Thanks! I'm taking up a fellowship post next year, and I'm realizing that I've been spoiled by my current school's amazing DVD collection. The notion that I may have to buy a bunch of stuff that I tend to teach fairly often is really intimidating!

I'd be far more interested in seeing your top 10 Criterions, @avclub-f8f8c273f326be25421cc62737d24a9e:disqus  :)

I'm about to start working on an essay about Mirror's Edge and I'm kind of dreading playing it again. I bought it when it first came out and all I remember was falling…a lot.

Ah ok. Thanks for the clarification @avclub-13d7df3c17502af69aafccc758195f96:disqus . I'm not going to go all 'Ahem, on behalf of all Black people..', cause I really hate that, but I will say that in my experience their central claim makes a lot of sense, then. I originally thought they might have conflated colorism…

I'm just glad that he's slightly better than J.D. McCoy's dad.

So this is a total shot in the dark here, because I don't watch this show, but I'll throw a few things into the mix here:

I don't think I'd ever shouted a stream of expletives at any fictional character on a TV show until 'Underdogs'.

@jerodast:disqus :

Ugh, replying to my own post seems so dumb!

I like that this show does have a sense of thoughtfulness to it, and I agree that both these lines were a nod towards the cliche, but just because a convention is recognized doesn't mean that it's avoided. I didn't see the previous episode, so this is my first exposure to the storyline (hence my question). This is…

It's not that they weren't very good. Indeed there are lots of mediocre tennis players at country clubs, so much so that tennis folks will refer to something that is at a 'club-level', i.e. 'buy this racquet if you are a 'club-level' player.

I think this is why the dancing 'lesson' at the end worked much more effectively-it's much easier to have the characters be complete novices because then the actors may not have to feign competence. I suppose if they were good dancers they might have to pretend to be awkward, but that seems less risky than a sport, or…

My first episode of this show was the 'all-signing' episode last season, which I loved. I realize I've missed out on a LOT of stuff, but I do have a couple specific questions for you dedicated watchers:

I don't think it was intentional, but it did seem a little inconsiderate to not talk to both boys before making an announcement in front of everyone.

As a former college player, I concur. It was like nails on a chalkboard! None of them seemed like they'd ever played before. I was wondering if their ineptitude was obvious to non-tennis players. And yeah, ditto on the umpire calling a country club match-I grew up playing junior tournaments at country clubs and not…

@avclub-cb0e59b8f769a8698b9f7154dd8809b5:disqus and @avclub-2c6d7f23f661010f5b0c2fa53517c29d:disqus :

You're not there was only one in the 'late' club! I've been ill the past few days and decided to give this a go since its available OnDemand here. Watched the 1st 4 and I really like it. I wasn't as bothered by the setting as others, mostly because for me, sci-fi shows don't have to really be set anywhere 'real' for…

I haven't read a ton of these 'Hatesong' things, but it seems like it'd be fairly difficult to not sound like a least kind of a jerk given what they're asking you to talk about. It's probably especially difficult in print, where voice inflection and facial expression have to be intuited. I didn't get any 'jerk' vibes…

My reaction was: 'Is Arya ok?' I admit that I skipped forward until I found her name at the beginning of another chapter before I could keep reading.

Ned's death got to me in the show because there were these horrible few seconds where it did seem like they might spare him and send him to the wall. I thought 'whew, so they're not going to go through with this', and then to the horror of everyone and the delight of Joffrey, they did.