Yeah, I just saw the one all about the priest, and I thought it was a nice step up. I'd be happy if there are more character studies along those lines.

I like how the announcer pronounces Leia, "Leeaa."

Haven't you hear? You're supposed to hate this movie because of the space Teddy bears or something.

"Yeah, that's my girlfriend. Too bad you can't meet her. She lives in Canada."

Thanks! For me, the teenage drama kind of dragged down the first couple of episodes, but maybe they right the ship later on. Also, I really like Rectify (I haven't seen Bloodlines), so that comparison is promising.

The first two Brosnan films are pretty good. I also think that Tomorrow Never Dies is seriously underrated. Even in the later crappy films, Brosnan does what he can.

I think Hollywood and the moviegoing public could start to get past it if he seemed the slightest bit remorseful.

It seems like HBO has been in something of a rut recently. Speaking of which, I started that Leftovers show. I'm three episodes in, and I'm not exactly loving it. Does it get better?

That's what I thought they were going to do with season 2 of Daredevil, but they still kind of stretched things out, and they only had thirteen episodes.

True, you can't make twenty-plus episodes a year and not have a few duds. But I do think the problems are a little different now. Because of streaming and binge watching, shows are more willing to invest time into season long arcs. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but when they try to mostly tell a single story…

Either that or learn how to write a single standalone episode and insert some of them in the first half of the season. It's like writing a single episode of television (and doing it well) has become something of a lost art.

One of the problems I have with these CW superhero shows is that they have a hard time filling the entire season with a single story arc. I understand why. It's difficult to tell one story over twenty-two episodes. What they need to do is learn how to balance out individual villains of the week with the season-long…

AV Club morphed into Starwipe so gradually I hardly even noticed.

The reason the minimum wage has risen in parts of the country is because workers are demanding it.

No. Anyone following the market knows that corporate stock buybacks are a quick and easy way for a CEO to artificially inflate the value of his company. It's quite common. It's one way in which finance has warped how business is done. It also means that companies focus on short term profits over long term viability…

There's a simple way around this for the CEO—just buy back the stocks in order to increase their share price. That way you can make it look like you increased the value of your company without actually making a better product or providing better service, which is hard to do today because the same CEOs have helped…

I think "not that bad" pretty much sums up my reaction as well. I've seen worst seasons of television, and it had some good moments too.

This is basically what philosopher Louis Althusser writes. We cannot see our own ideology because it becomes known as common sense. It's "just the way the world works" rather than a series of choices.

The desire to please the uberfan seems to especially hurt book adaptations. The Harry Potter and Hunger Games films feel like staid, unruly adaptations. Inside of all the bloat, there are probably some decent stories in those movies, but the filmmakers too often want to stuff in every minor character in order to not…

It divided Joel Schumacker from the rest of humanity.