I've heard of this Golden Age/Silver Age stuff but Hooded Justice being a Nazi faggot was perfectly clear to me in both book and movie. Didn't get much appreciation for insight or sophistication from me in either case. I'm afraid I still think the real problems in the movie adaptation (given the decision to omit the…

There's a simple solution: Watch Thor or Captain America movies.
(Though someday someone will actually read some Norse mythology and realize that Thor could be a bloody minded berserker type.)

Well, if it comes down to historical truth, it was the Spartans who more than anyone else won the day at Plataea. Yet, the naval battle of Salamis is commonly portrayed as the decisive victory. The burning of Athens doesn't seem like victory to me.

Zack Snyder got a decent Lois Lane into a Superman movie.

I always thought of Superman III a decent Superman goes bad flick inexplicably spliced in with a decent Richard Pryor computer geek farce. Maybe they thought it would be like peanut butter and chocolate?

There are many wonderful things about the novel. But as time goes on the question of where Dune/Arrakis' oxygen comes from keeps getting in the way. If there is a problem with something so simple as that, is the brilliance of the novel really "incalculable?"

DEO sucks the life out of everything for me. The only interesting part of the episode was Siobhan. Where does this screaming thing come from?

Harold Bloom tells us that William Shakespeare invented the human spirit. And the perfection of Shakespearean acting was reached in Harold Bloom's youth, an opinion in no way related to nostalgia. And the author of the Jahweh portions of the Pentateuch was a woman. And Gnosticism is a common strain in modern American…

Oh. Well, I guess I just proved I don't know anything about McKee. So, ignore me and carry on.

Her choice in doing that was a choice to take a chance at not dying. It's sort of a no brainer, so it doesn't have much dramatic weight. Of course, the more invested you are in the character, the more satisfying an expression of a conquering hero fantasy it would be. But turning to the front to fight on means more I…

Google suggests this is the dude mocked in Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation. That's all I know about McKee (and if that's not supposed to be McKee, then I know nothing about McKee.) If there's any overlap between what I've written and McKee, I imagine it's because there's not really much dispute about the basics and he…

Haven't seen Take Shelter, can't say.

This is true. Rules for drama and literature are at best rules of thumb. Nor are there points and penalties. But when trying to decide what movie ticket to buy, the best bet is for movies that follow the rules, such as they are.

Knowing that there's more to a movie than the photography isn't so much to know. Nor is it so much to know that in real plots characters have motives. Knowing that how a movie relates to your own life is what it's about is so basic it's an elementary qualification for actually watching movies, as opposed to passively…

The most notable thing is that there really wasn't any real dramatic purpose served in the first two movements. I mean, there's the heroine's origin story, which is also a romance, because that's what kind of series this is, but that doesn't take a whole movie. Then, by the second movie, all the action was centered on…

The notion that being grounded is a matter of the visuals looking right strikes me as mental derangement.

As I said down in the thread, I haven't seen Cloverfield. Wasn't thinking aliens at all. The movie is a conquering hero fantasy and all it's ingenuity is devoted to making the heroine's victory over repeated perils seemingly plausible.

Only if you redefine drama as sensationalism.

That's not espionage. Covert ops, sabotage, assassination do not provide intelligence. And it is doubtful any of those have ever provided any benefits in peacetime. Even in war, such activities behind enemy lines are of doubtful value. But then, you seem to be thinking The Americans is some sort of quality drama.

Philip/Martha, where Philip romances and marries Martha *part-time* like any sane spymaster would want to con Martha not just into leaking information etc. but also, for no good reason, also con her into thinking she's not married to a bigamist. The agent dedicated to handling Martha would be doing it *full-time.*