Well there's no question that he's presenting Tom and his racial theories to be mocked, and I seriously doubt that Fitzgerald was consciously racist or would put up with any consciously racist pseudoscientific garbage along the lines of what Tom spouts. That doesn't mean that he didn't have prejudiced views about…

It's the kind of work that doesn't get its strength from being flawless- which it absolutely is not, as a dramatic thing it's lumpy and not well paced, and it's got some seriously problematic elements- but from the sheer sense of scope to it, and the feeling of how much background every single element of it has. That…

it took them innumerable tries to get the dancing with the lamp post thing right, too. gives it an extra air of magic, to me

It's rare to get a Brooks movie that's actually consistent- his doodling in the margins style tends to go for joke density over consistency- and Young Frankenstein is not only that, but actually dramatically pretty sound and gorgeous to look at, too. There's other Brooks stuff I love, but Young Frankenstein is the…

Haha, so perfect that Adams rewrote it like six times for different media

Night of the Hunter. One of those movies where every single frame looks like it was arranged for hours, and you could take any still and turn it into a poster, without every feeling static. The fact that it's a one off makes it that much more of a perfectly formed diamond of a movie, in a way.

I can imagine one conceivable improvement: if Coppola had managed the change in emphasis in the key line without a retake. It works as is, but it it would have worked ever so slightly better if it was actually the same vocal performance.

Yeah, I especially like the super racist parts about the Southrons

It's more or less impossible to say for sure within the novel, since everything's filtered through Nick's perception, but Wolfsheim seems like a racist caricature in conception and not just in what we actually hear him say.

I dunno about great- he's made a lot of movies that are shitty by A or B standards- but the Desperado trilogy, Planet Terror, and From Dusk Till Dawn are enough of a legacy for most anybody to stand on.

She actually pulled it out of her kidney, through a surgery scar.

Dick Van Patten's Hobo Chili for Dogs

Yeah, I want that voluptuous redhead gig

Yeah, I think one of the key points here is distinguishing between the equivalents of the Doug Yule fronted Velvet Underground- where the band name is branding, and not any meaningful sign of continuity with the beloved music- and the guys like Christopher Cross, where the music is 100% the same deal as it was all…

@avclub-f3165be83d2dd835403b494eb7185ce2:disqus Springsteen and Bowie put out really consistently interesting and diverse albums throughout their career (though given the existence of Tin Machine, not consistently good)

Also the disambiguation is often a rather pathetic defense put up by dudes who don't want to be outcasts just because they're into 14 year old girls

Olive's been getting a little better about that of late- they've announced a bunch of Hal Hartley films with his shorts as special features, which is neat. Hopefully they'll be more open to actually creating features in the future, which would honestly put them on par with Criterion in some ways.

aww, that's nice. though i'm not sure that the bsa's going to have riots when they announce to thousands of non-gay 12 year old boys that they won't get to see train perform, but still.

I sold a copy of the original The Staircase documentary to the director Mike Nichols on Amazon. That story doesn't go anywhere, but it's still kind of neat.

Cranston looks like someone sliced off his face and is wearing it for a mask