I’m not a believer in sacred texts, personally. IMO Branagh’s are perfectly fine for the sleek, big-budget Hollywood fare that they are...though I’ll admit I do chuckle and roll my eyes at the thought of conventionally handsome Branagh trying to pass himself off as a walking, talking egg man

I hope this doesn’t tank Branagh’s Poirot films entirely. I enjoyed Orient Express, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy this one well enough when I watch it someday. I just need someone else to do the casting for him. Between Depp and Hammer, dude’s really had bad luck on these.

Honestly, there’s nothing to really be done about this one. Hammer’s part isn’t one you can really cut around and replace in post. And reshoots are pretty much out of the question, both for logistical reasons and for how much money this thing reasonably stands to make. It probably bombs, but from Disney’s POV making…

Hell, after Avengers dropped, Whedon was doing press where he flat-out said that he’d thrown out Thanos as a wild suggestion, and Feige had basically said, “Sure, why not?” There was never a driving plan beyond “single movies => teamup movie => holy shit we did it???”

I really loved it as a movie that explored the humanity of Bond by examining his past through the prism of his oldest and most meaningful attachment. But admittedly to a lot of folks, that third act I loved just came across as “British Home Alone.”

I’ll stump for Skyfall, personally. But Spectre is irredeemably bad, least of all because its twist is literally the ending of Goldmember

Amazon has been desperate for its very own GoT. Expanse has always had the quality necessary to merit the comparison, but it’s never had the audience it deserved. If anything, I’m just pleased Amazon gave it three whole seasons to come to some kind of conclusion, instead of pulling the plug immediately when season 4…

As someone who lives on the left side of the political spectrum, one of our side’s worst tendencies is our collective insistence that our shit don’t stink. For all our smugness about red states and blue states, I’ve had way more racial slurs hurled my way on the streets of New York and LA than I ever did in North…

I understand what Malina’s saying about permitted antisemitism in antiracist spaces. There’s a not uncommon sentiment I’ve witnessed that Jewish people, for all their history, are just another flavor of white. Of course, the thorny thing here is that sometimes that’s true and sometimes it isn’t. It’s a fun thing…

“I’m sorry, but” sure sounds like a great way to have handled this

I cannot believe that everyone is jumping to the conclusion that this is the Kingpin and not Tony Dalton’s Jack Duquesne, a character who has a personal history with Kate and a long comics history with Clint

Genuinely shocked this wasn’t the top, the bottom, and entire middle of the list

Yup. Comics fans have a misconception that they’re Marvel’s target audience. The fact is, they’re too small a demographic to build a strategy around. Movies definitely get every comics fan into the theaters, but comics rarely get more than a couple movie fans to wander into their LCS after. Money-wise, it’s a one-way…

Tasky is fine. It’d be one thing if the movie said, “This is Tony Masters, THE Taskmaster” the way Origins did with Wade/Deadpool. But instead, they gave a different character the Taskmaster codename and left it at that. It would be so easy in a future installment to introduce Masters as having assumed the codename.…

I yearn for the day when a thing’s audience becomes sophisticated enough to distinguish between “I want more of the thing” and “I want more things that make me feel like the thing made me feel”

I was very much in camp wait-and-see on this show, and even got cautiously optimistic when the trailers hit. But the actual thing is low-energy in a way that tries for cool and mostly just ends up as “slow.” The cast does a really good job, but they can’t save the forced banter. It’s quite cheap in that distinctly…

Google the name of our professional rugby team, and you’ll see that this is still only the second-most embarrassing sports thing we have

Disappointed that this movie will apparently not showcase the villains’ plan to kill Spider-Man by writing a musical about his life and then persuading him to star in it

A few days ago my friends and I were discussing the question of Iroh’s casting, and I threw Lee’s name out there. So I guess what I’m saying is, you’re welcome

Caught a screening of this over the weekend. It’s definitely true that the film uses our foreknowledge of a happy ending to elide most of the stickier questions about Richard Williams. And while it does go through the motions of asking “Is Richard Williams wrong?” it never seriously holds the viewer’s feet to the…