Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

No one could have predicted…

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Democrats are back in array!

White supremacy is terrorism.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

“woke” is the new caravan.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Don’t Be Shellfish, Pass the Puffer On The Left Hand Side

Don’t Be Shellfish, Pass the Puffer On The Left Hand Side

by | 126 Comments

This post is in: 

It’s a little quiet here today. But it’s a happy quiet. Doing my best to keep Scout from being her crazy-ass self while she recovers from her spay.

What’s everyone up to tonight?

Also – apropos of nothing, I need a list of popular romantic movies – what are some of your favorites?

Open thread

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Pufferfish release a toxin when they puff out that is meant to impair the attacker. This doesn’t work on Dolphins in the same way. It gets them high. So they purposely inflate them and pass them around to their dolphin friends for fun.

    Nature is so fucking cool.

  5. 5.

    Pogonip

    *chortle*

    I don’t know if it qualifies as “popular,” but my favorite romantic movie is “Twlight Samurai,” with Sanada Hiroyuki. If you like your love stories happy, stop the movie while they’re hugging on the porch; if you like them sad, go all the way to the end.

    2nd favorite is “Marty,” with lonely butcher Ernest Borgnine finding happiness with lonely neighbor Betsy Brown. “Why, you’re no bigger than a leg of lamb!” Awwww. ?

  8. 8.

    Yarrow

    I need a list of popular romantic movies – what are some of your favorites?

    Not sure what you’re looking for but in no particular order:
    Love Actually
    The Notebook
    Four Weddings and a Funeral
    500 Days of Summer
    Truly, Madly, Deeply
    The Big Sick

    There are so many more.

  12. 12.

    Victor Matheson

    As long as we are including comedies in the romantic category, I have always liked Steve Martin’s Roxanne or Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. And course, Princess Bride is pretty darn romantic.

  15. 15.

    MelissaM

    I love While You Were Sleeping, both for the Bullock/Pullman pairing but also for the crazy Christmas dinner scene. These mashed potatoes are so creamy!

  17. 17.

    Ninedragonspot

    Tickets on sale in Hong Kong now for the Cantonese opera “Trump” (ossia “Trump On Show”). Performances are mid-April.

    (Bonus fact: the same actor who plays Trump also plays Mao Zedong)

    Poster here

  24. 24.

    Mathguy

    Notting Hill and The Sure Thing are good ones that people often forget. Truly, Madly Deeply is wonderful.

  25. 25.

    jacy

    I usually HATE romantic movies. (Modern ones, I love old romantic movies, especially screwball comedies — Bringing Up Baby would be my favorite.) But The Boyfriend and I recently watched The Big Sick and it was very charming.

    Wish me luck, I go to the doctor tomorrow for my every-6-weeks evaluation to see how I’m functioning. I never judge it well, so it’s always a surprise. Physically, I do think my hair has stopped falling out quite so much, so that’s something!

  29. 29.

    MagdaInBlack

    “Moonstruck” is top of my list.

    Not so popular, but also on the list is “Don Juan de Marco” with Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando and Faye Dunaway. It’s quirky and sweet.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    Also – apropos of nothing, I need a list of popular romantic movies – what are some of your favorites?

    Schindler’s List. #SeinfeldReference

  32. 32.

    sm*t cl*de

    Note that the Smithsonian’s story for the ‘hallucinogenic pufferfish’ story is the Daily Heil, so probably untrue.
    Pufferfish toxin is Tetrodotoxin, which is simply a sodium-channel-blocking paralytic drug. No psychoactive effects so you remain fully alert while you suffocate.

  39. 39.

    lurker dean

    no nba fans? watching the nba all-star game. was thinking of going to a protest tomorrow but realized i don’t have the day off, crap.

  41. 41.

    sm*t cl*de

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Next you’re going to tell me Wet Dream wasn’t a top 40 hit in the 80s.

    Having successfully suppressed most of my memories of that decade, I am in no position to quibble.

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    @khead:
    First saw “Marty” as the 2nd feature of a double bill and wondered why the heck LC McHale was in a movie, and a serious one at that. Similar issues upon seeing Fred McMurray in “The Apartment.”

  46. 46.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @khead:

    My mother was bonkers for Doctor Zhivago.

