A. This may be the least self-conscious version of Community ever.

Yeah, but Hickey doesn't know that. And even when Abed is held accountable for his actions, half the time it's only after he's been given free rein for the first 18 minutes of the episode. And Abed may not instigate the sitcom plot, but he does try to use it to his advantage, going through the "story" that he thinks…

I felt the similarities with "Mixology Certification" too, but I don't know that it just had to do with the mood- I feel like Harmon and the writers are often sort of frantically re-making the show, creating a storyline, then going back and deflating the cliche, then going back and pointing out how tired it is to…

That sounds like it could be a pretty cool mechanic. But what happens if you don't pay on time? Does everyone in your guild suddenly get attacked by super high-level characters who are trying to repossess the armor? Would you take a cut of everyone's quest money in order to make payments back? Would joining a guild be…

Does this mean we're not getting "4 Guns?"

Brutal Legend might actually be my favorite Tim Schaefer game. I don't know enough about RTS mechanics to know if the battle system was broken; I just know that driving around a crowded battlefield killing monsters while blasting Slayer is the sort of thing videogames were made to simulate. The story is slight but…

They might be suspension-of-disbelief breaking. If you're a shop owner, are you going to lend out your super-powerful magic weapon to an escaped prisoner whose whole plan seems to be "run around until you find a place full of monsters, then run in there and try to kill all of them?"

I remember playing the Mission: Impossible videogame for the N64. I would walk around the dinner party punching random guests. Between that and the countless hours my friends and I spent shooting scientists in the Facility level of Goldeneye, it's not hard to see why the GTA series took off like it did.

I've been on a Hitchcock kick recently, so when I read this, it looks like The Lady Vanishes mixed with North By Northwest. I doubt it's as good as that combination makes it sound, but still possibly worth seeing.

Being John Malkovich was released in 1999.

There's not much "new" in 12 Years a Slave, especially if you've watched Roots or even Beloved, but it's presented in a way that really highlights the injustice. SPOILERS The whipping of Lupita Nyong'o's character is definitely supposed to be the horrific climax of the film, but it's clear that the worst part of this…

Uncle Tom has been pretty well-treated most of his life when the novel begins. And Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass has a climactic moment where Douglass beats the shit out of an overseer, and the overseer can't do anything about it because (a) If he punishes Douglass in any way, he'll have to explain to the…

This reminds me of Roger Ebert's anecdote about a TV-edit version of Deliverance that "appeared to be a movie about men walking around the woods looking sad."

Like, taken a bullet out of a gun and held it against his head in a threatening manner?

Yes! And Denzel as Tom Robinson! A Philadelphia swap! Except the white guy would get the showier role each time :(

No, that's only true of the hot ones. You're still free to think of ugly women as fully self-actualized human beings in whom you have no interest, because they neither help you get laid nor serve as an impediment to getting laid (unless, of course, they belong to the subtype "ugly friend who just wanted to go home and…

Why did no one tell me the creators had an AMA? I'm reading it now and it's great! Jennifer Love Hewitt was almost Robin?

The Dissolve:

If you're streaming it, just watch all the way through. You will barely notice the difference, and wonder what everybody is so up in arms about. This is because they watched it week to week, and over time, each new episode had to live up to their fuzzy, rose-tinted memories of all the best moments of the previous…

I figured the "Hurt" video sort of allowed everyone to get their Johnny Cash mourning out of the way while he was still alive.