We only have a few more months left before this column catches up with the present year. What’s next in this meta series, after violence, superheroes, and money makers? Science Fiction perhaps? A genre with roots in the early days of cinema.

the Frewomen and the Frechildren too....

FYI “infamous” implies famous but not for a good reason.

This movie is the perfect encapsulation of Netflix:

I absolutely loved the casting but thought the action was pretty terrible, both in terms of choreography and how the fights were shot. Looked severely under-rehearsed. Also absolutely criminal squandering of Michelle Yeoh.

I’d be so curious to see what this show’s script looked like before the pandemic hiatus where they did a ton of rewrites. It does feel like Ep 1 and 2 (bit of 3) are a different show.

In the moment, in the theater, all those familiar story beats made my soul sing. Only afterwards, thinking about it, did the repetitive nature start to bother me.

Do they, really? If Netflix creates a show and nobody watches it, does the show really exist?

Yes, yes, a highly visible global catastrophe, and a bunch of folks couldn’t be arsed to take it seriously. How unrealistic.

I need a collected book of these works of film historiography (on violence, heroes, and blockbusters) you are writing, please, and thank you. Whenever you’re ready. It really is a remarkable corpus of texts.

I’m calling it now, there’s more to Evan Peters’ casting than they’re letting on. I think there are more reveals to come, and its going to be related to the multiverse and the fox X-men movies.

I’m calling it 

I think I’ll go back to the cinema for IMAX releases of big budget movies. For everything else, I spent the past year building a nice home entertainment setup. I only ever go to the movies with my partner, so $30 for a movie is pretty normal for me, plus at home I have better snacks and clean surfaces.

Its hard to dismiss away Scorsese, because its Scorsese. But come on, man, this sort of mindless “those were the days” nostalgia on a highly biased sample reminds me of the maga crowd. Great, for whom? Cinema was great for people who had access to great cinema. I think cinema is greater today because I can fire up…

This does not bode well for the quality of theatrical cinema. Disney will buy out struggling theaters and all we will have in the end is PG13 Disney mega-schlock to watch in theaters. The more compelling stories will be streaming only.

I’ve loved many shows that flubbed the ending. BSG, Dexter, Lost, True Blood, HIMYM... I’ve still gone back and rewatched them. It was understood that these stories were emergent, they were being written as they go along. We the audience were “discovering” the story along with the writers (they were just a few months…

bring back drive-in theaters!

Hannibal is a tremendously re-watchable show. Especially when you know how its all going to go down, you can really soak in the brilliant performances and all the incredible detail put into the production.

I was born in India, lived there until I was 20. I did not have an arranged marriage, nor did my parents or my partner’s parents. So this was an interesting show to peek at, to see what it looks like to be in a situation where approaching 30 and being unmarried is somehow a social failing.

“betraying the directors and getting them canned because he needed to play it safe”