When I was a kid I snuck salt the way some kids sneak sugar, including eating the odd instant boullion cube like they were lollies or sipping soy sauce. I’ve always had a salt tooth. (I may still do at least one of these things from time to time.)

Yep. When a man does the “not all men are creeps, don’t tar us all with the same brush” thing I like to ask them whether they call other men out when they’re being gross. The answer.....isn’t always what you’d hope. Sorry dude but if you want us to see you as part of the solution not the problem you have to, uh, be…

Yes Greg, as Salty says, it is that simple. Half the reason creepy men carry on creeping is because other men won’t call them out on their bullshit.

It was ambiguous though I think Curtis confirmed in the “sequel” he and his manager get engaged. But that subplot was played so subtly/tamely that yeah, doesn’t really alter the utter heteronormativity (is that a word even?) of the film.

Before Hollywood she was theatre royalty here in Australia (she still is), in a very elitist, cloistered, cliquey, insular, ivory-tower type industry (it still is too). So I actually wouldn’t be too amazed if she was able to find a way to avoid thinking too much about what was going on in Hollywood, or at least tell…

(SPOILER FOR A 24 YEAR OLD MOVIE) If it’s going to be one of the gay characters that dies again, can at least one of the weddings be same sex please? Richard Curtis always did this annoying thing where if there was a gay character they often died or were dying, and they either didn’t have a love interest or if they…

The Victorian era went for so many decades it had its own fluctuations in fashion and female beauty standards. In the mid 1870s to late 1880s/early 90s for example thin and delicate was definitely the ideal. Corsets were obviously used to create the smallest waist possible but curves weren’t really in, the fashion in…

This one felt less like a question and more like wanting/needing to tell a story.

Would you be open to considering that perhaps being “sexualized” or “fetishized” might be words that express what you mean better than “normalized”?

Yeah I definitely feel like I’m missing something here. Oh well.

I love Julian Sands especially when he’s treating a role/film with far more earnest gravity than it honestly deserves. See also the Phantom of the Opera movie he did with Dario and Asia Argento. XD

It is such a glorious silly movie.

When I come across the sort of people (usually Americans, sorrynotsorry) who think that any British period film where the actors all talk posh must be high quality, Gothic is one of the films that flashes through my mind. XD

Did you miss the first few words before that? And doesn’t negate my point that of course there was going to be a TV series about this because TV shows loooove showing pretty women being treated badly.

That doesn’t exactly negate the point of my comment. The fact that a beautiful young TV actress is one of the lead villains in this story is definitely a plus in the “let’s make a TV series” stakes. Sweet innocent victims and a deviant henchwoman/villainess? Something for everyone!

An opportunity to make a show depicting beautiful young women being degraded, brutalised, starved and generally treated creepily by an utter creep under the respectable veneer of “based on true events”? of course there’s going to be a TV series, was there ever any doubt?

Sorry but I just cannot with a Hollywood movie trying to preach about the beauty myth or trying to tell us that maaaaaaybe beauty privilege isn’t a thing maaaaaaybe the silly plain Jane wimminz just need to have more confidence in themselves.

Oh yeah, at least one penis twitched a tiny bit during this. See also when the police assaulted a bunch of black teens at that pool party a couple of years ago (remember the incident where one cop did a hilarious and unnecessary barrel roll), including grabbing and throwing a teenage girl in a bikini to the ground…

Meanwhile I think this is the first time I’ve seen a photo of Bardem and been totally sure I’m looking at his face not Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s. I must be learning.

It is a very strange film haha.