It’s probably Madonna’s best screen performance, precisely because she’s a relatively minor role of the ensemble and she really did seem to reign it in to work within the group.  

It’s still bad storytelling that they are not held to task for their actions at all.  That they had to rely on them anyway because there was no one left, fine, that’s actually a potentially interesting angle.

I think it would be fairest to give these creators a Story By credit on these movies.  When WGA rules can force a credit for someone whose entire draft was thrown out before moving onto other writers, I’m not sure how these creators basically creating the origin/plot that the screenwriters are adapting doesn’t merit…

It’s kinda effed-up for the case of Winter Soldier, because here Brubaker & Epting were very much not creating an original character and reusing existing stuff. But they did it in such a way that it totally revamped the character into essentially a new one. And that’s a story concept, which trades so much on the…

My son loves Jumanji and Jurassic World. He lights up at the suggestion of putting one of them on.

That movie was terrible, it took such a delightful story and made it feel utterly lifeless, even before the ghastly CGI versions of the castle staff showed up.  I also can’t understand how it became so beloved. 

I realized in retrospect how terribly horrible for the sequel trilogy that TFA cliffhanger ending was, not just for the story but also for the franchise. No room for inter-episode set stories/product (ie- no novels, comics, or tv shows). No room for inter-episode development of characters/setting (ie-like basically…

I really don’t get this take.  Granting that it’s a low bar, and such, you really feel the Po and Finn stuff was better executed than most of the screentime of the OT?  

It was fun to see, but yeah, it wasn’t earned. But then again, it’s really unlikely the MCU would’ve ever given the screen time necessary to this rather B-level Thor villain to have earned that.

Their aging might outpace the story, but ST is also set in the past. They might be able to write the story to account for the real passage of time and still have it be set in the past with these actors.

For as much as I dislike TLJ, I think this would’ve been awesome. RJ in control of the whole thing probably would’ve resulted in more of what I liked about TLJ (it looks pretty, great fighting, Rey-Luke stuff is fascinating) and more time to work out what I didn’t (good compelling arcs for everyone else. )

This is probably really nerdy, but one my biggest problem with the flashbacks is that they felt very un-Star Wars to me. None of the other films relied on flashbacks, and anytime a character was telling history, it was just the character’s dialogue.

Re: Poe’s arc- I appreciate completely why Holdo would not give him the data based on his action. I can not reconcile why he and Finn would then be made leaders of the Resistance after their actions here. There’s learning, and then there’s disobeying orders, committing mutiny, and getting most of your army killed. It…

For me, The Last Jedi failed at being a fun movie. I love 1/3 of it, the 1/3 that seems to get the most vocal backlash from the most “toxic fans”, the Luke-Rey-Kylo stuff. That stuff is fantastic. That seems to be what most critics like about it.

Still feels like it belongs to a different column. Caroline’s grouping today was mostly about female centered action-adventures (and action is also something Joe vs the Volcano is also sort of light on) and their differences from traditional male centric ones. Joe is also different from those traditional male ones,…

I think that move is too male-centric/POV for Caroline’s main point today.

Really great article, Caroline. I love the point that distinguishes these female centered adventure films from the more male orientated ones. Insightful!

This might be Throg, but I think it’s more likely meant to be Thor from when he was turned into a frog. Especially with the easter egg of T365 from the issue when it happened. 

The prequels also lets them tell stories that avoid having to deal with the post Blip, 5 year gap continuity (and whatever impending multiverse rules change). I like exploring this setting, but I can also see how basically most of the stories going forward (for the near future at least) will have to account for how…

The reunion album was solid, but I was a bit disappointed. A lot of the more negative reviews dinged it for sounding like it could’ve come out in 98, but to me if anything a 98 album from them would’ve sounded as inspired as Euphoria Morning; King Animal didn’t have the virtuosity I expected from them.