Returnal looks really good, but some of the rogue-like elements and specific design choices (apparently you literally can’t save your game) are sort of intimidating. Of course, it’s not like I can actually get my hands on a PS5 right now, so this is all strictly theoretical.

I’ve never been much of a plot hole guy, mainly because I’m not really smart enough to catch them while I’m watching the movie, and when people point them out to me later I tend to figure that if I didn’t notice them and they didn’t affect my viewing experience they couldn’t really be that important.

I guess if you want to be exceptionally generous here (and you probably shouldn’t want to be), you can interpret that as an ineloquent way of saying, “Look, even if you didn’t like the pilot, I just finished a successful multi-season run on a big hit for your network, so I deserve the benefit of the doubt that I can…

*Jesse Hassenger storms out*

OK, so this explains why my mom insisted on calling me “Garbage” when I was a kid. Load off my mind. 

I’d be interested to read some kind of deep dive into what happened with Not The Long Night/Apparently Bloodmoon. Even if HBO absolutely hated the pilot, you’d think the experience with the terrible GOT pilot would have been instructive.

I really hope Manny Jacinto is just playing Jason Mendoza in this. That would be a fun stylistic collision. 

It’s kind of become a trope for critics to, if not disparage or dismiss, at least give a bit of side eye to big, spectacular, showy performances that initially garner a lot of praise. It’s supposed to reflect a kind of sophistication, I suspect — I can appreciate subtle performances without being distracted by the…

“I’m all up for silliness and what not, but that was extreme” feels like a very New England sentiment. 

I like Joe Buck in everything I’ve seen him in that isn’t a live sports broadcast. 

As I recall, she was up for the role of Sharon Carter way back when. Things have worked out pretty well for her since, and it’s not like Sharon’s become a crucial part of the MCU or anything.

This does prompt a bit of a thought exercise: what’s the worst movie with the greatest number of good performances? Like, how many really good acting performances can you pile onto a movie and still have it turn out badly?

I always felt the same way, though I’m biased because the Mike SciFi years were when I started watching the show. I literally had no idea there had been another host until years later, to be honest.

I suspect it’s less that movie studios are uniquely staffed with idiots and more that a movie studio’s projects are more visible and it’s easier to see how the idiots screwed them up.

I’m one of about seven people on Earth who genuinely liked the last season, and I want to disclose that ahead of time so people can go ahead and totally dismiss me as they deem appropriate.

I mean, could be a thousand reasons -- maybe she genuinely likes it there. From a professional standpoint, it’s not like she has an easy glidepath to superstardom if she left -- Shrill gets very good reviews, but I don’t know that the viewership numbers have ever been particularly impressive, and it’s ending after…

Still feels like you have to pretty significantly miss the point of the movie to say something like that. 

So Marcus Mumford was surprisingly funny.

It took me a while, but “I’m glad your husband died” is when I lost it.

Look, I just prefer more grounded, realistic dramas where a being from a moon of Saturn seeks to acquire six magic stones so he can snap his fingers and murder half the universe.