Yeah, the pacing was pretty weak, but that's fairly standard for a season opener that's setting up so many pieces for the rest of the season. Oliver's being a bit unkind calling it "procedural" since the entire thing is setting up plot threads for the next half-season, at least (which is kind of the opposite of…

So conspiracy theorists are min-maxers?

I think the implication is simply that this isn't as good as PoI, thus the thanklessness.

I'm still pretty comfortable with the idea that Modell could be wrong, or that things go downhill after the three episodes he saw. Or both. I mean, it's still Tim Kring. Even if the first episode's decent, that just means we have to establish a betting over/under on which episode the slump to suckitude is going to…

What? America's not clamoring for Requiem for a Dream: Ass 2 Ass?

They had one job! Well, three jobs (Mad Men for drama, Hamm and Moss for leads were the essential ones), and at least they got Jon Hamm his Emmy…but damn. I dropped out of How to Get Away with Murder after 3 episodes, but those three episodes were the worst, most lifeless acting of Viola Davis's career.

It's more fan service than in-joke.

I'm just happy the kid got through this experience safe and sound. Often, officials exercising "an abundance of caution" with regard to a perceived threat from a dark skinned person ends with that dark skinned person bleeding out on the sidewalk.

I think there are two different issues. I thought the action was laid out clearly and coherently (with the slight exception of the final scene, where things got a little confusing). So in that sense, you're right.

In situations like this, I wonder if someone saw the film in a theater where the projector's brightness was turned down (which is apparently a thing some theaters do to save money). I've seen a number of movies where night scenes were murky or incoherent in the theater, and later I catch them on television and those…

Given the tenor of discussions about feminism and pop culture these days, a better title for this article would have been "If you like Breakfast at Tiffany's but hate Mickey Rooney's landlord character, you understand feminist criticism." Rooney's performance in that movie isn't just a bad aesthetic choice (like the…

What's that? Billy?

Well, to be fair, anything that makes Hank Pym cry is an unalloyed good.

It's easy to say that having a secret identity don't work for Tony Stark now, but for a long time he was one of those characters whose secret identity being publicly known was unthinkable—so much of his dynamic was tied up in the idea of Stark publicly being a cad who was secretly a noble hero.

Good point, although I don't think that subsequent works necessarily settle the question for In the Company of Men. There isn't much of an argument that the film endorses Chad's misogyny (or his racism, or any of the other awful shit he's into). Christine's the only sympathetic figure we meet—well, her and Keith, the…

Yeah. Clone Wars' Anakin is arrogant and a little childish, but he's also genuinely heroic, which is something he never was in the Prequel films. He doesn't just swing a lightsaber or fly a CGI fighter well, he's courageous, caring, and noble while still being a guy with anger issues who you could totally see going…

Sadly, Tarkovsky didn't get to write or direct Revenge of the Sith.

To someone raised in it, Scientology would be on equal footing with Catholicism or any other mainstream religion—it's a set of beliefs that you're told are important and worthy of respect by your parents. Since Scientology requires believers to shun family members and friends who disparage the religion, it's not…

Maybe sex under the influence of quaaludes was commonplace and socially acceptable in the 1970s, but a 44-year-old drugging a 13-year-old and having nonconsensual anal sex with her wasn't.

IIRC, NDT was pretty clear about liking both films. The nitpicking was done in a loving way.