Is there a better way - a more grammatically correct way - to say “I’m not dumb at this shit.” It’s the being “dumb at” something that my brain snags on and I wonder if it’s just one of those things that might not sound right even though it is.

Now we get to run a little social experiment: how many of the people willing to shell out for early access are going to trash the game online because their special early-boarding membership is insufficiently extra special?

Sad to hear about Chiarello.

It is such a shame to see Mark Chiarello turned out. His brain-child Wednesday Comics has got to be one of the stand-out reading experiences of the decade. I can’t think of another DC title that had me as excited over the possibilities of the medium and the sheer visual wit of its creators. Gorgeous stuff, and an…

an anthropology bang

Eh, if they released the original now people would call it too artsy and pretentious as well

No fear, no music?

Except for the visuals...

Guadagnino managed to create a movie that’s very different from its predecessor. In that light, disappointing the original’s creator might be a success.

Imagine if, at the end of Welcome to Marwen, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd appeared in a brand new DeLorean and said to the main character, “Mark, we have to take you back to the future!”

I find that whole thing with the painting and the story she tells more effective than most adult horror movies.

I hope you enjoy it. (I think it’s great, but obviously that is not the prevailing opinion). It’s also worth checking out Marwencol, a documentary about the artist whose life is fictionalized in the Zemeckis movie.

I gotta go back and rewatch the original. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched it.

...the disaster that was Welcome to Marwen...

It’s too late for this. There is no real reunion without Harold Ramis, and the fanbros have poisoned the well over the lady reboot. There’s no going back to “the original universe” without a bad after-taste. 

I don’t love the premise, but it will be great to have Michelle Yeoh back on the screen. And she has played noble, patient characters so often that we should all give her a chance to vamp and glower.

A handful of these examples seem a bit curmudgeonly, but the rest seem to fall into two groups:

The trailers for Venom lowered my expectations far enough for the movie itself to exceed them. So that’s something.

Huh. The graphic novels don’t give the impression that they are following a cohesive grand design. And, to be clear, I like that about them. There is enough organic weirdness to keep the books from feeling too world-buildy, if that makes sense.

I don’t think Lanthimos belabored his cynicism, though the movie ends on a supremely cynical note. I don’t think there ultimately could be an ultimately hopeful or joyful interpretation of the story of the end of Queen Anne’s reign from her and her courtiers’ perspectives. I also enjoyed it as a satire of…