This hints at a basic truth: Profanity is supposed to be a bit transgressive. The old classics don't function in that way. Motherfucker, like damnation before it, no longer conjures up the mental image of matriarchal coitus that really lets your disdain be felt, but "other relative" fucker forces your brain to take…

I think this is partly why this particular plotline feels a bit contrived to me. Barry and Joe are acting like Iris is putting herself in danger by writing about this stuff, but Barry has done a bunch of virtually undeniable supernatural things. There's no way there wouldn't be an entire subculture on the internet…

The "voodoo priest! voodoo priest!" call outs made me laugh with how cumbersome and expository they were. I don't watch much network TV, and it was a nice reminder of what a dim view they (are forced to?) take of their audience's intelligence.

Who would they kill, though? As series regulars on a network show, Gordon (and Bullock) seem safe. There are significant logistical problems with killing Alfred. They'd be morons to kill Penguin since he's like the most interesting character, and killing a 15 year old girl seems pretty grim. So that leaves a bunch…

I have not! I have read Cocaine Politics, though, which is basically a collection of information from embittered DEA agents who got sick of fighting their way to the top of Latin American drug networks in the 80s only to be told to go home because those guys were all on the CIA payroll. I tend to agree that, if…

I like most aspects of the episode — I'd probably call a C too low — but my god, do I hate that subplot. In it's better moments, Homeland is aaaalllmost a pretty convincing spy drama. But just THIS season alone, the CIA has killed a wedding party without getting their target, a former director has been kidnapped by…

I do a big countdown every year. Perennial favorites include:

I've been list mining for years for my Halloween horror fix, and for spawning arguably the most successful horror franchise of all time, it's amazing how few even halfway-credible lists include any Friday the 13th films.

With 1-2 issue exceptions, Hellblazer had exclusively British creators for like the first 140 issues. It's first American regular writer showed up in issue 146, and it never had an American regular artist (although not all of them ended up being British). I get where you're coming from, but it's probably as close to…

I actually thought about including one, but it ultimately just seemed insulting to everyone's intelligence.

Angel Heart. It's even pretty good if you're into 80s horror, so thematically appropriate!

For a character that's been played by De Niro and Pacino, it's quite an achievement that Stormare's Satan is probably my favorite. I love the idea that being the western world's premiere embodiment of evil for thousands of years would psychologically unbalance you, and sorta incidentally winning most of the time…

I confess to not being that well versed in Doomsday's background and current stats. I was going by you using him as an example of somebody without super-speed who could out-match the Flash. If he has super-speed, we're back at my original point.

You would think Doomsday would be able to beat Flash, and it would almost certainly be written that way in the comics, but if you really break it down based on their stated powers, you're looking at a draw AT BEST. I would still tend to give it to Flash.

Yeah, but the DCU creators generally don't do it, possibly for the reason you give. Super-speed is one of those particularly difficult powers to actually counter, but it's almost never played that way. Basically, if the villain doesn't ALSO have super-speed, it's game over. 49 out of 50 of Flash's traditional…

The Flash has god-like powers. It's sorta distracting if you think about it for too long. The show goes out of its way to show him moving so fast that everyone else appears to be standing still, but he slows down to have a conversation with the villain every. time.

Also from that entry: Brokencyde ""musically are one of the founding groups in the crunkcore genre, which (in general description) is crunk hip-hop with screamed vocals."

Amen. Her trying to fuck that kid was deeply unsetting and creepy, but in a way that was more or less consistent with her character and nowhere near the worst thing a CIA agent has ever done in the field.

I was guessing whaling vessel stops in the South Pacific, even though I couldn't think of many that would be happy enough with America's conduct at the time to put one on the COA. It seems obvious in retrospect, though, so I'd call it a tough but solid clue.

If I were an indie film maker having trouble getting funding, I would be all over these adaptations of plotless games and toys. As long as it's kind of blocky, there's virtually nothing you could do that wouldn't be as much of a Minecraft movie as every other blocky thing. If they had called Das Boot "Das…