<You only live twice
once when you are born
once when you stare death in the face>

However, I distinctly remember the <Guiness> folk announcing that the probabitlity of a "perfect" four hands is statistically impossible.

This would be abour 12-13 years ago.

Maybe it was a hand in which all four players are dealt one suit, but in ranking order (2-Ace).

The odds of that being dealt are <52 Factorial) which is waaaaaaaaay more than the number of atoms in the known universe.

I've gone back to boycotting GOOGLE!

Incaccuracies Ahoy!! Memory Faults!
Brainquakes!!

This is all so exciting....

<Dom> are you certain you are on <double secret probation>?

Should we be more careful about posting in here?

Perhaps no more <Manchester _____ United>.

BTW, when you first posted that joke, I rolled on the floor.

In fact, it still cracks me up everytime i think of it.

they can't get rid of you man, half the people in here became Premium members because of your forum.

Trust me. I used to be a (non-influential) movie critic.

Would I allow base motives like envy, jealousy, greed etc to cloud my opinion of my esteemed colleages? Possibly.

Also, I read two <Ebert> reviews of <Sybill Danning> in <Ilsa- She Wolf of the SS>.

One was a pan, and the other was a "thumbs up".

I've long suspected he's been taking money on the side.

Jess of the Conspiracy theories.

(Kael wrong about CO, but she's not wrong about much).

The 'catch' with 'perfect deals' is that they are reported as happening far too often. But people almost never report deals where two of the four players get full suits and the other two don't. These should be freakishly rare, but a few orders of magnitude less than the complete version.

So, to quote <William Goldman's> very fine <Marathon Man>,

"It is safe?"

Re Bridge mysteries. Do you play, by any chance?

In junior High school we Nerds were Bridge mad. Played before school, lunch, and after school with Mrs. Madison the crabby olde batte Math Teacher.

we always had two tables and sometimes three.

She even taught us Duplicate Bridge!!

Then in Grade 10 I went on to War Games, and then in High School (Grade 11 and 12) back to Chess Club.

But I found the Chess Club frustrating, for psychological reasons.

In our Elementary School nobody could beat me, including the 4 teachers who played.

but at High School Chess club I was firmly in the middle of the pack.

Big fish in small pond syndrome!!!

I doubt they are coincidences.

Horror folk tend to stick together.

Personally, I love TERRIBLE horror films (99% of them) and also love GREAT horror films (Carpenter's <halloween>, <Whatever happened to Baby Jane>, and for my money the creepiest film I ever saw--

I can't remember the title, but it's in Black and White.

<Richard Burton> plays the Headmaster of an English boy's school, and ends up murdering one of his students by suddenly caving his head in with a shovel.

Anyone recall the title of this film?

I saw it on TV, on the "Space Channel" which shows tons of Horror films.

It's strange how many critics intensely dislike 'cold' cinema -- anything too formal(ist) or even too intelligent. Cronenberg got hammered a few times, and only escaped censure by lathering on gore and extreme weirdness. And most critics *hated* Greenaway. When he was at his peak, with Draughtsman's Contract, Zed and Two Noughts, Drowning by Numbers etc, I used to get into incredible rows whenever I defended him.

Greenaway himself was completely magisterial about this -- he expected it. There was Hollywood and its many imitators, which he called 'dominant cinema' -- so naturally the critics were owned by the dominant hegemony and couldn't see outside it. Rare exceptions like me were anomalous, and obviously not going to 'succeed' in the media.

Heh. He was right, too. I didn't.

I should say so!!

I have viewed <The Draughtsman's Contract> more than a dozen times- Intricately plotted, beautifully shot, brilliantly acted, and that incredibly eerie mechanical <Michael Nyman> score driving the film.

It's a murder mystery, a contemplation of Greek mythology come terrifyingly to life, a particularly effective horror film, and absolutely fascinating.

and dont get me started on <Zed>--

OOZE, ZOO, who is killing all the black and white animals, and all those scenes arranged to allude to <Vermeer> paintings as well as others-- the mysterious visual symmetries, and the oddly cheerful nihilsim of the two protagonists killing themselves in a slug infested nature ritual.

I find <body double> strongly reminiscent of <Zed>.

<Cronenberg> may be the most underrated film director in cinema.

I played in some duplicate competitions, got a prize or two - and later used to play with my girlfriend against her parents. Pop, the Prof, was very determined to beat me. It could've led to divorce if I hadn't stopped in time.

One time, during a chess tournament, I got asked to make up the numbers in a bridge game with real heavyweights -- two bridge internationals and a chess international. And they praised me, saying I was better at bridge than chess.

Which was the last thing I wanted to hear, as it meant I was crap at chess.

But you may recall the immortal words of Sir Henry Rawlinson in a similar situation?

<"Sir Henry", she trilled. "Perhaps you'd care to be the fourth man?" Henry glared with dragon-nostril distaste at her wattled neck, gorgonzola eyes and grotesque tumescent udders ... "Madam", he intoned, "I wouldn't even have liked to have been the *first* man.">

Body Double or Dead Ringers? I think Body Double was a so-so De Palma psychoflick, sort of snuff-style Hitchcock with voyeurs and driller killers -- but Dead Ringers is the ultra-Cronenberg-meisterwerk, for me.

Plus, I've always linked Dead Ringers with Greenaway's Z00. Far more than the obvious twin motif at work, as you say.

I asked Greenaway about this once. He told me that Cronenberg had contacted him on a trip to Canada to talk twins -- and this was post-Z00 but pre-DeadRingers. So there's a literal concrete real-world influence link for you.

They both wound up making the films they wanted to make, though. Even their concept of the twin is quite different. Cronenberg is primarily intrigued by the symbiotic relationship between the pair. For Greenaway, it's more like a mirror image, or the narcissistic self and its clone/ other/ double.

And all those cross cuts between spiders (the murderous woman) and Catholic iconography (the ultimate saviour of the male protagonist, who manages to escape being murdered by the evil woman, who represents nature.

<Fave Black Flag Lyric>

Not to be confused with <Brien O' Nuallain>

Help my head can't keep anything straight!!!

I'm becoming demented!!!

maybe I should exercise my brain by playing chess...

Thank you. you MUST see this film.

<Mick and Bianca Jagger> Perfect. Except, uh, didn't he leave her for Jerry Hall? Who is *so* obviously a Texas Transvestite, like George Dubya in drag, only purtier.

And Bianca hung out with the Warhol crowd then switched to saving the planet. These are high rollers, bubba, and if you go in without backup you could wind up owing somebody a continent.

Why do I sound like Hunter Thompson all of a sudden? I'm only drinking lemming tea here ... who spiked my lemmings?