Looks like we could use an open thread.
I just purchased Queen Latifah’s Beauty Shop and Moonstruck in the same order. Do you think the person who filled that saw it and went, “WTF? Crazy bitch.”
I can’t help it, I’ll watch anything with Queen Latifah in it. I just love her. And my movie collection needed Moonstruck, stupid that I didn’t have it already.
What are your guilty movie pleasures?
Consider this a open thread.
geg6
I don’t consider any of my fave movies to be a guilty pleasure. I love comedy, especially that of the Monty Python/Christopher Guest types. I can watch all their films over and over and over and never get tired of them.
ETA: And Mel Brooks, can’t forget the master.
Amir Khalid
I remember a preposterous, crazy violent British rape-revenge fantasy nonsensically titled Straightheads and starring Gillian Anderson as the rape victim who butt-rapes her rapist with a shotgun barrel.
Corner Stone
It’s not a movie but I could watch football game film breakdown all day.
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid: Ok. Shit just got real.
Linda Featheringill
How about The Bone Collector?
Amir Khalid
And Manchester win the League Cup, beating Liverpool 3-1 on penalty kicks. Feh.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@geg6:
All good choices & no reason to feel guilt! I love a couple of oddball films. The original version of “Little Shop of Horrors” it is a weird funny film with some scenery chewing from a very young Jack Nicholson. The other is also a B drive-in horror movie, “Comedy of Terrors” Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone and a great funny script with lots of hamming it up.
Iowa Old Lady
I don’t know how guilty this pleasure is but The Fellowship of the Ring stunned me stupid. I sat on the edge of my seat with my mouth hanging open for the entire three hours.
Warren Terra
Since this is an open thread, a political, non-movie thing (that is nonetheless a sort of guilty pleasure):
Just because of the headline I read (most of) Ross Douthat’s column in The New York Times, in which he tries to blame Obama for Trump’s taking over the Republican nomination contest. It’s a really, really stupid argument he’s making, but it’s enjoyable watching Douthat suffer.
ETA I see that Steve M of No More Mister Nice Blog covers this more fully.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Amir Khalid:
FOr revenge fantasy it is hard to beat “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
Keith P
I can watch Cocktail any time it’s on. And I think MacGruber is one of the favorite comedies ever even though I can never convince people to watch it.
KFBR392 forever.
Thoroughly Pizzled
It’s not a guilty pleasure unless you actually keep it secret forever.
Origuy
It’s full of Asian stereotypes, but Big Trouble in Little China is fun to watch.
Since Amir brought up futbol, any thoughts on the new FIFA president, or is this “New boss, same as the old boss”?
John from Minneapolis
I feel really guilty about this pleasure, but…..The Cutting Edge.
ThresherK
“Brain Donors”. John Turturro’s very nice turn as a Groucho Marx character, supported by Mel Smith and some other folks, in a remake-in-all-but-name of “Night at the Opera”.
“Two more miles and we own this cab.”
Amir Khalid
@Warren Terra:
I have learned not to bother reading Ross Douthat. Besides, everyone already knows it was Bill Clinton who persuaded the Donald to run for president.
Miss Bianca
All I have to say right now is that it’s a really weird experience to pick up a random magazine, flip to a random article, and find out, in the time it took me to read two paragraphs, more about my paternal grandfather’s family than I ever found out from my father in the 35 years we lived on the planet together.
ETA: I’d talk about movies, but I’m still in shock.
TaMara (BHF)
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I’ve told this story before, but Little Shop of Horrors was one of my favorite movies as a kid, watched it anytime it was on TV. Fast forward 30 years and I’m standing in Jackie Joseph’s (Audrey) house talking to her, looking at the photos on her wall and realize who she is and practically go all fan girl on her. Luckily she is still one of my good friends, despite that shaky beginning.
schrodinger's cat
Right now I am on a Hindi movie kick, something that I haven’t paid close attention for over 20 years. I am thinking of blogging about it too. Movies seem to have gotten better or may be I have becoming more forgiving or perhaps its a combination of the two.
My current favorites are Ranveer Singh and Priyanka Chopra. Here they are together in Gajanana from the historical Bajirao Mastani set in 1720-30 and in Ramleela, Ram chahe Leela
Amir Khalid
@Origuy:
Hard for a non-insider to say. Is there anyone at that level of FIFA who is really clean?
ThresherK
@Thoroughly Pizzled: I disagree. If someone’s pleasure is guilty and they try to defend something indefensible, then it’s not a guilty pleasure.
The true guilty pleasure has to be admitted as such by the person.
DesertFriar
The best film about post 911 US.
The Village
The Dangerman
As I mentioned back in early December (12/2, to be exact), I have Family ties to San Bernardino….
