Remember when Zhang Yimou filmed personal, beautiful, socially and politically subversive films?

While I'm sure the movie is lame, there is something I find deeply amusing about that header image.

No no, he needs to make sure that all of the goodwill from his first few years is completely evaporated.

I haven't seen Winter's Sleep, but that description is probably the most Ceylon-esque description I have ever read.

I know this whole situation isn't actually funny, but I think it is pretty funny that for years Hollywood and other entertainment media have been using North Korea as a thinly veiled stand in for China (Red Dawn, Crysis, etc) and North Korea finally hit back. Not such a safe target now, eh Hollywood?

How are you supposed to know that what you are doing is important than the constant threat of universal destruction should you misstep? Subtlety is for loser genres.

I don"t know, all the crystals and familiars and potions stuff is a lot more Wicca than "authentic" folklore. A lot of the modern images of witches and magic comes from nineteenth century spiritualists—the wizards of Harry Potter are a lot closer to Wicca than anything a Medieval peasant would recognize.

Maybe through genetic drift? Assuming the birth of two descendants every thirty years per person, within 210 years every Loyalist would have 128 descendants. About 30,000 loyalists fled to Canada, meaning they would have 30,000 x 128 = 3,840,000 descendants. I suspect that is the theoretical maximum (because it…

More to the point, the whole idea of "calling in your debt" doesn't really make sense in an international political context. What are they going to do, try to repo away the Washington Monument? Debt becomes a problem when it begins to outstrips the ability to pay interest (eg, Argentina), and that isn't even close to…

History is messy, but I don't think the persecution of Hellenizing Greeks really changes the fact that the Maccabean Revolt was, in fact, a revolt. Virtually every revolt against empire turns into a civil war to some degree, from the American Revolution (persecution of Loyalists) to the Dutch revolt to the Mau Mau…

Eh, I would disagree. Rome gets brought up a lot when discussing "fall of a superpower" stuff and it is definitely big in the European consciousness now because of the EU. Granted I study Roman archaeology so my perspective is a bit skewed but people really do feel that heritage strongly, both in the US and in Europe.

Do people just forget that North Korea has built multiple nuclear bombs?

International debt doesn't work like personal debt, "owing money to China" isn't like owing money to a mafia don.

Ugh, I hate myself for doing this, but…

Freeman could play Bilbo in his sleep, the problem is that he is being asked to play Frodo.

Bringing up Martin Freeman really does illustrate what a missed opportunity this was. Freeman is absolutely perfect for the role of Bilbo as written in the book: a quiet, put upon hobbit who doesn't really want to be here (as he will show with a sardonic wit) but, in the end, has the sort of strength of character to…

Nolan writes women?

Isn't "the talent" only a thing that crew members sarcastically call stars when they are tired of their bullshit? I've never heard it used positively.

Yeah, I kind of felt that with Saldana's tweet. Being "the talent" in Hollywood really does not suck that much.

That's because Obi Wan was a fantastic character. I don't care how much people hate on the prequels, it gave us Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan, which is a wonderful thing,