Results is still one of my favorite of his films (along with Support the Girls). Even his misses are hits on some level. He continues to make work that could only be films. 

The original film worked so well because it was built around the idea of who owns history, who gets to tell it and how it can be misused. There are a lot of ways to go from there, but space is definitively not one of those places. I can think of a lot of villains in the 1960s who very much wanted to distort history.…

Just like Trump, you can never lose if you never acknowledge failures. 

I just want the Disney team’s internal email chain on this matter, pls.

How is the title of this story not “Back and to the ... Middle?”

This sounds like a film Paolo Sorrentino could have made with perhaps more finesse. Sorrentino has the a similar rich visual vocabulary as Iñárritu, but is better at handling absurdity and making louche-ness feel fresh. (See Loro and The Great Beauty.) Still, the fact that Iñárritu is still able to make over the…

BURYING THE LEDE: “It’s just not usual to do so in flight...” 

Random excuse to post this insane video of Jay goofing off while clinging to the NOSE OF A FLYING PLANE. https://www.tmz.com/2021/08/11/jay-leno-hangs-on-front-of-airplane-in-wild-video/

That is the alternative — just wiping the slate clean. And, given this storyline, I’d be just fine with it. Honestly, I wish Belinda had been the carryover cast member. She had more story to tell, plus it would make sense that employees might transfer among various of the chain’s locations.

Didn’t need to know what Tony Soprano saw when he looked up from the jukebox and definitely don’t need to know if Darius saw thick Judge Judy. A+ finale. Most laugh-out-loud episode of this season. What a pleasure. 

Also, Greg speaks to the restaurant host. 

Greg being a ghost is intriguing, if a bit confusing because there’s nothing remotely idealized about their interactions. They seem incredibly fraught and her tantrums don’t really feel like grief. Also, the whole “he was a ghost the whole time” trope is a bit worn out. I honestly hope you’re wrong on that note.

Cameron and Daphne vs Harper and Ethan — there’s no winning couple there. Presumably Harper and Ethan are monogamous but look at them together. Disconnected. Ethan literally doesn’t even notice Harper on the bed when he returns from his run. Compare that to Cameron and Daphne who clearly have a messed up dynamic but…

Tonya is being underused for sure this season, but I have to say she is a great example of a deeply toxic individual posing as the victim. She uses her neediness and victimhood to control everyone around her, but honestly that thread was already pulled in season 1. Not much new to say. But I do like how she’s…

All they’re giving her is a character that stomps around and snaps at people. Armond was given so many more layers — publicly beseeching, privately seething (and also something of a predator in his own right). I’d just like to see more “behind the curtain” with characters. 

I loved Greg and Tanya’s argument in the restaurant because they were both right.

100%

Clyde’s monologue about the need to destroy wild hogs was chilling; his entire demeanor changed, from folksy/sarcastic to seething/entitled. It was interesting that Al laughed rather than stepped away.

It’s less that I wish a creator read my mind than that they plowed any new ground beyond a change of setting. (Again, this is early days, so possibly moot, but I’m betting not.)

Interesting.