It’s also unclear what’s driving Mrs. Patmore to meddle

Well keep in mind this was one of their shortest challenges, time-wise: that's why no one (except April with her dye job) tried to execute anything that would take a lot of time.  In a quicker challenge, it's all about arranging the elements you have the right way, and I think he did.   As for jersey dress, take…

I dunno, I think giving Michael C the victory over Austin would have made for great television, and at least it could have been justified - that dress was a knockout - unlike some of their more capricious choices.  And let's be honest, he probably won't be this close to winning again.  His constant ability to "succeed…

re: stark moralism

I don't know if it makes me a cynic, but I always read the Willoughby episode (one of my favorites) as a puncturing of illusions… otherwise there's no reason for that sick closing shot of the "Willoughby & Sons" hearse, because it basically brings the fantasy down to objective reality as a final, laughless joke.

 I would have liked to see how Jerell turned dollar-store handkerchiefs into this gorgeous dress. If only there were a TV program that could show me such things.

Yeah, Michael C became a sorta second-tier fan favorite because of all the abuse heaped on his head.  At some point you start rooting for an underdog who manages, after all, to put out a few good ideas.

How does he still get funding?  Is he making any kind of profit off this, that producers keep backing him?  Even microbudget films have to have some measure of success.

@Scrawler2:disqus: For what it's worth I keep getting people to see it and then apologize for building up their expectations too much, and then they keep coming back saying they loved it.  A few clunky moments aside, it really deserves the hype.

What's amazing is that every single thing about that clip is terrible, so it's hard to hone in on Frederick’s acting.  The lighting is bad, the editing is bad, the pacing is bad, the writing is bad… it's so hard to focus on just one thing.

To Getoprotuvah:

To Prince Pauper:

I'll give you props for the polite response, but like I said in my comment above, there is a contingent of Serbs unwilling to go there (see the Dukic quote below), and I think those are the ones that Rabin is unfortunately seconding here.

Good lord.  This tells you all you need to know (emphasis mine):

Fake Plastic Tree: If you take out Ernest Borgnine's ravings, you have a great, 2-minute segment.

Serbian groups have justifiably complained about Jolie’s glib stereotyping of Serbs as racist heavies.

That was a highly uncomfortable, very questionable-taste segment, but it forces you to wrestle with it - so I appreciate it even though it's not something I recommend to other people.

Counterpoint: I think this was a year strong in B+ movies, maybe the largest and most consistent crop of B+ movies in years.  That's not a bad thing, but it kinda feels like a companion to Hyden's argument that this was a year "of no Important albums (and many Good Records)."  I'll take your point that the lack of…

I'd only second what some commenters have said above that maybe this kind of reflection needs a little more distance: heck, 2011 isn't even over yet.  'Important' is a tough thing to qualify, and just because there hasn't been broader overlap in critical consensus doesn't mean that the critics didn't get the zeitgeist…

Amen to that.  Most of the movie was just boring, but that ending made me furious.