I think it was during Season 1 where someone was upstairs in the Jennings house IIRC, and Elizabeth picked up the kitchen knife, and I thought, "In most of these sorts of scenes, you'd worry about the woman, with Elizabeth, you worry about the guy upstairs who only has about 2 minutes left to live." Same thought went…

I think Elizabeth might be subtly probing looking for a way to get one up on Tim and Alice to counter the phantom tape-a smaller, personal version of the American-Russian arms race and mutually assured destruction, which of course both parties would want to avoid.

When that scene ended and Stan drove away, Oleg looking after him, I turned to my husband and intoned, "From such scenes are a thousand slash fictions wrought." ( Stan even said "I've been thinking about you.")

Rupert Holmes' "Partners in Crime" would work in so many movies (especially, thematically, the end of "Gone Girl"), but if we were going with the appropriate era, it really should've been worked into "The Nice Guys." ('79, but close enough.)

Seriously, "Shelter From the Storm" would've been a natural.

Gonna wave the rainbow flag here: neither version of "Stonewall" used Judy Garland's song "I Happen To Like New York," which is peculiar—the lyrics are so dead-on, it's uncanny: "And when I give the world my last farewell/And the undertaker starts to ring my funeral bell/Don't want to go to heaven, don't want to go to…

For many, many years, it was assumed/expected men liked to see two women, but there was no way women would be into such a thing re:men. "Brokeback" just brought the long-simmering underground of K/S fandoms from "Star Trek" to the fore, and men were finally forced to admit that yes, women do in fact like this—very…

"Can't I just be uncomplicatedly happy?" "No, never."

Am I the only one who's noticed how much these two "Alice" films crib from 1985's "Return to Oz"?

On a not-unrelated note, "Ghostbusters II" is one of the most blatantly sexist movies I've ever seen. You've got Sigourney Weaver, 3 years after "Aliens," and her baby is kidnapped by a scary governess ghost; I was ready for her to strap on the Ghostbuster gear and go kick tuchus—and nothing. She's expected to stand…

Fair points; Mintz went on to say that the key to George's hostility was that underneath it, there was a great deal of sadness: he struggled his whole life thinking money was the key to success, and when he got to the top ("movin' on up!"), he discovered that the key didn't open every door. You could even argue that…

Rick Mintz (who is white) spotlit several black sitcoms in his essential "The Great TV Sitcom Book" (1980, so it only covers 30 years). He does a terrific write-up on "Amos and Andy," explaining that the show—not just for the wrong reasons—was genuinely funny, and had many indelible characters, Kingfish among them. …

I do wish the final shot of the Christmassy Bates mansion/motel had dissolved to the grim, dark reality, just to underline how completely disconnected Norman's holiday fantasy of his mother and his life truly was. After the brilliant climax of last week, this just couldn't quite measure up. Nice try, though. (and…

On one level I admire their bravery; on another, that ticks me off. If you're not going to respect canonical details, why are you doing "Bates Motel" other than trying to cash in on name recognition? I was totally waiting for Freddie Highmore to bring Mr. & Mrs. Romero cups of strychnine-laced tea. Brilliant as the…

I sense they're going to have to do some sort of jump ahead in time towards the end to 1990 so we can see Philip and Elizabeth watch the Soviet Union crumble, and realize their entire life purposes have been for naught except their (real? fictional?) family.

I spent a year in Japan '83-'83 and actually toured Hiroshima (unforgettable). The general consensus among the Japanese people I talked to was, Hiroshima may have been a tragedy for the Japanese, but they intellectually understood why it happened/why we did it. They were still genuinely bewildered why Nagasaki…

Well, it doesn't have an ending (intentionally?), so aside from the droll last few lines and Jim being set free, you're not missing a lot.

Kubrick loves the camera and hates people.

You can "do" all of the themes and whatnot from "Gatsby" in about 12 pages with Fitzgerald's story "WInter Dreams." Helluvva lot more concise, and a killer couple final paragraphs.

Ebert hated "Blue Velvet" though (well, he had serious problems with it).