Yeah, John Wick 2 was kinda disappointing. They did not expand the fictional universe in an interesting way, and the action was just more of the same stuff from the first movie. And they seemed to paint John Wick into a corner, I suppose to set up a sequel, but they didn’t do it in a compelling way.

The whole thing is a veritable yellow snow job.

Well, let’s see. “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” was easily the worst film that I was glad I saw on the big screen. Some of the effects and production design was amazing, but the silly story was fatally undermined by the miscasting of the leads. “Blade Runner 2049" had the most breathtakingly beautiful…

Here’s the added sad thing. Companies like Tesla supposedly represent the cutting edge of technology, the future, etc.

Sorry, I was having fun with “ If authenticity was valued over all else, T’Challa wouldn’t be speaking English at all — he’d be speaking Wakandan.” It’s a movie. There ain’t no such thing as “authenticity.” There’s just the actor’s choices that help him or her establish the character. All this stuff over accents is…

They chose to highlight Skurge’s slippery morality by having him try to impress babes, a trope easily grasped by a good chunk of the male Thor audience. They echoed this scene with a later sequence involving the Grand Master. They could have done something with Valkyrie. It’s not the end of the world (well, actually…

Since there ain’t no Wakanda, the actor has to come up with choices about his accent.

I grew up in Texas and yet I took pains never to develop a Southern accent (helped by watching neutral American accents on TV shows and movies). But I also developed a talent for accents, and so when I lived in New York and Connecticut, I picked up bits of the accents of people in New York City (but not Bronx or…

On one hand, I want to say that I don’t care a whit about a scene about Valkyrie’s sexuality if it doesn’t fit into the narrative and move it along. And for me the supposed hints that she was feeling a lover’s anguish as a sister Valkyrie was killed is just lame fanfiction. I would have liked to have learned more…

Interesting stuff. I think it great that RAND recognizes that this issue is important and makes the ebook of their study available for free. I’m looking forward to reading it.

OK. Yep.

Movie marketing departments insist that “familiarity” actually sells a movie. They will always try to spoil a film. I think that they are full of it, and have started to avoid trailers for films I am most interested in seeing.

I like the movie that I actually saw much more than your proposed alternate version. But this does remind me of some disappointed fans who wanted a more straight ahead movie. On the other hand, the packed house loved what they saw. Go figure.

Fake Odin was not Hopkins (won’t reveal it here because SPOILERS)

The jokey tone is built into the show. In an earlier episode, they had the crew, apparently on duty, watching an episode of Seinfeld from their duty stations, which makes no sense at all. Ultimately, you just have to go with the flow if you are going to enjoy the show.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan once called Hitler “great” and caught hell for it. Some white people call Robert E. Lee great and expect applause. Strange world.

I never said that the Red states were a bunch of hypocrites. That line of argument is boring and wrongheaded. And as I noted, an emphasis on red v blue is misleading. Arguments about morality and “threat of government force” are a waste of time. I just don’t care.

First of all, it was you who implied that the voluntary giving of red state folks was superior. But it’s really not red v blue, it’s deeply religious vs other folks. Secondly, you never provided any standard measure of superiority, and now want to dance around effectiveness v efficiency. Whatever.

The deeply religious give more to charity; it’s not a political ideology thing. But it is not necessarily true that the programs the religious give to are more effective to other social programs.

So this says that the people want thugs to be their police.