The BBC Talks of E.M. Forster, 1929-1960: Super pleasant to read; I mean, I'm predisposed to like anything the dude touched, but Forster does achieve such a solid conversational tone in these while maintaining this delicate balance wrt his audience's (presumably, because BBC radio broadcasts in the pre-ubiquitous…

I was expecting this to be first on the list, but then again, there was maybe a period of post-college graduation unemployment and loneliness where I made it my mission to find every instance of She-Hulk's fourth-wall breaking, so…a bit biased. But yeah, it looks like Byrne's image doesn't actually appear that often,…

Okay, so did anyone here actually watch the show Cavemen? I did not, but without revealing too much, let's just say that I work in a place where I am reminded of the existence of that show at a significantly higher rate than the average person, and just: how the fuck was that a thing that happened? How the fuck was…

I've been listening to the recording of 1776 with Spiner as John Adams on a pretty regular basis for probably 15 years* now, to the point that William Daniels's inflection of, say, "good God, what in hell are they waiting for?" in the movie feels off, even though I get that Daniels originated the role on Broadway.

Aesthetic >>> all else, fire safety protocols be damned.
(And I mean what's a little flammability to you when you've already succumbed to Dracula and knowingly caused the End of Days?)

And Abel Korzeniowski's luscious name. (Seriously, I hope he and Bear McCreary and Ramin Djawadi all hang out and revel in each other's excellent names and TV soundtrack work.)

Can't decide whether the decision by to announce the ending was a dick move or a baller move on Logan's part—will probably need to deal with the existential angst brought on by the sudden prospect of no more Penny Dreadful in my life first. Either way, I have worn my most ruffly and gothic (but still conceivably…

Yeah, It could easily be some mystical shit, but I assumed it was visual shorthand for what Renfield was describing irl (that is, we, the audience, are not hearing every single thing the characters are hearing because that would be boring/less artistic/whatever. We are seeing what Renfield is seeing under the…

Yeah, I haven't forgotten that particular plotline, but it did read to me more as "you're the only woman I know, please help" than "we are close enough to provide each other with emotional support." Idk the term "friends" can capture a lot of different meanings for different people, so…I won't say they're not…

Eh, in Victor's defense here, I don't think he and Vanessa ever had the sort of dynamic where he could just drop in on her to hang out. And since this is Victorian London and he can't see Vanessa's cryptic social media posts or whatever, how would he even know that he hadn't seen her in months because she was a…

Fuuuuuuck if this is, as the credits state, “The End.” Similar to the Hannibal season 3 finale, it’s like…it’s a pretty solid ending to the series, in terms of arriving at natural and artistic conclusions for most of the characters’ storylines, but I still would rather have more show? Or at least the sort of emotional…

In terms of "oh god you have perfectly articulated this thing I deeply feel and have been struggling to express," Douglas Coupland. Particularly Generation A, but basically any of his works (which I maybe read through completely over the course of a few mentally weird months of post-quitting grad school unemployment…

Right, so I think they did reviews of the first seasons of The Fall and Happy Valley when they were released on Netflix, but no episodic coverage. It's sort of weird that they didn't do the same for the first season of Peaky Blinders, but I think it's just that they don't yet have a clear model in place for picking…

This doesn't quite work with the chronology, but I would kind of love it if his answer was Interview with the Vampire and Byzantium. (But yes, probably The Crying Game and Michael Collins, as mentioned already)

I have seen a way-above-average number of Cillian Murphy movies, but unfortunately his politeness and general lack of engagement with celebrity culture (which is not a criticism—you do you, man) probably does not make him the most interesting Random Roles subject, other than as a catalyst for discussions of how much…

I think this is entirely because of what network it airs on and not at all related to its quality. AV Club only covers British shows once they come to BBC America, PBS, etc., right? (Because I guess it has to be assumed that everyone is watching things legally on American TV, although this will probably change as more…

Yep, there was a period in college where I decided to watch Murphy's entire filmography. I love the idea of Murphy and Liu as romcom leads, since that's kind of unusual casting for both of them (for very different reasons, obviously), but I was kind of weirded out by the dissonance between Liu's actual age (about 40…

I think those movie roles just don't really exist right now? If we're talking about leading roles for women in mainstream comedies, we're talking about rom-coms, mostly (Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters aside), and those are probably either going to be:
1) vehicles written by/built around their star (Trainwreck, Obvious…

I mean, I think the morality is a little more complex than that and for the most part the writing does a pretty good job of justifying the characters' actions. I wouldn't have bought Vanessa giving in to Dracula if you just told me about it, but from the way the scene plays out, it totally makes sense. I'm kind of…

Exactly. I think some of the people disappointed by this portrayal were expecting an overtly evil Dracula with a more, I guess, "conventional" seduction method. But—and this is an important message for dudes who get really into the PUA stuff as well—women are not this monolithic entity who are just attracted to one…