Hollywood is, despite occasional claims to the contrary, risk-averse. This means going with tried-and-tested. And 99% of the time, this means white male directors. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. I don't really see this as something that can be debated with ambiguity.

The thing worth discussing, I think, is how exactly to achieve an actual equality of opportunity. I remember somebody (half-certain it was Geena Davis) saying that if you look at a crowd scene, it's only about 20% female. There's nothing stopping us from having it be 50/50 (and, sidenote, shouldn't this be easier to do, considering women generally get paid less than men anyway?). This is non-speaking, relatively passive work, and we can't even get that right. Pretty disheartening. So having fairer proportions of male/female directors isn't going to be easy to do.

I'm sure that this is a top-down (white males at the top make most of the decisions) and bottom-up (less women pursue directing, maybe?) problem, though.

About that last point. A question, for those of you who went to film school: roughly what was the female/male ratio?

For shits and giggles I did a polynomial regression to work out when the last three books would be due out. It seems that they should be along in the latter halves of 2018, 2027 and 2038. I know the sample size is only 5, and I extrapolated beyond the range of the available data, but it seems reasonable in context.
If I were to be really cheeky, I would add GRRM's weight, and the frequency with which he blogs about football and non-ASOIAF things, as explanatory variables, to better refine this prediction.

So I say this mostly (mostly) tongue-in-cheek: It is guaranteed that the tv show will pass the books by a huge margin. Once this happens the tv-exclusive people WILL spoil it for the book-exclusive people. My professional opinion is that to balance the playing field, while there is still this window of opportunity, the book-only people should spoil the next two seasons for the tv-only people who have already displayed poor spoiler etiquette.

This. So much this.

Electro-swing. Yes, please, and thank you.

Consider this the new Voight-Kampff test, because if this doesn't amuse you, you have no soul.

I'm happy knowing that even if I get absolutely nothing else out of moving to Canada, I have at least discovered this.

You had me at "Peter Falk".

Heh. Colon.

Come on, Teague, this ain't your first time, you know how this goes:

It's a solid start. And I really like your singing voice. I think the first step is just listen to it again and either reposition or remove the harmonies where it "steps on" your lead. That'll give it a bit more space, then listen again, work on the next thing.
And I have a huge hard-on for horn sections. The gains you get from adding horns is exponential.

Don't get too mired in whether it's good or bad now, just make progress. (You know, how St. Francis of Assisi said: to do the impossible, first do what is necessary. Then what is possible. Soon, you are doing the impossible).

Keep at it. Looking forward to the finished product.

What a timely bump. Been making my way through the back catalogue and listened to The Sting episode today (and yeah, totally agree, great movie).

Also agree with this:

I can probably count on one, maybe both hands the number of times I've heard other people even remember Dirty Rotten Scoundrels exists. What a shame it's been forgotten. Rewatched it last week and it still holds up!

I know I'm late to the party on this one, but: bobdamn, this episode was AMAZING. I'm a music-theory geek as well, but I never really used much theory when I play something. This episode has inspired me to pick up the guitar again and do something a little more conscious and clever. THANKS!

I agree with the problems of how the Hero's Journey is used (mistaking the symbol for what it symbolizes, etc), I was using it as a shorthand. But really, Heathers doesn't really go anywhere satisfying. Mean Girls does kind of the same thing, but when the film ends, it feels like an ending. But Heathers ends kind of... hollow? Unless the pointlessness is the point. The explosion lighting her cigarette is pretty badass though.

Augment it with a bit of monofilament and I don't see why not. Like, have the wire set up so that when the hand moves into the gripping motion, the tension brings the model to the front of the finger tips. Just a thought.

That's a good way to put it. I really don't think it's as po-faced as people make it out to be. It's really just a low-key Armageddon.

edit: Avengers 3: Loki Armageddon