I have a friend who's hyper-objectivist. He's a nice guy, but not especially well read, which I think is the problem. He read Rand at the age of 20, decided that was the explanation for everything, then dropped out of college and hasn't read anything since. I always try to get him to read other philosophers as I…

Fuck you with the autoplay, AV Club.

I remember blue light specials, but I was too young to get the significance behind them. I didn't realize that they were surprise, short term, sales. I just thought K-Mart always put flashing blue light carts next to their sales.

Rothfuss is a great writer technically speaking and he's really great at lore (this is one of the few fantasy series where I welcome it every time the characters take time out from the main plot to relate a local fairy tale or a historical episode for an entire chapter or two). I also really like his treatment of the…

I rented this movie way too many times from my local library. Although, I had eyes for Simon Callow. I was a weird kid.

"I Love You Honeybear" is my favorite song of the year thus far.

I like Michael Cerveris as Todd better than most people seem to. Patti Lupone is fine and a great singer, but she doesn't so much seem to be playing Mrs Lovett as much as playing Patti Lupone playing Mrs Lovett (even in the non-concert 2005 revival). She barely even bothers with the accent.

I didn't mind it much, as it contributed to the chamber opera feeling, and probably understood why Burton did it that way (especially after the 2005 revival, which did keep the chorus parts, but they were all sung by the show's main cast rather than an actual chorus, so the show had a way more intimate feel). But I…

Really great movie that doesn't seem to be as highly regarded or remembered now as it was in the 90s. I don't think Peter Greenaway's career survived his fallout with Michael Nyman. Greenaway's stuff in the 2000s is interesting, but hasn't seemed to have had the same impact (most of his newest haven't even found…

He was right not to. Her performance is the major weak spot of the film. Could have been great and a late career highlight for Burton had they been able to get Streep (as originally planned) or gone with Bernadette Peters (as the internet wanted). Carter is way too understated as an actress to tap into the role's…

It's definitely better than modern day "Modern Family," but it's not really a comedy. I'd hesitate to even call it a dramedy. I think people are only classifying it as a comedy because it's only half an hour.

Martyrs was really good for its first half. Then turns into boring torture porn for its second half, but man that first half is really good.

I don't think it's a hard film too watch at all. I don't buy the criticisms, but I think the film has been criticized more for glamorizing the violence and the lifestyle too much than it has for being a difficult film to watch.

I do think it had pretty big cult recognition in the 90s, but I don't get the sense it's something that younger kids are aware of anymore. Most of Akira's popularity in the USA hinged on the fact that there wasn't as many animated films like it at the time, but that's very different now.

"Chonicle" was already basically a simplified, Americanized, "Akira" with all the plot convolutions and Japanese stuff cut out. I don't see why we need another.

If that is your favorite Hoskins performance, you seriously have to see "Pennies from Heaven" if you haven't. I put off seeing it for years which was a shame as it ended up being one of my favorite things ever.

"Gomorrah" was really good and went against almost all of the genre conventions that have been popularized since "Goodfellas." Although, it was released like 7 years ago now.

I don't remember much about Felicia's Journey, but I remember being really disappointed by it after Exotica and Sweet Hereafter. I don't recall it being actively bad or anything, just kind of a triffle.

The original Alien is chock full of body horror stuff involving pregnancy and even abortion. The facehuggers are vaginas that forcibly impregnate men. The aliens themselves look like human fetuses and their "birth" is violent and traumatic. At the end Ripley expels the alien from "Mother" (their protective womb…

I think the film is awesome for its first 10 or so minutes. The enigmatic opening of the alien creature's suicide and then the sequence of Fassbender wandering around the ship all alone and imitating Laurence of Arabia are an intriguing beginning, I think. It's a gorgeously shot film and I think Fassbender's…