His recent WWI documentary was phenomenal.  But yeah, King Kong was terrible and it was definitely one of those “I made the studio a ton of money so now I get a ton of money for my misconceived dream project” things--shelve with Hudson Hawk and The Last Action Hero.

I had something like that happen. The truest horror is the enjoyment certain men derive from terrifying women with the threat of physical/sexual violence.

It’s tricky, I definitely see the arguments on both sides of the bigger issue. All I can say is Bowen, like many/most SNL cast members, is also a writer, which suggests that what we see of him reflects his choices (although having said that, and even as a longtime fan of the show, the machinations behind which…

I don’t know if you caught the “back in second grade” part of my comment.

*Gen-X waves back* I remember in second grade or so the teacher saying “... and sometimes they call Earth the big blue marble,” and thinking literally who calls it that? Aliens?

I don’t think that’s necessarily it—Mikey Day had a memorable bit as a gay high school student when Will Ferrell hosted—but I think maybe there is some kind of reclaiming/reframing going on with Bowen, like: why shouldn’t 95% of the characters he plays be gay? After all, a lot of straight cast members never played a…

That turn absolutely sold me on Black Mirror.  Devastating and accurate in that way that great endings are: stunning and inevitable-feeling at the same time.

But hotter than the two of them combined.

I appreciate your takes on this one.  

“People in cults do often have a manic energy about them”—SNL evoked this so, so well with their Scientology promo video. I’ve never had much luck embedding links so I won’t try, but it is really worth a watch, it’s so funny and spot-on.

Same! They subbed her in for Marisa Tomei, who I think was fired because they decided not to have a white regular on the show. Maybe it was network pressure that led to her presence in the first place? She was great while she was there, anyway, but Cree Summer was great too.

Kimmel is kind of like fingernails on a chalk board for me but I had to watch, the other two are so charming.  Especially the part about Kumail’s dad.

I’m pretty sure it’s on purpose. The whole Kinja model is presumably insufficiently monetizable and they are giving up on it, although losing it will eviscerate the AV Club and sister sites so I assume they are doomed as well? I certainly hope that’s not the case, but ...

I would *almost* watch it just on the strength of those mini-Staypuft creatures alone.  

I assume the mission with this one was to avoid the greatest horror of all, retroactively ruining fanboys’ childhoods.

We still have that little pop up clipboard thingy that cannot be removed and that obscures the thing you are trying to copy or paste.

Since when is leaking a release date a big deal?

True, but funnily enough this time around it was Dolly I really loved.  

Same! When I was younger Wuthering Heights felt more cool and goth and intense, and Jane Eyre was a little embarrassing. Now I see both books very differently.  

Oof, I made the mistake of rereading Anna Karenina, which I loved as a teenager.  The character of Anna is barely a plausible human being.  She just feels things very intensely and makes horrible decisions for no good reason.  I’ve done better rereading things like Moby Dick which has basically no women at all.