Great post!

"that whole album is one steaming pile of underrated gems"

Kurosawa leaves them all in the dust.

Ha! Good call. I totally forgot…

There's a lot I like about it, but as with Hateful Eight, the absence of Menke is palpable.

I'd say:

Fair enough; I definitely see where you're coming from :)

Yes, she is a passenger; yes, she is superfluous to the plot; yes, she is too timid to figure things out on her own.

The fact that her character is so powerless is the entire thematic point of the movie. It has EVERYTHING to do with her.

They're not "acting," they just have a different opinion than you.

As noted above, this didn't happen.

You're misremembering. I just looked it up, and the first paragraph notes that most critics were unable to see Django and Nathan Rabin was the only one to have included it among his personal selections. The movie isn't on their Best Of list, and is only included in the "notable outliers" category at the end.

"deus a pavimento"

"why it's Han's baby all of a sudden. He hasn't been in that ship since halfway through Empire! "

Klebba was so funny on "Scrubs" in his few appearances. "Only the winner gets to drink beer."

Don't get me wrong, I like the entire series— I've watched the whole series dozens of times, and I like seasons 5-7—, but I just wouldn't want someone to miss out on the greatness of season 8 just because they stopped at 7.

Skip 5-7 and go straight to 8. It might be the best season.

Ignore my snarky joke above; I actually agree with you— Season 8 is tremendous, and arguably the best season of the show. It's amazing how well they course-corrected from all of the shows flaws and pulled everything together in the most emotionally honest, grounded, thematically cohesive season the show ever did.

Season 9 already did that.

I get the sense from this thread that you've never actually seen "The Searchers."