Inquisitionist

The Godfather is told linearly from the time of Connie's wedding shortly after then end of World War II until Michael moves the family to Nevada in the 1950s. Godfather II picks up a few years later, but intersperses the "current story" about Michael Corleone with flashbacks to how Vito Andolini from Corleone became the Godfather.

I'm not exactly sure what you're questioning here. Carlo's abuse of Connie was a ploy to draw Sonny into a venue where one of the other families could kill him -- which eventually did happen. Michael figured this out and confronted Carlo about it at the end of The Godfather, then had Carlo killed. Are you questioning how Carlo could have thought the family would not eventually uncover his role in Sonny's death? It was the same gamble that Tessio took.

Who's the young actor struggling with "Would that it were so simple" in the latest trailer?

There are aspects of Impromptu that I find absolutely delightful, but each time I catch it, I'm reminded that there's a lot of dreck in it as well. Emma Thompson is one of the delights. And I can't count the number of times my SIL or I has said "Stupid, stupid rain." :-)

A cute Facebook update from co-creater Phil Rosenthal, with a shout-out to his wife, Monica Horan (Amy).

Because Mad Men was great and the vast majority of TV shows are crap. :-) LOL, thanks, I loved this. :-)

The NY Times used a photo of Laura Petrie with its article about whether America's "best days" are behind it.

The NY Times used a photo of MTM as Laura Petrie with its article about whether America's "best days" are behind it.

As far as I could tell, Mad Men never resorted to these contrivances. Then again, to mention MM and TGW in the same breath almost makes me choke.

Given what I've read about the chronology of his health issues, there was simply no way he could attend the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony on Dec. 6.

I was kind of glad he wasn't. What a freakin' circus that was. I Ffwd'd through most of my recording and still had to give up half way through. Blech.

Historically, the Kennedy Center has honored only living recipients. It would be unusual for them to inject a "memoriam" aspect to its honor of the Eagles next year. For example, the only special acknowledgement of John Bonham in the Led Zeppelin tribute a few years ago was his son's appearance in the band backing Ann and Nancy Wilson on Stairway to Heaven, with the band members and chorus all wearing bowler hats.

Timothy Olyphant has won a Critics Choice Award for his guest-starring role on The Grinder.

Kudos to Andre for his Critics Choice Award. Now how about recognizing other members of this great cast? No one else was even nominated.

The Critics showered Fargo with love last night, awarding Jean Smart, Jesse Plemons, and Kirsten Dunst, as well as the series itself.

Did he even look at the camera while it was on him? Great job, Aziz! Does "straight-to-series" (re that Mike Schur series Kip Hackman noted) mean that there's no pilot, they go straight to filming 13 episodes?

Both result from lack of thought and illustrate how powerful a tool the Internet is for spreading disinformation. Thanks, Bookwoman56, for posting the link to Peter Kyle's tribute to Alan Rickman. It's always comforting to learn that a person you admired professionally or artistically was also a decent human being, and the person valued that above his/her other accomplishments.

Yes, and yes. As I noted in the episode thread for last week,

The movie made it seem that way. From the book, I felt it was more what Tony and Brooklyn represented for her that won out.

I've ranted above about how wrong Leslie Howard was for the role of Ashley, who should indeed have been in his 20s at the start of the film (in the book, he'd been back for two years from a 3-year grand tour of Europe, and I think he had been to university as well). Mitchell described Scarlett's infatuation with him this way in Chapter 2 of the book: And so on... I've always pictured Ashley as resembling Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride, even before I knew who Cary Elwes was.

Kyle Gallner ("Beaver"/Cassidy) is in a film called Band of Robbers that will be showing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago over the next few days. Photo, trailer, and film description here. It actually sounds intriguing.

Saw Damian Lewis promote this on Colbert's show and was not impressed by whatever accent he was supposed to be doing in the clip that was shown. It didn't sound like any strain of American I'm familiar with, which is odd given how well Lewis has done portraying Americans in the past. But I heard a good review on NPR this morning, so I'll give it a shot.

Richard Brody wrote in The New Yorker today: I didn't really have much interest in seeing this movie, but now I kind of want to even though I was never that impressed by Tessa Thompson on VM. Michael B. Jordan is always excellent.

Samuel L. Jackson has one Academy Award nomination and zero wins -- now there's a travesty!

Good on them for respecting what I can only assume was Rickman's wish for privacy. Mr. Inqui and I had talked about re-watching Die Hard as a Christmas movie this year, but didn't get around to it. I think we'll be firing up the DVD player this weekend.