To be fair Birdman actually sounds pretty awesome so far.

Really? There are other channels besides HBO you know (and Newsroom and True Blood are terrible).

I think you sort of defeated your own point here? Obviously you didn't give up your Oz fandom since you went on to read the Wicked books and comic adaptations and such. It is pretty unlikely that many people are reading those original books as adults though, aside from maybe the first one.

Apparently that's because the rights to the 1939 movie belong to Warner Bros., while the books are public domain, so they can't hew too close to the original movie. That sounds really annoying though and I'm not sure I really understand how it can get as close as it does, with the Wicked Witch and Glinda's appearance…

Don't know about that, so much of English is carried over from Latin, and Spanish, for instance, has a very different word for "film" or "movie" from French and English. I'm not sure where the word "movie" comes from really, but it doesn't seem to have European origins, unlike "film". We would probably all be using…

Yeah I'm not sure why this has caught on and become such a big thing, especially since the execution tends to be: a. Prophecy of chosen one is spelled out in some big speech early in the film, in exacting detail b. said prophecy is repeated ad nauseam throughout the film, and c. the prophecy is fulfilled exactly as…

To be fair L. Frank Baum seemed to randomly forget about that concept himself in the later books.

Points off for not even attempting to translate "movie", there are plenty of dictionaries with translations of modern words out there.

I guess it's trying to keep you from guessing whether Mila Kunis or Rachel Weisz ends up becoming her or something? I don't know, it seems like it would be obvious, but maybe it's some kind of plot twist. A Spoiler Space on this one would be nice (though IMDB spoils it in the cast listing).

That would be pretty awesome, I read all 14 books twice as a kid. Of course each one only took a day or two to burn through but it was still quite a bit. I never read the sequels published after his death, it would be interesting to know if any of them are actually good. That's also a series with such loose book to…

Well it could be worse, that almost counts as short for these big special effects event films at this point. I will say that in spite of how mediocre and by the numbers Jack the Giant Slayer was, it had a very good sense of pacing: it definitely managed to keep the story moving and didn't waste time on unnecessary…

I kind of hope you copied this from Wikipedia… otherwise you know way too much about Ozma. It's kind of fascinating how many little, under the radar Oz adaptations there have been, from Baum's original silent films, to television productions and the many foreign animated adaptations. It's kind of amazing and speaks to…

Ugh, I thought 6 and 12 were both pretty lousy, though "By Any Means Necessary" gets points for being totally ripped off by BSG (though that episode sucked too). The others were all high points though, as were Babylon Squared and Chrysalis. I'm really not a big fan of syndicated sci fi though, so I may be a bit…

Twin Peaks has the greatest pilot ever made, hands down. It really completely works just as a standalone work of art in a way that probably only The Sopranos' pilot can compare to (though it isn't as good).

BSG has one of the best tv soundtracks ever aside from the opening and closing music though.

@avclub-d0cf409eb912cc0cc950b41b6d892d07:disqus Nope, still on. Not exactly sure who is starring on that show now since I'm pretty sure Meloni and Hargitay left. Maybe it's just the Ice-T and Munch hour now.

Pfft. We all know that Zero Hour jumped the shark in minute 13 of the pilot, only for a brief resurgence of quality in minute 31 of the third episode. Minute 40 was kind of dodgy though, it might have been better off that it quit while it was ahead.

I felt like the four or five episodes before the finale were a step up, and work as a model for what the show could have been in season 3, but are still nowhere near the brilliance of the first season and the first third of season 2. I'd still watch that version of the show for 3 or 4 more seasons though, it was…

Sadly I actually saw this yesterday. In my defense I wanted to see Side Effects but the showtime was listed incorrectly online and there was nothing else that my boyfriend and I were both willing to see. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon it was annoying that the far superior movies I wanted to see weren't…

That dip had to be because of the Oscars right? And apparently episode 6's viewership was more like 270k. I don't really think the ratings will have anything to do with HBO's decision if they decide to renew though, they're pretty dire by any standards. The show maaaay be getting enough buzz lately for them to let it…