Interesting theory but would Tanya’s husband get her money if she was killed anyway?  They talked so much about making him sign a prenup, which I know isn’t the same as what you might have in a will, but...

I did! I saw the cinema showing and then, because I know the person who runs the theatre it showed in, he gave me a copy of the BluRay (National Theatre Live events are usually broadcast via satelite but for some works they send out BluRays for second showings I guess?) So I’ve seen it a few times. It’s not…

Well in that case then I don’t think being felt up at a wild gay party he is being paid to go to would seem like a sexual assault to Jack at all, but part of his job... (But I do feel kind skeezy saying that...)

Ha yeah, I was hoping no one would follow up on that comment of mine, because while I thought he had a LOT more story by credits, when I went to actually look, he... didn’t.  Now of course we know there were films he produced and still heavily took part in the story concept (An American Tail and Land Before Time being…

(And yes, I now realize I gave you a brief reply to this already, thought that I hadn’t and gave another, long rambling one :P )

Even the best version of the Follies book (the 1971 original—and not the much more literal and slightly softer revised version which is still the only version you can license, though I hope with the success of the National Theatre production and the death of James Goldman’s widow that will change, but we’ll see) does…

I can totally understand your reading. The way the dialogue was given for me made me think that he honestly laughed it off as just something that comes with the territory. I know some here have guessed that he might not actually be a nephew but have been hired to accompany the older gay guys—I didn’t get that vibe,…

“And what was the deal with the bizarre scene with Hunter and all the men in Noto? Granted she was looking smoking hot, but was that reality or Harper’s self a conscious imagination at work?”

I rewatched that scene and I think it was meant to be somewhat her POV as she was stoned on edibles. I say somewhat because,…

OK, I’ll buy all of those points.  :P  I still don’t see it as quite “She’s in the same social circle as Albie and so his family would welcome her into the family, unlike a poorer character” but I do get where you’re coming from.

Right.  The obvious route could have been to make the character completely a parody of a washed up dinner entertainer, but that would completely pull it out of any reality.

If you made a list of Spielberg movies he didn’t direct you might want to separate the list from ones he just got an Exec Producer credit on and those he actually got a story/writing credit on.  Which there were a LOT of in the 80s (it felt like everything Amblin, and of course the way they were sold a lot of…

I’ve actually liked about half of Noah’s movies I realized looking at his filmography, although more early in his career. But I remember reading this for an undergrad contemporary American novel course and just *hating* it (IIRC it polarized the class, the only other novel to do so was Blood Meridian which I actually…

“West Side Story is atrocious—I didn’t like Spielberg’s take at at all since he cut a number of songs, and neither did my mom, who loves the original a lot and saw the musical on Broadway twice.”

I can’t help being pedantic... While I had some major issues with the movie (Kushner’s overly wordy script filling in every…

Right--I think they treated ET a bit like how Disney originally treated many of its films on video--without many, if any, TV screenings before.  When it finally came to video, I remember it being a much hyped Christmas event.  I was 8 I think, so probably 1988?  It’s funny, I remember seeing the movie in the theatres,…

Ha that’s fair—I should have known you’d actually challenge my statement. That said I think of Follies as it originally was (and thankfully was at the filmed National Theatre production which mostly returned to the 1971 script for the first time since James Goldman’s controlling widow passed away)—in one act, and…

I’d be OK with a C which, for me anyway (I know these grades are arbitrary) means it’s a fine time waster. A D+ absolutely makes me think not to bother, and I think there’s enough entertaining stuff here to dismiss that (for a relatively long movie, by family movie standards, it never felt like a chore to sit through.)

…

Yeah, I think every point you raise is valid. But I will be disappointed if, for example, we never had Violetta saying under her breath in Italian “Oh, it’s that crazy woman who has a make believe husband,” or something, simply for that plot twist.

“Chill of the week runner up: Listening to Dillon jokingly recount being sexually assaulted. I shivered when he mentioned how “strong” some of the men were. It sounds like more happened than he let on.”

I assume you mean Jack? I dunno, I feel kinda awful now for my reaction to that comment, but I didn’t read any of…

“We should talk about the homoerotic bedroom talk between Ethan and Cameron (“I want to be inside you”) after they wake up from their debauchery-filled night, right?”

I mean it wasn’t really bedroom talk between the two characters, it was just Cameron.  Initially, I thought maybe there was something to his…

Are we meant to see Portia as wealthy though?  Obviously she must have more money than Lucia, but I’m really unclear on that--and certainly I don’t assume she’s rich on the level of these other characters (for one thing they emphasize over and over how much she does need the work...)