I'm going on record as saying it: best movie ever. Here's what instantly sells me on any narrative: time travel, dinosaurs, submarines, and I have a soft spot for those "reality is not really reality" movies that were popular for like one summer.

That being said, Crimson Tide is so crushingly good I recently bought it on DVD just to show it to 2 friends who had never seen it. Denzel pretty much comes into his own as the indignantly articulate, incidentally black guy who has to use his booksmarts to overcome prejudices people have against him. Gene Hackman also comes into his own as the narrow-minded, mega-intense older guy who terrifies people when he loses his cool and screams (slash puts a gun to Petty Officer Hillare's expressionless head).

I dunno what it is, I get a big kick out of people yelling at each other in curt military tones, a la

"Conn! This is Sonar! Holy shit, sir, the Akula Hunter-Killer sub got a torpedo off before we hit her!"
"Conn this is Sonar, torpedo in the water bearing 1-9-0 heading fast sir, it's gonna be close!"
"Launch countermeasures!"
"Countermeasures are in the water!"

Or

"Stand down soldier, that is a DIRECT ORDER! (about as explicitly intense as it gets in the army world I imagine)"
"Sir I will NOT stand down!"

Plus in any submarine movie there's always that part where one section of the sub gets flooded and someone has to lock his friends in the flooding room and watch their faces through the circle window banging on it going "Glub glub glub GLUBBB!!!" and the guy not in the flooding room falls to his knees because he's seen the true horror of war.

On a side note, I'm glad to see the blog is getting hatery. I don't want it to become that "digger's forum" where everyone hates on everything mind you, but I have had enough of blogs that're all "this shit is fiery hot bananas right now! Plus, checkout these AWESOME DJs playing at whatever o'clock at Douche Bar on Friday!" BTW, I'm spinning with Deus Ex Michna at Lit the last Friday of May -- details forthcoming.

Also, Pete is gay/woefully out of touch.

Also, welcome James to the blogging community.