It sort of reminds a bit of people asking questions about stuff like the replicator from Star Trek, or other kind of technology. Just because the technology exists, doesn't mean it's cost effective or can easily be mass produced. Stuff used in the games can easily be compared to stuff used in the military or in space exploration, etc. It may be very expensive, but they don't need a lot, AND it's use sort of pays for itself in terms of reduction in spending on the peacekeeping/policing that the games are supposed to provide, not to mention there seems to be some kind of economy, at least in the Capital, and the games, like Olympic games, are likely a loss leader that benefits various things in the Capital.
Is there a reason that in the current world, high tech farming equipment isn't sent to third world countries? Of course, you do run into the limiting factor that machines doing your work means oil and gas, it's quite possible that there are some resource problems in PanEm. The fact that District 12 is a coal mining district does imply that they are still heavily reliant on that.
Part of the oppression concept is likely that, if everyone was reasonably well off, very few people would choose to do jobs like mining, which are likely quite important for their economy.
It may be a bit of a blunt analogy, but it sort of reflects the whole class system of needing to keep people on the bottom in order for a few to stay comfortable at the top. The 'problem' of the society is the only upward mobility is through the games. So they can show off exceptionalism on TV, while having nearly everyone else stuck in the exact same spot they were born into.
Walt's plans early on worked out well, the hitches were unintended consequences he didn't see coming. So, it's not surprising that once he stopped being super emotional and went back to cold and calculating that he was able to pull a lot of stuff off in the short term. When it came to killing people, nearly everyone that Walt wanted dead, he was able to get rid of one way or the other. The money plan is the one that has the biggest chance of getting screwed up, and "fear of invisible assassins" isn't necessarily a long term solution, so he has to hope they'll not look into it too hard, or just do it even without the fear of death. And, he also doesn't know if his son will be willing to take the money, especially as he may suspect it's from Walt, or he may not want to accept money from the people that basically were part of the ego bruising that motivated Walt, etc.
So I see it as 'early in the series' Walt enacting a couple of his plans without emotion clouding things, and not having to worry about long term repercussions.
At his best, Michael Bay can make something like The Rock, or Pain and Gain, but compared to his overall output, it seems like the combination of the right script, right actors, etc. Film making is a colaboration, so with the right people working with him, he can make a fun movie. Not necessarily great, but something worth spending some time to watch.
BTW, his new movie works in many way because it's a ludicrous story. He was not the right guy to make Pearl Harbor (especially with the decision to make Pearl Harbor try to 'be' Titanic). A melodramatic love story as part of the epic story of a serious historical event? No. But a bunch of meat heads who try to be criminals and repeatedly fail (or hilariously succeed) is increasingly ridiculous ways, partially because they believe that stupid movies are how the real world works ... it was the movie Michael Bay was born to play. It's why Airplane was great, the best people to get for parody are people that have played it straight.
TV Executives are geniuses ... they are always preserving the magic by cutting shows off in, or before, their prime so they have no chance of continuing and possibly getting worse. Cause the only thing worse than bad television, is great television that follows directly from greater television.
Jesus was good cop. Technically, since bad cop old school (testament) O.G. is technically also Jesus by the whole Trinity thing, he did 'say' the stuff in the old books (and by 'say' they mean someone wrote that was apparently divinely inspired) but that seems to be taking advantage of loopholes at that point.
I can only assume it is some kind of weird audition tape. Like "I can take whatever crap you give me and perform it in any musical style". Like the youtube equivalent of headshots where you show you can wear a lab coat and hold a test tube and thus play a scientist, or you can have a cowboy hat and a lasso and be a cattle rustler, etc.
Considering even the actor himself forgot which one he was, the joke would be more than the two similar actors with similar names are hard to tell apart, even more so if you aren't a big fan (which would probably have more to do with them being men than being black I would think). Sort of a new version of the old Bill Pullman/Bill Paxton gag of being cast in similar roles, having similar names, and looking kind of similar, and both sort of being popular enough to recognize by not necessarily enough to get above the "that guy from that movie" level of recognition.
