The guy's got a good voice, but this is one of the most intimate and vulnerable-sounding tracks on the album, so the vocal acrobatics here aren't working for me.

Kill Bill vol. 1 > Hateful 8 > Jackie Brown > Pulp Fiction > Reservoir Dogs > Kill Bill vol. 2 > Inglorious Basterds > Django > Death Proof

I loved it a lot more than his last couple of movies, for sure. I think Tarantino's the kind of director who'd flourish under artificial constraints.

I think the biggest difference between the dourness of the two movies is that Tarantino gives you enough to chew on that you'll see people debating "what it's really trying to say" and getting into discussions about history, authenticity, etc…. Where with Inarritu, there's not much to talk about afterwards. As Ignatiy…

Heh, he also said The Revenant isn't a western because western is a genre and his films aren't generic. He should give fewer interviews, is what I'm saying.

You may not mean to, but - do you know how many trans- films were released this year? If it were true that the subject matter alone would give it a boost, you'd be hearing people talking about other movies, too: there are at least a handful every year. Tangerine broke out because it was a huge crowd-pleaser on the…

and a couple of kids (Ben Konigsberg and Hannah Marks) who are heavily into pot

It's even structured like a farce, and the climactic scenes are hilarious. Deep undercurrent of sadness, though, especially toward the end - in a very Christmas-appropriate way.

I was kinda enjoying some aspects of the movie based on a similar reading to yours, until the director ruined it (natch) by saying how much he hates he values authenticity over the, ahem, "cultural genocide" of superhero movies. I think he meant the movie to be serious instead of the more interesting satire I thought…

Yeah, I'd agree with this. The character dynamics and histories are clear and easy enough to figure out without the weaker first season - I started at season 2 and have no regrets.

Hey, thanks for that link! Interesting stuff - I didn't know at all about the autobiographical background to the novel.

Always happy to see new converts to "Majora's Mask." There was a time when it was considered a lesser Zelda entry, but it's the boldest and most interesting (as you said: haunting) installment of the franchise.

I assumed the reason Poehler was playing a character in "Second Wife," but Fey wasn't, is that Poehler was herself a second wife, and Fey isn't.

Tangerine. I was legitimately shocked to see it made only one (one!) individual ballot. Was this a case where not everyone saw the movie, or was general enthusiasm just that low? Because it'd be in my top 5 of the year, much less fifteen or twenty.

That's the first thing we said leaving the theater: did we really need to spend that much time with that character? Really?

Same arc, but the drama is mercifully squeezed into a tiny portion near the end, and it never takes itself too seriously (even during the "big speech" moments, supporting characters are deflating them with jokes.)

1968. Very low production values: there's not a single shot outside the space station, not of the planet, not of the sky, nothing. But it manages to do some visually interesting things. Harey's first appearance, in sillouette against the window (but a light on her eyes!), is both lovely and creepy.

I think The Congress might be, but the previews looked so awful I haven't gone out of my way to see it. Other than that, I've seen the original miniseries version of Solaris, which is very television-drama, Icarus XB-1, which I love but the source material is definitely lesser Lem, and parts of Test Pilot Pirx. I…

That's a really good comparison: Lem makes me laugh out loud! Why do they adapt him so gloomily?

Heh, yeah, you really can read them however you want. Characters might pop up here and there, even outside the "official" Noon Universe canon (I read Predatory Things of the Century before anything else connected to the universe, and I missed some of the references to The Apprentices, but it had no impact on my…