I’m sure Noah could, which makes it all the more distressing that he doesn’t (oh, and just to be clear, by commentator, I meant those in the news media - not to discredit your list in any way - and by countries I meant those subject to the immigration rules Trump was referring to). I only mention it because “Africa”…

It’s not that women directors (or any other women crewmembers) should be nominated simply because they’re women. It’s that, historically, these bodies have overlooked quality films/work by women time and again. Only one women has ever won an Oscar for directing and only three others have ever been nominated. Ever. So…

Love Deakins’s work, but hopefully Rachel Morrison will at least get a nomination for her work on Mudbound (no woman has ever been nominated for a cinematography Oscar).

What Trump said is obviously horrible, but it would be nice if at least one of the commentators or news readers could name at least one or two of the African countries. As far as I can tell, they’re Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia.

Yup, and it gets better with each viewing because when you know how the extent of her narcissism and alcoholism, then even her early “not so bad” scenes take on lots of added depth and complexity. Great film.

Agreed, watch “The Body” - although much of its power comes from knowing the characters beforehand, the ep on its own might still be “convincing.”

Maybe. And I’m not at all sure where Guy’s from - many in the US still don’t really get how offensive the term is, so maybe “benefit of the doubt” is in order. But even still, it’s worth letting him know for future reference.

Not sure if you’re unaware and trying to be clever . . . or what . . . but that’s a pretty severely racist term you just casually joked around with.

Also very very good is last year’s doc The Farthest, about Voyager. While not quite the same as space travel, the Voyager story makes for a truly fantastic film.

I really liked S6 - most of it. When it tried to force answers for fan service (e.g. the source of the whispers), I felt let down. And I wish they’d had, say, 2-3 more episodes to flesh out the temple (and, probably, had spent at least a bit of time setting it up in earlier seasons). But I really appreciated what they…

No, you’re right. “Make due” is a misspelling.

I don’t know because I’m not a Hollywood accountant. But I imagine promoting the film from early in pre-production throughout exhibition as a vehicle for Dustin Hoffman (plus all the others) garnered far more interest than Alan Tudyk would have. And they were happy enough with their investment in his performance to…

I think, to a certain extent, you’re confusing the performer with the star. With a star, the performance is often irrelevant, so the question of how an audience would react to different performances in the same role is pretty minor. Miscasting happens, of course, and it can probably have an effect on a film’s overall…

It’s probably the most popular Christmas song in both the UK and Ireland, and it’s rarely censored. The BBC has done so on a few occasions, but they almost always end up backing down after massive outcry. So most of the time you hear it on the radio, you hear it as it was meant to be.

Yup, as cool as parts of that trailer are, I’m pretty sure that’s nothing like what Gil Scott-Heron had in mind.

Um, Obama? Need there be any other?

There was a torrent version about 6-7 years back that had the entire series with original music - massive and took forever to download. I don’t know if it’s still available, but if you’re into the show, it was worth the time/energy it took to get it down and transferred to alternate storage.

You mean “not blocked,” right?

Same with Northern Exposure, last I knew. All of DJ Chris’s music has been replaced by muzak or something like that . . .

I guess you know that there have been tons of successful films, tv shows, radio programs, etc. about real-life killing sprees, including several on Manson (I recommend the podcast take from You Must Remember This, which is fascinating). Why shouldn’t Tarantino take a crack at it? Watching Melanie Laurent kill off…