I don't get swept away by romance in most films, but the second half of Christophe Honoré's Love Songs (or Chansons d'Amour, if you're feeling Francophile) really gets me, because of all its tentativeness and exploration. Plus gay.

True, it's hard to make much tension or drama out of a seemingly endless supply of near-identical, bald, British prisoners there to get slaughtered by the alien.

Alien 3 has a ton of problems, but none of them have much to do with Fincher's direction. It was a development nightmare from the start, the final product was made up out of leftover parts from at least 3 different concepts, and Fincher was working without a finished script. That the film is even remotely watchable is…

I thought the conflict was handled pretty well. Klaus rightly wants to leave the mill as soon as he realizes that the millworkers are basically enslaved; Violet wants to stay because there are answers about their are answers about their parents. Also, as far as they know, they're free from Count Olaf. For me the…

I thought that this was the best episode of the show so far. The Baudelaires get to do stuff besides stand around and accuse Count Olaf of being Count Olaf (heavy labor, light detective work), there's actual conflict between the siblings, and Catherine O'Hara is great, as usual. The revelation that Mother and Father…

I enjoyed the season, but the repetition drives me crazy, especially when it comes to people who have met Count Olaf not being able to recognize him through his usually pretty lazy disguises. I get the point that's being made about the ineffectuality of adults, but it would be easier to take if the disguises were…

I like it when Xiu Xiu splits the difference between the synthy poppy stuff and the bleaker tracks. The last time I feel like they really struck that balance was The Air Force.

I just got into Sparks in 2016 and I'm really glad I did. I spent the better part of the year hunting down a vinyl copy of No. 1 in Heaven. I also liked that they were included in Simon Reynolds' glam rock survey Shock and Awe, because even though they don't read as straight-up glam, they're definitely fellow…

I really hope the LCD Soundsystem record actually happens. It has that "we hung around the studio messing around with songs, but ended up deciding not to release anything" feeling that kept happening with Blur until they actually released The Magic Whip.

It was nice to see Tina get a win for once, but I'm still shipping Jimmy Jr. and Zeke.

The ending is definitely pretty weak. There's a theory that Batman actually kills the Joker at the end, and there's a little ambiguity in the art that could support that reading, but I don't know. For me TKJ just never really amounted to much. Sure, it's dark and the art by Brian Bolland is amazing, but it's nothing…

Burton went dark, but he could have gone way darker if he'd used The Dark Knight Returns and/or The Killing Joke as templates. Yeah, he cherry-picked a few things here and there from both, but I'm relieved that he didn't use more; DKR can get really oppressive, and I never really cared for The Killing Joke.

Nope.

To be fair, there's nothing really wrong with Hathaway's Catwoman, other than the fact that there's nothing about it (other than the costume, a little) that's actually Catwoman. Halle Berry's non-canon Catwoman really hammers the whole "I'm a kitty cat!" nonsense, and sacrifices the Pfeiffer version's transgressive…

Ok, that space putty looks awesome, but I'm also pretty sure it's an alien symbiote from Battleworld.

I actually prefer Batman & Robin to Batman Forever. Like, if both were on TV at the same time, I'd always rather watch the former. Yeah, I know that B&R is a worse movie, but it pushes through the badness and achieves camp, which is something that BF doesn't. It's like they still were kind of taking it seriously, but…

Plus the Catmobile Happy Meal toy doesn't really encompass all of the split-personality, kinky catsuit goings-on from the movie. It's kind of amazing the tie-in even happened, considering kids had grown accustomed to seeing the fast food promo items and then going to see the movie. But that's PG-13 for you.

Yeah, all you have to do is compare Pfeiffer's Catwoman to Hathaway's to see the difference. But that's Nolan's commitment to realism; there's no room in his Bat-Universe for any of that cartoonish stuff. And it works insofar as the stories he's telling are a lot more serious in tone and subject matter.

Yeah, they could have chopped out the Mayor character entirely. I feel like I remember that Burton was setting Billy Dee Williams up to be Two-Face in a sequel, but if that's true, he really didn't give him anything to do that would count as character development. Gordon gets the most to do, but it's really just a…

You're not wrong; they're all pretty bad. I'd rank them: Batman Returns, Batman, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin. Returns outpaces the first movie because it feels like everybody's swinging for the fences—Batman's more twisted, Catwoman's a villain and a love-interest, Penguin is revolting and comedic… and Max Shreck…