…at any rate, I’m in SB this morning (I’ll accept all your condolences; this place is a war zone that typically only makes the news when the Bad Guys are terrorists) and had the chance to speak with an extremely high profile local attorney for a few minutes this morning. It won’t give away anything about either of our identities to say that he and my Family go to the same Church (and I take my Family when I’m in town).
So, it’s big news around these parts for obvious reasons, so I had to ask him…
…who wins, FBI or Apple?
Well, I intended it to be a short conversation, but it turned into a fairly lengthy discussion on a question that is seriously hard.
Getting to the bottom line, he has the same opinion as me, at the end of the process, Apple will have to break into the phone. My position was mostly philosophical and his was mostly legal, but we both converged at that end result.
It’s going to be a fascinating process to watch, however.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@TaMara (BHF):
That is seriously cool! She played the part pretty well given the wide-eyed ingenue part was not very deep. Please let her know she has fans out here.
khead
Let It Ride. Of course, I’m a degenerate gambler. YMMV.
Jay Noble
The Last Starfighter – just cuz
The Sandlot and The Sandlot 2 – They nailed the mindset of those ages and times.
NIght of the Comet – If for no other reason to see a cheerleader complain “Daddy would have got us Uzis!” after her mac jams.
Germy
@ThresherK: Brain Donors is an interesting choice. Basically, a re-do of “Night At The Opera” without the Marx brothers. I thought it was a fine film.
Interesting trivia: While multiple writers were first submitting “Night At The Opera” scripts, one of the early versions was the same concept as Mel Brooks’ “Producers” (intentionally creating a flop and fleecing the investors) but Irving Thalberg turned it down. He said he didn’t want a “funny” story, he wanted a straight story he could hang the Marx brothers’ comedy on. He was an advocate of what he called the “clothes line” school of comedy films. A serious story about saving an opera house, with comic interludes by the brothers as a distraction.
After “Opera” they followed that template right into the ground.
schrodinger's cat
Guilty pleasure, watching Ranveer Singh showing off his abs and dance with abandon.
schrodinger's cat
@khead: How is the kittehs?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@The Dangerman:
What I have read indicates the FBI didn’t ask Apple to break into the phone. The phone is programmed to erase all memory if 10 failed login attempts are made. The FBI has asked apple to modify the software – on this one phone – to allow unlimited attempts. That seems like a lot less threatening particularly since they got a public court consent instead of the super secret one
Warren Terra
@Origuy:
I don’t know anything about the new guy, but: he’s an insider, and like the old boss he’s a Swiss bureaucrat. If the new boss isn’t just like the old boss they’ve certainly made a pick that blurs the distinctions. Though since the leading alternatives were apparently a couple of Arab royals – one of them from a country with oil money and a slavery problem, the other from Jordan and so less egregious but hardly seeming democratic or meritocratic – this was probably never going to turn out well.
khead
Let’s just make it all the John Carpenter movies from 1976-1988.
khead
@schrodinger’s cat:
Doing well, thanks. The new boys have REALLY come around – they started sleeping with me this week. And the girls are due to be let out from their room tomorrow as long as they pass the giardia poop test. No takers on the Mom yet though so that’s a bummer.
The Dangerman
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
OK, I was probably a little loose in my description of what the FBI wants…
ETA: OK, I’ll also add a guilty pleasure movie … Sound of Music. Was one of the first movies I was taken to by my parents and the memories are too strong.
Mj_Oregon
Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones & Anne Heche, Independence Day, Twister, and Sharknado (all of them). I love cheesy disaster movies!
EriktheRed
Escape from New York and UHF come to mind.
MattF
Well, there’s the David Lynch oeuvre– Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and don’t forget that, um, unique version of Dune… And then there’s John Waters, when he was disreputable– Pink Flamingos and Smell-o-Vision… and in college I watched some-but-not-all of Warhol’s Empire State Building… But I can’t honestly say I feel guilty about any of that.
ETA: And Frozen. I guess I feel a little guilty about that.
? Martin
5th Element.
Warren Terra
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): That’s half right, half silly.
1) What Apple is being asked to do is to defeat the limit on failed password attempts before the phone self-destructs. The current limit is 10, the FBI wants unlimited attempts for a brute-force password hack.
2) To do this will require Apple not merely handing over something already in their possession, but engaging in an entirely new programming effort, essentially replacing part of the phone’s operating system (if I understand correctly, which I very well may not, Apple may be in a privileged position and able to get the phone to accept a modified operating system).
3) Notably, the FBI didn’t ask to borrow Apple’s credentials and use them to modify the phone’s operating system themselves, which might have been more in line with a conventional request for information/resources already in existence.
4) It was always transparently absurd to claim that this was in respect to “one phone only”. The FBI has admitted it has about a dozen phones it will immediately want to use this tool on, and other law enforcement agencies have an unknowable number.
5) Once this tool exists, it will leak out illegally/informally. It will in this form be used by criminals and by disreputable state actors.
