“Whether or not its predecessor holds up (fully or even in part) to contemporary standards of sensitivity, Blazing Saddles not only enlisted Richard Pryor as a screenwriter but at least aspired to comment on the bigotry it depicts.”

This is art. 

“We’re almost out of time here.”

If you really want to do it right, you’ll start them before subs are even an option. My daughter’s first movie in a theater was Ponyo, on her 2nd birthday, and she was already besotted with Totoro.

You don't read much Marvel, do you?

First, thank you for responding in an intelligent and thoughtful way, rather than a knee-jerk, "U dint read teh books!" The truth is I *wanted* to like the book, and was very frustrated with it as I read it. I can certainly agree how my argument is more apropos to the movies, and I'll accept that criticism and agree.…

Well, that's the thing. In Lord of the Flies, for example, the violence and anarchy are pretty clearly portrayed as ugly.* The view of it in THG seems more ambivalent, to put it mildly. There's a lot of visceral excitement in Katniss kicking butt & taking names, to the point where archery for young girls has taken off…

Do you like zombies?

No, actually, it's set in what's known as a 'fantasy world.' That's where people use their imagination, unhindered by the constraints of history, to fashion what Tolkien referred to as a 'secondary creation.' So, yes, all those things are there, by the choice of the creators, and fostered by their popularity with the…

Can it, Mollari.

I was in Pompeii in '87, and I could say the same thing — wow that's a lot of dicks — but I'd make one addition: The casts are utterly chilling. I can still clearly remember a woman curled into a fetal position on display...*shudder*

The women!!!

I suspect it's an illustration of the tale of Smaug destroying Dale, which of course is described early on, and will probably just show us enough to get us anxious for more.

Indeed. However, the text itself supports Jackson's choice. The Hobbit has goblins, not, except in 3 places (those 2 quotes & Orcrist), orcs, regardless of (subsequent) authorial decisions.

Why? Tolkien did so. In Riddles in the Dark there's this: “'A bit low for goblins, at least for the big ones,' thought Bilbo, not knowing that even the big ones, the orcs of the mountains, go along at a great speed stooping low with their hands almost on the ground.” Later, when Gandalf is explaining why they can't go…

This style strikes me as nothing more or less than the skeptic's Scoobification of the fantastic.

The Lucas fantasy (like the Scottish play, but without any of its manifold redeeming qualities) should never be named.

Terroir Coffee!

Oberlin College's Mudd Library has a bunch of the ball chairs, although they were colloquially known as "moon" or "womb" chairs when I was there. They were great to study in, if by "study" you mean "sleep."

For some one who's done & gone, you've remarkable persistence.