De Palma has never shied away from treating any genre with a strong dose of his sensibility: all heightened emotions, florid style, and tongue-in-cheek humor. As a result, he’s always evoked hostile reactions from those who don’t care for his take on mainstream moviemaking, although the reaction was unusually vicious to Mission To Mars, a mash-up of high-minded 2001: A Space Odyssey-style sci-fi and countless Rocketship X-M-esque ’50s B-movies. Yes, Mission To Mars is goofy at times, with its squeaky-clean story of a yeoman crew of astronauts racing through space to rescue stranded colleagues and investigate possible extraterrestrial contact. But it’s no goofier than De Palma’s over-the-top thrillers, and is every bit as bravura—in some ways more bravura, since the weightlessness of outer space allows De Palma to move the camera on x, y, and z axes. It’s simple, really: Either you roll your eyes at the scene where the heroes are aided in their desperate search for a leak in their ship’s hull by a handy squeeze-pouch of Dr. Pepper, or you smile at the sublime silliness of it, and appreciate how De Palma pivots from that moment to a scene steeped in real tragedy, as a daring rescue effort leads to a husband and wife having to say goodbye to each other forever. It makes sense that people who don’t know De Palma might not enjoy the abrupt tonal shifts and overt artificiality, but veteran critics should’ve known better. Mission To Mars is one the director’s most entertaining and emotionally powerful films: a salute to modern mythology that understands how rockets can fizzle and crash, and how awesome they can look before they do.

Mission to Mars is a disaster. And I know De Palma. It is embarrassingly bad, with an ending that wrapped it up in a way that it deserved. Stupidly and badly done. Right from the back yard party near the beginning with the gag inducing discourse between the astronaut friends who seem like D grade college frat boys, I hoped with all my might that it would get better, which it did before crashing and burning in crappiness again. FEH!

Years ago when we first heard about Alzheimer's, it seemed horrific. Now it's become so "ordinary" that it's frightening in a different way. My father died of it in 2006. The good news is that the medical understanding of it is expanding quickly, and there's a sense of urgency about finding treatments and a cure.

Sweet christ the Charlie Sheen discussion on this board is hilarious.