I'd buy it, Scenes From a Marriage is like a well-written soap opera at points, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Clue me in, is it true he's not well-liked in Sweden? I've always heard this but never got much of a sense beyond passing reference.

Fanny and Alexander is his greatest artistic achievement and his most accessible, but it is a time suck of an investment.

From what I've read, the dude loved fun trashy Hollywood stuff and would frequently screen something like Die Hard or Oceans 11 at his private theater. Probably wouldn't mind the comparison at all.

Prine was one of those rare concert experiences where I got to hear every single song off my mental wish list, including "Flag Decal" and "Some Humans Ain't Human." He really gives you everything. The highlight, though not a surprise, was "Lake Marie." Broke the shit out of his strings to the point that he's just…

@avclub-61938d93498e7f0ed5e6527b1cee656a:disqus Very possible. Thalberg was an anomaly among studio moguls in supporting artists making art, compared to Mayer who, you're right, wanted to hack The Crowd to pieces for being a downer.

@avclub-61938d93498e7f0ed5e6527b1cee656a:disqus Well my point is that Vidor never was as uncompromising as he was with The Crowd, while Welles never accepted anything less, at least when it came to something he had the creative reigns on. Vidor had worked it out with Thalberg ahead of time that he got to make this…

@avclub-6c8349cc7260ae62e3b1396831a8398f:disqus I always thought a good comparison was King Vidor, who did make what I would consider a Kane-level masterpiece in The Crowd (though a bit further into his career), and then basically did fold into a studio gun for hire.

When you really look at his proper filmography (meaning cut out the commercials and voice over work he did to pay the bills), it can hardly be considered a decline at all, let alone the notorious one even Welles himself bought into. He had bad luck with distributors, but when he got a shot, he never stopped turning in…

@avclub-2ee2b21306830e5dca292c37d23cb63d:disqus "Get over it."
Whatever you say, champ. Keep on fighting the good fight, you wonderful liberal, you. It's clear you've got your priorities straight.

@avclub-2ee2b21306830e5dca292c37d23cb63d:disqus Right, we'll leave aside the fact that that's not what the quote actually means. But the point is I didn't assume they were making the "obvious" joke in the sense that it was just "Chick with a dick, tee hee hee." I've explained above what I think the sketch was about,…

Jesus, I just realized Coppola made The Conversation and Godfather II in the same year. That is bananas.

@avclub-2ee2b21306830e5dca292c37d23cb63d:disqus Add condescension to the list of what? Things you're not aware of concerning the transgender community? Make a cogent point, dude. It's not condescension if you legitimately aren't keeping up.

Everything you're saying is great, except it requires overlooking the context that this is a comedy show and there is implicitly something the writers find comedic about the idea of this romantic comedy being made. If it were played straight, hell if they actually made this romantic comedy, I'd think it was one of the…

@avclub-2ee2b21306830e5dca292c37d23cb63d:disqus Do you know what that means or are you just repeating something that sounds vaguely insulting? I haven't made any essentialist reductions in my objection.

@avclub-2ee2b21306830e5dca292c37d23cb63d:disqus Do you know what that means or are you just repeating something that sounds vaguely insulting? I haven't made any essentialist reductions in my objection.

It's for this reason that I give Argo more of a pass than Zero Dark Thirty, but the prologue feels frustratingly tagged on. Like Affleck watched a rough cut and went, "Shit, we kinda just make Iranians look like a bunch of motiveless screaming rioters." Prologue aside, Iranians in the film have absolutely no agency.

@avclub-2ee2b21306830e5dca292c37d23cb63d:disqus You not being aware of their victimization, or perhaps even their existence, makes my point better than I ever could.

Best moment of The Bubble: Robert Webb getting called out for referring to Mitchell as "My David" and the abject horror on both of their faces when this was revealed.

They're like an upbeat, flatulate-obsessed version of the Glass family. It's them against the world.