6) Once this tool exists, it will be formally requested by disreputable state actors (China, Iran, whoever) and Apple will not be in a position to refuse.
7) Once this tool exists, it will probably be misused by more reputable state actors without the transparency and strong justification you perceive in the court order demanding it for the San Bernadino postmortem.
8) Confusing some of the last several points: it is widely believed that the NSA has ways of accessing the phone’s contents without Apple’s permission. If such exist, why even ask Apple? If not, why does the NSA exist?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@The Dangerman:
NP, just that I have heard “the FBI wants a back door into the encryption” but if the stuff I have read is true then that is a long way from true. I’m no fan of the all-seeing eye but also not a fan of the current hysteria over them.
Pasta how I hate Sound of Music. I was in the band in high school and one year the musical was SoM so I had to listen to it through a dozen rehearsals and 6 performances. Same for The Music Man. Not really their fault but songs from either of those make me ill. Its funny how time & place can change your feelings about a film
A Ghost To Most
Howard the Duck.
TaMara (BHF)
Night of the Comet is another one of those B movies I love. And I haven’t seen it in years, but Valley Girl with Nick Cage was a hoot.
MattF
@A Ghost To Most: FWIW, Howard has been revived lately, and with some success.
Cacti
After his wholesale rejection in South Carolina, Bernie goes to Minnesota for some revolutionary dog whistling:
#DontBernMeBro
gwangung
@Origuy: BIG TROUBLE is REALLY popular among the Asian American community (especially the creatives) because it subverts those stereotypes. So don’t be guilty about it.
ThresherK
@Germy: Books have been written on MGM’s lassoing of the Marx Brothers and how the Paramounts were better. At some point too much resources don’t help some performers, and if there was anything MGM had, it was resources.
Then again, they never were about plot. “The Cocoanuts” and “Horsefeathers” were just timely subjects (the Florida land boom and collegiate football).
And for hewing to the written page, wasn’t Ben Hecht, no slouch in the playwright dept, once observed backstage at a Marx bros. play he wrote, saying “Hush! I think I heard a line from my script!”?
cckids
@Mj_Oregon: I’m in that club as well. Just watched San Andreas last night, and . . . it’ll do. Fun flick.
I saw The Day After Tomorrow for the first time earlier this month, and wow. THAT is a bad movie. Though I’d watch it again. There’s just something about watching the over-the-top disasters happen that is fun. Though when they get to the part with the college-bowl/Mensa kids in NYC, sitting in a library full of oak furniture burning books to keep warm . . . GTFO. I’m done at that point.
As opposed to The Big Short, or Spotlight, where the over-the-top tragedies are all too real and close to home.
Ultraviolet Thunder
My film guilty pleasure is probably Metropolis (the old one by Fritz Lang). I’ve seen every version more than once. That’s far more than it’s worth as a story. But it’s just so exotic and gorgeous. Best viewing was at the Detroit Film Theater with live original music by the percussion ensemble The Alloy Orchestra. I saw that 3 times in one weekend.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@ThresherK: My feeling is that people shouldn’t have to feel guilty for liking something, unless it’s truly reprehensible, like Triumph of the Will, or Grease.
Germy
@? Martin: Agree about 5th Element.
I remember I had a co-worker, a real sci-fi movie buff, but it was obvious from working with him over the years that he was somewhat… uncomfortable… with what he referred to as the “urban culture”. I remember praising 5th Element, but he made a face and said he saw Chris Tucker in a clip from it, and he was turned off. Poor bastard probably would have loved the movie, but he wouldn’t budge; he’d convinced himself it was a “black” film. He really was a racist who would have been the first to deny being a racist.
kc
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
Anything with Vincent Price and/or Peter Lorre is gonna be great.
Germy
@ThresherK: I think George S. Kaufman made the wisecrack about hearing one of his lines.
The Marx brothers bought into Thalberg’s theory. “Duck Soup” didn’t make much money, and “Opera” did, so they thought he was a genius.
Buster Keaton was another to have his movies ruined by experts.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Germy:
To be fair, Chris Tucker was completely ridiculous in The Fifth Element. But I like that movie in spite of Ruby Rod.
O. Felix Culpa
I like “Babe”: “Pork is a nice, sweet meat.” And “Chicken Run”‘is good fun, along with the Wallace and Grommit oeuvre.
kc
Road House, anyone?
Cacti
1927 news report shows the Donald’s father, Fred Trump, was arrested for joining the Klan in a brawl against NYPD in Queens.
Trump’s lack of repudiation of the David Duke endorsement is becoming a bit clearer.
The Dangerman
@Warren Terra:
I’ve heard this argument and I don’t understand it; if it CAN be done, it will be done (and maybe already has been done) by hackers and Nation States that don’t much believe in privacy.
Germy
@O. Felix Culpa: Did the Wallace and Grommit guy do the TV show Creature Comforts?
