Swift

I'm going to go ahead and stomp on some eggshells, because I've been biting my tongue on saying this all week... but why is it not ok for a white person to borrow elements from "black culture"? To paraphrase a comment I read on another site during the week, "you wouldn't dream of telling a young black girl that she can't pursue ballet or classical music or any other thing that's perceived as "white culture". Guarantee if Rihanna showed up next year in a tutu doing ballet moves, the popularity of that artform would spike, and yet I can't imagine white people making a fuss about it. Again, this seems to be a thing that's only really relevant in the US. Us vs. them. And yet, there are a million things that unite both blacks and whites and everyone else. What culture does playing video games belong too? Or playing sports? Or car enthusiasm? Or reading comic books, and so on. The idea that any one thing belongs to a group based on skin colour boggles my mind. And I have both "black culture" and "white culture" in quotation marks, because I don't really believe that there is such thing as a culture based on skin colour. I, as a white Irishman have no connection to the baseball cap wearing, souped up Civic driving douchebag across the road from me. I don't walk down the road and feel I have a special affinity with other white people. They're just random people. Nor do I suspect that a gangbanger in Compton has much in common with a lawyer in New York.

Jack Lemmon - The Legend of Bagger Vance

When I first saw that performance, in absolutely no way did 'race' enter my mind. I just thought it was awkward as hell and figured that's what the all the controversy was about. Now, granted while I had encountered the phrase "twerking" online, I had absolutely no idea what it referred to (assumed it was some youtube meme). The next day on the internet, it seemed as if it was mostly Americans (mostly black Americans?) jumped on it as a racial issue. I think outside of the US, the racial element is practically non-existant

We don't have a rugby thread so this will have to go here, but Carlin Isles is amazing...

God, I hope that's not just your way of saying he's brown.

I enjoyed this, thanks. I'm not a big fan of Gunn (overacting 101 in both this and Deadwood) but she has valid points and we still live in a society that loves a bit of misogyny. Betty White, though, really is a deplorable character. Then again, so is Don Draper.

Fuck you, Affleck!

Totally looks like a CAW.

Repackage him along with Darsow's son. Call them Axel and Smashel.

Got a last minute Top 50 done and sent today. Four Kevin Costner films in the top 25 may be a record.

The sleeves of their jumpers aren't good enough these days? Hoity toity 4 year olds.

The Skin I Live In is stunning. Both visually, and thematically. It's the kind of movie that you need to see knowing as little as possible. All I can say is that it involves a surgeon who has a mysterious, beautiful woman locked up in a room in his mansion. It's been a long time since I've watched something this... original and bizarre.

Anna Gunn wrote a piece in the New York Times yesterday about the ridiculous hate Skyler gets - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?src=me&ref=general

Fuck me for not checking this thread every day. If I was on the ball, I could have interjected all the Hobo Army talk with Hornswoggle, the littlest hobo.

For the record, I just included FSW for old times sake. I love the guy. Only guy worth listening to. In fact, this is what DVDVR looks like to me...

Have your say, DVDVR!

If we're talking someone with a gravelly voice... and someone who has familiarity with racoons... why not go with this guy?

Jeez, in all my laughing and gloating at Ligerbusa last week, I didn't even realize I was in 2nd place. And now I'm not.

The above cartoon is awesome. The internet as a whole seems to have hated Affleck when he was hanging with Lopez, then he became a director, and everyone came around on him, but then this move seems to have torpedoed all the good will he built up. I have no dog in this fight. Though Affleck seems like an unusual choice to me, the film would've been a wait till DVD for me anyway. I'm having fun laughing at the net reactions though.

Jesus, 12 year old Christian Bale in Empire of The Sun is better than anything Affleck has ever done. And I'm not even being hyperbolic.

Netflix Canada just released their version of Instant Queue. It's called My List and allows you to, well, create a watchlist. Apparently it may not be rolled out fully yet, but I have it available on my PS3.

The mention of character actors always seems to come with the image of grizzled middle aged men, never any women. Let's rectify that. I'll throw a few favourites out... Kathy Bates. Frances McDormand. Patrica Clarkson. And most of all Beth Grant

I think I can see that guy's joystick.

I fucking hate the trend lately of dudes on the internet irrationally hating on flawed female characters on TV shows, yet giving the flawed men a pass. Your man up there writes a fricking diatribe about how Skylar cheating on Walt makes her a cunt, but then mentions in passing that Walt letting the girlfriend die is only a bit fucked up. I mean, at that stage in the show, how many people has Walt killed, both directly and indirectly? And yet no one ever goes off on hate filled Walt rants. Same thing happened with Betty Draper when Don has done much worse things, and presumably the same happened in The Shield and probably other shows too.