(Ooh, that sounds like a good name for a stoner band). Before I recap yesterday's events I have to say something about the show "Celebrity Ghost Stories," which I'm watching right now. Never heard of it before this morning, but it looks like several C- and D-List celebrities come on and relate a personal experience with the paranormal. 

I tuned in on the middle of some lesser Baldwin's account of a phantom bellhop, but watched all of Tempestt Bledsoe's story about a dead relative warning her to get out of a hotel room that was about to catch fire. Tracy Nelson (who I've always quite liked) is now talking about Erroll Flynn's haunted house, where the Nelson family lived for a short time.

So the thing about this show is that the stories are re-enacted by re-enactors to illustrate the experience of actual actors. Wacky! Said re-enacting takes all the spookiness out of the retelling and, honestly, who hires these people? The guy they picked for Erroll Flynn was a pimply insult!

Anyway, anyway... about yesterday. It was lovely, particularly since none of us went outside at all for hours. Here are some thoughts about the program.

I was the only one who watched All the Kings Men, which I did while cutting up canteloupe and veggies and such. It's a pretty good movie, but I've always found Mercedes McCambridge difficult to like. Granted, she generally plays unlikeable characters, but she's not even someone I love to hate. I just kinda hate her. 

But she won an Academy Award for her performance in this film, which I can understand. Sort of. As a film, All the King's Men is better as a book.

As for Advise & Consent, the consensus around the room was that it could stand to lose about 45 minutes of civics exposition at the beginning, but once the blackmail kicked in, it really got going.

Also, none of us could believe that Franchot Tone was only in his mid-50s at the time because he looked like a corpse, and George Grizzard needed to work on his Inside Voice.

Of course, there's much more to The Manchurian Candidate than the improbable beginnings of the romance between Frank Sinatra's character and Janet Leigh's, but that's what we all talked about.

Unlike Mercedes McCambridge, Angela Lansbury is delightful to hate! Chilling!

Tip: if you can watch this film with someone who grew up in a Soviet Republic, you'll get a lot more of the jokes between the Chinese and the Russians.

Network totally holds up. It was much funnier than any of us who'd seen it before remembered and also much scarier, because it's all pretty much come true.

The most disturbing parts of course were the love scenes between William Holden and Faye Dunaway. Just ick. And ickier than the supposed reverse ick of Sunset Boulevard, Bill, don't you see that?

Plus what kind of idiot would leave Beatrice Straight for that skinny, mean thing with the bad lower teeth? There was a Brit in attendance who pointed it out, I might add, so come on — get caps!

Well, I should really go. Diane Ladd is telling a story about a ghost at the Watergate Hotel.