These "impossible standards of perfection" must surely affect everyone differently. I mean, I have been exposed to such images my entire life, and yet, I still see extraordinary beauty in the everyday people I see around me. Some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen have been women I've seen simply walking…

I'm glad to see that the favorite Yoda-ism around here is the "There is no try," one. Probably the best one of all, IMO. But I also like these:

None of those qualities/properties are intangible or ineffable though. I just think Alasdair was trying to get us to buy into the pseudo-magical properties accorded to famous, antique instruments with centuries of mystique built up around them. The exact materials and methods may be lost to history, but I assure you…

Then the point is poorly stated:

Leaving aside any intangible, ineffable qualities...

Who would want the male Avengers to vamp it up like femme fatales? Who would want female superheroes to butch it up like Thor? These are not good ideas, not even in the name of gender equality.

Heroes season 1 is the usual go-to response. But there are two reasons that doesn't really count, for me anyway:

I have no faith in Hollywood to deliver a watchable live-action superhero show. At least not one that matches my definition of "superhero show". For one thing, it would cost way too much to do it right. Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is as good as it gets, IMO, but the only thing that makes it doable is that it is…

The entertainment industry has typically thought of itself as recession-proof (and, I suppose by extension depression-resistant), but even if that is true, these days that doesn't necessarily help the average American entertainment industry employee. Even the unions are feeling the sting of movie and television work…

Yeah, Bruce Wayne is smart enough to avoid hospitals and to not leave behind any kind of easily obtainable medical history. It wouldn't take a genius to connect the dots and realize that Bruce has been having run-ins with Gotham's villains, and that MMA and rock climbing are less convincing explanations than him…

What's with all the weird, random blurring?

From the still images, it looks like everything is rendered with simple phong shading and virtually no textures or geometry detail. This is the same sort of approach taken with simple 2D cel animation, but I think we've come to expect more from 3D animation thanks to Pixar and friends.

Seems like bust is turning out to be the most likely destination for the Russians...maybe even us as well.

I love Star Wars. I love AC/DC. I do not love them together. Sorry, but this is epic fail for me.

Alas, Hollywood has no interest in long-term cultural impact. They are only interested in first weekend box office performance, since that ultimately dictates the financial trajectory for the film's entire lifespan as a revenue-generating property.

You also don't succeed if your accumulated failures bankrupt your program.

Whatever it is, it won't be epic space opera, simply because television budgets can't afford that. What we'll get instead is an insipid, under-funded nod towards space opera that trades cosmic scale conflict for "intimate character drama set amidst the backdrop of a vast star empire..." Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Highly stylized movies don't seem to have a very good history at the box office, which probably explains why Hollywood is generally averse to making them. Buckaroo Banzai was a miserable box office failure, and recent attempts at contemporary stylization (Scott Pilgrim, for instance) haven't fared much better.

Maybe that helps explain it, then. I hated the New Wave movement back then. Hate the memory of it now.

I saw this movie back when I was in college, and incomprehensible certainly described my experience of it. But that didn't exactly make it a good or fun movie; I just don't see how this film jumps the gap from annoying incomprehensibility to wacky genius in people's minds. I strongly suspect you have to be high to…