grudlian.

Yeah. If there wasn't already a lot of negative sentiment toward him, I don't think it would have been such a big deal. Weird but kind of shrugged off.

I haven't watched Tom Cruise on the couch since it happened but even then I didn't get the big deal. I don't care if he jumped on the couch. The guy was in love (unles the argument is his marriage was a sham contract with scientology to cover up his latent homosexuality or whatever conspiracy people have about Tom Cruise now) and so many of us want to be swept up in big, romantic gestures. Well, what's the problem with this then?

Memento meets Blue Valentine! We watched: The Last Five Years! (Pretend I uploaded a poster because my phone is being stupid)

I need to watch it again sometime. I was expecting a strong narrative throughout instead of what it was. It kind of caught me off guard.

I don't really know much of anything about African cinema but Ousmane Sembene is from Senegal. Djibril Diop Mambéty is also Senegalese. He directed Touki Bouki which I thought was okay.

Kind of a mainstream recommendation because it's kind of recognized as the first American film directed by a black man (but I think the reality is it's the only one the survived) is Within Our Gates by Oscar Micheaux. I don't think it's in the Netflix collection. An excellent movie I saw last year was Black Girl by Ousmane Sembene. I haven't seen anything else by him but his reputation is pretty great.

Would you describe the accents as accurate or extremely accurate?

Were they trying to see which pizza was most authentic Neapolitan Margherita pizza? Or just the best tasting pizza? I genuinely don't remember. There is a genuine association for judging if a pizza is authentic enough and I assume the judges here aren't members.

The families choosing to make a Neopolitan style pizza their own way sounds kind of accurate to me. Not accurate to the pizza, but accurate to the way these families seem to exist. I guarantee these families just assume the "traditional" way is whatever their mother or grandmother taught them. Families put personal spins on recipes all the time for any number of reasons but that doesn't make it the proper, legally classified way of doing it. They are just a bunch of too proud to ever admit they are wrong jerks who, even if you showed them the proper Margherita pizza, they'd say, "Ayyyyyy, you calling my nonna a liar?!?!?!?!" These families are running a by the slice pizza place. They probably aren't using 00 flour. They probably aren't using fresh buffalo mozzarella. Their toppings are probably all North American favorites instead of traditional Italian. There's nothing traditional about anything they do.

I loved The Experts. It was on Comedy Central a lot in the mid 90s. I haven't seen it since then but I think I'd have trouble finding flaws in a very obviously flawed movie.

I saw Hotel For Dogs, Nerve and Scream 4. She was fine in those or at least was acting at the level of the material. I'd be curious if she could be good in something with a decent script. I certainly don't think many people could make this dialogue sound good or believable. Even Danny Aiello is bad in this. He's a good actor and he's played a Sal's Pizza owner before in Do The Right Thing. The only person who isn't terrible in this is Alyssa Milano but she's also an Italian woman from New York. I don't know anything about her personal life but her performance feels like "oh, this is just my aunt and I've been doing impressions of her my whole life to get laughs at family gatherings."

Immediately after watching Little Italy, I watched the Oscar nominated doc Black Sheep. It's free on vimeo and amazing and you should watch it. It's about a black man telling his struggle to fit in with white racists by pretending to be as white as possible, picking up their accent, etc. to have any friends. It made me think of Luigi in this movie who is clearly a person of color adopting the stereotypical persona of white locals to feel any kind of acceptance. While I recognize this is an everyday think for people of color, but the synergy of seeing these two movies back to back actually made me appreciate Luigi as a character (not how over the top flamboyant he is of course).

Since the peel is wooden, he might be able to put his hand under it briefly. But I'd probably just use a metal one for a 700 degree oven that small. Like June recognized lack of soccer skills, I recognize these guys are not good at making pizza dough. I worked at a pizza place in high school and college. I could, right now, toss dough better than anyone in this movie and that was 20 years ago. I know there are different ways to stretch dough and you don't need to spin it in the air but that's definitely what they were trying to show.

Did anyone else notice this dialogue in the opening voice over: Hayden Christensen: They call my dad the don on dough. Emma Roberts: The don? That is stuck a stereotype! Is that where they drew the line on stereotypes?

How many outfits did Emma Roberts pack for what was supposed to be a week long trip? I know Jason brought up her changing clothes from the pizza challenge to the airport but I think she changed clothes every single scene. Especially since gett only suitcase she puts in the taxi was carry on size.

That all makes sense. I think my issue was whether or not she was doing this intentionally/knowingly. But I guess it doesn't really matter since you don't really need to be aware you're harming people to harm them.

Yeah. I hadn't seen this since my early 20s (which is kind of an indicator I don't still need my DVD lol). I remembered her as mean but her reputation as one of cinema's cruelest monsters is kind of undeserved for the first 1:50 minutes. But her actions in the end could be considered villainous if we knew her motives. Is telling Billy she'll call his mother just a way to control him? Or is it a way to get him to consider his actions? Is she keeping McMurphy in the institution to get back at him? I think the movie wants us to think her actions are malicious. So, I lean that way but I like that the movie gives her some depth that it's up for debate.

How long would it take a person to style their hair like Nurse Ratched every day? Seems like I'd want a much simpler hairstyle if I were working in an institution with people who were potentially violent (wasn't Christopher Lloyd suggested to be violent?) I think the question of Nurse Ratched being evil comes down to the question of whether or not you think she believes McMurphy is faking it. I don't see her behavior before the end to be evil. She may be misguided. Her positions are outdated for treating people. But not villainous. Sending off a person for a lobotomy is if you don't think they have a serious problem.

Since this movie hasn't brought a lot of discussion, I'd like to talk about something the episode does bring up: women directors. Who are some of your favorites? What are some of your favorite films directed by women? A few directors I like right now are Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women, Meek's Cutoff, Wendy And Lucy), Sarah Polley (Stories We Tell, Take This Waltz), Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly Hills, Private Life), Ava Duvernay (13th, Selma), Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, You Were Never Really Here, Movern Callar).

I think the are probably ways to do it. Like have the Schmuel story be well told or whatever. Or maybe show him struggle to write the perfect phrase. But that takes being a great writer (not to slam the author of this) to convey that.

I wonder how much of this is that it's sometimes harder to show someone be a great writer and you just have to tell us. I can kind of forgive the Shmuel story because he's just retelling another story spur of the moment to his fiance. I'm sure good authors can't always make up parables relevant to their lives on the spot. As for the letter, I'd say that was probably just a prop master being cute by putting the break up lyrics as the letter. But we could say a good writer doesn't necessarily mean they are good at writing break up letters which are two different types of writing. Oh man, I noticed this and thought it was too similar to be a coincidence. Then I forgot to look it up.

Just remember: this was based on the author's life.

Yeah. Didn't he have her number to text her?

I think the movie, and maybe the author, wants us to sympathize with them both. But I don't think he makes any justification for his actions. So, I certainly put all the blame on him. If this is his version of a sympathetic take on himself, wow, he must have been a monster.

Since the story is based on the author's own life, I'm curious if he actually did cheat on her. Even though he's a jerk, I'd have to respect him for not sugar coating it in the play. I'd think it would be too tempting for most people to not make themselves look better in the fictional versions of themselves.