened to the US troops when they invaded Vietnam. They got surprised and beat pretty hard invading enemy territory 'cause they thought they were far superior to the enemy, just like in the movie

2) Bug holes = Viet-Cong Holes

3) The recruitment of children at the end of the movie due to getting crushed by the enemy is EXACTLY what happened to the Nazis in WW2. Just more of the whole facist thing.

4) The entire propoganda thing - the "Do You Want To Know More?" clips - is basically a re-enactment of the type of propoganda you saw from the Nazi's in WW2, making themselves out to be doin' much better than they were, and the Americans, the whole "Sign Up!" campaign. They interwove them together

5) The speed with which Rico moved up the ranks is very reminisent of what happened to the US troops in Vietnam when they were getting crushed by the Viet-Cong. It wasn't exactly odd for someone to go from Private to Lieutenant in under a week, just 'cause of the extreme casualties. If I'm not mistaken, later in the Vietnam war, the average life expectancy for a green Lieutenant (trained officer being put into the war as a Lieutenant to start) was some ridiculously low number as 16 hours, often dying at the hands of his own soldiers 'cause of the lack of experience (basically, kill off the new officer for survival 'cause he couldn't lead them out of paper bag).

That's just the war references I can think of off the top of my head. That doesn't even include the whole facism-won-over-democracy thing.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Eh, I guess. You could say most of that about any war though, be it WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Korean, the Crimean, 100 years war, or whatever. There are parallels, but nothing is being satirized. Ah well, I really don't care that much. ;)</div>