As a semi romantic (or at least a light opera enthusiast who lovessinging love duettes), I feel rather bad in that I've never seen casablanca john.

cx2, I'm rather jealous, I did lik the soundtrack to the dune film. i was a litle confused at patric Stewart there though, particularly as gurny hallic.

Another series of books you might like if your a dune fan is a series I'm rereading at the moment, the book of the new son by Gean wolfe, comprising Shaddow of the torturer, Claw of the consiliator, the sword of lictor, and citadel of the Autarch.

has some really intreaguing ideas and a very distinct (though not easy), writing style, much like dune. The main character is an apprentice to the Torturer's guild on a sort of post post apocalyptic, post colonization and post just about everything else earth.

getting back to films though, ----- Hmmmm, so many good ones, starting from the classics like Starwars, labyrinth, aliens, working up to fun and random stuff like Moulin rouge, the works of shigeru Miazaki (particularly spirited away and princess monanoke).

yes, i admit I like weerd films, but what else would you think of someone who's collection goes from Kenshin to Doctor who, running through several encarnations of Lotr and narnia, The full cannon of Alien and matrix films, a couple of versions of Charley and the chocolate facotry, not to mention fiddler on the roof, two series of Heman, My fair lady, west side story, Dune, and the Lion King, and of course lots of doctor who, star trek and a litle star wars.

yes! I have a wide and wacky taste in Dvd's.

I'm not quite as much a startrek nut as I am Dr. Who or Lotr, ---- but it's stil something I enjoy collecting and watching. I'm currently on series six of voyager, having previously bought and watched all of next gen and Ds9, ---- acquiring the next gen films.

when i've finished voyager though I'm not sure what next. I'd like to watch enterprise, ---- but don't think I actually want to own the series, and I've already both seen all of the originals and indeed read the James Blisch novelizations which are great!

Saying that though, it's almost five years sinse I watched my way through Babylon 5, ---- so I might do that again, ---- pluss, Stratsinski has just released an interim dvd entitled lost tails which takes place somewhere in the story, ---- I could get that and slot that into the sequence.

As to microsoft and the Borg Cx2, ---- given all of the things 7 of 9 can somehow accomplish with nano probes alone, i'd say the borg must be a bunch of It service people, who have amazingly good technology at their hands, but force everyone to use it in the most pathetically inifficient way, ---- not to mention having security risks coming out of their ears!  ---- ;D.

Frankly, i wouldn't trust either earnings or net ratings, sinse both are very much open to a number of factors which have nothing to do with the quality of the film, like advertizing, licensing, translation, who actually bothered voting etc, ---- not t mention symple fashion trends as you said yourself mike.

For myself, while as I said earlier I rpobably couldn't be bought down to a deffinative choice, i try to make as independent a decision as possible, ---- not based on any of the hype or fashion trends, or gross.

cube, an extremely good, very weerd scifi film which imho deserves more honour than it gets, had extremely small production costs and prophet. It is however regarded with great respect by the people like myself who've seen it, ---- so much so it spawned a couple of more highly produced sequals (though I've not seen those myself).