HawkeyeLo

Yeah, I’m not mad, that was lovely. And made me very excited for Gatwa's run as the Doctor; I didn’t make it through Twelve. I haven’t seen him in anything, but he clearly has charisma for days. And it’s nice to reboot a bit and have him be able to start fresh in the role. Also enjoyed NPH’s insane German accent, and the episode was appropriately eerie at many times, as well as fun. “Spice Up Your Life” cracked me up.

The song is really sweet and cleverly written, so I can see why that’s a popular one. A lot of my favorite moments are just great line readings, especially Leonard’s. Don’t always love how they wrote his character but he was great sometimes. Panty Polarization: Penny: “Leonard, remember when I said it’s on? Well, now it’s junior rodeo on. Leonard: “Aw, not junior rodeo.” Don't remember the episode name, somewhere in the middle seasons after Sheldon says something about Leonard replacing Penny with a brown bear: Penny: “Like you could get a brown bear.” Leonard: “Hey, I have a good job, I could buy salmon, you don’t know.” I also love the whole scene in the episode when Amy is lying about her apartment being fixed because she wants to keep living with Sheldon. Sheldon and Leonard start speaking Klingon, Amy and Penny are speaking Amy’s made-up language, and then once that group has things figured out, Howard comes in and starts speaking Klingon. The later seasons weren’t very good, but that scene was hilarious. Actually, the back and forth between characters in the first episode Amy and Sheldon are living together is also funny—Amy getting annoyed with Sheldon sleeping, Penny and Leonard dancing in their underwear after Sheldon moves out, and Howard and Bernadette calling and hanging up on Raj because they can’t decide whether or not they want to know the sex of their baby. (And later, Penny’s “the new neighbors are weird” after Amy and Sheldon argue and storm out to make out.)

Also, it has one of my favorite background reaction shots ever: when Chandler says, “The best reason to get married is pregnancy” and Rachel is like, OMG. I could care less about the Joey storyline but I love the episode simply for that. I crack up every time.

The fan stories were sweeter to hear than the celebrity ones, though David Beckham's about putting on the show as comfort when he misses his family was nice. The show does make me think of different people and times in my life (like how The One Where Ross Got High--my family's favorite--will always make me think of my dad, "Ah, salmon spring roll" always makes me think of my best friend, and the finale will always make me think of college, because the power went out in the dorms that night and everyone freaked out). I kind of wish they would've shown the cast's reaction to those; I hope they at least got to see them. The reunion was sweet. Definitely overhyped, a bit long, and filled with unnecessary extras that weren't needed to make it enjoyable. I'm not sure I need to watch it again, so it's unfortunate that I didn't wait until next weekend, when a friend planned a watch party for us all to see it (first chance we could all get together). Darn my need for instant gratification! The main six are fun together, and it's lovely to see their friendship. Lisa looks GREAT and seems like a blast, as does Matt. I did appreciate whoever said they were all gifted physical actors, which is true--David was the best, but they all had their moments. Rachel's reaction shot to Chandler saying "No, the best reason to get married is pregnancy" in The One With the Girl Who Hit Joey is one of my favorite unsung moments in the whole show.

Season 2 is now on Hulu!

I don't know if that's uncommon; my university had a daily paper (you can see it behind Paris in the bunker at one point!). It was only a few pages, though, so it probably wasn't a huge lift. I did always call foul on Rory's sudden ability to be editor of the newspaper and ace all her coursework, which included extra classes to make up for her semester off, given her meltdown in season four. Of course she might have figured out how to handle college better by her junior year, but still. Bugged me. (Also bugged me that she managed to achieve Phi Beta Kappa when she deliberately threw multiple finals. Again, I'm sure it was possible and I'm honestly not super familiar with the criteria--they inducted me as a junior when I was studying abroad, so I didn't go to the ceremony--but Rory's habit in college of not doing work whenever she was upset irked me. That's life! Sometimes you have to do things even when you don't want to and they seem pointless. See: most jobs at some point or another.)

My favorite part was how periodically throughout that scene, Sheen would just be staring out the window at the birds.

Off topic, but this is bugging me so I thought I'd ask the experts here. I put on the first movie on Netflix. I haven't seen it in quite a while, but it's the type of lighthearted thing I like when I'm playing ball with the beagle. Here's my question: Have they edited this movie for streaming? During the scene where they're going through Carrie's closet before she sells her apartment, I remember all the girls trying on her silly dresses, then Lily coming out holding a bunch of purses. But this time, it was only Carrie trying on a couple of dresses, concluding with the tutu one, and then the scene ended. Am I misremembering? Did this happen at another time? I swear it was then (because I recall thinking that it was ridiculous that the three other women could wear Carrie's clothes, as they're all taller and have different body types, and I like 80s Aerosmith). Help! Otherwise I really am losing it, lol.

