I think that people tend to throw the word "pretentious" around as a way of saying to the filmmaker "What, you think you're more clever/insightful/spiritual than me?" There's a particular sort of hatred that some people reserve for ambitious filmmaking, though it seems to get directed disproportionately to formalists.

If you like reading the backstory on how McCarthy's books were written, there is a book called Notes on Blood Meridian, where a scholar manages to painstakingly put together most of the research that McCarthy used to write Blood Meridian. It really makes a second reading of the text pretty incredible, because you…

Wanted to clarify that Chigurh killed Stephen Root's character explicitly for giving a transponder to the cartel gunmen, who kept getting in Chigurh's way, not for hiring Carson Wells. In the book, Chigurh wound up in firefights with cartel gunmen on at least three separate occasions (only one of which was shown in…

According to Viggo Mortensen, who spoke at length with Cormac McCarthy when working on The Road, the book is all about McCarthy's anxiety as someone who became a father very late in life (he was 66 when his only child was born), and feels acutely the pressure of time to both teach his son enough to survive in an…

Ellis feels the same way about the book now, actually. I remember an interview with him a few years back on NPR where he said that it was a book he had written as an angry young man who hadn't experienced a lot of real suffering. Now, as an older man who has tasted what real pain feels like, he's ashamed that he…

You can tell everything you need to know about that movie's target audience by the fact that in the 'frequently asked questions' portion of its IMDB page, is "Who is Jim Crow?"

You haven't seen Ryan Gosling in The Believer, then?

Gambon reminded me a bit of Archchancellor Ridcully, the head of Unseen University, from Discworld.

Vishnevetsky gave a generally favorable review to American Sniper and was one of the few to point out that it was a more ambiguous film than it appeared, despite the political furor surrounding it. If there had been similar redeeming qualities in this film, they would have been mentioned.

I'm one of those who actually liked the film, but honestly I wish it had been done without dialogue altogether. What little dialogue there is is completely awful, and equally awfully delivered.

That sounds like it might be apt. Another movie that fits that description (and is also about child abduction) is Last Ride, with Hugo Weaving.

Noting that you originated the thread of conversation does not equal not understanding your objection. You made it clear: you think that a recognition of the statistical plausibility of a single false allegation in the Cosby case, even at the extremely low rate of 2%, contributes to a climate in which many other…

That is absurdly disingenuous. The original OP mentioned the possibility of false accusations first, merely as one item among several. The focus on solely that issue was begun by you, in your objection. You can't begin a thread on a specific topic and then complain that people are talking about that topic for some…

Ah yes, that most reliable of sociocultural bellwethers and driver of American criminal justice policy, the anonymous YouTube comment. Obviously I wasn't questioning whether mouth-breathing misogynists were a thing, but rather was getting at that saying that the statistically-rare-but-not-impossible thing that they…

I get that, and I genuinely respect where you're coming from. I just think that if you want to successfully prosecute these predators (and especially the wealthy ones), then the phenomenon has to be appropriately accounted for, not categorically denied.

What I'm saying is that statistically speaking, it is likely both that Cosby has had many more victims than will ever come forward AND that at least one claim against him is of less than total veracity. Assuming the rate of false allegation is similar for sex crimes as for other felonies, then statistically speaking,…

Which makes it nice that they've given the second episode to Rian Johnson, who seems to enjoy doing interesting spins on genre films.

I feel you on that one. I found it ironic that there have been less rape attempts in three seasons of Vikings than in any given three episodes of Outlander.

…Justified was #20 on the list of the year's best.

The fact that he's only actually claiming defamation against the ones that have sued him is telling, and is also kind of hilarious. He's basically standing up and shouting "7 of my 50 accusers are full of shit!"