Independents are an increasingly large force in politics, but the vast majority of them are people who don't like political labels but always vote for the same party. Rather than being actual centrists or undecideds, they're actually often on the more extreme ends of the political spectrum (i.e., democratic socialists…

Being tone-deaf is just the inability to match pitch. Generally people can still hear and produce changes in pitch, which is really just what Chinese tones are.

I mean Middle Chinese. The idea that southern dialects are closer to Middle/Old Chinese is exaggerated if not false. There are some key similarities (southern dialects retained a lot of Middle Chinese's ending consonants that Mandarin/northern dialects mostly got rid of), but also differences (like the splitting of…

I have no doubt Manchu and other northern groups had some impact on the language, but I think it's overstated, espeically compared to development of other dialects. For example, Middle Chinese only had 3 tones (plus the entering tone). So Mandarin wasn't really simplified to four tones (though it did lose the entering…

I like La La Land a lot because it's more of a musical film than musical theater, and the songs reflect that. They focus more on hooks, which gives space to open up into instrumental interludes that serve as background to dance or other setpieces (like La La Land's ending). There's the great opening samba beat of…

I've heard the opposite—that Northern Chinese dialects heavily influenced Manchu, to the point that Manchu is almost a dead language these days. The court tried to encourage the language and the imperial family used it, but it was already barely in use by the fall of the Qing.

Grace Kelly beating Judy Garland.

Well, the Beijing er is a little like learning the Queen's English—the official sound of the language has been arbitrarily chosen over many variations. So the -er ending on certain words is part of official Mandarin, but southern regions like Shanghai scoff at it as a way of maintaining some linguistic independence.…

Kieslowski's Blue is a great one. As is Secret Sunshine from Korea and the Dardennes bros' The Son.

MAs laws are so weird. They don'the bar grocers from selling liquor, but they do limit licenses to 3 per chain. Meaning alcohol is de facto banned from supermarkets outside "flagship" stores.

Haven't seen either Smith film, but I wonder if Depp's character is inspired by Laurence Olivier's horrendously hammy Quebecois trapper in 49th Parallel. That fueled the secessionist movement for some 50 years.

Losing The Limey commentary would honestly be a big blow to film history.

Filmstruck is definitely adding extras from Criterion releases as well as general introductions to some themed series. Not sure about commentaries though.

I liked Hail Caesar and agree the two musical numbers are good, but found the rest of it slapdash and disappointing.

A lot of classic musicals devote a lot of time to the nonmusical part. La La Land is nothing strange in that regard. I agree that the reliance on "natural" voices and dance is a cop-out to modern sensibilities, but it works in the film's attempts at sincerity. Would've been nice if Channing Tatum or some other dancer…

Which is why people should see Love Me Tonight, perhaps the most overlooked great musical.

Kelly works best when his character is supposed to be a bit of a smarmy jerk. That makes The Pirate one of his best roles.

There's definitely a strong dislike of An American in Paris among cinephiles. It has a lot of elements that work better in later films but turn sour here: Kelly's smarm, the endless ballet, Leslie Caron. And as impressive as the ballet sequence is, it replaces the narrative climax and resolution, so the actual ending…

For me, Barb hit a chord because her persona is so precisely ill-chosen (the mom jeans, the glasses, the way she clutches her books in front of her) that it becomes camp.

Bennie was just a reincarnation of Cleary from The Knick. No one complained about his death cause we are all aware that he has the worst fucking luck.