WaterGirl
I have only seen Queen Latifah in one thing – I think i twas her, anyway. She had received a terminal diagnosis and she decided that she wanted to really LIVE during her last year. Or something like that. Does that sound like something she was in?
elm
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): There is no such thing as a single-use technical tool or a court case that doesn’t set precedent.
Once the FBI can compel a company to create software that makes its phones easier to hack and to sign that software as Apple-approved, then it’s at the top of a well-lubricated slope.
If the FBI prevails here, it will have acquired unprecedented new powers.
MattF
@The Dangerman: But should it be done by Apple? And if it is, and if the tool ‘escapes’ into wider use, is Apple liable for the damage?
Thoroughly Pizzled
@WaterGirl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Holiday_%282006_film%29
delk
Dressed to Kill
and
Klute
Gex
@The Dangerman: Hackers and nation states can’t create an alternate version of iOS that is signed by Apple. However if they get their hands on an alternate version of iOS that is already signed by Apple, that is a different matter.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@elm:
Also, as a former programmer I would not want to be the person who is known to be able to crack Apple security. That’s dangerous in so many ways.
elm
@The Dangerman: iPhones are programmed to not run system software that didn’t come from Apple. Part of the FBI’s demand is that Apple digitally sign the attack-enabling software to say it is authentic and good Apple software for iPhone.
Gex
@elm: And also this.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
Yes. Can’t remember the title, but she definitely starred in a movie with that plot. Saw her in Bessie recently and she was amazing.
elm
@MattF: Apple probably would not be liable for damages, but it will suffer damage to its reputation if it starts making its products worse at the behest of the FBI.
Which other police forces should be able to compel Apple’s assistance Ian making hack-facilitating software? Iranian national intelligence? China’s? Russia’s?
Grishaxxx
“Forbidden Planet” – it’s appallingly misogynistic, but Anne Francis’s skepticism shows what dolts those horny guys are – plus, loss of innocence is the skeleton key to the Id. Bwahahahaha
Feudalism Now!
Roadhouse. It is a terrible movie that I will watch whenever it is on. Also, too, 13th Warrior.
Not a guilty pleasure but A Fish Called Wanda is a must watch whenever I see it.
JPL
@Cacti: I’m shocked. Trickle down racism.
MattF
@elm: Incluiding Vladimir Putin in your ‘circle of trust’ is probably not a good idea.
Mj_Oregon
@cckids: I didn’t list TDAT because of that very thing. The furniture would have gone into the fireplace way faster than the books! LOL! I saw San Andreas about a month ago and it was a “meh” movie for us. I don’t think it quite rises to the “cheesy” requirement level of disaster movies although it was pretty over the top.
@? Martin: 5th Element is one of the few I’ll stop and watch at any point if I’m searching for something on the satellite to pass the time. “Anybody else wanna negotiate?”
The Dangerman
@MattF:
Seems to me it’s a problem that Apple should have anticipated (assuming they didn’t want to be the “Official Phone of Terrorists” and I don’t think that was their goal, obviously) and been ready to address, so, yes, I think they should.
FWIW, I should probably note that I’m far from a completely unbiased observer here – a distant (and I do mean DISTANT, we might have never met, but I read quotes from other relatives that I have met in various media outlets after the event) was killed in the 12/2 attacks.
Feudalism Now!
I thought the argument was not so much that the FBiOS would be leaked, so much as, China would also ask for a version to help with their “terrorist” problem. The djinni would be out of the bottle and Apple would have to comply to keep it’s largest growing market. I envision the next iPhone will disable any ability to change the OS to bypass the password limit, either with a separate security chip or individual firmware.
Daniel'sBob
I don’t feel guilty about loving The Ruling Class, but people I recommend it to think I should.
Even though I’m not a big Bruce Willis fan I’ll watch Twelve Monkeys and Fifth Element whenever they happen to be on the teevee.
piratedan
well… it seems like most of my favorites are something of guilty pleasures…
another vote for Big Trouble in Little China
plus
Buckaroo Banzai
Used Cars
So Fine
So I Married an Axe Murderer
Dan in Real Life
While You Were Sleeping
The Sure Thing
That Thing You Do!
None of them are cinematic treasures but they all resonate in my middle class comfort zone…
TaMara (BHF)
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): If I remember correctly, that was her first film. She’d done stage and some tv before that. They filmed it in a week on skid row and she adores the cast and Roger Corman. Just for you, I was helping her get ready for a sci-fi convention and she signed this for me:
Tracy Ratcliff
“Quentin Durward”, 1955. From a Sir Walter Scott novel about a poor chivalrous Scottish knight dropped into the court of Louis XI, the Spider King. MGM turned it into a gentle spoof of the Technicolor knightly epic. Robert Taylor plays a stiffly chivalrous straight man to Robert Morley’s ethically-challenged Louis XI. From a 21st century perspective the Hollywood “gypsies” in brown face are bad, but it has beautiful Technicolor footage shot on location in France, the climactic sword fight has Taylor swinging from the ropes in a burning bell tower that prefigures wuxia, and the bad-guy highwaymen look like a bear leather club.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Repo Man. It’s a C+ movie at best but I love what’s most trashy about it. So that’s a guilty pleasure.
