I’m not sure that either Harris or Demme were all that well-informed when it came to trans issues. I don’t think the younger generations really appreciate just how invisible trans people were at the time. It was just depictions like this and Dressed to Kill, unless you happened to have an out trans friend or family…

One thing that struck me about the last episode is the part where Eleanor refers to herself as Chidi’s “forever girlfriend.” She says girlfriend, not wife, even though they’ve been together for the human equivalent of millions of years at that point. They’re never actually together while alive, and marriage is a…

My interpretation is that Wanda is prioritizing the preservation of her bubble reality, rather than trying to actually make a clockwork sitcom town. As a result, people in Wanda’s immediate circle require complex inner lives and unique personalities to maintain the illusion. The people on her periphery simply don’t…

Are you suggesting AV Club isn’t on the cutting edge of Mario 64 speed-run coverage?

Yeah, reminding us that Wanda nearly defeated Thanos in single combat during the Battle of Earth is definitely lampshading / trying to justify Wanda’s apparent leap in powers after we’ve mostly seen her induce a few mild hallucinations and throw red balls of energy around. My wife and I had actually been debating this…

But how could Fassbender (age 43) be the biological father of Elizabeth Olsen (age 31)?!

Eh maybe she was one of the ladies edited out of that nightclub montage. It was implied that Akeem was living in Queens and actively searching for a queen for several months — I don’t think it’s a stretch that we didn’t see a one-night stand in there somewhere.

This is an aspect of cancellation that bothers me — it’s not the simple matter of cancelling artists in the present (which we should obviously do), but rather the airbrushing-Trotsky-out-of-state-photos thing we do when a beloved artist is revealed to be an abuser or creep or rapist or whatever.

Interesting points! I would define an equitable relationship as one in which both partners are working together with mutual respect and splitting up the physical and emotional work of the relationship equally.

I was disappointed that Dan took the “rape” angle at face value. Nobody is blackout drunk for two days! I usually believe the woman in most cases, but this story is clearly a manipulative fabrication meant to distract from the fact that she willingly checked into a hotel with some dude for two days. Also, she didn’t…

Didn’t Russell Crowe play Superman’s dad that one time?

What are you guys talking about?!

I feel like every time a TV series regular asks for more money this year, the producers will threaten to write out their character in the most insulting and humiliating way possible by turning them into a Trump supporter. If an actor is particularly difficult, the writers can make them a participant in the…

The MCU is also built on Raimi’s shoulders. There are elements of his Spidey movies that feel hokey and old-fashioned now, but Raimi showed how to tell a real story about a superhero without taking oneself too seriously or pretending it’s not a comic book movie (which was Nolan’s approach). The MCU took Raimi’s work…

That’s a good point, I remember watching that first season of Heroes when it originally aired and thinking it was weird that Ali Larter didn’t just seem to have zero chemistry with her on-screen husband, but she was visibly disgusted with him at all times in a way that was not justified by the story and didn’t seem to…

This actually gets at the entire sick tragedy of the Trump presidency — MAGAworld has no particular interest in governing the country; they want to dominate the country’s culture in a way that’s not possible for a demographic that’s in irreversible economic and population decline. They seem to have thought that…

The franchise has a bit of an issue going forwards, which is that the stuff fans really want to see involves the events taking place in close proximity to the original trilogy — mostly unseen adventures involving Luke, Han and Leia either between films or in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi. And a sequence like…

The revelation that Mando is basically a Hasidic Mandalorian, and most Mandalorians are a bit more secular and don’t take the Way too literally, was a pretty brilliant twist. Mando appears to be struggling with his faith in the same way one of my old Orthodox Jewish coworkers did after a divorce — he eventually…

Clone War-era clones were genetically modified so that they aged twice as fast as normal humans, and then they were discontinued. So that means they’re all dead by now, there aren’t millions of retired clonetroopers who look exactly like Temeura Morrison hanging around the galaxy. If Boba’s true significance and…

Wasn’t there a Joseph Gordon Levitt movie where he played a bike messenger?