Bay definitely has some visual chops (and is really good at Spielberg-esque lyrical rotation/up-and-down kinetic ballet) but, beyond that, and a knack for over-filtered burned-pale-gold cinematography, he's awful. He makes one realize just how good Tony Scott and John McTiernan were, just a few years earlier — Scott…

Good point. It occurs to me that another element is something Woody Allen said once about standup (in an audio clip from, I think, an early radio interview):

She is a vampire (cf. The Hunger, 1982).

Right, exactly! That's the part I'm talking about. It's so obviously real, but every transcript (and the books) say he's "faking outrage."

I actually don't think he's so bad in the sketches on his SNL but (as everyone else has said) the opening and closing bits are awful.

Sometimes you can hear what an insufferable asshole the person is just in the inflection of their voice (for example, Michael Cimino).

The only antidote to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is to immediately watch The Blues Brothers or Ghostbusters.

Every commentary I've read of the SNL episode describes Berle's tirade — after his monologue is cut off, first by the music stand being pushed over backstage (reportedly by Bill Murray) and then by a stage manager — as "staged," "fake," "part of the act" etc. But I really, really don't think so.

Bill Nighy doing that on the Love, Actually track is similarly hilarious — every closeup prompts a disgusted, incredulous "Oh, God" that's wonderfully vulnerable and self-effacing.

Schwarzenegger is very charming and a great movie star, appealing in all the important ways — but he comes off as a strange, child-like man (although in a sunny, positive way rather than in a mean, vindictive way like Trump).

My favorite are Schwarzenegger's, in which he just watches along and describes what "I" do in each scene as if it's really happening ("And now I find out that my wife is part of it" etc.) That really is all he does, except to editorialize about how much he likes the scenes.

They keep calling each other "sir."

Exactly. Very well done. And (beating the dead critic) this is precisely the conceptual element that the reviewer misses.

Oh, come on; it was fine. You just mean you noticed it.

I wasn't going to do my usual complaint about the review…but, damn it, Zack: your reaction to Jadis and her group is that they're "ridiculous" and that the show is "embracing its own absurdity"?

The world just isn't interesting in watching this guy star in movies, and never has been.

If he didn't anticipate that, he's an idiot.

I know you're kidding around…but the description is very good and very chilling because Tolkien explains that the person in question had forgotten his own name since his fealty to the Dark Lord was so complete.

That's just exactly the kind of troubling development that would occur DURING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

"Can I hold up signs to Keira again?"