Thanks. I think what I liked so much about Unseen Academicals was the wide scope it takes of the world and Ankh-Morpork. Equal Rites was just so narrow in comparison, and a waste of a terrific premise. It felt like that dumb Star Trek episode where they visit a matriarchy planet, where it thinks its cutting down…

SPOILERS for a movie like 10 people will seek out.
At the time I reacted really negatively to the ending. In my stressed out/depressed state of mind, it felt like it was telling me that suicide was the solution for my situation. Even though the ending is trying for a mix of catharsis/bleakness, I could really only…

I saw this movie the summer after my first year teaching, and holy crap did it bring a terrible rush of awful memories. It hit too close for home for me to really judge whether it's a good or bad movie, but it's definitely a accurate document of the anxiety and failures of a first-year teacher with vulnerable…

Oh yeah, definitely Hong Kong, but I'll give China Ningxia.

Well, businesses/corporations were also behind the wave of early European colonialism, so maybe we haven't exactly progressed…

China also basically acts like an empire in its control of Tibet, Xinjiang/East Turkestan, and Inner Mongolia (the last, like sovereignty for Native peoples in the American West, being a completely lost cause at this point).

China had a similar system. Bottoms had to be of a lower status, usually servants, actors, male prostitutes/concubines, even young boys (it seems that young men could have a bit of liminal position, but we expected to "behave" as they came of age). But you would get in trouble for boning your schlolar-literati friend…

They're forgetting her first film, River of Grass, which was a true small-scale indie made 12 years before Old Joy (and hence under everyone's radar). However, Oscilloscope is currently trying to restore it through kickstarter (just a week left!): https://www.kickstarter.com…

But, There are…. FIVE Reichardt features! [/Patrick Stewart]

Our Mutual Friend: Nailing the psychological portrait of "Nice Guys" 150 years before it became a thing.

Well, the thief obviously needed it.

Late Spring is my favorite Ozu film, but this would probably be my second.

Psst… most of the music in Singin' in the Rain is actually from musicals from the 1930s. Part of the reason it's so good is because it's a bit of a "Greatest Hits" collection. The 20s/30s had a lot of great songwriters (Rogers and Hart, Cole Porter) who created a wealth of songs in musical revues, which meant they had…

Musicals really developed on a different route than opera though, growing out of American music halls/vaudeville, as opposed to the high culture of opera (and even light opera). In their early stages they were just collections of musical numbers without any strong plot. The emphasis was on the songs and gradually the…

Honestly, I think musicals need less intimacy. At least, less intimacy with the camera.

Well, the best case scenario would be that the show getting ahead of the books frees up GRRM to deviate from his previous plans, and gets him interested in the story again.

And Battle Royale is a shameless rip off of Punishment Park.

The gunshot ruins the movie for me. I enjoy a lot of the moive: Keaton and Norton's performances, the cinematography and invisible editing conceit, peroxide Emma Stone. The screenplay thinks it's more profound than it is, but at least it's funny and at times even moving. But that gunshot so sours the movie that I'm…

Oh, I wasn't saying that BoaN or Griffith aren't disgustingly racist. Just that Griffith didn't think of himself as racist because his views weren't as violent as others, and so was shocked when (accurately) accused of it.

It isn't just the problem of racism. Intolerance has long been the go-to choice for cinephiles (as IV points out in the article), but BoaN is better known among the public because of its historical significance and its infamy. The later film is not only less racist, but also just as huge a technical achievement as…