I always thought Ezri was pretty cute, and that Jadzia was a little overrated by most DS9 fans. However, I was annoyed that so much of the last season was spent establishing Ezri's character at the expense of focusing on Dominion War stories. So it's a close call in Jadzia's favor for me.

or Ezri Dax?

this is an easy one for me. Jadzia in a New York Minute.

This is not to say that what critics hold in high regard is what consumers should hold in high regard, but there are legitimate reasons that Citizen Kane has been held in such high esteem for this many years.

I absolutely 100% believe that people should watch the movies that they want to watch and not necessarily the movies that critics tell them they should watch. Some people will be happy with the opposite of what critics enjoy and some people will be happy with exactly what the critics enjoy. There's nothing wrong with that and I think it's perfectly healthy.

Similarly, some people enjoy minor league baseball. Some people even claim to like it more than major league baseball. That's fine. But just as any expert on film is going to tell you that Citizen Kane is a better film than Best in Show, any expert on baseball is going to tell you that major league baseball is better than minor league baseball. This doesn't mean that people who enjoy it should stop watching minor league baseball and it doesn't mean that anyone should stop watching Best in Show, but it doesn't mean that the experts are wrong, either.

To claim that "Rosebud is a fucking sled" is the same as claiming that Joe Mauer is fucking singles-hitting pussy who wears pajamas to work. It's like claiming that the Pope is just another Catholic, that Newton was just a physicist, that Darwin was just a biologist, or that Adolf Hitler was just a dictator. It's dismissive, wrong-headed, and misses the point entirely.

When did enjoying a baseball game have anything to do with how good the players are?

heh.

Right on. We need an Oscars Above Replacement level (OARs) or theater-adjusted Oscars Plus Golden Globes (OPGG+) measuring stick!

All part of a day at The WGOM.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4

Even amongst critics, Spinal Tap is a pretty highly regarded movie. This meta-list of various critics' lists has Tap at 458, which is pretty damned high if you consider the pool of choices to be every movie put on film.

I think that There Will Be Blood is a pretty comparable film to Citizen Kane. I can see why it might not be on the top of people's "to watch" list, but I thought that it was great. And for almost everyone I know, I would recommend There Will Be Blood over Kane but if we're talking about placement in a movie Hall of Fame, Kane would rank higher because when rating movies across eras, I think it makes the most sense to consider them in the context in which they were released, just as it makes the most sense to compare players against their peers when considering them for Hall induction.

Does that mean we should remove him from the Hall of Fame?

Birth of a Nation is also regarded amongst film critics as one of the best/most important/influential films of all time. Kane is just held in even higher regard. Hell, Ebert even brings up Birth in his rundown of Kane.

This is not to say that what critics hold in high regard is what consumers should hold in high regard, but there are legitimate reasons that Citizen Kane has been held in such high esteem for this many years.

If I watched Babe Ruth play ball now, I'd think he was a fat, slow alcoholic.

Don't get me wrong, I love my adult life, my wife, my kids, and wouldn't trade it in for the world. However, you nailed it above.... CFK spent his whole life chasing down a dream of money, power, and influence. It wasn't until his life was spent that he realizes "shit! I wasted my life chasing the wrong dreams!" That is the point. Also, he used the camera/lighting to enhance the story. Prior to him, film making was more about acting itself.

or juuuust mebbe, he was circling back, coming to self-knowledge just when it was too late. I dunno. I thought it was a pretty interesting storytelling device.

That is the point. LOOONNNGGG before the 90's, directors and cinematographers had adopted his techniques. We're talking Babe Ruth teaching the world to love the long ball.

That to me seems to be what Wells is saying. CFKane was a miserable wretch who lived a miserable life. His best moment was as a six year old. It was all down hill from there. What a miserable life. And Wells took three hours to tell us about it.

Truthfully, Kane wasn't so much wanting to be a six-year-old again as wanting his life to take another path than it did at that critical point, when he was taken away and adopted. Did he grow up to be a prick? Oh, absolutely! Now you know why William Randolph Hearst had the film and Welles blackballed.

But really, is the plot that outstanding? I say no. No it's not. Maybe it was shocking in 1941, but I don't know. GWTW was released two years earlier and it was a fantastic story. As I recall, you've got a titan of industry whose last word is a mystery. His life story is told in flashback. He's an ambitious, cold hearted prick. Despite all of his accomplishments, his happiest moment is sledding when he's six. That's it? That's the storyline? That's the theme? Having lived 44 years myself, I find that an unbelievable perspective.

It seems to me that if the highlight of your life is sledding as a six year old, you haven't really progressed much emotionally or psychologically. Sure, I had fun when I was a kid, but I was a kid -- there were all kinds of things that I didn't understand or appreciate about life then. I derive a lot more enjoyment out of life as an adult than I did as a kid. So, I don't relate. I'd much rather be an adult, raising my own children than go back and be a kid again. Sure the idea of having a lot more years is appealing, but the innocence of youth isn't something that I want to relive. I'd much rather enjoy today and my existence now, with all of the colors of experience that have become a part of my life than go back to the blank slate. To me, such longing is a sign of a life poorly lived.

That to me seems to be what Wells is saying. CFKane was a miserable wretch who lived a miserable life. His best moment was as a six year old. It was all down hill from there. What a miserable life. And Wells took three hours to tell us about it.

If I'm going to watch a fake documentary, it's going to be This is Spinal Tap or Best in Show! (Now that should annoy some people with better taste than me.)

BTW, favorite film of that class was Raising Arizona. This was shortly after it was released, and immediately it was recognized as a groundbreaking film by the Coen Brothers.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with that one. Orson Welles' wrote, starred, and directed at the age of 26, and his direction and filmwork were totally ground breaking -- most of which is so common place now that it no longer appears very special. And it tackled a subject so politically hot, that it was blackballed from winning all the Oscars that it deserved.

(I gotta say though Doc, I'm too young to have ever considered myself an Indian. I was always a Husky, and I was always pretty amused about the attachment some people in town seemed to have to the old nickname.)

Grrr! Arrgh! Mutant enemies will eat you for that.

always room for an Injun in the Nation, DK. Now can you get that Mankato guy off my back?

I was a huge Twin Peaks fan, but I can only let Lynch & Frost string me along for so long before I stop cutting them slack.