The more I learn about documentaries the more I think the most ethical film you can make is a drama.
Anything you can make a documentary about you could just make a drama about instead, it can be just as accurate and unbiased and no one's pretending it's more real than it is. Also your contributors get paid and know…

"but even he admits that his films aren't documentaries in the conventional sense.

"If you think that there is a problem with the NRA and American gun culture, then you believe he makes legitimate points"
Hahahahahaha. What?
You can be on the same side as someone on an issue and still think they make stupid points. If someone said:
"Gun culture is out of control in the US because the Illuminati and…

Yea, with the amount of cellphones and other devices people have with cameras on they could have almost let the public make the film for them.
It would just be incredibly difficult to get hold of all of the raw footage to edit together. They could have sent the camera people out under-cover as members of the public…

I've still not seen The Master (I know, I know, it's on Netflix and I should) but felt that way about American Hustle, it was just a bunch of really well performed scenes one after another (and I don't mean that in a good way). It reminded me of watching actors' show-reels, complete with musical montages to show off…

I saw that interview but I'm sure Letterman must be joking, him and Phoenix must know he doesn't have a leg to stand on legally speaking.
Just think of all the stuff Chris Morris and Sacha Baron Cohen have done, or just about any prank-show.
At the end of the day the film was a documentary, it may have been documenting…

I guess that's normal then. I live in the UK so am almost never when reviews are posted. When I normally get to them there's 100+ comments already.

Is the comment system broken? Where are you guys? I don't think I've ever seen 0 comments under an AV Club Review before. It's like a ghost town.
It's a shame this season has had two duds already, this show is usually pretty great but when it misfires it can be rather boring.

"The need of the many outweighs the need of the few."
Is the philosophy of a gang-rape (and Spock).
Is slavery okay because it benefits the needs of the many and only hurts a few (relatively)? That's the point you're defending, that anything is defensible as long as it helps more people than it hurts. At some point the…

Yea, laughs are often "sweetened" even for stuff recorded in front of a live audience.
Here's one of the articles that states the laugh track is recorded at episode screenings:
"Instead of filming before a live studio audience, HIMYM would record the episodes in a silent studio… …and add laugh tracks later from episode…

Yea, this may be the best animated show I've seen in a long time. Which isn't hard considering I don't watch a lot of animated shows but still.

Just as good as the cheap stuff if you're already wasted?

What is it then?
It's part of a system, systems are governed by laws/rules.

Maybe, I thought the difference was that rule applies to more than just science and the legal system.
In a legal context a law is just a rule that's enforced by the Government/police, a rule can be just as strict and inflexible it's just enforced by someone else, your parent/boss/bartender.
In science you tend to use…

You're right the soft/social definition is appropriate in this context. It's just something that used to annoy me because it's not "technically" correct in the strictness sense (which is the best type of correct).
But language just exists to convey ideas, if your intended audience understands the idea idea your trying…

Most people hate science because they don't understand it (I'll admit I don't fully understand it either).
They think it's "wrong" because they only bothered to learn and over-simplified version of it and then are surprised when that over-simplified version doesn't perfectly describe everything and there are exceptions.

There's a difference between rules and theories, theories have outliers and exceptions, rules don't.
For example the rule of gravity doesn't have any exceptions, we may find things we think are exceptions but it's actually us not fully understanding the rule.
When we (or scientists) do find exceptions, our theory of…

I didn't realize they were brothers until I googled it (just thought they shared a last name). I honestly don't think he looks much like his big brother but I get him confused with Tom Lenk all the time, which is interesting because they don't look alike either.

I'm not the only one who had trouble making sense of this expression. When I say growing up I know I pissed off a lot of teachers trying to get them to give my a satisfactory explanation.
People often use the word "rule" when they mean "trend" and use the expression "exception that proves the rule" whenever they've…

Exactly!
But unfortunately "rule" has become socially used as a synonym for "trend" or "pattern".
Much like the definition of "literally" changing because of how people misuse it, the same thing has happened to "rule".
I understand that language is a social construct that is constantly evolving but I don't like it. My…