Haha, fair point then. :-)

I wouldn’t be altogether shocked if Evans comes back in a decade or so. (Money talks, after all, and I’m guessing at that point the MCU will be sputtering and desperate for a nostalgia kick.) In the meantime, though, it is some serious denial if you think he’s coming back soon.

I thought about that too, but I think The Usual Suspects was a big enough hit to prime him for a blockbuster, where someone like Jackson came relatively out of nowhere. It’s a fair point to argue, though, especially since Raimi had a similar resume at the time.

Yup, that’s what I trying to get at. And it’s notable that when Murphy made those jokes he was basically a kid starting out, whereas Chappelle is a middle-aged professional who has been a household name for almost two decades. Murphy both had an excuse and didn’t rely on it, and actually tried to make amends;…

Wasn’t that already done last year and called “the Closer”?

Oh christ, not this bullshit again. You don’t have to be a civil rights lawyer with a background in constitutional interpretation to know that that’s not what the right to free speech is, but as a civil rights lawyer with a background in constitutional interpretation, I can tell you that’s not what the right to free…

Yeah, you keep thinking that - in a few decades, though, I think you’ll find yourself embarrassed by having thought so. In the meantime, if you want to invoke Carlin and the “essence of being a comedian,” though, even Carlin disagreed with punching down the way Chappelle is. The essence of comedy isn’t unfettered…

Agreed. Eddie Murphy was arguably a once-in-a-lifetime talent, and by Chappelle’s age he had actually tried to listen, learn, and apologize for his prior anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Talent is no excuse for bigotry - and I’d even argue that if the notion of “talent” is in part intended to excuse such behavior, then we need…

Eh, I’d say the combination of Peter Jackson (the Heavenly Creatures guy?!?) somehow getting the green light to make one of the biggest film trilogies of all time, and Sam Raimi (wait, seriously, the Evil Dead guy?!?) to make Spider-Man and its sequels were the ones to make that leap. (Yes, I know Raimi had done a…

She has been acting for years, and yes, she made a short (Shrimp in 2018, which was well-received). She has also been attached to various significant projects for the last half-decade (including a TV adaptation of Shrimp that is seemingly in development hell), and has generally been a visible public figure (especially…

There’s also the fact it’s not remotely “proper” BDSM. BDSM is all about consent - without that, it’s just assault. 50 Shades is to BDSM roughly what the Keystone Cops were to law enforcement.

I really wish I could still like Woody Allen. I loved many of his films (and his work for Sid Caesar), in some photos he’s a dead ringer for my late grandfather, my grandparents used to go watch him play jazz in Greenwich Village, and he’s even from the same neighborhood as my mother. (Among other random connections…

Many styles rely on a single musical foundation. (The blues rely on a simple formula, as do waltzes, and reggaeton uses literally the same beat in every song.) Doesn’t mean there can’t be a great deal of variety within them, or that they are devoid of artistic merit. I’m not generally into hip-hop, and even I can tell…

I just reread it, and he does pretty much say it’s bad. He notes (in a comment, rather than the review proper) that there is no such thing as a review free of personal preference, but he fairly explicitly says it’s not good, in as objective a manner as he can muster while not being actively disingenuous.

Depends what you like about it. Being able to just sink into an engrossing world with fun characters for 100-120 hours is a major selling point for me (though I concede less so nowadays that I have, like, a job and a girlfriend than when XC1 came out). That said, the gacha grind in XC2 was a bit too far even for me -…

We all make mistakes, and Kinja notoriously sucks. That said, try a little thing called Google next time. It takes shockingly little research to learn that a post like that makes you look like a douchebag.

....well, duh. It’s voiced by Tom Holland, which has been well-publicized. But it’s a recording, so it’s amusing (to me at least) that they recorded an “oops” take, and somehow managed to get it to play when it detects a technical glitch.

I checked a video of the thing functioning normally, and it doesn’t have the “airbag” line. So, in other words, they must have actually recorded backup lines which automatically kick in if the thing malfunctions. Which, honestly, is kind of hilarious.

Nah. The 80s budget nearly killed him.

I’m still looking forward to this, but I can’t say it feels like a good sign that they named it after my roughly 150th-favorite Beatles song.