I like everybody involved in this movie (and Branagh playing a bad guy is a very tempting prospect for enjoyable ham), but I admit I find the determination to turn Jack Ryan into an original franchise character a little odd. There's nothing particularly notable about him as a personality or in terms of abilities. …

@avclub-b6e8cb5c4ccebe66e4478c1622f904eb:disqus :  The modern superhero boom predates the recession, so I really don't see your logic.  Superheroes have been a consistent feature in other media for over 70 years.  Technical limitations, far more than anything else, are the reason it's been hard to film them up to this…

Nowhere did I say it was a "strong performance", I said it's one of their stronger performers in the context where they're doing very poorly across the board.

FOX is getting the shit kicked out of it this year, apart from Sleepy Hollow, so Glee is actually still one of its stronger performers.

Comic books are action movies.  Action movies are a consistent genre.  It's just that we've only now been able to actually do decent renderings of this particular sub-genre, and now that studios can do it, I wouldn't expect it to go away.

And while I think Demi Lovato & Naya Riviera have some great
chemistry, how in god's green Earth can Demi afford to live LITERALLY
around the corner from a times square diner.

There are still two seasons ahead, so we’ll see, but it remains impressive how Glee,
the show with a new crush every week (ahem, Artie-Kitty, Sam-Penny),
developed these three central romances, one male-female, one male-male,
and one female-female. It took them through high school rituals and
young adult obstacles.…

True, but Hannibal struggles to get made, so it's a lot more notable when a big hit like this is being operated that way. Particularly since FOX is taking it on the chin otherwise this year, so it's especially admirable restraint on their part.

It's interesting to see a broadcast network trying a more cable-like show length.  I wouldn't have automatically placed Sleepy Hollow as the sort of show that would be a major proving ground for that approach, since so far it's been more in the manner of a fantasy procedural so far, but perhaps that will change as we…

Mays stopped being a regular in Season 4.

After the first half of season 1 she hardly does anything.  I can barely remember her being in the last two seasons.

I hope this is cancelled swiftly so that the talented cast can do other things.

I don't have a problem with the characterization, I was just noting that the article made it sound like he'd been like that all along.  Coulson had very little actual characterization until The Avengers, when he was suddenly on a first name basis with Pepper, etc.

Stannis in the books is openly suspicious of Melisandre, unlike the show version.  And, as far as it goes, Stannis has fairly tangible proofs for his religious affiliation, since he's got an actual witch who can do magic and predict the future working for him.  On the kin-killing, that concept is really hard to get a…

Breathless isn't even particularly famous in terms of "pick a famous film that most people haven't seen" jokes go, so I doubt somebody would know enough about it to put it in the joke but not know who the director was.

The producer (in old Hollywood) and sometimes a famous writer may be referred to in that manner on occasion — i.e., Zanuck's Gone with the Wind or Chayefsky's Network.  But yeah, it's usually the director.

I don’t know if it was Iron Man director Jon Favreau or Clark Gregg who gave Coulson his sarcastic but lovable superhero fanboy personality

A much better use of the concept than any of the Ryan novels.

I'll admit I enjoyed the first few Ryan-as-president novels when I read them, though I later realized the degree to which they're stuffed full of conservative talking points that really have no business in a techno-thriller (though, to be fair, I expect conservatives would say the same about most of Hollywood's…

I was a big fan of Samberg's Lonely Island/SNL stuff, but I was unsure how he'd work in a sitcom.  But he's dialed it down to about the right level to fit into a more realistic setting.