According to Rocky II her name is Mary Anne Creed. And if we know anything about the Rocky movies, it's that they're slaves to continuity.

I don't really mind it going to "Best Movie with Visual Effects" if only because unless there's a real Oscar contender with good effects (Gladiator, Gump) it goes to the best blockbuster of the year that otherwise would get shut out at the Oscars. I don't mind Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and…

Well, at least Barry got an Oscar for Out of Africa. It only slightly makes up for the crime that the most distinctive score of 1985 wasn't even nominated. Seriously, how do you snub Back to the Future like that?

The real sneakiness is that because the Academy requires it to be written for the film, they sneak in new songs to the movie version specifically to win Oscars, which is what Les Mis and Chicago both did. Dreamgirls pretty infamously got three nominations out of it, but lost to Melissa Etheridge's Inconvenient Truth…

Yeah. Part of it too is the decline of the big song that went with the blockbuster. Comedy, action or sports movie had a hit single to go with it, even those with nothing to do with music, and often those got nominated for Oscars. Even as late as the 90s, Batman Forever had a huge soundtrack, Armageddon had the huge…

Yeah, saying the backlash to "Selma" is about needing a "white liberal savior" as Matt Yglesias has claimed is a total strawman argument. It's less about that, and more that the movie creates its own strawman in LBJ as opponent who sees the light rather than showing the truth, as complicated ally, something that even…

What seems frustrating here is that there's actually an interesting story in the strategies and maneuvers King used on Johnson (and the way Johnson used King to push the country places he wanted to go) around Selma and the Voting Rights Act. Nick Kotz wrote a great book about the relationship (http://www.amazon.com/Jud…

Yes. It's not to say it isn't bad, but the latter was far, far worse. See also the comparison between what Hoover's FBI was up to (especially as regards Dr. King) and the NSA keeping phone records, etc.

Need to call Peter Sagal.

Agreed. The amount of equalizers keeps the race interesting. And makes it clear the race is as much about March Madness style "survive and advance" as much as dominating every leg. The key is avoiding mistakes as much as possible. All you need are one bad detour or roadblock to send you home: Look at the…

What's funny is binge watching Amazing Race Canada Season 2 the last few weeks, and more or less the exact same thing happened: Champions were a team that didn't win a single leg but the final one coming in ahead of the super dominant team (Even if the Dentists weren't as dominantas the Hockey Players). Couldn't be…

My girlfriend and I binged through the Canadian season 2 and so the ending really echoed that one (even if the scientists couldn't be more different than Mickey and Pete): team doesn't win any leg but the last one, while the team that dominates the race comes up short (hockey players' 7 to dentists' 5). It hits home…

To be fair, "Billionaires are awesome, hard working folk" is a message true to the original comic, where they had Daddy Warbucks die of the New Deal after FDR was nominated for a fourth term, only to bring him back when FDR died: http://goodcomics.comicbook…

It's really impressive how 2014 post-racial America is ready to accept a black Michael Bloomberg.

If Die Another Day showed us anything, it's that going to war with North Korea over Bond won't work out well for anyone.

Is it too late to get him as Captain Marvel in The Rock's Shazam movie?

Come for the Larry, stay for the extended riffs on Connecticut politics.

I get how it makes perfect sense for the dentists (and worked out for them, passing them at the coconut challenge). I just don't see how it makes sense for the scientists given that by now they have to have figured out how screwed they are at trying to out physical them or out sprint anyone.

I totally missed it. What was it?

The thing that was funny to me was Frankenteeth getting in trouble again for just following another team's transportation call after they'd already gotten burned by the "I'll have whatever flight they have" on the Malta to Singapore leg. I'm happy the scientists were spared as they're charming enough even if they're a…