If you ever need a recommendation for a great movie,

[JMCKUSICK]

The Professor and the Madman fits the bill.

I don't like Mel Gibson as a person, but he and Sean Penn, especially Sean Penn make this movie extraordinary in my opinion.

[Captain Zero]

1. Sean Penn is a factor in MANY good movies.

Actor, writer, director, producer.

[JMCKUSICK]

3. Not at all, I should have included that.

It's on an app called Fawesome and free.

On a side note, that app also has Sid and Nancy, a cult classic about the Sex Pistols.

[IcyPeas]

5. I recorded Sid and Nancy from tv and still have it on my DVR

Also one of my favorite movies. It's a bleak, sad, crazed, drug fueled love story. I know a lot of people won't watch it because ... Sid Vicious... but it's a good movie of its time.

Also, Nancy's mother wrote a really good book about her:

And I Don't Want to Live This Life: A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder
Deborah Spungen

For most of us, it was just another horrible headline. But for Deborah Spungen, the mother of Nancy, who was stabbed to death at the Chelsea Hotel, it was both a relief and a tragedy. Here is the incredible story of an infant who never stopped screaming, a toddler who attacked people, a teenager addicted to drugs, violence, and easy sex, a daughter completely out of control--who almost destroyed her parents' marriage and the happiness of the rest of her family.

[sarisataka]

10. Time traveller?

You spent 3 hours watching a movie you only heard about 2 hours ago?

[IcyPeas]

4. The book was so interesting. I never saw the movie because... mel gibson

It's amazing to me that a story about the making of a dictionary could be so captivating and interesting. But it is.

Written by Simon Winchester, OBE

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. ....

[JMCKUSICK]

6. I'll bet the book was better.

[Brother Buzz]

8. lol, oh yeah, by a factor of ten.

[Brother Buzz]

7. The movie was engaging, but the book by Simon Winchester was riveting.

The movie kinda glossed over his early years, and how Dr. William Chester Minor, a man with high morals and ethics, was driven insane by the atrocities of the Civil War. Ordered to brand a “D” on the cheeks of Irishmen who deserted and were captured, pushed him over the edge.

Dr. William Chester Minor was born and raised in Sri Lanka by US missionary parents, and returned to the US for college. A boatload of the words he submitted to OED originated in Sri Lanka. One word I remember was serendipity, possible the most pleasing word in the English language.

[JMCKUSICK]

11. Thanks for the additional info Brother