Having read the article I think I get the premise of her art thing.
Las Vegas, marriage and the idea of true love are all sort of fantasies, in the same way as Edward Cullen is a fantasy. It's sort of "the idea of marrying the perfect man is as crazy as the idea of getting rich in Vegas, or marrying a vampire". In this case the cardboard standee is a ... stand in ... for any kind of perfect man/true love/soul mate idea.
In my one New York trip, we stayed in Jersey, and did touristy stuff in town. The jump in prices at McDonald's between Jersey, NYC and Time Square was a steep curve, and made it quite clear that location is a license to gouge.
It's not about patronizing. It's about the "it's ok to disrespect THIS particular president to his face" meme. Sure, people thought that Bush was a moron, and there were tons of jokes to that effect. But no one was screaming "you lie" during his State of the Union. You didn't have Govenors shoving fingers in his face on the runway. You didn't have an interviewer constantly talking over him and cutting him off.
I mean the closest you could get with Dubya would be Colbert doing the correspondent's dinner thing, but that is always a pseudo roast, it just happened to have a bit more bite than usual. That's very different from a situation that is supposed to be serious where people basically just treat the president as if he's not someone that deserves their respect because they didn't vote for him. Throw in a nice dollop of people accusing him of not being the legitimate president that are actually in elected positions, or taken seriously by those who are, and it does come off as worse than just normal snarkiness and mockery of public officials, etc.
As a pseudo-strawman, I'm perfectly fine with people finding problems with things that are overall good, or 'better than average'. It's the other strawmen that will criticize a show for "not being as good as it used to be" and arguing that it should just go away, because even if it's good, it's no longer great, and somehow it would be better for a new show that may not even be as good as the current show, let alone as great as the 'previous seasons' of the show, to take it's place. See also: Do we really need an Arrested Development movie?
As crappy as the Star Wars prequels and/or Crystal Skull movies are, no one was 'forced' to see them (although, not knowing they would be bad, at least in the case of Phantom Menace and maybe Crystal Skull, they might have felt they were tricked into seeing them) and you can always go back to enjoying "just the good parts". Unlike the weird special edition stuff that Lucas keeps doing, 'more' should not ruin the good or great stuff that came before. At worst, it's extras you don't want to acknowledge or watch. Anything better than that is at least 'more good' to add to the total, even if it's only a small ammount.
Ultimately, I can't understand the attitude of "they need to kill this thing off because each new thing they put out is a pale reflection of past greatness, but because of my nostalgia I will mindlessly watch this thing that I now hate, so the only way to stop this cycle is for them to stop making it, since I can't stop watching it". I can understand hate watching a show, the MSTiefication of the internet has made it hard to know whether you love to hate or hate to love those horrible reality TV shows and sitcoms that you still DVR every episode of. But if you feel a show should be cancelled, not watching it would seem to be a much easier solution, as there is easily enough tv out there to never have to watch something you don't want to see. Being unable to watch the thing you do want to see on the other hand, is not as trivially easy. When the shows we love are so often cancelled before their time, the ones that outlive their greatness and get to grow old and settle into a comfortable mediocrity are a relief. Euthanizing those few that live into old age isn't going to make the younger ones live longer or show up in greater numbers. And it does sort of reak of hipster "I liked it before it was cool to like it" elitism.
Generally speaking, someone who is willing to go to any lengths to achieve their ends justifies it by assuming that everyone else is doing the same thing. The reason that, for example, voter suppression laws are justified by the voter fraud thing is a combination of cynical strategy (supress the groups that vote mostly for the other guys, and the margin change could be enough to win) but also the paranoia of a guilty mind (we'd do voter fraud if we were them).
The expression goes: No man looks under a bed that has not hidden there himself. It also sort of materializes itself in the many "I'm rubber and you're glue" attack ads where they basically assign their biggest flaw to their opponent in an attempt to make it so that when people point out the obvious, less informed viewers will just see it as "they are all the same" instead of "one is actually this way, but the other is only being accused falsely because the other one is insecure about it ..."
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