Gherkins - Nope, there's nothing about that in there.

Sigh.  1) Jesus didn't throw rocks (though maybe this was supposed to be a little joke?), and 2) they were not moneylenders, they were moneychangers — they exchanged pilgrims' money with graven images for un-imaged money that the Temple would accept as offerings.  Bonus: 3) they weren't in the Temple itself, but in…

Well, no, ackshully.   Chomsky gets savaged regularly by his fellow leftist/anarchists for telling people they should vote, because even the infinitesimal differences between the parties can have significant real-world consequences.  Among other thoughtcrimes.  He's not really an idealist in the sense you mean.

"… the political powerhouse that is Romania finally produces the Antichrist…"

Whereas, as is well known, heterosexual directors' casting choices in female actors are based entirely on talent, and not their looks.

I thought King was savaging Harry Potter a few years back.  Or was that Terry Pratchett?  But like Anne Rice, King is in no position to look down his nose at Stephanie Meyer.

Does this mean she'll stop making herself look ridiculous?  I ask merely for information.

The biggest objection I have to Dawkins, along with the other 'new atheist' writers I've read, is that he talks about 'religion' as though it were some autonomous, even extra-human force that makes people do things they wouldn't otherwise do; sometimes it seems they believe that religious people do what they do…

I think the ultimate problem is mixing up Science with Mythology.  A few years ago I realized that most of the champions of Darwinian theory I encounter, in person or online, are really Spencerians: they believe that evolution works in a straight but upward-directed line, from the one-celled animals to the glory that…

Exactly!  How many people take to heart his advice to become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, or to hate their families, or to watch impassively the suffering of the damned from the safety of Heaven?  To say nothing of watching, because the End Is Near, and has been for 2000 years.  Christianity would be so much…

I have to disagree about Lone Star.  They've escaped their history, they have a chance at being happy.  It's not a Hollywood happy ending, but courage like that works for me.

N.B. Movies are not reality.  Compare the experience of several of my Korean friends who came to the US to study in the 90s.  They thought it would be like the American TV and movies they'd seen, which showed gangsters and drive-by shootings on every street corner.

"A three volume novel!  How wonderfully clever you are!  I hope it did not end happily?  I hate novels that end happily.  They depress me so much."

I haven't seen either Threads or Testament, but The Day After had the same intention: to dash the idea that all-out nuclear war was survivable, let alone "winnable."  The Reagan administration was trying to sell the idea that it was and the nuclear freeze movement opposed him.

Which brings to mind another great unhappy ending: Thelma and Louise.

He said a *human* face.

I can think of any number of Korean movies that don't fit that scenario.  The trouble is that most Americans only see the "xtreme" Korean movies.  Give me Wanee and Junah, Christmas In August, One Fine Spring Day, Lost in Love, Welcome to Dongmakgol, Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield, Take Care of My Cat, Forever the…

Which may be why Lady Vengeance is the one I like best out of the three.  Mr. Vengeance is an amazing tour de force, though.  OldBoy is just plain terrible.

The Kids Are All Right isn't exactly Hollywood.  I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is Hollywood.

Not wanting to overanalyze what is, after all, a fiction film, if you look at Cholodenko's previous films you'll see that she's all about sexual fluidity.