Rob O'Reilly

Data Services Librarian at Emory University

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@archaicf0ssil There are episodes where Kira said she wasn't happy about things she did during the Occupation, but they were the price to be paid for the liberation of Bajor. I'd agree that she's not apologetic for what she did. But I never got the impression she was proud of it, either.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@Steven_Hyden "Buckets of Rain." Or "Blind Willie McTell."

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@ass_deans I'm reminded of an episode of "The Thick of It" where Malcolm Tucker has to explain that the Prime Minister saying, "this is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing" about your idea doesn't mean he actually supports your idea.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@JVMonte2 Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Robert Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe; Les Paul; producers like George Martin; Hendrix; Led Zeppelin.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@archaicf0ssil I missed this aspect of DS9 when I watched it in the 1990s. Re-watching from start to finish in 2020, seeing how the characters often didn't like/trust each other at first, and seeing how they bonded into a force to be reckoned with over time was a lot of fun and very moving.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@ggarashirr https://t.co/Mo5lngRJZk

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@markwolters54 It sounds like Dylan actually enjoyed making this album. The way he sings lines like "She said you can't repeat the past; I said you can't? What do you mean you can't, of course you can!" - you can see him smiling to himself at the line and the phrasing of it.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

These clips of Cruise and the responses to them to be fascinating. Very thoughtful breakdowns of technique on the stage versus the screen and how the likes of Nicholson and Brando would modulate their performances based on lighting, lenses, etc.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Jack Nicholson shot his entire role in A Few Good Men in ten days, playing a villain who turns up in only a handful of scenes. Out of a cast that included Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Kiefer Sutherland, he was the only actor the Oscars nominated for it.

The director, Rob Reiner, offered him a choice before the courtroom finale. Reiner could point the camera at Nicholson first, or shoot all of Cruise's reactions first and leave Nicholson standing off to the side, out of frame, reading his lines back to Cruise. Nicholson took the off-camera option so he could rehearse. Then he delivered the entire "You can't handle the truth" speech at full force on every take where the lens was on Cruise instead of him. Most actors go quiet and save themselves for their own close-up. After a few rounds Reiner told him to hold some back, and Nicholson said, "Rob, you don't understand. I love to act."

That instinct is the whole lesson Cruise is pointing at. Nicholson built his performance for the camera, a lens that magnifies everything in front of it. A face in close-up on a cinema screen runs many times larger than life, so a flick of the eyes or a caught breath reaches the back of the theater like a shout. A stage actor projects to fill a hall. On film the camera does the amplifying, so the real skill is doing less, which is much harder than it sounds. Nicholson knew exactly what a raised eyebrow would broadcast, so he never had to push.

He was paid $5 million for those ten days, $500,000 a day, and he later called it money well spent. The studio had no complaints once the film cleared $243 million against a $40 million budget. His single line, "You can't handle the truth," now sits at number 29 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest movie quotes ever written. The most quoted moment in the entire film belongs to the actor who spent the least time on set.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@switch1e_swoof I work at a university, and I regularly see students wearing Guns N' Roses shirts. How would you reconcile this with your explanation for the appeal of the Beach Boys and the Beatles?

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@bestofStarTrek Garak. Just watch "In the Pale Moonlight." He doesn't have Spock's sheer intellect, but he has an eye for humanoid weaknesses and frailties and motivations that Spock does not have.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@LeskaHendricks I missed Jadzia in S7. Her friendship with Sisko was so well-written and I think Farrell and Brooks had a good rapport as actors. And the character's mix of wisdom accumulated over centuries and a love/lust for life made her a good foil for the others and just fun to watch.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@bestofStarTrek Plain, Simple Garak.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@i_danieall I don't think his tone was ever better than it was when he played The Fool.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@HeartlandHut @FarOutMag Which wasn't Ament's point. Cobain was passing judgement on others for committing the sin of re-making themselves to seem more "alternative" despite his belated conversion to the cause AND various of his targets having much longer histories in indie music scenes than he had.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@TheExtremeMusi1 Pete Townshend. Listen to the outro of the live version "Dreaming From the Waist" that's on re-issues of "By Numbers." It's a simple chord progression, but he keeps it interesting by playing variations on it and holds down the tempo while Entwistle and Moon do their thing.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@TheNewsAgents @jonsopel @maitlis "We kind of just want at this point somebody to do something with a Big Idea." Well, Brexit was a Big Idea, and no one at the News Agents seems happy with how that worked out.

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@ShaiTarkir @LeskaHendricks I enjoyed trying to parse out Garak's motivations in defending Kira. Is it respect for Kira? Because he knows how important Kira is to Odo? Because he knows how valuable Kira can be to any Cardassian resistance? Because of Ziyal's affection for Kira? All of the above?

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@ShaiTarkir @LeskaHendricks "You're still a Cardassian, Garak. You're not going to kill one of your own people for a Bajoran woman." “How little you understand me."

[Rob O'Reilly @EDC_data]

@meowsternator "Wanker" is probably fine. "Tosser" may be more problematic to use.