    Me too – I must’ve seen it 30 times or so since the HS sent a bunch of us on a school field trip to see it at the Mayfair Theater in Baltimore ca. 1966. One of the very few long poems I ever wrote is titled “The Lara Variations” – whose burden was a decades-long pursuit of my own Lara, whom I first met during intermission at the Mayfair. (Now that’s romantic.)

    And FWIW for a romantic sorta-comedy I nominate Before Sunrise. (Not all that fond of the sequel Before Sunset & haven’t seen Before Midnight yet.) For anyone who is in love with the romance of visitng Europe as a young person…

  47. 47.

    Yarrow

    More movies:

    Amélie
    When Harry Met Sally
    Dirty Dancing
    About Time
    Cyrano De Bergerac (the one with Gerard Depardieu – it’s so good)
    Roxanne (if you want the American version)
    Sliding Doors
    Brokeback Mountain

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    Fairly obscure Canadian movie called “Map of the Human Heart” (1992) if anybody wants a tearjerker.

  55. 55.

    frosty

    Confession: I watched Notting Hill every night for two weeks straight.
    So I guess you could say it’s my favorite.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    How about disasterous date movie choices? Here are a few:
    “Looking for Mister Goodbar”
    Anything by Lina Wurtmuller but especially “Seven Beauties”
    “Pink Flamingos”
    “Z”
    “200 Motels”
    “Deliverance”

    I have more.

  57. 57.

    Steve in the ATL

    @khead: doesn’t baseball have the only all-star game that’s not garbage, and it’s semi-garbage because it’s played in the middle of the season

  60. 60.

    lurker dean

    @khead: not a great game but the players’ atheticism is incredible. come to think of it i haven’t watched it in a few years. but now that a couple of sixers are in it i’m back.

  65. 65.

    Honus

    @Steve in the ATL: baseball’s was meaningless for decades but then a few years ago they decided to give the winning teams league home field advantage for the World Series. I’m a Pirates fan so this doesn’t concern me.

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    How about disasterous date movie choices?

    True story. I watched a woman angrily walk up the aisle and exit the theater during a screening of Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly. Her date scrambled to catch up with her.

    Dead Ringers, also not a good date movie.

  70. 70.

    schrodingers_cat

    One romantic movie I saw in the recent past that I really liked was Hansee to Phasee (Smiled and Snared)
    Kundan Shah’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa with a young Shahrukh Khan (Sometimes Yes, sometimes no)
    Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se it has Rahman’s best score to date in my opinion (From the Heart, its a tender love story against the back drop of state brutality and terror)
    Gurudutt’s Pyaasa (Thirsty (man))
    The various versions of Devdas.
    Now that I think of it, except for the first movie all the movies I have mentioned are about the futility and the pain of love.

  72. 72.

    Bill Arnold

    Very much like The Orb in WA’s “Sleeper”: Unclear if it is at all like The Orb that DJT fondled in Saudi Arabia.
    Dolphins know how to have fun. :-)

  74. 74.

    Ninedragonspot

    Oh, add “Chungking Express” because Takeshi Kanehsiro is a dreamboat and Faye Wong is totally adorbs.

    Also “In The Mood For Love” if you can get past the repeated musical mistakes on the soundtrack.

  77. 77.

    Honus

    @Amir Khalid: Formula 1 is the most boring. Nobody ever passes anybody. I know they’re the most sophisticated racing cars in the world, but I can get more entertainment out of looking at a still photo of one. At least there you can see some detail.

  81. 81.

    zhena gogolia

    @trollhattan:

    I get the feeling that these are from personal experience, so I’ll add my two:

    Rocky
    Raging Bull (and I’m talking two different men here who thought these were great date movies)

  83. 83.

    khead

    Re: NBA All Star weekend.

    I would like to tie an onion to my belt – which was the style at the time – and declare it’s been all downhill since Larry won the 3 point contest and Dominique was robbed in the dunk contest in ’88.

  86. 86.

    trollhattan

    @zhena gogolia:
    I could kinda, sorta see “Rocky” if I closed one eye and squinted the other but “Raging Bull”? Sheesh.

    And yes, a curated list. I’m a slow learner.

  87. 87.

    Honus

    @trollhattan: has anyone actually shown pink flamingos in the last thirty years? I saw it in 1975 and remember every detail. A friend said we had to go see it when it played in the theatre of the English department at UVA. he said “ it’s ghe most fucked up thing and also the funniest thing you’ll ever see” 44 years later, he’s still right.

