Unforgiven

"It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. Take away all he's got. And all he's ever gonna have." -Will Munney 'Unforgiven'

This line haunts me. I think it pairs perfectly with Lt. Spears' speech in the 3rd Band of Brothers episode: "Carentan."

"You know why you hid in that ditch, Blythe?"
"I was scared."
"We're all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But Blythe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier's supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse. All war depends upon it."

I find it amazing that this level of introspection made it into content that came from Hollywood. I ponder both of these discussions constantly. I recommend seeing both "Unforgiven" and the "Carentan" episode if you can.

Back To The Future

There's been a lot of PR about the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future lately. I'm usually annoyed by this kind of stuff, but this one really intrigues me, if only for the fact that it means 25 years have passed. We lived in Germany from 1985 to 1987 and only had German TV. After a while we missed commercials. An American couple we knew owned two VCRs (an incredible thing back then) and there was a video rental place on base (they still had Betamax in the store) so we would rent videos and our friends would copy them for us. During our 2-year tour, the only American popular culture we had was a handful of copied movies. I watched every one of them dozens of times each. They all have very special significance to me. One of those movies was Back to the Future.

Today I learned that Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly. They completed 5 weeks of filming with him in the lead role and then decided that he wasn't funny enough and replaced him with Michael J. Fox. Maybe it's just the rain outside talking, but learning this has really bummed me out. I really like Eric Stoltz as an actor. I can't help but imagine what it would've been like for him to be cast as the star of a movie that would become so famous.... and then after a few weeks be swapped out for someone better. It's the kind of thing that could ruin someone's life. I'm tempted to buy the anniversary box set just so I can hear the whole story (all I got was a quick clip about it.)

Here's the clip:
http://io9.com/5661580/never+before+seen-footage-of-eric-stoltz-as-marty-mcfly-in-back-to-the-future

Don't forget to watch the SNL "missing auditions" skit too... it's hilarious!
http://io9.com/5678154/snl-screens-the-missing-back-to-the-future-audition-tapes-including-al-pacino-as-doc