Though it's difficult to imagine a way that it would hurt Republicans such as to inspire them to get rid of it, without helping Democrats enough to inspire them to defend it.

Really? By recent standards that's the rhetorical high road.

And the official vote tally put Hayes’ margin of victory at just 889
votes, the closest deciding vote in American history until George W.
Bush won Florida by 537 votes in 2000.

Well, my own intent wasn't really to "objectively" gauge its quality that way, though people will latch onto any support they can to damn a movie they hate. The puzzle of why a big-budget, enormously successful genre movie hasn't developed a nerdy fanbase (which is an enormous shot-in-the-arm for any sequel) remains,…

Well, except that Star Wars was such a massive success that people were still going to see it in theaters a year later, and tie-in books and comics started popping up in short order (the ultimately "non-canon" novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye came out in 1978). I'll agree that it could have stood alone, though…

I honestly thought that the original Star Wars trilogy felt far more "finished" by the end of Return of the Jedi, and yet the "Extended Universe" commanded a pretty huge fanbase. In contrast, while we get pretty intimately acquainted with the planet Pandora and its natives, I felt we knew frustratingly little about…

My opinion of its quality, or the ways in which it might appeal to many people, aren't really my point. My point is whether there's actually a fan base for it, the way there is the various comic book movies, which is likely to guarantee some level of box office regardless of how much they might suck. Had that many…

As was discussed here back at the beginning of the year…
http://www.avclub.com/artic…
…the real enigma is how it was that successful without developing any real fan base. A lot of highly-successful films end up suffering from some sort of backlash, but still have fans maintaining some sort of franchise enthusiasm. Even…

One of the more baffling in my estimation: Dangerous Liaisons/Valmont.

I agree that the "zero marketing" is another key distinction. Some movies are effectively written off by the studio before they're even released. I'd hesitate to call those "turkeys" unless they commanded a pretty astronomical budget up front. They're more like "abortions".

I thought he was mixing regular and low-fat milk…

Okay. There's your smoking gun…

I'd love to see such a thing, but I'm sure the political subtext would get watered down into something less creepy to modern audiences.

Indeed, box office "failure" doesn't necessarily mean what it used to, when many films are really designed more for DVD release and streaming, and theatrically released at all only out of some contractual obligation. You'd really have to look at how something like Max Steel did internationally and non-theatrically…

Actually, there's a pretty awesome example along those lines from 1828:
http://www.economist.com/ne…

Berbering is still illegal in several southern states.

She's like a more conventionally-attractive Frida Kahlo.

I'd assumed that was based on the weird accent of former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, which was apparently the result of Kean's having had childhood speech therapy from a posh-accented classics professor.

Broconious (Paul F. Tompkins), a delusional, power-hungry Equestranaut.

Good catch!.