Betty Houle

Strike three.

"other"

Since I don't agree with you that No Prayer is better than FotD & because I don't listen to X-Factor, you can't take this poll seriosuly? Makes sense to me. Edit: To Everyone but Slapnuts- I didn't think I'd have any resistance to leaving off No Prayer as a possible favorite album. My apologies to anyone who has that (or their post-Fear albums) as their favorite.

His wife and kids.

But it's DIFFERENT, Mike. When you or I make stuff up, it's called "fantasy" or "fiction" or maybe even "lies". When Mikey makes stuff up.....it's a DOCUMENTARY! And a great movie! (or book)

That's the beauty of the internet! Anyone can be "published" despite a lack of talent, spelling ability, or interest! Three cheers!

They don't need to be playable at all. I'm just looking for guitars that might look cool/wacky/colorful. Or any guitars really.

Neither do you. And what DOES "color me anything" mean? Anyway, since this is the only Michael Moore thread right now I must say: I can't wait for this movie! Should be great.

You took the words out of my mouth regarding the post above me... My post? I did not actually know that the New York Times was traditionally pro-Moore and anti-Disney. I apologize.

Just for the heck of it: >> May 6, 2004 – Editorial, New York Times Disney's Craven Behavior Give the Walt Disney Company a gold medal for cowardice for blocking its Miramax division from distributing a film that criticizes President Bush and his family. A company that ought to be championing free expression has instead chosen to censor a documentary that clearly falls within the bounds of acceptable political commentary. The documentary was prepared by Michael Moore, a controversial filmmaker who likes to skewer the rich and powerful. As described by Jim Rutenberg yesterday in The Times, the film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," links the Bush family with prominent Saudis, including the family of Osama bin Laden. It describes financial ties that go back three decades and explores the role of the government in evacuating relatives of Mr. bin Laden from the United States shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The film was financed by Miramax and was expected to be released this summer. Mr. Moore's agent said that Michael Eisner, Disney's chief executive, had expressed concern that the film might jeopardize tax breaks granted to Disney for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Jeb Bush is governor. If that is the reason for Disney's move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies. On the other hand, a senior Disney executive says the real reason is that Disney caters to families of all political stripes and that many of them might be alienated by the film. Those families, of course, would not have to watch the documentary. It is hard to say which rationale for blocking distribution is more depressing. But it is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse. <<

Good point. Or points.

Disney isn't selling it to another studio. They're just simply closing the lid on the whole thing and putting it up on the shelf where it won't be seen by public eyes. I doubt this will stay this way though.

I have this picture in my head of one of these internet schmucks getting a blowjob (an unlikely scenario, to be certain) and then telling the chick, "***1/2. Impressive workrate (a 9.5) but you need to work on your transitions." Well, I try not to actually picture this but I certainly imagine it happens. I used to live in Boston. It's a cool enough city.

Yes. As does Disney having the right to decide not to distribute his film. Absolutely. It's low and cowardly on their part but it's certainly within their rights. And someone else will pick it up and distribute it. In the end, this will end up creating plenty of publicity for the film, in fact!

I have a feeling that this movie will just feed off the additional controversy and be huge. No one can deny his popularity either. His books are best-sellers and his movies are hits.

To quote Jesse Ventura, "That's the first truth you've said in four weeks!" He is entertaining! Fuck, even if you don't agree with him, BOWLING FOR COULMBINE, ROGER AND ME, THE BIG ONE, and parts of THE AWFUL TRUTH are damn entertaining! I own them all! I sometimes agree with Moore and almost always am almost always entertained by him. And you don't have to buy into politics to support him. He has a right to say what he says and a right to do what he does.

-Eddie Guerrero vs. Brock Lesnar (No Way Out 2004): The storyline evoked Guerrero's real-life past so well that I got emotionally involved. First time this has happened in years! I thought my intense fandom of wrestling died after 1985-1992. -The aftermath of the Savage-Warrior retirement match. It seems silly now but I thought at the time that it would be Savage's last match. He was close to 40 at that point; he couldn't possibly wrestle for another 10 years, right? Anyway, I got emotional after the match despite knowing in advance that Savage was going to lose. And then the Savage-Elizabeth reunion happened...

I'd love to read a behind-the-scenes article on the New Universe. Anythink out there on the internet??

The movie will make money, much like his last one did. And it will be released, just by a different company. Miramax has done this before when Disney wouldn't allow them to release a movie. It's definitely on my list of top 5 most anticipated movies of the year!

I think he's one of the most overrated (by internet folk) US wrestlers. He's very athletic and quite talented but I hate his matches and don't think much of him as an overall performer.

Hogan and Bruno Sammartino teamed up once. I don't know who they faced or where it was but I'd like to see it because it would seem so weird.

