Just so you are clear, Randall P fakes madness to get out of serving time in jail.

I actually think Cuckoo's Nest does a good job using the asylum as a metaphor for attacking all of society whereas Dogs Day is less universal and about a particular event.

Beyond any of that, I also judge Milos Forman to be a far superior director in general than Sydney Lumet--who I do greatly admire.....my mom has worked as either a stand-in or extra on many of his films. I'm not sure if either director fully meets the standard of auteur, but both are superior craftsman with classic sensibilities and taste.

We talk about Kubrick a lot but he's useful here. Every Kubrick film is pretty much its own world and he goes to every length to make that world both particular and believable. Kubrick also understands that this requires some degree of repose. I think Forman is stronger than Lumet in this regard, possibly because he has a European sensibility, and One Flew is a great example.

The first association I make when I think of the film is usually something along the lines of the ubiquitous elevator music and the general routine of the patients mulling around. Like many of my real favorite films, we are given societies in societies and a degree of social stratification that acknowledges every relevant level of the milieu. The world of One Flew is at least as memorable as the story of its protagonist and that is a great and indeed rare achievement.

You say Nurse Ratched is just a cog in the machine but that argument didn't work too well for the Nazis during Nuremberg. And she's not supposed to act like a Nazi. She is supposed to be helping people. Instead, she is a monster who uses her power to channel her feelings of dominance and sadism. Some of the guards, as during the pool scene, are mean and corrupt as well. That Nurse Ratched is fairly universally hated by everyone is a remarkable achievement of the film in that its protagonist is so beloved.

I really don't want to discuss the Oscars much because they are basically irrelevant but One Flew was Nicholson's first truly loveable performance as a leading man and his death was as painful as any in film as far as I'm concerned; even with the coda of Chief's escape. I probably love Nicholson's Randall P. McMurphy more than any other character he incarnated. That doesn't mean its his best performance, but with Jack's all-time great charisma, it is saying a lot. I bet a lot of people loved Randall too. The Oscars are often as simple minded as Sally Field's line, "You like me".

I don't agree that Dog's Day had a better story but these things are largely subjective. I'll just finish off by praising the moment when Randall hesitates about whether to escape when he hears the commotion regarding Billy. When I re-watch the film and this moment arrives, I do something I almost never do, and plead with the character in my mind to just go out the window even though I know he is going to investigate and choke Nurse Ratched.

As for the Social Network. Forgetting Facebook, what I meant was more that if you are going to title a film "The Social Network" there is a more interesting story about its creation and evolution than a legal battle that only effected a few individuals who are already wealthy. The writer obviously disliked the real person and undermines the character and makes him both unsympathetic and unbelievable. The longing for the girl who rejected him is entirely made up and without basis and I, for one, didn't believe it for a second in the film before I found out it was a total fiction afterwards.

I'll admit the sequence in Ben Buttons is well edited from a technical standpoint but is it interesting? To me, it is sentimental and everything he is saying is so obvious and ordinary that the combined effect of images and voice over is too expository for my taste.

I think Fincher probably doesn't like the The Social Network that much and was distancing himself from it with the John Hughes remark. It is at least at odds with what I thought was his sensibility. Tarantino remarked on Charlie Rose, I believe, that Fincher requires someone to write him a story whereas Tarantino writes his own stuff.

So is your attack on Spielberg going to about his use of CGI?

BTW: Love, Blade II. What a ride.