Starting yet another cop show right now is - at best - extremely tone deaf. I loved “Gotham Central,” but we don’t need more police procedurals, especially not these days.

There’s one place to start with Rucka’s comics catalogue: “Gotham Central.” He and Ed Brubaker wrote 40 issues of the daily lives of police detectives trying to solve crimes in a city full of supervillains (and also Batman.)

One of my favorite moments in the series is that wide shot of the Sterling Cooper team watching his performance. Too many of them are either idly accepting or outright charmed by it. Some notable exceptions:

Movie 43 perplexes me. Every time someone describes the setup to one of its sketches and the actors involved, I respond “huh, that could be funny,” only to be told in no uncertain circumstances (with the exception of the homeschooling one) that it is not funny. I wonder what would happen if a better director/editor…

You, sir, made the right call. Dead Poet Society is even more overrated than Batman, and teen makeouts are nothing to fondly remember. 

I like to pretend that Ledger’s Joker is Nicholson’s reincarnated. Like he fell off the tower, then woke up in a new reality and said, “ok... got a little too silly that time. We’ll keep it light this go-round, but let’s focus less on Prince and more on knives."

Dumb story time: Batman was my first midnight movie. It was the summer between my 8th and 9th grades, and the theater was close enough that my parentset a friend and I go get in line at probably 8pm to wait for a screening. The whole time, and I mean almost literally the whole time, my friend kept going on and on…

Nice “well, actually” attempt, but the central character is a former slave, and he makes thinly veiled comments about how things were better not-so-long-ago.

Y'know, the word "hero" is thrown around too easily these days, but you sir... 

I respect that he was trying to make that type of movie, but I also feel he failed in his attempt. It was too winking, too self-aware; and by extension, it felt like Schumacher & Co were bove its tone, not within it. 

Everything I’ve read/heard from and about Schumacher is that he was a total pro on set, friendly and collaborative, etc etc. He seems like a pretty good guy.

I am uncomfortable with this discussion. 

Wilder has five* movies that someone could say to me “that’s my favorite film of all time,” and I’d immediately and without reservation respect their opinion and start asking them to elaborate on what they love so much about it. Similarly, he’s one of only a very few directors** where someone could say “my five…

“The Apartment” is one of those movies, like “The Conversation,” where you have to practically gnaw off your own arm when narrowing down the Best Movies of All Time. It’s so, so, so great, but it might not even be Wilder’s third best movie, so the final list inevitably gets Some Like it Hot or Double Indemnity slid…

I learned this pronunciation by watching old 90s poker tournaments.

I think the big problem with that scene is Tarantino couldn’t resist using an icon to show how FUCKING AWESOME his main character was, maaaan. Like, this guy’s so badass, he once roughed up Bruce Lee!

You... don’t know what words mean, do you?

What amazes me about Holy Grail is how thoroughly they scrubbed any topical humor or high-minded satire from the production. Sure, a few political gags show up here or there, and the ending is some weird-ass meta-humor, but the vast vast majority of the film is just plain silly. It's a silly, goofy, ridiculous movie…

My mom took me to see Robocop in the theater. I was 11. She knew it was R, but I think she just figured there’d be swearing (nothing worse than my dad did all the time, right?)

There are a few instances - like Will Farrell as Goulet, Sarah Silverman as her idiot character on her show, or Tropic Thunder- where the horribleness is the point. That’s not to condone it or say it wasn’t a bad decision, but it feels (in my straight, white, male mind) less egregious than performers who treat it as…