There's A Movie From The 60s About This Called The Agony And The Ecstacy Where The Terrible Pope Is Played

Reblog if, no matter the size of the role, you would agree to work with the Muppets if offered the chance to do so, no questions asked

Okay so I'm just going to put this out there: y'all really need to learn what a President can and cannot do.

A President is NOT a dictator. They cannot do just whatever they want, whenever they want. This is a good thing.

A President can only codify a law IF IT IS PASSED BY CONGRESS FIRST.

Biden literally cannot do anything other than urge people do the right thing until a resolution passes Congress.

Since partway through Clinton's term Congress has been doing less and less every year because of shitty political maneuvering.

Please get mad at the right people. Yell at your Congress person. Vote in midterms to solidify a Democratic house and help turn the Senate (don't at me about the Senate right now--two "Democratic" senators are really Republicans and we all know it).

Don't even try to tell me voting doesn't work. How do you think we got a 6-3 majority in the SC? Because Republicans have been systematically showing up to every local and state election for over 30 years and now they have majority control of 26 states. They have control in the majority of state judicial branches. They showed up to the boring, uncool elections. They control city councils. They control state governments. And Democrats/third party could, too...if people show up to vote. But voting numbers don't lie. And we don't.

Get involved in grassroot organizations to increase voting registration and access. Stacy Abrams helped GA vote blue in the last Presidential election because she and her organizers got people to the polls. AL a while back got a Democratic senator for 2 years because we got people to vote. Republican politicians openly discuss the fact they only have the support of 30% of the country. But only that 30% consistently turns out to the polls. They have also openly said that they spread the word voting doesn't work so they can keep winning. When you say voting doesn't work you are spreading Republican propaganda.

Okay, it’s like this:

RT gives their percentage based on a simple yes or no -- good or not. But the “average rating” is based on averaging critics’ ratings of the film, which are a little more nuanced than “good” vs. “rotten”. Generally speaking, if a critic is rating on a 4-star scale, 3 is considered good, 2 is considered bad, and 2 1/2 is meh. 2 1/2 usually but not always ends up as a negative review on there. So a theoretical film that got 2 1/2 stars across the board verses one that got 1 star across the board are going to get the same RT score of 0%. But the 2 1/2 star one will have an average rating of 6.3/10 (2.5*2.5 rounded up) and the 1 star film will get an average rating of 2.5/10.

So, The Room got some “positive” reviews which give it 2 1/2 stars or 3 as an accidental camp classic ala Plan 9 From Outer Space, but anyone who reviewed it seriously gave it 1 star or 0 stars or something in that area.

Whereas Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice apparently has some undeniably strong elements (Affleck’s performance, many of the visuals, some of the action beats, some interesting themes buried in the rubble), so its negative reviews are almost all 2 or 2 1/2 star reviews. It’s too good to go to a bottom-of-the-barrel rating. So the same number of critics gave it a good review, but its average score is a lot higher than The Room, because its positive qualities drive up the ratings.

Congrats to Tommy Wiseau, who Warner Bros. has hired to direct Justice League. 

I should probably point out that I’m someone who likes the TV show, even if I think the books are largely superior, so we obviously don’t entirely agree on a lot of these points. (I do love your metas, Gotgifsandmusings, regardless of my enjoyment of the show; they’re consistently insightful and witty.)

As far as the Emmys go, a lot of it has to do with the nature of awards shows. Deserving winners get missed all the time because there’s competition that can’t be ignored. This is how you end up with awards that feel like “lifetime achievement awards” or whatnot.

So Game of Thrones Season 4, which (whatever its adaptational or sexism issues) really was spectacular television, lost all its awards to the final season of Breaking Bad, except for directing, which it lost to True Detective. Same thing for GOT Season 3, which, again, was terrific television. But it lost all of its nominations to other shows (including, again, Breaking Bad).

The thing is, no matter how great Game of Thrones was those years (and, again, as TV, it’s pretty great, and I think it improves on the books in a few areas, albeit definitely not in all areas), it was never going to beat Breaking Bad. There was just no possible way to ignore it.

And so when Season 5 rolled around, for all its flaws, it still tends to be entertaining and technically superb television when it wasn’t in Dorne or Winterfell (both plotlines were heavily criticized even among those who still love the show, and at least in the latter case, it’s certainly exceptionally well-made in a technical sense). And this time, there wasn’t a strong frontrunner to beat it (its competition is strong, but it’s not terribly obvious what the best choice there actually is), so it got all the awards it’s been nominated for all these years but never managed to actually win, even if it was the weakest season.

