A few times my wife has gotten me started on some genre of movie that I'm particularly interested in while we're in mixed company, and it always ends with someone glazing over and changing the subject because no one finds the deliberate absence of narrative logic in Lucio Fulci movies as interesting as I do.

It depends on how she's asking the question, but also the ability to articulate how and why you like something is a learned skill, especially with things like popular culture that people tend to consume because it's enjoyable without a huge amount of thought. Thoughtfulness and articulateness are not universal…

This is an embarrassing issue I run into when trying to talk about music (not on dates, but just in general). Someone will ask what I like to listen to, and while the most accurate answer is something like "depending on my mood, either Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, Elvis Costello, Berlin-era Bowie, Cradle of Filth,…

Hmm, I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me…

Why don't you bring this potato? It's pretty big.

Sort of like how Peter Jackson had to goose the conflict of Lord of the Rings by making all of the characters a little reluctant to be heroic? I think it's interesting how the concept of "unwavering resolve" (for better and worse) has really taken a backseat to "crisis of confidence" in cinema. Even superhero movies…

Would it have killed them to reveal in the end titles that this is movie actually shares a universe with Inglorious Basterds?

What you're describing sounds like the entire reason we live in a society, but evidently there's some debate on that point.

Because the world is supposed to be fair, unless men are benefitting from the lack of fairness! Women don't need their own showing of Wonder Woman any more than they need easy access to birth control!

One problem is that we rely on the private sector to generate certain types of progress without any consideration of what happens to people who get left behind. In terms of efficiency and highway safety, self-driving long-haul trucks are a pretty good idea - the problem is that the companies developing that…

In your description of a burger, you forgot green chile. There are parts of the country where you'd get cut for that kind of thing.

To their credit, the RNC is thorough in their rejection of science - it's not just that they refuse to believe in evolution or climate change, they reject the entire concept of causal reasoning or obtaining knowledge through observation. Their rejection of any observable version of reality is so thorough it's almost…

As long as no one refers to the punches as "hacks."

When I lived in Chicago there were three places that my wife and I would go to for grilled cheese, but I think they've all shut down or changed their menus. There was a dank, poorly lit bar in our neighborhood that had a fantastic shallot-grilled cheese - if we went on wing night my wife and I could get two beers,…

When I lived in the Bay Area I went to a bar with a guy who did entry-level software development. He was chatting with the bartender about what made all of the beers on the menu different from each other. The bartender said something like "about 80% of the ingredients are the same, it's just a matter of what you do…

I think I ate at one when I lived out there, but it wasn't memorable.

- Jack Kerouac

At least in principle, the moral conflict of the X-Men canon (in all of its incarnations, from comics to TV to film) is connected to its roots in the 60s and early 70s - the "good" mutants want proper education and the opportunity to use their powers in the service of society - cultural assimilation, basically. The…

Whenever I watch an X-Men movie I kind of wish that every reaction shot came with a voice-over of the character's thoughts.

I think I remember seeing an issue of the Sun when I was a teenager, and it had a surprising number of topless beach photos. Is that accurate?