I’ve known of Gwar since like the aughts, but this is the first time I’ve watched them perform or speak. I didn’t realize they weren’t scary but more like...cartoon characters?

this vexes me about House of the Dragon! It takes place 200 years before GoT, yet the society and technology are fairly 1:1. One can hand-wave it (and the lack of difference on Acolyte) as being a society which is fairly inert and unchanging, but they’re leaving a lot on the table when it comes to…

damn Today I Learned people love the national anthem

Not a great performance by any metric, but I wonder if maybe it’s the anthem that needs fixin’ ultimately: as a vocal piece it does invite the singer to add flair, and would sound really silly if you just delivered it quickly and without panache; if you just sang it through evenly it’d sound like “happy birthday” and t…

Yep, just gotta button that lip and take the high road. The Right may constantly and consistently extol political violence to the extent that people feel empowered to attack the Speaker of the House in their own home, attempt the kidnapping of a state governor, shoot unarmed protesters, and even incite a mass riot on…

oh it’s gotta be the shoes

man’s been reduced to selling out arenas and winning Grammys

I’d say it’s an editorial issue and the fault of the owners who fired all the editors: the ‘Club already has a precedent of presenting reviews as well as analysis separately; this article is presented as a review, so I’d argue it should be written towards informing people who haven’t seen the doc yet. Whereas if they…

Thanks, good to know; there’s been this thing going on with AVClub reviews recently where the tone is more like the author spitballing at someone else who’s already engaged with the movie/show, so it’s hard to parse what to expect from the work as a whole.

There’s no blueprint or expectation for what a return looked like, and it would be silly if he was apologizing all the time, but when the “long time to step back and listen” amounts to returning six months later with “golly that sucked for me” material, it just recontextualizes the contrite attitude of the letter a…

When I first heard of this doc a few weeks back, I got the impression it’d delve into the aftermath for the accusers, as well as examine CK’s path back to the stage and how his career has shaken out over the last few years. I do think that’s interesting, as there’s a rather thriving market for post-”cancelation”…

imo the letter was fine; the issue was his return to the spotlight and material about the situation didn’t really match that sense of contrite self-reflection.

I got a Shelly Duvall notification for this?

I don’t think I like the experience tied to watching a movie, myself; but I’d totally listen to a commentary in podcast form.

we’ll truly know cinema’s in trouble when this gets utterly stomped by The Style at the box office

it seems paying audiences are…just over the horizon 😎

did you google all them beefcakes for this comment or just have them ready from previous research?

Seriously, take me back to the halcyon days of the 80s and 90s, when television shows and movies were definitely not engineered solely to sell toys.

Hey, I’m one of the first guys to clock whether a movie passes Bechdel, but I really don’t think a movie about Roman gladiators is where I’d go to find nuanced gender politics.

I hate when they shoehorn politics into stories about ancient Rome