Magnus:  believe me, I am to say the least, not at all thrilled with the "rewrites" or "reimaginings" in the Depp film.  I simply *choose* not to rant about it all here.

Because I choose to do so!

Just checking in.

G. (turning to open the casement, stare broodily out at the gathering storm over Widows Hill, adjust my drop earrings, and contemplate my latest Chopin nocturne for the evening)

I enjoyed quite a bit of Angelique's Descent.  But that final group of chapters was practically unreadable for me.  I still to this day don't understand why she bungled all of that so badly.

I think it might have been much better if it had ended with Angelique preparing to knock at the door of the Old House.  There could have been an epilogue where Balberith made ironic comments upon her fate or something while Nicholas leered in the background.

I don't actually remember the scene you mention MB, but I do remember your mentioning it back at the time.  I was so sick of the thing by the time I finished it that I quickly gave my copy away to another fan so I never bothered to check up on that scene.

Parker herself spoke of what she does as a "re-imagining."  I'm afraid I was already rolling my eyes so much I could barely get through the interview at that point...  I love the idea of Diagonal Time, reachable through a loose floorboard in Angelique's old bedroom!

Best, G.

There are some cool clips of Thayer David's scenes as the insidious spymaster Dragon in the 1975 Clint Eastwood thriller, The Eiger Sanction, included in this trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEc1aEYmiA8

Cool to see! Thayer really left us way too early...

G.

Thanks for the clarification, Amanda.  I've only seen season 1 of Mad Men and that kind of backhanded compliment seems typical of the humor of the show.  Another example that comes to mind is having the ad agency working for Nixon and various characters making snippy comments about JFK which is almost certainly contrary to the thoughts or opinions of the writers and producers (just taking a wild guess here).

G.

What happened?  I'm years behind in my viewing of that series... gawd only knows when I'll get around to seeing it.

Was there an actual DS reference?  Somebody mentioned that a clip would be glimpsed (a la Running with Scissors)?

Thanks.

G.

Fans,

Dana Elcar, to me the most solid of all the actors who played Sheriff Patterson on DS, appears as a cigar smoking lawyer in this episode of the early 1970s ESP-themed series starring Gary Collins, "The Sixth Sense":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61aztzDf7A0

The episode is of note for DS fans as well, at least from this fan's perspective, thanks to Chloris Leachman's iconic performance as the troubled mother of the girl under psychic fire in this story.

Watching Leachman in this, I thought, not for the first time, how superb an asset she would have been to the DS cast. 

This episode is one of over twenty that a 21 year old fan of this series (which was running on the "Chiller" network for awhile) has uploaded to Youtube.  I was a very faithful viewer of "The Sixth Sense" during the original run.A number of the stories are reminiscent of both DS and the early Seventies "ABC Movie of the Week" stories with supernatural themes that always seemed as if they were made for the DS audience that had been cast adrift with the cancellation back in '71.

G.

I just hope the movie does well enough to prompt whoever in the WB labyrinth is sitting on the decision to greenlight the 1970-71 feature films DVD release/restoration to move things along and give us a firm date for the release! (bearing in mind Darren's note that next year, on balance, would be better than this year).

cheers, G.