The Front Page (1974, Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau
The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery (1966)
The House on Haunted Hill (1999)
The Jerk
The Ladykillers (1955)
The Last Starfighter
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
The Mouse That Roared (1959)
The Net (1995)
The Night Before
The Odd Couple (1968, Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau)
The Omega Man (1971)
The Philadelphia Story (1940, Cary Grant & Katherine Hepburn & Jimmie Stewart)
The Princess Bride
The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's (1960)
The Secret Life of Girls (1999)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
Things to Come (1936)
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
Thunder Road (1958, Robert Mitchum)
Topper (1937, Cary Grant)
Topper Returns (1937, Cary Grant)
Transylvania 6-5000
True Stories
Uncle Buck
Vanishing Point
Vargtimmen (1968) aka Hour of the Wolf
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
Vibes
War Games
Weird Science
Welcome to Woop Woop (1997)
What About Bob?
When Harry Met Sally...
Where the Heart Is (1990, Dabny Coleman)
Where the Heart Is (2000, Natalie Portman)
While You Were Sleeping
Whole Nine Yards
Who's Harry Crumb?
Young Frankenstein
Television
TV shows I have enjoyed:
American Gothic
Andromeda
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Battlestar Galactica (new one)
Brisco County Junior
Dead Like Me
Drew Carey Show
Farscape
Firefly
Frasier
Futurama
Good Eats
Hercules (Kevin Sorbo)
Heroes
Kids in the Hall
Honey I Shrunk the Kids - The Series
Law and Order
MacGuyver
Malcom in the Middle
Married with Children
Monk
Monty Python
My Name is Earl
Northern Exposure
Parker Lewis Can't Lose
Penn and Teller BS
Push, Nevada
Scrubs
Sledge Hammer
Sliders
South Park
Square Pegs
Star Trek
Star Trek - DS9
Star Trek - Enterprise
Star Trek - Next Generation
Star Trek - Voyager
Stargate SG1
That 70s Show
The Simpsons
Twin Peaks
Weird Science
Wonderfalls
Xena
Books
I primarily like science fiction, preferably "hard" scifi with a libertarian point of view. Of course, that means Robert Anson Heinlein is the master as far as I am concerned.
Other scifi or fantasy authors I have enjoyed include:
Douglas Adams
Isaac Asimov
Frank L Baum
Greg Bear
James Blish
Ben Bova
Ray Bradbury
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Arthur C Clarke
Philip K Dick
Harlan Ellison
Philip Jose Farmer
William Gibson
Frank Herbert
L Ron Hubbard (despite everything!)
Madeleine L'Engle
C S Lewis
George Orwell
Kim Stanley Robinson
Mary Shelley
Neal Stephenson
J Micheal Straczynski
Theodore Sturgeon
J R R Tolkien
Jules Verne
Kurt Vonnegut
H G Wells
I am sure there are many more but the list above is long enough for now.
Heroes
This is a tough one. No one is perfect, some people are a lot less than perfect and yet have admirable qualities. The following is a stab at some sort of list:
Ayn Rand
Robert Anson Heinlein
Combat veterans - especially those of WWII and even more especially the combat engineers who prepare the path ahead of the actual assaults
John Paul Stapp - rode the rocket-sled as a human guinea pig to speeds of 632 mph while experiencing 46.2 Gs!
Joseph Kittinger - the "red-headed captain" at Roswell, piloted the chase plane for the Stapp rocket-sled experiments, first man to go super-sonic without an aircraft (something I have personally confirmed with him), 3 tours of duty in Vietnam, 11 months as a POW, first solo trans-Atlantic balloon flight, and one heck of a guy.
Chuck Yeager
Alan Shepherd - the first American in space
Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee - the crew of Apollo 1
Neal Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins - the crew of Apollo 11
James Lovell, Jack Swigert, Fred Haise - the crew of Apollo 13
I hope to eventually spend large portions of my day surfcasting from a lonely tropical beach into a placid, clear, and shallow ocean. The rest of my time I would spend sailing a smallish catamaran, crabbing, shrimping, diving, and cooking my catch of the day on the beach over an open fire while watching the sun sink beneath the waves.
Who I'd like to meet:
Several people:
Neil Armstrong - first man on the moon as if you didn't know!
Joe Kittinger, Jr. - first man to go supersonic without a vehicle while skydiving from 102,800 feet on 16 August 1960 (I have personally verified this fact with him on the telephone)
Chuck Yeager - the legend of the X aircraft
I would like to have met Alan Bartlett Shepherd, Jr. (1923-1998) who was the first American in space. John Glenn was the first American to complete an orbit.
Someone else I wish I had met is Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom (1926-1967) who was screwed over when he was blamed for a system failure caused by his capsule "Liberty Bell 7" which blew its hatch prematurely and nearly killed him when it, and his spacesuit, filled with seawater. Of course, the Apollo 1 fire was the cause of his ultimate demise along with Ed White (1930-1967) and Roger B. Chaffee (1935-1967)
