Post Civil War things were much looser for African-Americans in many places. The parts of the abolitionist movement that believed in racial equality hadn't been defeated yet. Even in the South, the federal government was still fighting the Klan (until the notorious compromise over the contested election of 1876.)…

Well, I'm pretty sure that the Fifties nostalgia in Happy Days was for the childhoods of the late twenties/early thirties, just as That Seventies Show was aimed, about twenty years later, at the childhoods of late twenties/early thirties members of the audience. It seems to me that someone who really want Fifties…

I thought this episode was hilarious. Though for some reason the woman who went to the bar to be alone gave me my biggest laugh.

Cal's real violence was in attacking Mary's father. In most TV shows and movies, this would be a feel good moment when the hero kicks pervert ass. In the real world, if Mary testified truthfully, Cal could go to jail. On reflection, I think Abe's plan was to get Mary to leave the compound, then do just that.

You're like the dudes who think the Latter Day Saints went to pot when they did away with polygamy. They thought the liberalizers were the real bad guys too.

Thanks for the clarification. What pushed my button is that I'm old enough to remember some of the Fifties. But I don't appreciate the simpler days of the Fifties so much. I appreciate the Sixties, when this country actually improved some, and the Seventies, when the Sexual Revolution spread out into the provinces,…

But of course the repression of the left, domestically with black lists, and abroad with the Korean War and other invasions and assassinations, wasn't a problem? It's amazing how many people think that was on balance a Good Thing that they don't have to take Communism or even socialism seriously any more, thank God.

Meyerist finances have a certain interest.

This reads as if the Costner character developing a conscience was a downer for the reviewer. Yes, well, there are people whose heroes are the BAMFs.

According to The Americans, it's not just random murder that serves as a major tool of espionage, but sex. Are Elizabeth and Philip discussing how to begin Paige's training in fellatio etc.?

The adorableness of the badly written Hawk/Ashley is a matter of taste. Ritual obeisance to the glory and power of Luv, especially Young Luv, is more or less required, which makes it I think the least authentic emotions displayed yet.

The tendency of AV Club reviewers to lose their eyes when the politics aren't right wing enough is in full view here. One, there is no reason to think there was any intention to be a satire. Almost everything except possibly the flying beetle cam is relentlessly realistic. Two, the dialogue isn't double talk, except…

" At the same time, though, he completely whiffs the opportunity to explore various ways in which well-meaning police officers, psychologists, and parents inadvertently planted false memories in kids, who then came to believe they they’d genuinely experienced those horrific events. Instead, the film, which boasts a…

Everything DEO is garbage. The idiocy of going back to National City (which isn't DC?) is just part and parcel. They should have have Non fly to Midvale specifically to get her.

Of course, Frodo put on the Ring, just as Isildur did.

In the book, when they are at the Black Gate, stymied at entering Mordor, Gollum offers another route. Suspicious, Frodo warns Gollum that if Gollum tries to seize the Ring, he Frodo will order him to cast himself into the fire. As Frodo does this he appears to be a vast and awesome presence.

The first person camera work is a novelty. Perhaps the musical number was lifted from some place, but I hadn't seen it before. I thought it, and Copley generally, were delightful.

Surely after 206 reincarnations the Hawks are down with an open marriage?

It seems to me this is a money thing. UK TV doesn't have the bucks US TV does, so locking down actors with contracts that make it worth their commitment just isn't the way they do business. And the lack of money is why the series tend to be so short too. This too reinforces the lower pay for UK actors. Of course, the…

I think she was supposed to be keeping the spear away from Superman, lest it hurt him (as it did.) And that she changed her mind when she learned somehow that it was needed for the real Kryptonian menace, the Zod-bie.