Only God Forgives is an interesting one. Incredibly gorgeously shot and with an equally beautiful Cliff Martinez score, and Vithaya Pansringarm's implacable performance was amazing. On the other hand, almost every line of dialogue in the film was terrible. Just god-awful, somehow stilted and crass at the same time.…

The 13th Warrior is essentially a fantasy film, and I thought it was pretty fun.

It makes it more interesting in hindsight, though it was a critically acclaimed play before it was a film, and the Chilean playwright also wrote the screenplay.

Bloody Kisses was possibly my most-listened-to album from my teen years (in my early 30s now), but I recently developed a real appreciation for some of World Coming Down. Particularly the title track, if you have a good set of headphones to really capture the way those thick notes ring out into space and just seem to…

I thought it had some of the best music and atmosphere of the series, and a nicely varied cast.

I loved VII, but while VIII had a lot of misfires, it was conceptually so much more ambitious that I couldn't help but respect it.

Death and the Maiden was also helped tremendously by its writing and its fantastic cast. Ellen Page is great, but she is not Sigourney Weaver.

Game of Thrones and Hannibal are very different shows with dramatically different sensibilities. They're both interested in titillation, but have very different ideas about what the implications are.

I think part of the point they're making is that the way that rape is commonly handled in television and film is so tone-deaf and contrived for cheap dramatic stakes that it often constitutes bad, lazy writing. Bad writing of that kind breaks immersion and suspension of disbelief, which is fatal if your show requires…

I find it maddening that Daniel continues to keep things secret that could help his case. Like Trey's admission that he had had sex with Hanna after Daniel left that night, as had George—the two whose testimony was the only evidence outside the confession linking Daniel to the crime at all. Unless my brain died and…

I do think it's significant that both times Daniel lost it were subsequent to discussions of his own sexual humiliation. In Trey's case, Hanna laughing at Daniel's inability to perform when Trey and others were ready, willing, and able. And in Teddy's case, the suggestion that he was unable to fight off a rape…

There's nothing wrong with that, just don't set yourself up for heartbreak! At the very least, despite how emotionally draining the show can be, I feel like it's got a great deal of compassion at its core.

Or alternatively, that humans behave differently because their histories, temperaments, situations, and emotional intuitions are different, and it would be unfair to expect that because some people can do a thing in some situations, everyone can do that thing in every situation.

Not a single scrap of evidence to support the claim that taking the deal further ruins the family's reputation? Jared and Amantha BOTH say it explicitly in the show itself, that with the deal Daniel runs away while the whole family stays there and eats shit.

Given that Hogan has filed a 100 million dollar lawsuit on the matter, I don't think anyone other than Gawker is actually disputing that whoever leaked the tape is in the wrong, nor that the appropriate legal measures aren't being taken.

I think a lot of that priming has to do with the audience's own expectations based on the kinds of story arcs we're used to seeing. We're used to seeing great tales of miscarriages of justice and arcs of redemption, exoneration, escape. The Count of Monte Cristo, Les Miserables, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Shawshank…

Humans are not isolated autonomous monads, they are social beings embedded in webs of personal and communal relationships that help define who they are and what their role is in the world—this is the view of human nature from which Rectify proceeds. If you grow up in Georgia, your family has claims on you. There is…

While it is true that there are plenty of places Daniel could go that would be within easy travel distance of his family, Daniel himself basically said (to Jared, I believe) that once he leaves he's not going to see any of them anymore. Amantha basically understood that to be true from the moment banishment was put…

Conversely, that last part (the growing plausibility of Daniel's guilt), is exactly why Daniel had been growing more and more distant from Amantha as he tried to figure out the truth of Hanna's death.

It's an intentional slap in the face, given that it makes the viewer feel exactly as Amantha does about Daniel taking the deal.