No no no - they removed the word 'fast' from this title for truth in advertising.

The opening scene of La La Land = stealth prequel.

I don't get why it takes so long for the characters to go from not wanting to drive cars really fast because family, to needing to drive the cars really fast after all because family, to definitely really retiring from fast-car driving (for real this time) because family. It's the same emotional arc in every movie,…

I for one am shocked - shocked - that the man who directed Hero would make a film where the characters exist to talk about how great China is.

Yeah, I've been to Chinese temples with zig-zaggy paths and been given that explanation.

His views on video games were a lot more mainstream in the 90s and early 00s, too - even if he held to them a bit the culture moved on. I find it difficult to believe there are many folk today under age 50 or so (critics, academics, the guy on the street) who would argue that games aren't art - which is the more…

I rewatched it last year. I not too off-put by the Middle Eastern terrorists for reasons mentioned above (*it was less cliched then, more nuanced than more modern-day equivalents, and reads more as action film convention than political statement), but the dynamics between Curtis and Schwartzenegger - its surreal to…

Even in a kinder, pre-Trump age, that wouldn't qualify as 'shit-starting'.

I was super excited, too - especially at contemplating that we might get another movie where the hero and the villain have had entire films each to set up who they are and what they do. Most modern superhero films tend to feel pretty rushed on one side or the other.

Which is, of course, why I resent having to devote some attention to the Oscars.

There were people who replied with unironically faithful movies that are well-regarded.

I can't tell if the fact that we remember it to this day speaks to how common or rare it is.

Open quesiton: are there any good 'evangelical' movies? There are plenty of great explorations of Christian faith (like Silence), and this (and its cousins God's Not Dead,Heaven is for Real,Fireproof, etc) are but one way to portray religion on screen. But have any that hew closer to the latter approach succeeded by…

He's your dad and your sister!

While I hesitate to Google current rates, I seem to remember looking through anatomy/biology catalogs back in high school and being surprised at how you could get a human skeleton for like a few hundred bucks. Plus - of course - there's the obligatory story about how Poltergeist used real human skeletons because they…

I really do hope Episode VIII unwrites all the obviousness seeds that VII sowed.

Yeah, but late-era Pacino is explicable: he's coasting off his image for a quick paycheck, in genre films that will probably turn a tidy profit. Kevin Spacey… just seems to pick shitty movies.

How does Kevin Spacey choose roles, exactly? I mean, I'm assuming he's probably been offered scripts with some combination of higher quality, more interesting characters, and greater commercial potential. When he's not in Hollywood, he's doing London theatre. And yet… Nine Lives. Maybe he just likes maudlin?

I'd say reality TV like Duck Dynasty is, in some ways, worse than documentary, because its non-critical. There, you've got a conservative family presented in a carefully crafted, comfort-food format as innocuous and sanitized - and when they connect-the-dots in the expanded media empire to objectionable/debatable…

Apparently horrible execution aside, it does have a certain 'big ideas grandiosity' that seems up his alley.