@avclub-011d0b4fe6835bb3d37ef4e0ea713de6:disqus 
Well, facing death itself knowing it is permanent is pretty brave, but the whole reason why there *aren't* atheist suicide bombers is that there is literally nothing to gain for it, which is a separate issue.

@avclub-6997a8bd0e1042b70b60c5c879a1780e:disqus 
Yeah, of course *they* wouldn't see it that way, but that hardly is the point, is it? Vonnegut's fictional "Bokononism" religion was honest enough to admit it was a pack of comforting lies, but most real religions present themselves as describing the way the world really…

Well, I seem to remember a lot being made out of how Glenn was warped by attending a special science-focussed university while Jimmy was given a "well rounded" education through the liberal arts. And that's a trope that really annoys me as a biologist. The whole reason why places like Whole Foods get away with selling…

I actually didn't mind "The Blind Assassin" (I got it for free for Microsoft Reader when I had a Windows PDA about ten years ago and Microsoft was hyping their eventual failed ebook format by giving out free books) because it is actually somewhat of a departure for her — while nominally being about an SF author (and…

If somebody believes that they will be awarded in the afterlife for something that kills them (not to mention others), they are clearly cowards because the whole point of postulating an afterlife is simply a way to avoid the courage needed to accept the reality that death is final.

The problem is that it isn't a particularly insightful trope. For example, I remember in Oryx and Crake that Atwood thinks cultured chicken meat without an actual chicken is somehow "ooh, science overstepping its bounds". But anyone who really thinks about morality and science would realize that it removes the moral…

Oh please. Atwood pretty much just recycles tired SF tropes but because she is a "literary" author, people who don't normally read SF gush over her because they think she's original. Had to read "Handmaid's Tale" in HS (news flash — theocratic dystopias have been done to death before). And "Oryx and Crake" just made…

Yeah — I don't really get the whole Todd has a thing for Lydia angle — I'm not seeing it. Why does that have to be the motivation for his sucking up to her? She's the one with the connection to the buyers — it's like sucking up to his boss — which she is. Besides, didn't he seem a little disgusted with her lipstick on…

What is with reboots/remakes that miss the point of the original? Robocop minus the social satire is like Rollerball without it (and they did that remake a decade ago).

I remember reading somewhere that the problem with 'Catcher' today is that today's society has the opposite problem — Holden was alienated because culture at the time didn't really cater to teenagers — everything was either for children or adults. But now *everything* from games to movies to music is aimed at the…

@avclub-6d7d01236783f871a36ee948c146b9c6:disqus 
No — Webb was John Watson! Well, besides the finale, I guess they did do that sketch about feuding actors who demanded that Holmes/Watson roles be switched after each performance.

But then would Wil Wheaton be the phenomenon he is today if the character was killed (and thereby becoming sympathetic?) Isn't his whole shtick "hey, Wesley was annoying, but I'm actually kind of cool (in a nerdy sense) in real life"?

Why in the world would a church need a gym? And not even a gym in the sense of a fitness center — a gym that looks exactly like a high school gym.

@avclub-4f18f486a356810b3ef8008243bcba7a:disqus 
What do you think of Japanese Hibachi restaurants where you sit around the grill and the chef does his thing throwing knives in the air and so forth? Actually that was kind of an 1980s thing when Japan was the in thing — don't think I've been in one in 15 years.

Yeah — Spalding Gray's monologue in True Stories about startup culture and how it was different from big companies was bizarre from a movie from the 1980s — it basically predicted the late 1990s a decade before its time. Also, obviously good music.
http://www.youtube.com/watc…

@avclub-8288999e960ebe6aca280a2c31f5645b:disqus 
I'm not sure you'd have much of a movie there without Bowie. Okay, Jennifer Connelly was nice (although she hadn't quite blossomed yet), but if somebody like Tim Curry (or heavens forbid MJ) was the villain it would have become as forgettable as Legend or Krull, not the…

@LiberalCollegeFreshman:disqus 
But there's a real statistical link between poverty and religiousness of nations — look at a plot sometime — the US is a bit of an outlier, being both wealthy and religious, but all the other nations that have a similar rate of attendance of religious services are basically third world.…

Personally, I don't know how people tell them apart — their sense of humor as well as their voices are so similar. When I first started playing Portal 2 I actually wondered if Wheatley was Gervais-voiced (he's voiced by Merchant).

Yes. And I thought it was interesting that not only did Mitchell & Webb mock that ending in a skit on their show, they themselves ended their series in a similar way with a skit about an elderly Sherlock Holmes suffering from dementia which goes from a typical silly skit to a heartbreaking reflection on how tragic the…

@avclub-51096670a18de3dbac0e197cf09db6da:disqus 
"Uh, no; we just want to hear the part about the bomb."