house_of_d raze i don't think there are too many people out there who like this movie. at all. i guess i can see why. it's a bit of a mess. but it kind of wrecked me when i saw it some years back. i don't know if i could get through it now, with robin and anton both gone. maybe it isn't a great film. i don't think that matters so much. it has heart. and david duchovny wrote it. it opens with this monologue: "my name is tom warshaw. i'm an american artist living in paris. i've lived here for thirty years with a secret that nobody knows. my son odell is turning thirteen today. and for his birthday, i'm gonna tell him my secret. i'm gonna tell him: you know how in old movies when the bad guys want to break into a safe? there's this one guy, the safecracker, who puts his ear up to the lock and listens as he dials the combination, listening for what they call in english the tumblers. 'cause when the number is right, there's a click, and he knows with the click he's breaking in. well, in a man's life, there's a tumbler too. and i think that number is thirteen, when there's a click, and a boy breaks into manhood. the safe of his life opens up, and shazam! there are all the riches of what a man can hope for and hope to be. what i want to say to my son is the opposite thing happened for me when i turned thirteen. instead of opening, the safe locked shut on me. because of certain things that happened, i ... i couldn't hear the tumblers anymore. now that he's turning thirteen, i'm hearing the tumblers again. maybe it's like we're becoming men together." and then there's this exchange near the end. pappas: my dad died. a lot of sleeps ago. cancer ate him, just like your dad. cancer is the crab on the horoscope. crab dinner. $6.95. all you can eat. tom: sorry, pappas. pappas: it's okay. 'cause the crab ate all the hard parts first. the mean parts. the parts that hated me being retarded. just before he died, when he was only mostly dead, he was so nice. 'cause only the soft parts were left. he was the nicest guy in the world. he hugged me, and he told me over and over he loved me, he loved me, he loved me. tom: pappas... pappas: i hate seafood. you know, tommy, sometimes i think the crab ate me while i was still in my mom's belly. i think it ate all my smart parts. do you think that's what happened, tommy? tom: no. pappas: no? tom: i think you got plenty of smart parts, pappas. pappas: yeah. 220923 what's it to you? who go blather from