piratedan
@Feudalism Now!: agree about the 13th Warrior, find that one acceptably decent to pass the time….
and also too… tyvm for the presence of MST3K
Zinsky
One movie I just love that probably qualifies as a guilty pleasure, at least for a middle-aged man, is a sweet little movie called Waitress, starring Keri Russell. It’s about a poor waitress in a Southern town who is married to a redneck asshole and she ends up having an extramarital affair with her doctor. There is also a subplot about the pies she bakes. It’s a little confusing, but it is just very sweet, a little erotic and also really well-acted. It is now being made into a Broadway musical and the extremely talented Sara Bareilles wrote the score, which is dynamite! Anyway, check it out! It is kind of a hidden gem.
Mnemosyne
Some people seem to misunderstand what a guilty pleasure is. Watching an acknowledged classic like Metropolis or A Night At The Opera is never a guilty pleasure. THIS is a guilty pleasure. In fact, almost any movie that lets Brian Blessed devour as much scenery as he can hold is probably a guilty pleasure by definition.
O. Felix Culpa
@Germy: Nick Park. Yes, he did.
kc
@Grishaxxx:
Plus Leslie Nielsen!
O. Felix Culpa
@Mnemosyne: I gave up guilty for Lent. So I’m just left with pleasure.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@elm:
As long as they follow the rule of law & get a court order I am not going to get excited about it. The problem comes from the secret crap, the secret court and lack of accountability.
My guess is if a nation-state wants to write the software to do this they have the power it just takes time and the FBI does not want to wait. In this case they have probable cause
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
For me, the tricky thing is that Apple has said — and the FBI does not seem to have disputed — that this step is only necessary because the FBI fucked up and messed with the phone’s backup even though Apple told them not to. If not for that, Apple technicians would have been able to retrieve the information without the steps now being demanded by the FBI.
If the FBI managed to damage their own evidence through their own incompetence, IMO it’s not Apple’s job to fix it for them by writing entirely new software that could easily be misused.
WaterGirl
@Thoroughly Pizzled: @geg6: Yes, that’s it!
Knowing nothing except a peripheral awareness of her reputation at the time as someone not to be taken seriously, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie and ended up with a positive impression of her. I don’t believe I’ve seen her in anything else.
elm
@The Dangerman: Apple has rendered normal-to-extraordinary assistance and complied with search warrants of the attackers account data on their systems.
The government (I don’t recall exactly who) screwed up handling the phone and locked themselves out. Now they want to compel Apple to:
1. Create software to bypass security checks
2. Digitally sign that software as authentic Apple software.
If they succeed, that will become standard law enforcement practice.
The SB attackers are known and dead. There doesn’t seem to be any strong link so far to tie them to other groups.
This is an attempt to create sweeping new powers for law enforcement. They’re using the SB attacker’s phone as the test case because it’ll get public sympathy.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@TaMara (BHF):
Thats fabulous! She has a good career so I have seen her in stuff & didn’t even realize it was her right away. You are lucky to have met her!
gogol's wife
@TaMara (BHF):
OMG, I loved Jackie Joseph in that too (and in anything, really)! She’s still alive? Cool.
I last saw that film at a “bad-movie marathon,” but it’s quite good, in fact. I loved Jonathan Haze too.
Ruckus
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Chris Tucker was supposed to be completely ridiculous.
elm
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
Modifying the software is nearly trivial. Ignore that part. The modifications themselves are simple and unimportant.
The important part is compelling Apple to digitally sign known-compromised software as valid and legitimate.
Apple’s code signing key is the key to their kingdom. If the FBI can compel them to use it, that’s a big deal.
The Dangerman
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve heard that story differently; it was the County that did something about the password as they knew it to be their (the County’s) phone and had an expectation about what the password should have been. That poor County IT employee might be fired about now.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Ruckus:
Of course. But sometimes my white liberal guilt makes me cringe at extreme stereotypes.
gogol's wife
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
OT, thanks for all your generator advice. On the fourth visit, the tech brought an electrician with him (they both look about 12 years old), and they found out that the sensor wire was broken. Why that took four visits, I’m not sure. But all is well (for now).
John Revolta
Barbarella. Yum.
Also The Loved One. Actually a pretty good weird movie except for Robert Morse’s “English” accent.
Makes Dick van Dyke’s work in Mary Poppins look like Stanley bloody ‘Olloway.
khead
Night of the Comet and Used Cars have been running on cable. Watched both of them in the last couple of weeks. Also, I will see everyone’s Road House and raise you a Beastmaster.
hueyplong
I also like Repo Man. The Spousal Unit’s guilty pleasures are Pitch Black and fairly obscure Liquid Sky.
