July 4th Casa de Mousepod Screening©

[innerSpaceman]

No surprise, one of my favorite movies ever. OMG, when the Director's Cut came out on laserdisc, it was like an entirely different film.

Some of the restored stuff was a little lame (and not all of it is on the DVD), but most was great. Especially, of course, the fantastic and oh-so-freaking-bizarre musical number Cool Considerate Men ... which, legend has it, was removed from the film at the last minute at the request of then-President Richard Nixon, following a pre-release screening at the White House. The number is not incredibly flattering to the conservative cause ... but the show is so much weaker without it.

Alas, a few of the changes to the DVD version are not so great, and kinda mess up one of the other musical numbers at the end of the film. I keep wanting to screen a stop-and-go version for myself that preserves the best of the DVD and laserdisc versions, but I've always been too lazy.


As JW points out, it's not precise history ... but it's a fantastic dramatization of this pivotal point in Americana - - and, as flippy points out, miraculously manages to convey suspense with an outcome known from the get-go ... and make dramatic what is essentially a parlimentary procedure story.


Great, Weird, and Frelling Fantastic Film.