True, but when a book written by a white man fails, nobody says "See, the readers don't want books written by white men."

I don't think Spider-people rely on peripheral vision, I think they rely on Spider-senses.

"Before Paul Scheer was funny"

It wasn't even "Fellini always did this," it was just a standard for shooting in Italy. I don't know well enough to say "everybody did it," but I do know it wasn't just him. Leone is another obvious major example.

Odd coincidence, "The Defiant Ones" popped up on TCM On-Demand over the weekend. Because of this conversation, I watched it… definitely better than "Gigi", it's a bit small to win a Best Picture, but then it's only a few years after "Marty". Very tight little movie, and Curtis was better than I expected, he reminded…

The thing is, the show that has even the 3 slot has no chance of winning. I think this is because quality shows are lasting longer these days, so it gets really boring to just nominate the same stuff repeatedly.

I figured that I would knock off Picture this year, and that would put me pretty close to finishing off Director (at least putting aside the first five ceremonies, just for the difficulty and obscurity of the winners), and then I'd maybe tackle Best Actor, so I figure I'll get to that one sooner or later…

Oh, yeah, I agree with the overall point, but I think just like to focus on the positive. It's too easy to get down on the Oscars. I thought AMERICAN IN PARIS was one of the weaker winners, and the hindsight that SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (which I love) was about to come makes it even more of a throwaway win. But, even…

I could turn that back around, though, I think that in any given year, there is almost certainly going to be at least one movie where a credible argument can be made that it's better than the Best Picture winner. That's a given.

I meant it winning over MODERN TIMES as a travesty, not the film itself, though I do single it out as my personal least favorite of the 80 Picture winners I have seen. [Cimarron is one of the remaining few.]

Oh, yeah, "Gigi" is not very good. I was just hoping for an informed opinion on the other four movies. I'd rank it in the bottom five of all time winners, though two of the ones I haven't seen yet tend to be listed at the bottom.

Lee Daniels: "I want Oscar winner Mo'Nique to play the part."
Lee Daniels's producer: "Oprah Winfrey wants to play the part."
Lee Daniels: "Okay, I can see why she would be at least as good, ways in which she would be better, and pretty much no downside."
Lee Daniels's producer: "Also, don't forget that I am Oprah…

What should've won the 1958 award?

Oh, yeah, I don't mean to take anything away from the performance. The performance is so good that they couldn't avoid giving it to her no matter how awful she was.

The thing is, Norton and Fassbender "don't campaign" because it's "beneath them". But doing that is a recognized accepted form of campaigning, dating back all the way to Spencer Tracy. Norton especially campaigns, I don't care what he says, and I'm pretty sure they finally got Fassbender to campaign last year,…

I think it's simpler than that. Mo'Nique insulting the Oscars was not an isolated incident by which she is being judged, it was but a single example in what at the time seemed like a months-long deliberately orchestrated campaign to show Hollywood how little she thought of it. She treated Hollywood with open…

Everybody I know who lives in Los Angeles believes themselves to be liberal, they espouse liberal values, and all of that, but they live their lives in ways that strike me as very capitalistic and conservative. I had a conversation once about how the problem with shooting in China is that the people have to work…

You know how every year there is (at least) one absolute lock? Like Julianne Moore this year? Mo'Nique was that lock that year. There was a lot of talk about how everybody hated her for this or that reason, and that it might cost her the Oscar, but it didn't. It was also a weak year — two actress from "Up in the…

With Oprah!

The original inference is a lot closer to the truth, though.