Gex
@elm: They’re dead AND access to their contacts through phone, messaging, email, and Facebook accounts is available without getting into the phone by going through the service providers. If the FBI wants to find out if they belong to a network or find other suspicious individuals, it seems unlikely they need to get into the phone for that.
JPL
Someone here recommended Dean Spangley. It’s become my guilty pleasure.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
Is The Story of Temple Drake a guilty pleasure? It’s on TCM again this month and I can’t wait. Anything with slinky Miriam Hopkins is my guilty pleasure.
Not to mention Shirley Temple’s oeuvre, 1934-39.
Suzanne
Guilty pleasure? I watched Episode 1 of “Fuller House” last night. Lord have mercy on my soul.
Yes, the dog is named “Comet Junior Junior”. CHRIST.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
Someone posted a link to Apple’s filing and I thought it said FBI, but I don’t have that anymore. Regardless of which law enforcement agency fucked it up, I’m not sure that Apple should be responsible for fixing the problem some idiot LEO caused, especially with such a sweeping fix. Are there other cases where law enforcement is allowed to demand that a third party fix a piece of evidence after an LEO damaged it?
Baud
To those talking about the Apple issue, does anyone know if part of the government’s argument is that Apple must comply because they own the software that’s on the phone? As I understand, tech companies don’t sell software to consumers but license it.
Just curious.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
By the way, I’ve come to Jesus about the Librarian of Congress. She looks like a serious person, and why shouldn’t it be an actual librarian?
I just feel bad that James Billington’s career has ended this way. He stayed too long at the fair.
elm
@Mnemosyne: The FBI has plainly stated its desire for backdoors to phone encryption. They have said loud and clear that nobody deserves technological privacy.
This is just part of working out the details.
Mandarama
Reposting from downstairs b/c I’m geeked out: we’re with our boys at a Hillary Clinton rally here in Nashville! Tony Goldwyn (I had to google him) is giving the warmup speech. There’s a huge and diverse crowd, too.
gogol's wife
Also anything with Warren William or George Brent. Especially if George Brent is paired with Barbara Stanwyck. Or Warren William is paired with Barbara Stanwyck.
JPL
@Mandarama: I thought her speech last night was excellent.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
Molly Haskell (author of one of the first books of feminist film criticism) said that Hoskins was an example of an archetype discarded by the Production Code: the “wild/nice” girl who would try anything once but was a good woman at heart. I assume you’ve seen Trouble in Paradise more than once?
Gaston: “What did she want?”
Lily: “You. And she’s willing to pay 50 francs to get you.”
Robert Sneddon
@Germy: I worked on that movie, doing physical SFX stuff at Pinewood for a few weeks before principal shooting began. The working title was “Boron” (Fifth Element, geddit?). The stories I could tell… it was not a happy set to be on.
hamletta
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I was in marching band in the late ’70s, and I have a similar hatred for the entire oeuvre of the dreaded band Chicago.
Also, fuck the FBI. They’re fine ones to talk about PR moves. There was already a case being argued in court on this very subject. They brought in the SB case to poison the well of public opinion against Apple.
Ruckus
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Ahhh. I didn’t see this as a stereotypical role making fun of a black man. Just a character in a SF movie making a good living being ridiculous and over the top. Also I know a gay black man who can act like this when he wants to shock people he suspects might not approve of his life. Take away that need to shock and he’s a very nice quite intelligent guy who can discuss a wide range of subjects in depth.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
Yay! All of my librarian friend are over the frickin’ moon about the nomination, so I’m glad the scholars are coming around.
One of the things I’m going to miss most about this president is how he manages to find people who are eminently qualified for the nomination even before you add the icing of “first woman” and “first African-American.” That’s some good vetting.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, yes. The opening sequence is so brilliant.
My other fave is the closing sequence of The Smiling Lieutenant — “jazz up your lingerie”!
Ultraviolet Thunder
@gogol’s wife:
I’m glad I could help. It’s difficult to diagnose at a distance but it did sound like the generator was not getting a good signal from the line power.
I ran a training class for some Honda engineers this week on our industrial lasers. They wanted to learn about the cool optics stuff. Everyone does. I always say “forget the high tech engineering. That’s rock solid. Look at things that are hot, that move or have water in them. That’s where the trouble happens.”
Calouste
@Warren Terra:
Apple has already admitted they can do it. They can’t refuse if China wants them to do it. China didn’t have a problem banning game consoles for years, they don’t have a problem censoring the internet, they won’t have a problem kicking Apple out of the Chinese market if Apple doesn’t do what China wants them to do.
elm
@Calouste: It’s a ton better for China if the FBI does all the legwork and public relations.
Mnemosyne
@elm:
Law enforcement always wants their jobs to be as easy as possible. They’re only human. That’s no excuse for the courts to let them have their way, though.