That’s just how these things work. Sometimes something wins that really deserves it -- Robert Donat won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1939 for Goodbye Mr. Chips. But he beat someone else who also really deserved it - Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. So the next year, Stewart won Actor for The Philadelphia Story, and while he’s great in that, should he really have beaten Chaplin, Fonda, and Olivier?

So this year, Game of Thrones took a couple of massive misteps, and badly exposed all its underlying flaws in really ugly ways. It’s also, often, compelling, complex, fun, and dazzling. So even if it isn’t those things to any consistent degree, it still represents enough of what’s loved about the show that it’s able to pull off a sweep when it’s not up against anything that can’t be beat.

And Winterhell helped win the show an Emmy... What a great message to send to viewers and creators... "If you want to make good TV and win what is considered the most prestigious television award, rape someone! Have shocking things that make no sense happen! Cynicism and everything sucks! DARKNESS! Oh and viewers who don't like this stuff and are triggered by it? FUCK THEM AM I RIGHT?" Ugh...

Is Winterhell what helped them win their Emmys? I mean it was just so, so, so bad.

I’m pretty sure everyone and their mothers got distracted by HARDHOME, the BEST HOUR OF TELEVISION (if we turn our brains off and don’t bother thinking about context or like…why are arrows stopping wights, or anything).

But like…I have to hope that’s what one them the votes. Because I think it is actually physically impossible to enjoy Winterhell. Then again, the finale won “best writing,” and the first 20 minutes centered on Satannis’s farcical defeat.

@itsalwayslydia said to gotgifsandmusings:Hey, so I just finished reading your post on Winterhell, which was so good it made me angry. (Not at you but at what’s happened to these characters for the purpose of TV ratings.) Anyways, I was wondering if you’d seen the Huffington post article where it’s pointed out that Theon is wearing Robb Stark’s outfit from the Red Wedding? Sophie Turner confirmed that was true on her Comic Con panel: “Just to make that a little more brutal.” Seven hells.

I had seen that, yeah. And like…that’s you know. Nifty that they wanted to use costuming to “make it more brutal.” But it also makes no fucking sense? Like, why in Seven Hells is he wearing Robb’s outfit? He’s not disguising himself as a Stark. Why isn’t that outfit full of arrow-holes? How did they even get that outfit? Was it when Sansa had passed out from the Xanax Batfinger gave her so she failed to notice them passing through the Twins?

But like, at least it wasn’t as horribly out of place as the sith lord and the dude with the conquistador helmet:

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings:What’s the proper way to compliment your Winterhell Retrospective? I enjoyed it? It made me angry about that whole plot line all over again? Anyway, it did make me angry again, but I also enjoyed it. I still fail to understand how professional writers of TV could put together such a stupid arc, they have huge books to help them!! Why do they think they are better at telling this story than GRRM? Why did they retcon the Others? Why can’t we call them the Others, instead of the white walkers? ???

Well one quick correction: they don’t think they are better at telling “this story,” because they have no interest in telling the same story. They think they are better storytellers.

That aside…

So, when you achieve victory over Straight Island, are you going to let us rebuild, or is this a “No prisoners!” kill us all situation? Because I’m totally down with aiding the revolution from the inside, but if I’m going to have to convert afterwards, I should probably start planning.

Being gay is natural? Okay.

You have three islands. Divide them into groups of one. The straight island, the gay island, and the lesbian island. The straight island is going to reproduce and keep going strong for millions of generations to come. The gay and lesbian islands will both wipe out in not even one century. This isn’t just about religion or morals, it’s just simple common sense. Being gay is unnatural, and not just because God said so, but because you yourself wouldn’t even be born without a REAL natural man and woman. And no, there is no such thing as a lesbian bone marrow “thing” to have children. That’s a biased fact that came from a lesbian scientist who has false opinions. If it’s not a real penis or vagina, then it’s fucking false and you’re just opinionated by dumb facts. I’m done here. Read over what I said and if you still think that being gay is normal and natural, then I hope you achieve some common sense one day. Bye

Howard the Duck

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Giveaway Contest: We recently reached 50,000 followers, and as a way of thanking you, we’re giving away FIFTY (50!) vintage paperback classics by Albert Camus, John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, Toni Morrison, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Jane Austen, and so many others! Won’t these look lovely on your shelf? :D To win these classics, you must: 1) be following macrolit on Tumblr (yes, we will check. :P), and 2) reblog this post. We will choose a random winner on January 20, at which time we’ll start a new giveaway. And yes, we’ll ship to any country. Easy, right? Good luck!

Neurotypicals will be like “I know you have a disability that affects your ability to stay organized, manage your time properly, socialize, or control what you’re able to think about or focus on, but that’s not an excuse to have trouble staying organized, managing your time properly, socializing, or controlling what you need to think about or focus on.” And then demand that they aren’t ableist. I’m tired.