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    I thought that Moonlight ended up being one of the sweetest and most romantic movies I’ve seen in years. I almost literally swooned when (adult) Kevin turns the jukebox to the song he says made him want to call Black and you know as soon as it starts that it’s all going to work out. ?

    Tragic romances bore me now.

  96. 96.

    ascap_scab

    Straight up romance movie? Jerry Maguire.
    Something a little different? Paris, Texas with Harry Dean Stanton and Natasha Kinski directed by Wim Wenders.

  97. 97.

    Honus

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: hey, can that elitist stuff. I wrenched on dirt track stock cars and sprint cars back when Buddy Baker was still driving those dodge coronets and raven was walking the DMZ.

  98. 98.

    Miss Bianca

    @Regular Lurker: I love that one, also “Holiday”, approximately the same vintage.

    And “Sense and Sensibility” gets me every time. One of the few movies I can think of that actually enhanced my enjoyment of the book.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    Speaking of date movies, the first two movies my now-spouse and I saw together were a re-release of Blood Simple and a midnight show of Aliens. But, then, we’re movie geeks.

  100. 100.

    trollhattan

    @Honus: @zhena gogolia:
    Need to expand a bit as the Pink Flamingos episode was not technically a date. I was staying with friends and my buddy’s mom was also visiting. He and I went to the video store for a night’s worth of movies and having been amused by “Mondo Trasho” decided any John Waters movie was Must See.

    It got weirder from there.

    “Polyester” in the theater complete with Odorama card was a proper date movie, provided the date was not a Tri Delta.

  103. 103.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    True story: back when I was single, I told my then-therapist that I wanted to find a straight guy who loved Sense and Sensibility.

    She looked at me with pity and tried to explain that my standards were too high and I would need to lower them, but I refused to listen to her.

    Fortunately for me, G the film production major has a massive crush on Emma Thompson and loves that movie. ?

  104. 104.

    schrodingers_cat

    Satrangi Re (Seven colors of love..) Dil Se, with Sufi overtones is other worldly.
    Its about the 7 stages of love signified by 7 colors, it is shot in Ladakh, beautiful poetry by Gulzar, with a refrain from Ghalib*, scenery, music and choreography.

    *19th century Urdu poet who lived in Delhi.

  105. 105.

    evap

    Another vote for Notting Hill. One of those movies that I know intellectually is not a good movie, but I love love love it.

    Before Sunrise.
    The Spectacular Now (Shaliene Woodley is so good in this one.)

    Classics:

    The Lady Eve (one of my all-time favorite movies)
    Bringing up Baby

  109. 109.

    hilts

    Favorite romantic films in no particular order

    It Happened One Night
    About a Boy
    Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
    Barefoot in the Park
    The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
    The Unbearable Lightness of Being
    The Apartment
    Desk Set

  110. 110.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Romancing the Stone.
    Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
    “I love you.”
    “I know.”

  116. 116.

    Tamospam

    “I know where I’m going”, or the almost remake, “Decoy Bride”. Agree with, “Ball of Fire”. “Gilda”. “Black Sheep” (2006).

  120. 120.

    cope

    I never see this movie listed and, other than my wife, know nobody else who has seen (and liked) it but “The Matchmaker” with Janeane Garofalo, lots of beautiful Irish landscapes and a very good script is one of our favorites.

  123. 123.

    stinger

    @zhena gogolia:

    Remember the Night

    My #1 b&w film!
    Much Ado About Nothing is my #1 modern/color movie.
    No one has mentioned The Fabulous Baker Boys. And my secret guilty pleasure is The Bodyguard.

  124. 124.

    The Pale Scot

    Reminds me of a SciFi short story I read where extra-terrestrials told their friends visiting Earth to be sure bring back cocoa which has alkaloids that got them quite high, and it was favored with light machine oil. Carbon based life forms, ya never know what their preferred poison is

  125. 125.

    Aleta

    A Room with a View
    Clueless

    (Doesn’t fit the category popular romantic, but
    Apur Sansar (3rd in a trilogy) — (maybe this is the most moved I’ve ever been by a love story at the time I watched it)
    The Householder

    Kissing Jessica Stein
    Bridget Jones (1st one)

  126. 126.

    Mohagan

    @Miss Bianca: Another vote here for Sense and Sensibility. The scene when Emma Thompson finds out High Grant isn’t married and can’t suppress her emotion gets me every time. I also love Alan Rickman. For classics, Notorious, and of course Casablanca.

Comments are closed.