SeanC

Sam has a Steve Martin-ish appearance.

I feel that Iroquois should have been accepted as an answer. The Mohawk are one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, so their land is Iroquois land.

She was actually the bronze medalist at Rostelecom two years ago.

RIP Stephen Sondheim. Inadvertently this will end up as a cinematic memorial. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/theater/stephen-sondheim-dead.html

For a non-reader it's "ooh, a mysterious new villain who we'll learn more about next week".

No. Those are both very obviously plot setups. Because Ronin killed a bunch of underworld people. Already explained. There’s obvious questions to ask about why they might have wanted to burn down her apartment.

Comics readers are such a tiny percentage of the audience, what they think isn't really that important (and I say that as one of them).

Because she’s not intended to be a version of Mary Jane Watson; she’s a completely different personality whose initials are an in-joke.

The spice is necessary because humans outlawed the use of advanced computers after the Butlerian Jihad. Previous to that it was possible to navigate folding space that way. Because it can't be. It's an ultra-rare resource, there are plenty of useful things in our world that we can't synthesize. It doesn't work on groups, and on an ongoing basis they need the Fremen's cooperation. There were three guards, and he's a high-ranking member of the household. No, those are heighliners, the ships. It's not really prophesy, it's visions of possible futures. But as to the comparison, a lot of BSG fans disliked what was introduced to them as a sci-fi show increasingly leaning hard on unexplained mysticism. That's not like Dune at all.

The needs of the many, and all that; he's literally keeping people out of slums. The world has always depended on civic-minded people putting the common good first. Also, for the most part George was already reasonably happy with his life -- he had a great family and lots of friends, and when we see him, e.g., giving the family their new house, he's enjoying himself. He gets periodic reminders of things he'd once wanted to do and feels disappointed, which is natural, but it's only when the whole edifice seems to be crashing down that he starts spiralling.

All you need to know is that they exist. The story doesn't suffer for the lack of more detail. Now, I always enjoy worldbuilding details of that sort, but in the main story here it's immaterial what the other houses' names are, etc.

Because the Atreides were likeable; Baron Harkonnen isn't popular with anybody. The perceived threat from the Atreides was, as Duke Leto noted, that the other houses of the Imperium looked to them for leadership. Why do you need to know? None of them are relevant to the story. As an aside, Warhammer is actually heavily inspired by Dune. When in Rome, do as the Romans do -- they're among the Fremen, they have to abide by their cultural norms if they want to get anything done.

As Stilgar says, Jessica is a weirding woman (Sayyadina, in Fremen terminology). A person isn’t allowed to challenge them directly as a result of that status.

In her past few events Loena Hendrickx has made a habit of fumbling a jump in the short program and then having a strong free skate that takes her right up to the edge the podium, but not on it. Now at Gran Premio d'Italia she had her first clean short in a while and is even leading that segment; hopefully she can keep it going for a medal tomorrow (given that she only has six triples, anything above bronze is probably a longshot).

If you mean on the Olympic team, no they weren't, Christina doesn't have citizenship.

If the first part wasn’t a success, the second part wouldn’t be either. Filming it all at once would have cost twice as much money.

I liked it on the whole, but it's Wright's most flawed movie. It's most successful in the early going as an Eloise character piece with stylish dream sequences; the horror elements that become increasingly prominent in the second half aren't nearly as compelling, and end up being kind of incoherent once you start thinking about them. I don't think the ending quite manages the pathos it's aiming for with Sandie's character. McKenzie is great in the lead part. ATJ isn't really given a lot to do other than look absolutely stunning and audition for future musical roles, but she does both of those things very well.

Yes, precisely (especially since Villeneuve's previous sci-fi film didn't do well despite being really good).

The conflict over neatness I really didn't buy, just because Mary Anne doesn't remotely seem like somebody who would be messy to the point of it bothering Dawn.

I watched Ridley Scott's 1977 film debut, The Duellists, the day before seeing this, so that was an obvious thematic companion. I didn't much like The Duellists, but The Last Duel turns out to be Ridley Scott's best film since at least Matchstick Men, and possibly since Thelma & Louise. Also the first screenplay collaboration between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon since Good Will Hunting (joined by Nicole Holofcener) -- all three of whom seemed like very unconventional choices for this material, but the result speaks well of stretching outside one's comfort zone. It was originally intended to have Affleck star opposite Damon in the role eventually given to Adam Driver; and while I understand the idea of playing with their onscreen personas in that manner (and think it would be worth revisiting in a future project), I'm glad that it didn't happen now, as for this particular film I think it would have been a distraction. Kurosawa's Rashomon will be the default reference for cinephiles, but the way that Scott and his screenwriters choose to approach it differs somewhat from that: there are relatively few scenes that fully overlap, often instead emphasizing different moments in the same interaction; and for much of the film's considerable running time I wasn't entirely sure if the actual events were meaningfully distinct in characterization or events, but this becomes very much the case by the time you get to Marguerite's concluding segment. The tripartite approach also yields some unexpected characterization choices; Le Gris, for instance, comes across much worse in his own segment than he does in Jean de Carrouges'. The film also ends with a clear preference for one of the accounts over the other two. I really wasn't sure what to expect from Affleck in his supporting role, as in the trailers he seemed possibly out of place, but he honestly ends up stealing every scene he's in. Jodie Comer obviously carries the drama. Since drama, and especially historical drama, isn't really a thing in theatres anymore, this was destined to be a financial disappointment, but go see it if you're interested in the genre, because it's damn good.

This is based on a musical stage production created by Peter Dinklage's wife Erica Schmidt, with music by The National. It's cool that Dinklage and his wife were able to bring their project to the screen. It certainly looks like Wright is bringing his usual visual flair to the proceedings as well.

Overall, I really liked this, probably the second-best film of the Craig era. The main villain's ultimate plot is definitely a bit hazy in terms of motive and goals (ironically, as some have noted, this is the rare case where a Bond villain doesn't try to provide a detailed explanation for what he intends to do), but the emotional stakes of the movie absolutely land for me, and that goes a very long way toward selling it. This reminds me in a lot of ways of The Dark Knight Rises:

How could you possibly assess whether he "has it" based on a mostly dialogue-less trailer? I find it very unlikely that Anderson would cast someone who couldn't act as the lead in his movie, sentiment or no. As far as the trailer goes, it's very heavily skewing toward conveying a vibe rather than story or characters, so it's hard for me to say much about it. But given the director, I'll being seeing it regardless.

Women's qualifiers: USA #3 Poland (RUS #4) Belarus (RUS #5) Switzerland (USA #4) Ukraine (RUS #6) Australia The Italian skater, Lara Naki Gutmann, is sitting in the unofficial seventh qualification spot for when Sweden returns the berth that its skater qualified at Worlds (and effectively qualified again by finishing in the top six here). Ice dance qualifiers: Finland Armenia (CAN #4) Georgia (RUS #4) Czech Republic The Finnish ice dance woman, Juulia Turkkila, was previously a singles skater who placed fourteenth as Finland's entry at the 2013 Nebelhorn Olympic qualifier -- so things have worked out way better for her the second time around, and that's after getting a neck injury mid-quadrennial.