It's pretty limp. And he hates Hogan; we get it. And he hates "bad gimmicks" that drew tons of money; who cares? Disappointing.

MDT: I'm sure this is one you get all time: the New Universe. How did that start and why did it ultimately become a comics casualty? JS: Well, the way it started, about 2 1/2 years before our 25th anniversary, we had a staff meeting of all the vice presidents to talk about what we were going to do for it. Some ideas were bandied around. So somebody said, "Look, this is an anniversary of a publishing event." "Well," I said, "there are two possibilities. You could start everything over from number one, like the Marvel universe reborn. Like the anniversary in May or June, all the titles wrap up the month before and start again the next month. Sort of like Marvel, 2nd edition, do it right and really make that spectacular." ... We were selling incredibly well so it wouldn't be a good idea to derail the train. So I said, "Then let's celebrate the birth of a universe with the birth of another universe." I walked out of there with a development budget of about $120,000 and I'd create eight titles. It was money to spend on research, sketches, things like that. ...[Tom] DeFalco came to me -- he was sort of my head editor, my assistant you might say -- he said let this be mine. This'll be my chance, he said. He said, I'll be like Archie, I'll have my own group of books. I said, you think you can handle this, here's your budget. Months go by. Many months go by. I kept telling Tom, I want reports. I want to know what you have. I want to know what it's about. It was like almost a year and he had almost nothing. He'd come up with a couple of fairly lame characters... There was no point of difference. They were Marvel, but worse. He hadn't spent much of the money, so we still had the money. I got together with him and Eliot Brown and we spent the day [pitching ideas]. I said, you know, the original Marvel Universe -- Stan's conception of it -- instead of doing something Superman or Green Lantern, he was really trying to do science fiction. The Fantastic Four didn't have costumes in the first issue. He was trying to be down to Earth. The problem is Stan doesn't have any science background and the minute you start working with Kirby, you're going to get Atlantis under the ocean, the Blue Area on the Moon, a repulsor ray. It's like Kirby does fantasy, period. He wasn't a science guy either. I said, so Stan's concept was why don't we do this more realistic? ... [W]hat if we went back to that moment in time where Stan said, let's do this more realistic. We have some science background. Let's do a science fiction comic book universe, where things are based more on real science, try to make it more real. We don't have Atlantis under the ocean and the Blue Area of the Moon. I wrote a page and presented it to the staff VPs. To Stan. This is hailed as the greatest genius since sliced bread. Stan just marveled at it. Thought it was wonderful. Right after that, this is about the time the company had been taken private and put on the block to be sold. I'm called up to Galton's office and he says "What's your budget for the New Universe?" I said, "$120,000." He said, "How much of it have you spent?" I said, "Not much, we just got started really." He said, "We have to cut your budget." I said, "What? We have to create these titles out of thin air." He said, "You'll have to do it with $80,000." Son of a bitch! I get a call and he says "We're cutting your budget to $40,000." I said, "What?" The next day, he calls up and said "How much have you spent?" I said, "About $20,000." He said, "Don't spend any more." So if you will check, the New Universe books were done volunteer by assistant editors, practically every book in that line was done by me, Archie Goodwin and an assistant editor. For free. Because we didn't have any money. ...One of the things in my business plan is that we were going to guarantee royalties or pay higher rates in order to get the big name artists to do this stuff. What artist is going to leave Iron Man to go do Potato Man unless he knows he's going to make good money to do Potato Man? All that stuff got scrubbed. I was told, you can pay people their page rate, that's it. ... So basically, if you check the New Universe, the artists you'll find were people who couldn't get any other work. There were exceptions. Some of these guys who grew up to be contenders, like Mark Texeira and Whilce Portacio. But they were brand new. They didn't know what they doing. These kids came along and needed work. The two people who were contenders [at the time] were John Romita, Jr. and Al Williamson, both of whom worked with me on Star Brand. They volunteered. They came to me and said, we want to work with you. Other than that, it was me, Archie, assistant editors and anyone who couldn't get work. So, that stuff was awful. It was horrible. They didn't spend any money on promotion. I don't blame them. There was nothing to promote. The stuff was shit. Ask Stan. "Oh, I always thought it was a bad idea." He loved it, raved about it. But when the wheels came off, it was all Jim Shooter's fault. And it probably was. If I was smarter, I probably wouldn't have gotten myself into that mess. In any case, it was a disaster, but I had help. A couple of the ideas were pretty good. A couple of the issues of Star Brand were pretty good. It was kind of a shame. It could have worked. In essence, we did the same thing with the Valiant universe. I took that same idea and did it there.

I would so care! ...if I was still 14.

I agree. I just wish there was no opinion inserted. As a transcriber, he's great. Everything else is annoying BS that reminds me why I hate the internet! I second that. Shut up already, BT!