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Closing them on my desktop so you can open them on yours. Here we go:

Trading on Charlie Brown’s good name: What a cheap ripoff. I Am So Very Tired:

I am tired, not of arguing in favour of equality, diversity and tolerance, but of having to explain, over and over and over again, why such arguments are still necessary, only to have my evidence casually dismissed by someone too oblivious to realise that their dismissal of the problem is itself a textbook example of the fucking problem. I am tired of being mocked by hypocrites who think that a single lazy counterexample is sufficient to debunk the fifteen detailed examples they demanded I produce before they’d even accept my point as a hypothetical, let alone valid, argument…. In short, I’m tired of being a female geek.

Read the whole thing. Marvel’S Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Storyboards...

Today's extract from the updated edition of The phone-hacking scandal: journalism on trial* is by Chris Atkins, the man who made the Starsuckers documentary. His team fed fake celebrity stories to the tabloids, six of which ended up in print.

This is somewhat longer than usual, but the devil really is in the detail of the exchanges at the Leveson inquiry when reporters were questioned about their actions. Atkins begins with the performance of Gordon Smart, who runs The Sun's showbusiness pages, entitled Bizarre...

Two of our fake stories appeared without checks in Smart's column - one about film director Guy Ritchie injuring himself while juggling cutlery, and another claiming singer Sarah Harding [of Girls Aloud] was a secret fan of quantum physics.

Smart started off bullishly at the inquiry by defending his column: "I'd like to think that most of the time we get it right. Very occasionally we get it wrong.

Mo Ryan and Amin Javadi are nice enough to join us for the back half of the conversation, as we evaluate the overall filmmaking quality of the season (specifically in regards to its predecessor), the importance of the Battle of the Blackwater, and, most importantly, continue to go back-and-forth over the deconstruction of Arya Stark.

Did you miss the first part? Shame on you. Read it here.

Forget who’s involved? Double shame. Here you go:

Marc N. Kleinhenz – freelancer and author of It Is Known: An Analysis of Thrones, Vol. I. Elio García – co-founder and editor of Westeros.org and co-author, with Martin himself, of the upcoming The World of Ice and Fire. David Barr Kirtley – author and writer at Wired magazine. James Poniewozik – editor of Time magazine’s Tuned In blog. Doug Cohen – author, blogger, and former editor at Realms of Fantasy magazine. Amin Javadi – co-host of A Podcast of Ice and Fire.

Winterfell has been burnt to the ground, the Imp has been stripped of power, and Stannis has been defeated – but there’s so much more that didn’t make the final cut, and more still to discuss and debate, regardless of its inclusion or omission.

There’s so much to wrap one’s head around, in fact, that a tidy little roundtable I had planned tripled in size and had to be split in two halves. For this first part, a crack panel of George R.R. Martin stalkers and TV critics tackled the inherent quality of the source material, A Clash of Kings; the filmmaking chops of Game of Thrones showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff; and the dopiness – or lack thereof – of the average HBO viewer.

Dramatis personae:

Marc N. Kleinhenz – freelancer and author of It Is Known: An Analysis of Thrones, Vol. I. Elio García – co-founder and editor of Westeros.

Having been three episodes into a season that is simultaneously more surefooted but also more divergent than its predecessor, Marc N. Kleinhenz decided to call up some of the biggest fans – and critics? – of both HBO’s Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series to get out the microscope and examine what have already proven to be some of the show’s most controversial elements, changes, and improvisations. It’s a star-studded lineup to discuss what is turning out to be one of television’s biggest breakout hits.

Dramatis personae:

Marc N. Kleinhenz – freelancer, author of It Is Known: An Analysis of Thrones, Vol. I, and your humble host this evening. John Jasmin – co-founder and editor of Tower of the Hand. Amin Javadi – co-host of A Podcast of Ice and Fire. Marko Strbac – webmaster of Game of Thrones Books. David Barr Kirtley...

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly collection of links and thinks from around the world of movie and television news and reviews. It spends its weekends racking its brain trying to cull together the strength to go forth with its usual Monday entry, knowing full well that it can’t spend all of its page space on Mad Men and Game of Thrones. This is a movie website, after all. We begin this evening with a shot from Rush, the racing movie about Formula 1 driver James Hunt starring Chris Hemsworth and Olivia Wilde. Director Ron Howard and his leading lady have been tweeting them like crazy. Including pics of Hemsworth and Wilde getting married as Hunt and his wife, model Suzy Miller. I chose the one above to highlight because it’s badass. Over at The Underwire, David Barr Kirtley walks us through 6 Weak Tweaks and a Dark Surprise from this weekend’s...

Was the killing of Robert Baratheon's bastards too much, even for 'Game of Thrones'? Experts weight in.

By Josh Wigler

Peter Dinklage in "Game of Thrones"

Photo: HBO

Cripples, bastards and broken things don't last long in Westeros — especially the bastards, as seen on Sunday night's "Game of Thrones" season premiere. In what's easily one of the more disturbing scenes in recent television history, the "Thrones" premiere closed with a montage of wicked boy king Joffrey's armored dogs going around King's Landing slaughtering all of late Robert Baratheon's bastard children, a move presumably made to strengthen Joff's claim to the Iron Throne.

It was a powerful scene, one that sent a decisive message to the viewer: If Ned Stark's beheading didn't convince you that the Seven Kingdoms are a deadly, dangerous place to live in, then the merciless killing of illegitimate babies and toddlers should do the trick.

Was the killing of Robert Baratheon's bastards too much, even for 'Game of Thrones'? Experts weight in.

By Josh Wigler

Peter Dinklage in "Game of Thrones"

Photo: HBO

Cripples, bastards and broken things don't last long in Westeros — especially the bastards, as seen on Sunday night's "Game of Thrones" season premiere. In what's easily one of the more disturbing scenes in recent television history, the "Thrones" premiere closed with a montage of wicked boy king Joffrey's armored dogs going around King's Landing slaughtering all of late Robert Baratheon's bastard children, a move presumably made to strengthen Joff's claim to the Iron Throne.

It was a powerful scene, one that sent a decisive message to the viewer: If Ned Stark's beheading didn't convince you that the Seven Kingdoms are a deadly, dangerous place to live in, then the merciless killing of illegitimate babies and toddlers should do the trick.

As Halloween approaches, a bunch more independent fright features and vintage scare flicks are debuting or showing at venues around the country…

Florida’s Film Ranch company is hosting a free screening of its new science-fiction shocker Brainjacked (pictured) this Friday, October 9 at 10 p.m. at the Lakewood Ranch Cinemas (10715 Rodeo Drive #8, Lakewood Ranch, Fl), sponsored by the Sarasota Film Society. Director Andrew Allan and producer Andy Lalino will accompany the movie, in which a center for troubled youths proves to be a haven for bizarre mind-control experiments. Check out Brainjacked’s MySpace page here.

The creators of the New Jersey fright feature Only Go There At Night, which we previously reported on here, have completed the sequel and set a premiere date. Only Go There At Night: Darkness Rising will screen this Friday the 9th at 8 p.m. at Boonton, NJ’s Darress Theatre (615 Main Street); a Q&A...