It sounds like we mostly agree, then. Filmmakers are inclined to keep Bruce Wayne super-rich because that’s his iconic civilian trait, and the bigger the house, the more cool stuff there is to film. However, a more modestly rich Bruce and Alfred could be a fresh and interesting angle, without radically changing the…

Properly manage it, like, use accounting to make sure the fund is being spent on responsible community organizations, while employing independent research to evaluate which strategies are actually mitigating poverty and which aren’t, and not allowing the money to become a mob slush fund for gangsters to buy sex…

This is the real problem with the “why doesn’t Bruce Wayne just solve crime with his billions?” pop-criticism; the only real answer is ultimately “because then it wouldn’t be a Batman story”.

“Like I said in my OP, his parents already sank billions of their own money into undoing the root causes of Gotham’s crime and it didn’t work, so what is exactly Bruce gonna do that’ll be any different?”

But, does Bruce Wayne’s wealth really have to be limitless? Does he have to be a billionaire? Couldn’t he still be from old money, and own a big estate, but only have a few dozen million in cash? If one insists on making Bruce insanely rich, and also going for a gritty approach all about corrupt officials and a…

The show also featured a totally different guy in NYC who got a paper there, so assuming Eve isn’t Lindsay, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t fold Gary in someday.

He also narrated the audiocassette of The Polar Express. Farewell, good sir.

“5 things the Uncharted games deliver that the film series needs to add” - apart from playability, that is? Wocka wocka!

“Slight correction, and I think this is where the article itself failed a bit, Whedon wasn’t MeToo’d.” - I think the multiple allegations of bullying, shaming, and having relations with female subordinates quite clearly puts his career demise on the spectrum of #MeToo accountability. #MeToo doesn’t just apply to…

“The Taliban have outlawed pop music. But only music that people enjoy, so you can keep listening to Billie Eilish.” - Bill Maher

Right, that’s another problem - this is a world without industry or science. The whole trajectory of society is to change as little as possible, while hiding from the rest of the world, and stamping out the odd Bad Wizard. There are no apparent international tensions or rivalries, no ecological challenges, no evolving…

“A lightsaber isn’t a stick?” - It’s a stick that hits people and slices things, obviously, which is a lot cooler than a stick one just waves around in the air, for CG artists to add swirling mist to later. Hence the movies eventually aiming to make wands as much like guns as possible.

Here’s the thing about the Wizard World, which the new movie series is proving in abundance: it really doesn’t work unless it’s about kids.

Roger Ebert gave The Amazing Spider-Man 3.5 stars, and Spider-Man 3 two stars. In this, he was right, and Dowd is wrong.

The production didn't have to kill off the character and rewrite the whole season; recastings can be awkward, but they're hardly unheard of. I wonder how the judge weighed the financial implications of that fundamentally artistic choice...

“it’s one of only two or three really good scenes in that entire movie” - No, Age of Ultron is jam packed with really good scenes; they just don’t cohere into an overall single story all that well.

Two issues leap out at me:

“I was willing to accept that she was quirky and got lost in what she loved doing most of all to not focus on romance until the right one came along.” - Um, but the movie never suggests she has any solid reason for thinking Steve is actually “the right one.” The writing, performances, and direction all indicate…

Pretty young cheerful women trying to be kind can get away with a whole lotta stuff.

Agreed, which is a big part of what makes it so watchable. It feels as though it was written by a genuinely insane person.