When this came up a couple of weeks ago, I could have sworn that someone said there have been a few court cases saying that electronic information has special protections and can’t be accessed even with a court order. That seems like a very bad precedent to me, but IANAL so I may have misunderstood.
? Martin
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
But it is a back door to the encryption, it’s just a different kind of one. And Comey has effectively admitted that they believe this will set precedent.
The bottom line on encryption is that when it works it should be like your memory – inaccessible unless volunteered. If there is any other reliable way through, whether brute force or otherwise, then it’s a backdoor and susceptible to abuse.
And there is both concern that China would see this as a precedent and ask for the same capabilities (why wouldn’t they?) and that the back door will get out. I am not aware of any encryption with a back door that hasn’t leaked to the public, the worst case being RSA SecureID. All backdoors get out, in no small part because once you know there is a backdoor, you can make a concerted effort to find it.
The motives for the FBI are actually pretty bare here. The government can unlock that phone. The NSA is the largest buyer of zero-day exploits (they run north of $1M for iPhone exploits) and it is widely believed that they can unlock any iPhone that comes in their possession through some kind of hardware/software vulnerability that Apple isn’t aware of or can’t fix after the fact. The problem DHS is facing is that Apple is closing these holes slowly over time, and adding hardware capabilities to make these less effective. DHS can unlock the phone, but they are facing a future where that may not be true. This case is pretty apparently a way to head off that future.
Tokyokie
My movie guilty pleasure? Easy. Spaghetti westerns, especially those starring Gian Maria Volontè. (Although I’ll watch anything with Tomas Milian or directed by Sergios Corbucci and Sollima.) And after a brief conversation a few years back with Repo Man director Alex Cox, it’s a peculiarity I share with him. (I don’t consider Repo Man to be a guilty pleasure, although most the rest of Cox’s movies other than Sid and Nancy probably qualify. I’m a big fan of Straight to Hell and Walker as well, but then, those are the ones that show the greatest influence of Cox’s love of spaghetti westerns)
Amir Khalid
@Mandarama:
I’m sure you’d already heard of Tony Goldwyn. He played the bad guy in Ghost, the friend who was putting the moves on Demi Moore, and his grandfather Sam was the studio boss who did or did not say all those weird things. (“We have all passed a lot of water since then” etc.)
gogol's wife
@Amir Khalid:
Isn’t he most famous now for being the POTUS on Scandal?
elm
@Mnemosyne:
That doesn’t sound accurate to me. Courts can compel someone to provide a password or encryption key. But they can’t compel you to provide data you don’t have nor to design products for the convenience of LE.
As a matter of technology, you can’t create special access for only good guys. Software does what it is programmed to do. If you add a backdoor or side door, it exists regardless of the intentions of the person or agency seeking to use it.
Experience has shown that attempts to create special, easy-to-defeat, crypto modes or technology weakens the entire system it is built into.
Amir Khalid
In other news, Meg Whitman has reacted with horror to Chris Christie’s endorsement of the Donald. (via TPM.)
K488
@kc: Never miss it!
? Martin
@Calouste:
Apple actually has a stronger hand than people realize, and they have played this hand already when China first went to Apple asking for access. Apple represents an important part of their economy, and if Apple is pushed out, how many other companies will start to divest as well? Right now, there seems to be an attitude from China that they should have whatever the US govt has.
So there are real risks for the Chinese govt to do what you claim they can do so readily.
I would also not fully discount the idea of Apple moving the company out of the country as so far the US government isn’t going after any foreign companies.
HeartlandLiberal
A few movies I could watch once a year and enjoy every time:
The Quiet Man, John Wayne actually acting, and Maureen Ohara
The Parent Trap 1989, the remake, with Lindey Lohan before she imploded as a human being . Most exquisite timing and directing and acting ever, pitch perfect end to end.
Red October with Sean Connery. Best thriller of its type ever. “Give me one ping, Vasily One ping only!”
The Muppets Christmas Carol. With narration by Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens, Kermit as Bob Cratchit, and Michael Caine at his best and most endearing as Scrooge, this is what I watch every Christmas. And every time, it is new and moving. This is not just a kid’s movie, adults can read the subtexts and commentary and you know, Dickens would approve.
frosty fka Bro Shotgun etc etc
@hueyplong:
Ooh! Repo Man and Liquid Sky! I don’t think I’ve seen them more than once, but excellent choices.
My guilty pleasure is more mundane: Notting Hill.
“What’s the pay like in movies? I mean. Last movie. How much did you get paid?”
“Fifteen million dollars.”
“Well, that’s… that’s all right then.”
PIGL
@Ultraviolet Thunder: “let’s go do crimes” is the best line in cinema. “C+”???? I blow my nose at you.
