On the other hand, the X-Files kind of shows us that “going somewhere” is greatly inferior to good stand alone episodes. Everybody remembers Flukeman. Nobody remembers or cares about the “mythology” arc about aliens and black oil or something.

When Japan attacked and Hitler declared war on the US my parents were defending freedom. Dad joined the Navy the day after he graduated high school in 43. Mom worked in a defense plant making ball bearings. They weren’t being ironic.

It’s not even deconstructing the genre, it’s just reiterating the genre’s tropes with cursing and gore. The core fantasy of a superhero movie is a morally righteous person using violence to solve an existential problem - it’s very much a product of the World War 2 / postwar era. “Logan” comes the closest to actually…

It’s virtually always employed that way in practice. US intervention being sadistic and selfish isn’t the perception of millennials, it’s the unavoidable reality for people on the ground, and has been discussed that way by thoughtful people since this country began.

Harley Quinn is some of the best DC on screen out there and King Shark is a lot of that

What a great missed opportunity for meta-casting that they missed by not using Jeffery Dean Morgan for Peacemaker.

All superhero movies are gratuitous.  They don't really exist for any reason beyond gratification.  Gunn is smart enough not to pretend otherwise.

And to a lessor, lessor extent, Kick-Ass

“Superhero movie, but silly” isn’t exactly breaking fresh ground

If your theory is correct, the explanation is that they’re just currently on a wackier Earth seems like a very lame plot crutch to me.

I actually really enjoyed this episode until around halfway through. The National Treasure parody is really not a big deal IMO - the show leaned on it for about ten seconds before it turned into something else. But I LOVED the sheer ridiculousness of Rick’s turkey-pardon plan - it’s funny concept on its own, but it…

Saw the leak of next week’s episode too, and it is by far the worst episode of what is already the weakest season. Last week’s episode was somewhat redeemed by the character stuff, and I personally found the first half of this week’s episode pretty delightful, but the next one is just terrible on all fronts.

I think I figured out something about this season that had been happening a lot, that I don’t think I’m a fan of. See Rick and Morty started in a groundedish version of Earth. Sure, Rick can escape to alien worlds and alternate dimensions and all that, and that makes sense in the logic of the show. But now, Earth in…

I don’t understand it, I thought after episode 2 that we were sure to be in for one of the best seasons of the series, but now I’m thinking this will likely go down as the overall worst season so far, unless episodes 8-10 are all comedic masterpieces.

I felt the same way, especially with the turning into turkeys song, as well as the alien reveal - definitely felt like something where the South Park kids would be trying to get their Thanksgiving turkey back or something similarly mundane, while all this over the top apocalyptical stuff happens around them that they…

The final two seasons of Community had their problems, but at least they had the excuse that S4 was ruined by other writers. Harmon’s run this show into the ground himself.

Yeah but even when it’s dumb (which is a lot of the time), it was in Seasons 1-3 often very clever and funny. That’s not really the case anymore. Seems like all they have now are C-tier film parodies.

The President’s life flashing before his eyes as a series of Playstation launch announcements was pretty funny.

I think you might be romanticizing the other seasons of Rick and Morty a bit. Sometimes Rick and Morty is crazy with a point, and sometimes it’s just crazy. (I’ve noticed it’s often when President Curtis gets involved.) Where was the deeper, underlying meaning in Lawnmower Dog, or Get Schwifty? The show likes to…

Political thriller might be a more apt characterization, but in terms of the post-Cold War spy fiction genre, I can see how the comparison gets made. Spy fiction and spy movies after the end of the Cold War increasingly features an agent working against factions within his own service or within his own government. It…