Oh man, I'd been seeing clips of this online for ages, but I didn't realize it was a full show until recently. Just binged the first season. This is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen--I think I laughed more in the first episode than I have through whole sitcoms. Can't wait until season two is available. Do agree you probably have to enjoy/be familiar with Tennet and Sheen to enjoy this. But if you do, this is hilarious.

I loved the Oscar de la Renta dress Carrie wore during the photo shoot, as well as the styling with the red lip and red flower in her hair. They should've had her be sent that one--she looked beautiful, and it had that more classic look she'd talked about associating with Big. The Vivienne Westwood one they went with was too voluminous for my taste, and it sort of looked wrinkly? I didn't get the wow factor. And the bird was dumb. It was just all so overdone. Agreed on Charlotte's dresses! I especially loved her second one. It was simple and unique.

Been rewatching this on HBO Max, and in the episode where Sheldon is trying to decide between the two gaming systems, when he polls his friends for their opinions, just the way Bernadette says, "I like the Wii!" made me laugh out loud.

If I remember correctly, he was only there half an hour before they needed to go. I think he was giving a big speech (wasn't it a fundraiser for the museum or something?), so it's understandable that he wants to get there on time, if not early. I don't think he should've yelled at Rachel the way he eventually did, but they were all treating what was an important event for him very cavalierly, so I get how his frustration escalated. (I also would've been a ball of anxiety about getting there myself, so I'm sympathetic.) I was never a fan of how the group dismissed Ross's job all the time, though. Working in a museum is cooler than being on a soap opera to me!

I always assumed he had already left California and had traveled back to NYC--he's living in there and working as a messenger a few episodes later. But that is an assumption, since they never addressed it! I don't know if they had Jess purposefully look unkempt in season 4 or what, but he definitely looked rough. It's hard to decide who had the worst hair in season 4, though--Jess or Dean. I don't even know what was on Dean's head at the end of the season, lol.

This has been bothering me... In Nag Hammadi, Lorelai is trying to get the window fixed because she "broke it while trying to close it last night." However, last night (at the end of A Family Matter) we see her going up to get warm, no indication that the window is open. Why was she opening the window in the middle of winter? When did she do this? Was it all just a plot device to show Lorelai's money issues and get Luke over there to talk about Jess? Do I watch this show too much that this bugs me?

They were talking about Lindsey's dad being a surveyor.

They needed to do a better job of establishing the timeline for Big and Carrie's relationship if they wanted us to side with Carrie. In the second season opener, Charlotte says they dated for a year, which makes Carrie's response to not feeling like part of his life slightly more understandable (and it makes more sense that Big didn't dump her early on since she's having a meltdown in every episode--how exhausting if that was all over a short period). But the first season makes it seem like only a couple of months. I like a lot about the first season, but not the Carrie and Big storyline. She acted ridiculously for someone in her thirties. (Season 5 through the Berger period was her worst, though--so much squealing. Does anyone actually yelp that much?)

Pretty sure it's Four Women and a Funeral from season 2.

Random aside: I don't know why, but drunk Logan in "Will You Be My Lorelai Gilmore?" always cracks me up. Just the way he says, "Who puts bread in the refrigerator? I hate cold bread!"

Ah, I've found my people! I was just thinking about this and wondered if there was a thread, and of course there is. :) The Silmarillion is great if you like world-building, but I think it's one of those where you need a chunk of time to get into it before you get rolling. Glad I'm not the only person to struggle with Wilkie Collins. My friend lent me The Moonstone several years ago, and it was the first book I ever failed to finish. I can push through almost anything, but it was just so boring. But I don't think I've ever hated a book as much as I hated Michael Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White. Can't figure out why Emily Gilmore liked it so much! The writing, the characters, the length--all terrible. I say this as someone who read an 800-page bio of Edith Wharton and found War and Peace delightful, but it needed to be half the length to be remotely palatable. I quit 300 pages in and didn't even care what happened.

I have a love/hate relationship with reserved seating. For movies like Black Panther or Star Wars, it's great, because I don't have time to wait hours in line for seats anymore. But it's annoying for smaller movies or when you just want to go on a whim. Also, some of my favorite memories are of waiting in line to get seats or arriving super early for movies. The big group of us that waited nine hours outside the theater in Sycamore Mall during finals week in college (I was done with mine) the day Return of the King came out, playing Catchphrase while waiting to get into Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, laughing with my friend as the theater played the same horrible Simply Red song over and over again every time we went for a year (I don't know why we found it so funny, but we did)...wouldn't give those experiences up for anything.

