All you fox news fanboys know about Bill O'Reilly's book "Killing Lincoln" don't you?

Well maybe what you don't know is that it's been made into a movie and, get this, Tom Hanks (the liberal hollywood movie star) is narrating it.


http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/15/killing_lincoln_movie_on_national_geographic_channel_is_deadly_dull_video.html

Bob wrote:Well maybe what you don't know is that it's been made into a movie and, get this, Tom Hanks (the liberal hollywood movie star) is narrating it.


http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/15/killing_lincoln_movie_on_national_geographic_channel_is_deadly_dull_video.html

Have you read it?

I like Hanks. I think he's a good actor.

Nekochan wrote:

Have you read it?

I like Hanks. I think he's a good actor.

I had never read any novel until I ALMOST finished one on the plane trip to San Francisco. Got through 2/3rds of it and I want to finish it because I loved reading it.
So when you've never read anything and you're looking for your first few titles to read, a book ghost written for a tv talk show celebrity just to cash in on his popularity is not high on the priorities. But I don't mean anything negative about that either. I've been pleasantly surprised before when I wasn't expecting it.

I am also more inclined to watch the movie, with Hanks in it, than read the book.

Now granted this quote pans the thing about as bad as it gets...

The production, based on a book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard—which, according to a review in North & South, the magazine of the Civil War Society, “contains numerous errors of people, places, and events”—has a peculiar hybrid structure. From time to time, the camera cuts away from the floridly bearded, amply petticoated people of 1865 to a set in what appears to be an abandoned furniture warehouse. Here, from a perch alongside a tiny table, Tom Hanks supplies contemporary viewers with historical context. In his first appearance, Hanks warns that “John Wilkes Booth is reduced by history to a two-dimensional scoundrel and dismissed as a madman.” The film then proceeds to turn him into a one-dimensional scoundrel (and a madman).

he then says some more really unkind things about it. and follows that with...

Unfortunately, at that point, Killing Lincoln still has an hour or so to run.

... but I've learned not to surrender my total trust to movie critics. Sometimes they're more fulla shit than the movies.
However, if you average all the reviews of all the movies out, I would say they hit the mark about 3/4ths of the time. So I'm not sure I want to gamble my time on a 25% bet.

Bob wrote:

Nekochan wrote:

Have you read it?

I like Hanks. I think he's a good actor.

I had never read any novel until I ALMOST finished one on the plane trip to San Francisco. Got through 2/3rds of it and I want to finish it because I loved reading it.
So when you've never read anything and you're looking for your first few titles to read, a book ghost written for a tv talk show host is not high on the priorities. But I don't mean anything negative about that either. I've been pleasantly surprised before when I wasn't expecting it.

bob, you and I share something. I do not read and never have read fiction, unless someone made me. This could be why you and I are mentally ill.

I just feel likeI dont have much time on this planet and there are so many things I dont know yet that I must dedicate all of my time to either learning all the cool stuff or fantasizing off other peoples fantasies, when my own fantasies are perfectly insane as well.

I do like tom hanks though. any actor that can go from comedy to drama with the blink of an eye is worth 7.95 in my book

I completely understand, Chrissy. I had never been big on the idea of suffering through a whole book length thing either.
But that all changed when I read that book on the airplane.
I had become aware of this masterpiece about five years ago. And when I got a Kindle Fire I bought a download for it. That was about two years ago or so. I actually had the book on that e-reader for two years before I ever read a page of it. Just couldn't bring myself to do so.

And then finally the day came that got me to do it (I was trying to block out the sensation of sitting in that sardine can with wings for five hours).
So I started it.

And all I can say is this book is so amazing in so many ways that it was like being in 1850 and actually witnessing it.

Nekochan wrote:I am also more inclined to watch the movie, with Hanks in it, than read the book.

I gotta tell you something. I watched Saving Private Ryan a few days ago (on one of the tv channels). Unbelievably I had somehow missed seeing it when it was out 15 years ago. Either that or my memory has now deteriorated so bad that I had forgotten every single frame of it so it was like watching it for the first time.
But if you like Hanks, and you have not seen that movie, by all means do not miss out on that. That is one amazing flick.

Right now I'm gonna watch that movie bds recommended to us.

Hmmm. That other review may be fulla shit.
This is a glowing review of the Killing Lincoln movie in of all things The New York Times. The same newspaper O'Reilly bashes.
Plus I now see the movie was produced by Ridley Scott (and his brother Tony).
I do not miss anything that has Ridley Scott's name attached to it so that's definitely the hook that will make me watch it Sunday (National Geographic Channel).

This is kinda fascinating...

'The first sentence of the book appears on page one in a "Note to Readers" by O'Reilly: "The story you are about to read is true and truly shocking".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Lincoln

It's fascinating because that's almost exactly how legendary B-Movie maker William Castle used to introduce his 1950's horror flicks. Except Castle didn't take himself seriously. He was like the carnival pitchman of cinema.

Hmmm.
1. O'Reilly is real close to my age
2. When I was a kid I watched all those 50's flicks religiously
3. O'Reilly probably did too.
4. That's his inspiration.

That is of course if it was O'Reilly himself who came up with that line. Who knows.

Here was Castle at his dramatic best. I so remember seeing this at the Saenger. We were all eagerly anticipating a horror movie which had special effects actually wired into the theater seats. Just the thought of what that was gonna be like in my 9 year old mind was enough to send me into a state of paranoid terror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FQm30eQn7I

from wiki...

William Castle became famous for his movie gimmicks, and The Tingler featured one of his best: "Percepto!". Previously he had offered a $1,000 life insurance policy against "Death by Fright" for Macabre (1958) and sent a skeleton moving above the audiences' heads in the auditorium in House on Haunted Hill (1959).

"Percepto!" was a gimmick where Castle attached electrical "buzzers" to the underside of several seats in movie theaters where The Tingler was scheduled to be screened.[4] The buzzers were small surplus vibrators left over from World War II. The cost of this equipment added $250,000 to the film's budget. It was predominantly used in larger theaters.

During the climax of the film, The Tingler was depicted escaping into a generic movie theater. On screen the projected film appeared to break as the silhouette of the Tingler moved across the projection beam. The film went black, all lights in the auditorium (except fire exit signs) were turned off, and Vincent Price's voice warned the audience "Ladies and gentlemen, please do not panic. But scream! Scream for your lives! The Tingler is loose in this theater!"[5] This cued the theatre projectionist to activate the buzzers and give several audience members an unexpected jolt.

An alternate warning was recorded for Drive-in theatres; this warning advised the audience the Tingler was loose in the drive-in. Price's voice was not used for the drive-in version.

To enhance the climax even more, Castle hired fake "screamers and fainters" to plant in the audience.[4] There were fake nurses stationed in the foyer and an ambulance outside of the theatre. The "fainters" would be carried out of the auditorium on a gurney and whisked away in the ambulance, only to return for the next showing.

Robb White, the story author, said he was inspired to write The Tingler after seeing one of the rubber worms makeup artist Dusick designed for House on Haunted Hill. There are, however, no rubber worms in the release version of House on Haunted Hill.

White had experimented with LSD at UCLA after hearing about it from Aldous Huxley and decided to work it into the script as well. It is the first depiction of LSD use in a major motion picture. At the time the drug was still legal