The whole Let's Dance LP has aged beautifully. And if you can't get over Bowie "selling out", maybe just tell yourself that he's just playing a "pop star" character just like he was playing Ziggy or The Thin White Duke.

That harmonica is sampled beautifully on the closing track of Blackstar, "I Can't Give Everything Away". A new career in a new town indeed…

Counterpoint: Broad City.

The aesthetic is "borrowed from Open Windows"? Weren't these two movies made at pretty much the exact same time? I don't think "the whole movie takes place on a laptop" is such a unique concept that it needs to be stolen from somewhere.

SPOILERS:

Well, it can be acquired. It's OK - the first half is great, but it gets very repetitive after a while. Love the mixture of different types of special effects and the laissez-fare approach to gore and death, but overall it's one of my least favourite Miikes.

Well, they dug up some old tweets of his (from like 3 years back) where he pretty liberally called people "f*ggot". He comes across as a childish, dumb troll, not necessarily a genuinely hateful person.

"this sci-fi comedy shamelessly mines the current nostalgia for ’80s blockbusters"

Come to think of it, I guess Steven Universe kinda lampshades the "cartoon = same clothes every day" trope. We see his two identical t-shirts being washed and hanging from a clothesline in the end credits of each episode.

Yeah, I was surprised at that too. Archer is supposed to be a James Bond stand-in? There are some superficial similarities, sure (Archer is a SHOW about a spy!) - but it's much more complex than just "Bond-parody".

Totally agree. First five minutes were as weak as the review makes it sound, but it picked up a lot in the second and third acts. Mainly through making the parodies way more specific, and by building on running jokes a la Arrested Development. Still only a B overall, but worth watching.

No, meaning it's not a Hollywood movie.

Yeah, the whole review is really nothing but Dowd going "I guessed the twist real early on, guys! Aren't I clever!"

I looked up the plot summary for this. This is the last paragraph: "As the credits roll, we see Becca brushing her hair while looking at herself in the mirror while Tyler performs a rap to camera about the events that took place over those five days, including getting a used adult diaper shoved in his face and how it…

Well, to rephrase that: it's graphically depicted, but not gory. So if you're only squeamish about the blood and gore aspect, you can safely see it. But the torture is indeed portrayed pretty unflinchingly (superglued lips, burnt by magnifying glass).

Yeah, I think we're in agreement - the twist IS obvious, but knowing it beforehand deflates a lot of the tension of the first half.

SPOILER:

I sure am glad I didn't read a review like this before seeing it, though.

Really loved this episode. I can definitely see why they rescheduled it, though - a running gag where as many as 4 reporters are shot on live television might have been in somewhat poor taste last week. (Though one week later it's alllll fair game, of course!)

But where else could you learn that the opening credits look the same as those in the movie, or that Alan Shemper is a character from the movie, or that the show has references to other summer camp movies? This is trenchant insight.