LeeM
Snatch still has the funniest dialog, with Brad Pitt as an unintelligible Gypsy bare knuckle boxer. I’ve been trying to use the nemesis definition to describe Trump.
gogol's wife
@frosty fka Bro Shotgun etc etc:
My favorite line is Alec Baldwin’s, something like, “Could you adios those plates for me?”
O. Felix Culpa
@HeartlandLiberal: I love the Muppets Christmas Carol! I watch it with my now 29-and 30-year-old sons every Christmas.
PurpleGirl
Guilty pleasures: Reality shows — Pitbulls and Parolees, Animals Cops Houston (SPCA rescues), North Woods Law (Wildife guardians in Maine), My Cat from Hell, Untold Stories of the ER, Dr. G Medical Examiner. I find them interesting and informative.
Movies I can rewatch countless timess: Hunt for Red October, LOTR (all three), Cate Blanchette’s two films about Queen Elizabeth, Tremors and Tremors: the Series (the sequels, not so much), Highlander (the movie and the series).
Tom
@JPL: Dean Spanley is amazing. Nothing guilty about enjoying it.
Mandarama
@Amir Khalid: Actually, even though I’m the right age for it, I have to admit I’ve never seen Ghost! And I don’t watch Scandal…so the crowd was chanting, “Fitz!” while I was googling and my kids were saying, “How long is he gonna talk?” (They were not the most patient budding activists. Ages 14 & 11.)
Goldwyn’s speech was focused on why he supports Secretary Clinton instead of Senator Sanders, but he was very respectful and policy-focused. He made the point that he used to be able to talk policy with Republican friends, but “Now I don’t even know how to start a conversation with them.” My recovered-former-Republican husband was definitely relating.
PurpleGirl
Some older movies I’ll rewatch: World Without End, A Hole in the World, not seen recently but fun — Zsa Zsa Gabor in Queen of Outer Space (has some of the same sets as World Without End, lol).
PurpleGirl
@WaterGirl: Yes, it does but I forget the name of the movie.
Mandarama
My kids were psyched when Sec. Clinton came out. We were pretty close to the podium, and she does seem warm and funny. One interesting thing she said was that when Obama met with her–to ask her to be Sec of State, it turns out–he said of the recession, “It’s so much worse than they told us it was. A lot worse.” It was a gripping moment. She followed up by saying that Republicans might want us to forget, but she has no intention of letting them. Her themes today were economic justice and healthcare. She also made great points about how especially white people need to listen and learn about systemic racism. Great messages throughout.
thruppence
I’ll watch The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus at least once a year. Heath Ledger’s last role, Christopher Plummer as a careworn immortal sideshow man wearily wagering with Tom Waits as the devil for the soul of his only daughter, and Verne Troyer gets to play a real person. Terry Gilliam’s vast animated landscapes lure and swallow up the willfully shallow and by implication, us.
PurpleGirl
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I loved the generic food containers in Repo Man.
Josie
@Tokyokie: So glad you brought up spaghetti westerns. My favorite is Once Upon a Time in the West. I grew up reading my father’s extensive collection of Zane Grey, Max Brand and Louis L’Amour, so I love a good western movie.
BruceFromOhio
Van Helsing
Fifth Element
Stardust
Cheesy, cliched, just good fun. Can watch ’em over and over.
Bubblegum Tate
Well, if we’re gonna talk about Queen Latifah, then we need to talk about joints like “Wrath of My Madness” and “Latifah’s Had It Up To Here.” If it weren’t for MC Lyte, Latifah would be the baddest female of all time on the mic.
Miss Bianca
@Feudalism Now!:
“Roadhouse” is an incredibly stupid movie with some incredibly Zen-koan-like insights. And some great quotes. Plus, Sam Elliott never looked hotter.
Miss Bianca
Not a guilty pleasure, but a bittersweet one: “A Little Chaos,” Alan Rickman’s last movie, which he directed as well as starred in, as Louis the Sun King. Also featuring Kate Winslet, with whom he starred in one of my all-time fave raves, “Sense and Sensibility”, as a widowed gentlewoman who happens to snag a gig designing a part of the gardens at Versailles. Just a lovely, gentle little movie.
Best part came at the end, tho’, when the BF turned to me and said, “So, basically…we just spent two hours watching a movie about landscaping.” I howled. Got my revenge when, still on my Alan Rickman kick, we watched “Die Hard” the next night. I got to turn to him and say, “so, basically…we just spent two hours watching a film about urban renewal.”
@frosty fka Bro Shotgun etc etc:
Liquid Sky!! One of my favorite soundtracks EVER. Which i’ve been looking and looking for since forever.
Another obscure movie I loved for its sound track long before I ever saw it: “The Long Riders,” about the Jesse James gang. Ry Cooder, yeah!
tones
@Robert Sneddon: in that case I love you.
That is all, I will watch that thing anytime it is on, and mostly if not exclusively for the sets and such.
A masterpiece of campy sci-fi.