"when Rowling did try and give him some edge, he became just another self-centered, whiny teenager, given to fits of self-loathing that manifested as witless sarcasm and dull surliness"
And that's why I never re-read the fifth book in the series.

They also never show God's face.

I don't buy the argument that TV shows should only be reviewed at the end of the season. A TV series is an explicitly episodic medium. The viewers only know what they've seen up until that point. So if a show wants to do a big-arc/long term payoff type of show, they also need to consider how to keep audiences engaged…

Bad books take a significant investment in time and attention. You can watch a bad movie in an hour and a half, and do something else at the same time.

Poor little Buttercup, Come of your Buttercup buy.

Stan's redeeming feature is that he actually believes in something. Peter and Homer are lazy, selfish, stupid and completely impulse driven, and that's basically their motivation and world-view. Homer is saved from being completely reprehensible because he does genuinely love his family, and that peeks through the…

It's a good point. I went to a very small elementary school - 100 students total, about 12 in my grade.  If one or two people decided to make your life miserable, that was a significant part of your peer group, and there was no way to avoid them. In high school, 200 people per grade x 5 grades, it was way easier to…

Don't forget

I find that one reason why an adaptation has trouble being very faithful to the source material *and* a good movie is simply time.  Two very faithful adaptations that I've watched and enjoyed were mini series - a four hour adaptation of Anne of Green Gables that came out about 25 years ago, and the BBC 6 hour version…

The shrillness and stridency makes sense, though (in spite of the annoyingness). She's going from being a fanatic and freedom fighter in a long guerilla war against brutal conquerers, to one of the administration of a new system. That's not an easy transition, and the attitudes and reflexes of her old life won't be…

Yes, I believe very tight, groin revealing trousers were popular at one point in upper class European fashion of the 19th century.

I see a difference between pop culture references and topical references, depending on how central it is to the episode.

The Asian model for a lot of care has been family oriented - the grandparents look after the kids while the parents work, the parents take in the grandparents when they can't live on their own.

The cost of premium cable is a good point. Any place I've lived, HBO comes in on one of the top ranks of cable. So to watch Game of Thrones starting from a no-cable standing start is about $1200 per season. [Assuming $100 a month for premium cable over a year].

And the hoops you have to go through to get even long released content can be ludicrous. A lot of TV shows are not released in all regions - I live in Region 3, and while the Simpsons are available on DVD, American Dad and Futurama are not (along with things like Battlestar Galactica). There is zero legal access to…

I loved these books as a kid. In the books, I found the plot was of secondary importance to the world of the borrowers, and the way the characters interacted with the larger world. It isn't until the fourth of five books that there is really a 'villian' as such.

That's about all you need to know, zeppomarxist. Pervy in a little boy looking up girls' skirts sort of way.

I'd go for that, and I don't use Twitter *or* watch the Oscars.

Definitely worth reading.  I've heard her work described as "character driven action adventure" - the plots are space opera at its finest, but the characters are always the driving force and emotional centre to the story.

Yeah, I find the guest stars whom I like best on the Muppets are the ones who throw themselves wholeheartedly and unironically into the show, chewing scenery and mugging for the cameras as appropriate. Other guest stars are more stiff, as if they never quite forget that these are puppets.