Playing catch up so I did not read all seven pages of this thread carefully, but has anyone else seen What If? I've been meaning to watch it again since I saw it was on Prime (I believe). It came out in 2013 and is a very sweet romcom with Daniel Radcliffe as a med school dropout who becomes close friends with Zoe Kazan (who has a longtime boyfriend). Adam Driver plays his best friend. I remember really enjoying it!

On the Hobbit movies, because I rewatched them for the first time a few months ago: They are not good, and I wouldn't encourage anyone to watch them. But I think the number one issue is that they forgot it was Bilbo's story. He got more and more sidelined in favor of elf-dwarf romance, Legolas doing action things, and Thorin-main Orc fight (I didn't mind the Gandalf sidebars because that does happen off-scene in the book and I'll watch those actors do pretty much anything, but I agree they could've been done better). LOTR was actually an ensemble story, so it worked there, but the Hobbit is supposed to be Bilbo's journey, and they got away from that too much. The most frustrating thing is that they cast the perfect Bilbo--Martin Freeman was fantastic in the role--so his scenes are great. Major missed opportunity, in my opinion (though I did enjoy the armored mountain goats that appear out of nowhere in the third one).

I really enjoyed this episode and this show as a whole. I'm not bothered by some of the more dramatic "girl power" moments; they were exaggerated, but I think they were supposed to be. I guess I've viewed a lot of this season as June slowly discovering the ways she could regain power and control in a society that wanted nothing more than to control her. Many of them are really small, and aren't really that triumphant to us, but things like figuring out how to manipulate the commander to beat Serena Joy and get out of the house would be monumentous to her. And openly defying Aunt Lydia and the Guardians? I'd be feeling good and strutting down the street, too, even if I knew I'd be horribly punished later. The tiniest sparks of hope, the tiniest displays of defiance, can grow into something much larger. I don't know; that's just my view. :) I also don't think it makes much sense to show killing men yet. I think that will start next season. This was about June's journey and establishing the broader world of Gilead, but this society is still very new, and everyone is still terrified and disoriented. We only just saw the handmaids discovering they might have power as an "army," though perhaps they won't be a militant one. Plus, it's only a matter of time before the some rung of this society, thirsty for power and thinking they are better, know better, can do better, ousts the founders, and so on, and so on. "There is only power, and those too weak to seek it," to quote movie Voldemort, and this society is just the power hungry seeking power and disguising their greed and hypocrisy in piousness. They rule based on violence, they teach violence, they make violence the norm--and thus violent will likely be their ends. "Impaled on your own sword, eh, Gilderoy?", as it were. Sorry, been rereading Harry Potter. At any rate, I thought the show captured the spirit of the novel and I enjoyed getting to know more about the world and the other characters (I'm so, so glad Moira made it out). I was skeptical about season 2 when it was announced--didn't know how they'd do it--but I'm all in after this episode.

I don't know if this is where to put this, but one of my favorite nerdy book sites has a new Handmaid's Tale shirt available: https://www.outofprintclothing.com/collections/the-handmaids-tale/products/nolite-te-bastardes-carborundorum-womens-book-t-shirt (If you're not familiar with Out of Print, part of each purchase goes to fund literacy programs and book donations, and their shirts are very well-made--I own several.)

So, I've been coming to the forums on this site since TWOP shut down, and I never knew there were book and movie threads, which are way more up my alley than TV. Go team. I just scrolled quickly through this thread, and several of my favorites have been mentioned, but I'll talk about them anyway: Faulkner has become my all-time favorite author (outside of Tolkien, of course), but I never thought that would happen. I didn't read him until I took a Faulkner/Cather seminar in college, and I never thought I would've preferred him, but Absalom, Absalom sealed the deal. The way that story circles around itself and builds to the end...I'll never forget the experience of reading it, and I reread it ever few years. Margaret Atwood, and not just for the Handmaid's Tale--the MaddAddam trilogy is equally phenomenal (the second book especially). Every sentence Angela Carter writes is a jewel. I appreciated, but didn't enjoy, The Passion of New Eve, but The Bloody Chamber, The Magic Toyshop, and Nights at the Circus are must-reads. Mary Gaitskill always manages to carve out my insides. If you like Neil Gaiman (he's awesome), you should also read Kelly Link. She writes fantasy short stories, and both her collections are great. Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, now and always. Some others: Balzac, Dostoevsky, Bronte (Charlotte over Emily for me; haven't read Anne), Vonnegut, Alice Kaplan, Jasper Fforde, etc. Okay, I'll stop. Thanks for indulging me! There aren't enough readers in my life anymore. And I'm always looking for new authors, so I'm glad I found this thread!