This is a little dated and more focused on the LGB part of the acronym, but I always liked this segment from For The Bible Tells Me So, which is a nice, brief survey of some of the nature vs. nurture research on the subject:

It did point that out, and I think the controversy was half people who hadn't seen the movie making assumptions about what it did and didn't do with the character, and half people who were desperate for representation of ANY sort of trans or trans-ish character on screen, and who were disappointed that the most…

Hey, that's the paper where I did my internship in college! You go supporting your local LGBT weekly, Wachowskis!

True, but my point wasn't that a movie needs a big expanded universe to be iconic. Plenty of other franchises that get this level of nitpicking when new installments come out do. By contrast, the underlying premise of Ghostbusters is fairly simple, and while the original cast is part of the appeal, doing a reboot with…

It's weird to me because although Ghostbusters is iconic, it's not like it has this huge mythos and expanded universe the way Star Wars does. It's two movies, a TV show, some video games and some ancillary product, based on the simple premise of "people who catch ghosts and share one-liners."

*insert definitive observation about movie's racial and gender politics and how thoroughly raped childhood is, based on two minutes of out-of-context footage*

During the obligatory "a new Coen movie is out, so Film Twitter ranks/argues about the arbitrary rankings of these equally great movies" cycle that happened when Hail Caesar! came out, there was one critic who said "if Fargo is your favorite Coen Bros. movie, I don't think you really get them." I've never hit the…

Every once in a great while, it's fun to dive into the responses below a super famous person's tweet, just to have the occasional exposure to the level of crazy that inspires someone to tweet "fart in my mouth" at Lady Gaga, or someone to get super upset that Taylor Swift isn't following them.

Like the show it introduced, this song could not be more of an "early 2000's" signifier if it tried. And for both the show and the song, I mean that as both a compliment and a criticism.

I always forget how weirdly invested I am in Meechum until things like Seth's accusation happen. I was so glad that Frank found the earrings in the box, because for about five minutes, I was freaking out that Meechum was going to suffer the same cruel, unfair fate as Freddy.

Probably because it's a fairly soft R, which I guess is why my parents let me watch it. Some blood and some F-bombs, but nothing extreme. I think some R-rated action movies get the R just because of their intensity (see also: The Matrix and Fury Road).

They show them shooting the jump in the special features, and they say flat out that of the two or three times they jumped it, it only made it 25-30 feet.

The only movie he directed after that was the second Tomb Raider, and the movie he directed just before that was Speed 2. Dude had skills as an action director, but picking projects was not one of them.

This was my first R-rated movie, so I'll always regard it with utmost affection. But it really does hold up well, and it's still more intense and crazy than plenty of action movies made then and now. Plus, I mean, Dennis Hopper going almost full Jon-Voight-in-Anaconda as the villain.

It's crazy to me how much shows like Friends and Seinfeld still make in syndication. I mean, Seinfeld is amazing, but hasn't everyone in the world seen every episode of it by this point?

*dolphin noise*
- Spongebob

Same. I was a hair too young for it, and I always got it mixed up with Pacific Blue, because my only exposure to either was in half-glimpsed-in-the-background episodes playing on TBS on Saturday afternoons.

My lasting memory of this one is William H. Macy playing the obligatory "cop who doesn't believe the hero at first, but gradually comes around and helps save the day" role, and playing it well. There's a running gag about how he wants to quit being a cop and open a day spa, and people keep calling it a beauty salon.…

My favorite along these lines:

Yes. He's on screen for most of the third act, but if I remember right, we don't see him at all until maybe an hour in.