"There should be more reflection about the source of our sense of the 'ratedness' of a movie."

"'The Big Lebowski' was mentioned [as overrated] by someone who is probably thinking of the cult status it achieved long after it came out. It wasn't considered very good originally. I remember seeing it in the theater when it came out, in spite of the not-so-good reviews, and seeing good and bad in it. Later, people found the good in a movie that hadn't gotten enough credit when it first came out. It became a cult favorite. If you then come along after all that, you may think you're going to see something wonderful, and when you see the bad that led to the original mixed reviews, you'll say the film is 'overrated.' So: what is your reference point? Where did you come in on the time line?"

That's something I wrote at the end of a long conversation over at Facebook (started by my son John with the question "What do you think is the most overrated movie?").

AND: Here's the picnic scene from "It's a Gift":



"Ah! Crackers! Good old crackers!"

ALSO: A good Mother's Day quote: "Those were my mother's feathers!"/"Never knew your mother had feathers."