It always seemed to me that my relationship flaw at the time was that I had concerns about my relationship and that I largely chose to try to "solve" them or whatever on my own. It makes sense for a 17 year-old neophyte to engage in unilateral action, but I have to think a woman in her mid-20s would've handed me my…

Sigh

Although I will admit to being a little scared to take the plunge, I didn't put virginity on a pedestal except that (a) I wanted it to be with someone that I liked and cared about who liked and cared about me, and (b) I wanted my second girlfriend to have that same chance. Losing your virginity with your bf who writes…

That's a smart article, and good points from you all around. I kind of assumed that he was in the $20M per movie club, or close to it, which I think would derail the profitability of some.of his projects, but your reading makes a lot of Sense, and it's not like I've looked up the box office for each film…

I guess that's why they called that move the "Mexican deathbed"

That sounds about right. And their explanation of communism, I s—t you not, involved Joseph saying to Jude something like… "communism will never work, because someone will always desire the booty that you're getting" and then SPOILER ALERT he gets himself killed to make up for his betrayal of this new Soviet hero. I…

Admittedly, both of those were really, really cool

Thanks for the reminder! I mean to catch that at some point…

I'm watching the Amazon series Braindead and it is slightly ham-fisted at times and slightly plays into TV show convention too much, but its portrayal of both the left and the right as mindlessly opposing each other to their mutual doom but the benefit of a very few is incredibly appropriate to this day and age…

Ah, I gotcha - and very well put, btw. Yeah, I guess longstanding antisemitism in general is largely about that "other" status. Not to mention that for a long time (and, obvs, even today), people were taking the exact wrong messages from the Bible and believed that this one group was responsible for Jesus' death.

Oh, I forgot about the Jamie Lee connection! No, it's not among his absolute best, but it was very well-done… and a damn sight better than everything after (and including) Escape from LA

Haha, nice! I haven't seen that one yet, but it's on my list. There may be another couple, in truth, but at the very least I think it would be damn hard to accuse Carpenter of whitewashing…

Alfred Hitchcock made at least 3!

I wanted to like it, but the ham-fisted attempts to "explain" communism were painful, and the love triangle and what it led to on the part of Joseph Fiennes' part was just disbelief-breaking.

But Raiders is so much better!

Similarly, anti-drug legislation in the early 20th Cent often had racist supporting pamphlets and brochures and whatnot to promote voting on these laws. The stuff against opium was intended to criminalize Asians, the stuff against marijuana was intended to criminalize Mexicans, and the stuff against cocaine was…

One can never expect bigots' bigotry to make any sense, but I believe the idea was that they "didn't have their own art or culture" (obvious total bullshit), and that this is what made them "inferior." They were considered a danger because of who they were and how they apparently were depriving non-Jews, though, they…

I could buy They Live as a totalitarian screed, but the actual racism? Pretty damn unlikely, especially for anyone who follows Carpenter. The only story of his that I can think of that didn't prominently feature lots of non-white people is Halloween, and for a small town in the midwest in the late 70s and early 80s,…

It was with sadness that I watched his career decline, but fortunately there are still fine older films of his which I had not seen. Last year, I checked out The Fog, and it was great.

I kinda don't know what to say - I wanted affection and attention and sex, but I never lost sight of the fact that the people that I was dating were just people. It made it harder for me, but it also meant that I was much more comfortable and sure about the situations I got myself into.