Yeah, I feel like what makes this interesting is the Williams sisters had turned out to be just “fine” at tennis, maybe even reaching the pro level but not the worldbeaters they ended up being, then sports parents tend to come off as vaguely maniacal control freaks living through their children. But it worked out, so…

“85% of movies *are* in the C-B range.”

If you define an “A” as almost unobtainable transcendence and a “D/F” as gross technical incompetence and/or moral repugnance, I don’t doubt that’s true, but as a reader, I’d argue for a slight broadening of those apparent definitions (with the understanding that a critic is…

Has Covid changed things that much...?

The short answer is yes. Unadjusted for inflation, the top five opening weekends of 2016 ran from $132 million to around $179 million. The top five opening weekends of 2021 ran from $70 million to around $90 million.

“It’s also strange to fixate on the grade of ‘A.’ Do you only like movies you’d give an “A”? (Or an “A-,” I guess, as I haven’t actually given an “A” review in my eight years contributing to the AVC. It’s rare from all of us, because we’re tough graders! An ‘A’ means ‘this is easily one of the best movies of the year.’…

I’m not sure it’s that deep. The show is basically a modern freakshow, full of colorful weirdos to gawk at. It’s a visceral appeal that accounts for like 85% of reality TV.

Upon reflection, there are some pretty good reasons we don’t really have freakshows anymore, and that’s before you even get to the serious crimes…

Yeah, Exotic is so aggressively weird that he makes for a natural subject for a tabloid documentary like this, but it seems like the makers weren’t sure exactly how the audience was going to fall, so they played up the most lurid reading of every character even when the angle didn’t make a lot of sense.

Though, weirdly, anyone casually telling you they’re an asshole is always telling the truth.

If it’s still on the air next year after this, I’ll eat a shoe.

Yeah, the writing is going to have to be pretty sharp to overcome the “a shitty job in your 20's is a bummer; still having that shitty job in your forties means your life is just shitty” problem, also known as the Kevin Smith.

“Irony” is one of those words that has such a high level of subjectivity built into the definition that there is almost no way to write a song full of examples that someone won’t complain about.

Here’s dictionary.com:

T-Rex existed for two million years, has an estimated total population of 2.5 billion, and is represented by about three dozen adult fossils globally. There are otherwise completely unknown genetic ancestors from the homo genus preserved in our DNA. The continents only roughly assumed their present configuration in…

Frankly, the fact that he thought we had a problem with him using the same bottle is only making this worse. Not the point, Rock! And it’s weird that you thought it was! It’s like finding out a guy has shit in his hair and his first response is “no, it’s okay; it’s mine!”

I kinda wish more famous people would take this weird but basically harmless “shits and giggles” kind of approach to celebrity. Normally when musicians grab non-music-related headlines, it’s for a Twitter feud or dueting with a sexual predator (lookin’ at you, Kanye).

Being famous is like a superpower, and while we’ve…

In terms of “their network kept wanting to renew it and the actors stayed committed” then it makes more sense to go by seasons. But Sunny is on cable, where the expectations are lower. In terms of how much work was put it in, it makes more sense to go by episode count. But three of Sunny’s core five also showrun, write…

I think you’re right in the sense that she actually says something close to that at one point, but it still reads to me as something rooted in a generalized benevolence rather than coming from the character’s specific experience. The only human with a name that she spends any significant amount of time interacting…

I really liked that the Eternals almost all felt like they had different motivations. That was a good choice and extremely necessary since the characters aren’t all that distinct in the comics or popular imagination. The Avengers never pulled that off, and when they’re kicking Thanos’s ass, they’re pretty much all…

If Johnson shows up in FF 10, then absolutely. If he doesn’t, the “despite being built like monster trucks, we actually are this petty and insecure” possibility has a bit more credence.

Yeah, I’m not saying that every local place is great and every chain is bad.  I am absolutely saying that the best local place will roundly kick the ass of the best chain.  

A good local place is usually run by someone who was good enough at and excited enough about making pizza that they decided to risk their savings to do it professionally. A lot of them made the pizza personally, at least at first, or supervised the training of the people who did later on.

By the time you have hundreds…

This feels a lot like a grumpy old man who, in fairness, is tired of having the same conversation a dozen times a week for over a decade.