He does sleaze, but it's transcendent sleaze. I'm even a fan of Jade (which Freidkin considers one of his best movies, according to his autobiography) and Sliver.

So… a secret success?

Yeah, Chronicles was terrific.

That image was really surprising until I realised that in today's world of torrents and YouTube, the number of people who are actually watching shows while they're airing don't count for much. I see Conan talked about way more than everybody else up until John Oliver, but I imagine his viewers are largely not staying…

I understand this reference.

Each season has a few holdover episodes from the previous one. The City of New York… was made during the season 8 run (under the tenure of a different showrunner) so that's probably a big part of the quality difference.

Like many episodes from Scully's tenure, it has some phenomenal jokes (Homer's time machine movie for example) but the story is pretty rubbish and there's nothing appealing about the celebrity cameos.

The show certainly became a bit mean spirited under Scully's tenure, particularly when it came to Homer's behavior. 'Bart Carny' has a sense of ugly mean-spiritedness to it, if not specifically from Homer. When you listen to the commentaries, Oakley and Weinstein from S7 & 8 were huge fans of the show before they were…

If I'm remembering correctly from the commentaries, Oakley and Weinstein were running the show during that time, but Al Jean and Mike Reiss contributed a couple of episodes (including that one) on the side with a very small staff. I don't think it's really fair to call that a turning point for the show considering the…

I have to agree, that one was pretty weak. I love the Oakley and Weinstein seasons in general but the end of the eighth season had some pretty boring episodes. That said, the show didn't become offensively bad with nonsensical stories and Homer acting like the world's biggest jackass until the Mike Scully years.

Those first two albums were terrific, but they've become a bit soporific since then, outside of one or two good tracks on each release.

Mom, it’s Buzz. I’m gonna say this as fast as I can. We can’t afford to bury dad with the rest of the family.

The point is that this new breed of internet conservatism has to come from somewhere, and considering that conservatism in the contemporary sense is essentially reactionary, you have to wonder what they're reacting to. I don't think it does anybody any favors to make these antagonistic sweeping generalizations about…

You are just digging yourself a deeper hole by continuing to insult a gay person.

If that's the game you want to play, I'm gay myself, so criticizing my speech means you're not progressive either.

Pat kinda made me laugh to be honest, and the movie was agreeably bizarre in the same way as Freddy Got Fingered or Pootie Tang. As someone who's seen a metric fuckton of SNL, this was honestly one of the worst sketches that ever aired, and Rob Schneider was one of the worst performers.

Fair enough. Well, my mistake shall remain, so that your explanation may inform others.

I think our discussion here (along with nearly everything SunnyD wrote) got deleted by the mods. Does this usually happen on The AV Club? Seems really weird.

It's pretty inconsequential either way. My own feeling is that he's taking this about as seriously as he should be, compared to everybody else who is making grand declarations about how this matters in the grand scheme of things. Factually speaking, movies like Philadelphia and Dallas Buyers Club do help shape…

If you've ever wondered how Donald Trump is a legitimate presidential candidate, arguments like "You're a straight white male so your opinion doesn't count" are why. I swear, it gets a little bit harder to be a progressive every single day.