Milburn Stone

@supposebly, if that's what descriptivism is, then call me a descriptivist!

Fascinating article by a superb writer on why the prescriptivism vs. descriptivism debate is a red herring. Short answer: Because descriptivism actually is prescriptivism in descriptivist clothing. Link.

And there's the difference between Joe and Aiden. Aiden would have balked, Vera would have cut him to the quick, and Aiden would have gone to get the tea like a sad dog. This relationship is far more interesting.

No problem with the concept. But the producers should have given each presenting actor the requirement that their words be no longer 60 seconds. That's actually a lot of time if you use it right. Wasn't perfect? WASN'T PERFECT?!??? Obviously this guy didn't learn anything from the feedback, despite saying that he did.

IMO, the problem with singing during the memoriam is that it forces the viewer to evaluate "are these words appropriate?" in a way that an appropriate orchestral backing doesn't. Or put it this way: it increases the risk of a wrong choice considerably.

FWIW, she's who I wanted to win. Her performances in Anatomy and Zone were both amazing and totally different from each other.

I'm glad others liked Emma's speech, but...Call me old, but if you even have a chance of winning an award, prepare something cogent and meaningful, deliver it coherently, and thank the Academy graciously. This blubbering flood of emotion just makes it even more "about you" than winning an Academy Award!

It's like they're not listening to us!

Maybe a minority opinion, but I don't get why the zeitgeist turned on Maestro. Best movie against some really formidable competition? Probably not. But well-written, well-directed, well-produced, and well-acted. And it felt like a fresh way to do the biopic genre. I guess the world has to agree to pick on somebody every year.

Thank the LORD the speeches got shorter when they got to the Best Actor/Actress categories. That first set was excruciating.

I thought the first episode was so good, and then have been let down since.

What is the case against Baldwin? That even though he had every reason to think the gun had blanks, he still shouldn't have aimed it and pulled the trigger in the run-through? If so, I don't get that, because when the director called action, the shot required him to aim the gun and pull the trigger--so the tragedy would have happened then instead of in the run-through. Right? Or maybe not. I'm looking to be educated here.

@BetyBee, I won't spoil the character she plays, but just listen for the voice. When she came on, I wouldn't have known her at first--except for the voice.

I do recall Columbo episodes where the culprit caught on to Columbo's shtick well before his "reveal." That was part of the fun for me; that those episodes evolved into a game of conscious cat and mouse. If memory serves, Robert Culp usually tuned in to Columbo's cleverness pretty early. And I thought the bad guy character in this episode made a pretty good job of channeling his inner Robert Culp. (I'm not familiar with the actor but his performance made me think I ought to be.) His arrogance/cleverness actually got me through the parts where Elsbeth was a little too ditzy for my taste.

All of this. With the one exception that for me, the near-Kangaroo Court nature of the French judicial system terrified me. Its no-doubt greater efficiency would make me very nervous as a defendant--which is why I was so nervous for Sandra. I wonder, non-rhetorically, if the central tenet of the French justice system is not, as in the U.S., "innocent until proven guilty" but "guilty until proven innocent." It could be. In any case, remind me not to get in trouble in France.

The hearing and the trial were so suspenseful.

He does carry his weight in Hitchcock's Lifeboat, to give him his due.

I could see Parker Posey.

You could always go with "predicted" if you can't screw up your courage.

I'm so glad you didn't name Images. If you had, I would have been obliged to give it a second look, and I don't want to. I think I've only seen 5 minutes of Popeye, and reached the conclusion "too weird for it's own good," but I'll have to consider giving it a shot. All your others, I'm in complete agreement with, and I also liked California Split at the time.

That is to be lamented. He had a juicy and prominent role as the baddie in one of the seasons of Damages (the great Glenn Close lawyer TV series) but nothing else pops into my mind at this hour of the morning.

It reminded us of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (the Sigourney Weaver vehicle that took place in Australia).

For some reason that version resonated with me. I don't know if it would today. But maybe.

My eye sees the same logic error that yours does. No doubt Zaslov fired the manager-level editor who could have cleaned it up.

I think it's not just a matter of "things were different then." The movies have always sold an idealized version of love, and we have always eagerly eaten it up, because we want so badly to believe. The idealized version of love that the movies are selling now is different in some particulars, is all.