This little mini-series from the Sci-Fi channel is probably best classified as a guilty pleasure. This updating of The Wizard of Oz certainly isn't great, but I was entertained throughout. Zooey Deschanel stars as D.G., Neal McDonough is Kane(The Tin Man), Alan Cumming is Glitch(The Scarecrow), Raul Trujillo is Raw(The Cowardly Lion), Kathleen Robertson is Azkedeliah(The Wicked Witch), and Richard Dreyfus is The Mystic Man(the Wizard). They are all decent, but I was a bit disappointed in Cumming's rather subdued performance-if ever there is a role that calls for him to be at his flamboyant best, this is the one. The effects are what you would expect from a Sci-Fi channel movie, good but not great. I really liked how they updated everything while remaining faithful to the source material. If you're a fan of the original, you might want to consider giving it a try.

I will caution parents that there are a couple of pretty grim scenes and Robertson exposes maximum cleavage in every scene she is in.

So I realize that this is my first post. I'm obviously a RJ reader, and fan. Here is my problem: I have bought and read all of the RJ novels except for Conspiracies. Why? BECAUSE I CAN'T FIND IT! I guess that's not entirely true. There are a few really expensive ones on Ebay, but I can't get my wife to let me spend the money on it. If anyone can help I would appreciate it very much.

Seems very utilitarian yet still geeky.

http://www.nikkoamerica.com/nhe/dvd_proj...video.html

Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she
meets then teams up with a band of complete strangers to kill and kill again.

I am without dental insurance ( or even a job at the moment) and I just had a tooth shatter last night. Now I can look forward to a week of trying to track down my old dentist in Jersey and dealing with the obvious rigamarole of payment arrangements, and having the remains of a tooth cut from my gum. This got me thinking.

WWJD.

What would Jack do in this situation, as he lives off the books, but Dental records are such a solid thing that they even use them to ID bodies. If he went to a dentist his xrays and dental records would match that of his former legal self.

And what if big-bad-monster-slayingJack was afraid of the dentist as so many people are?

I am sure that this question has been asked before but I can't find the answer in the FAQ (perhaps it would make a good question for the FAQ), but what is the proper order of reading both cycles incorporated. I know the order of the AC and the RJC but don't know exactly the order of both of them together.

"Most movie studios will add sound effects for a film during post-production, and of course it's not unusual for them to recycle sound effects from their archives. The "Wilhelm Scream" must be the king of those recycled sound effects. To the best of most peoples knowledge it started in the 1951 movie Distant Drums starring Gary Cooper when an unnamed soldier was attacked and dragged underwater by an alligator and appeared again In The Charge at Feather River two years later. A soldier named Private Wilhelm screamed in what sounded like alligator-assaulted agony when he was struck by an arrow. In fact, his cry of pained surprise was practically identical to unnamed soldier's. Both men would soon be forgotten as a bit parts in B-movies, seen by relatively few moviegoers. But the holler they bellowed went on to be heard by millions– if not billions– of people worldwide."

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=787#more-787

I was watching "Spaceballs" tonight and heard it yet again. I thought everyone would get a kick out of one those inside jokes "Hollywood" is fond of.

Here are a couple of compilations of the scream in the movies that they appeared in.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4YDpuA90KEY&feature=related

Once you've heard it, you start to notice it in many of the shows we watch. If you're like me you'll chuckle every time.

This is one reason I love FPW's works. They never come from the same mold.

Other authors... not so much.

Dean Koontz- love the man, love his earlier books. but now all the same as the others. Alot of time he just throws in a twist at the end that was never mentioned anywhere else in the book, theres going to be a uber-smart dog in it ( which it seems that after his dog died recently hes gone insane), and the characters all sound the same. ( and I am still waiting for the promised third chris snow novel, damn it!). Oh, and screw Odd Thomas.

Preston and Child- Fun reads, but Pendergast has gotten too elitist for me and is coming off like hes from a Thomas Harris Novel. if he ever meets a cannibal I am gonna burn my P&C books. And all of their solo books might as well be the same damned story.

Tom Clancy - Does he even write his own books anymore??

And so on.

Basically my question is, is there a top writer of yours who has fallen from grace in into the pits of repetition?

I got a new FPW fan! My math teacher. I hooked her with a page of the Keep. She was very impressed, and I leant her my copy. How many recruits have you, all of you, gotten?

I'm still doing the stay at home dad thing for the baby and its driving me absolutely bat-shit crazy. I have read and RE-read every damned book in my library.

As Im on this forum I do not need to say that I am a horror or thriller fan. But i am also a comedy fan.

Please tell me somebody on here has something I havent read. I can spend hours in a bookstore and I either find nothing worth even reading in the store, or I find good stuff... but i have read it al already.