I think there’s a difference between having a slightly different interpretation of a thing’s meaning and getting it 100% wrong. Snyder really couldn’t let go of the idea that you’re supposed in at least some sense to admire these vigilantes, which is the opposite of any concievable point Watchmen was trying to make.…

Well, it was a sort of trip-of-a-lifetime deal for an older relative who had always wanted to check it out so I don’t remotely regret it. There’s a lot to see and it was different from what I expected in various ways.

One of the more uncomfortable things about visiting Cuba was the incredibly visible skin colour divide and its impact. We spent a couple of days at one of those all in resort places (don’t judge, it was some planned downtime in a busy trip) and...yeah, you could really see what decided whether or not you were…

The novel was absolutely compelling - so if they’ve captured the tone I’m very excited. The only thing I’m worried about is if it ends up like the film of The Damned United, where the oppressive, vaguely eldritch sense of doom (which is quite hard to capture visually) is wiped away leaving something rather lighter.…

I’m trying to argue that there’s a difference between people saying ‘it will never work’, which, yes, people started doing as soon as the whole concept landed, and the situation we’re in now, where I think a lot of people walked blinking out of the big two film finale and said. ‘Well it did work! That was a blast! Oh,…

If anything the Avengers was the beginning. Previously it was more or less a trilogy of vaguely linked superhero films. The original Avengers was the real new idea: the point at which Marvel said ‘we’re doing this, and you’re on board or not’, and Whedon, for all his many faults, should be applauded…

I think people might be overlooking the basic fact that the novelty of the whole idea has worn off. Put it this way - when it gradually became clear that we were going to get a series of interlocking blockbusters set in the same somewhat fantastical universe serving some big overarching story I thought ‘oh, what a…

The idea that Matrix Resurrections ‘repeats the same story’ is just...wrong. I’m not saying that you have to like what it does (although I loved it), but I’m not sure how you could imagine that it’s a retread, rather than a somewhat bitter commentary on the notion of a retread.

Yeah, the anarchopunk scene is aways quite pointedly forgotten - the nice official story is that the kids were all raging about unflattering trousers and prog rock.

I don’t think it’s creating ‘artificial emotion’ - I doubt Marvel films are after anything much from you emotionally except amusement (which is fine, by the way, they amuse me very well). I think it’s just confirming that, like the previous Waititi effort, the film is going to have the vibe of something that could be…

The beauty of this series is surely that none of that matters - there are plenty of popular entertainments where the ‘rules’ of some fantastical boondoggle can be subject to endless debate, revision and retconning if one enjoys that sort of thing. I think the genius of it is that it succesfully walks the tightrope…

I think it’s Ruth’s story that ties the thing together, not so much the generational stuff. What Nadia learns is acceptance of the inevitable, whether that’s your own past and what it made you, or the one event in the future that very definitely awaits us all.

Binged it over the weekend. What really gets me about the show is the way that it has, both times, managed to put it’s super high concept premise in the service of small moments of personal growth without one overbalancing the other. Really season 1 was about addressing past trauma and this one, in a sense, about…

Mark E Smith’s ‘Renegade’ surely has to be on the list. I mean, not if you’re hoping to learn a great deal about The Fall, but a book’s worth of the inside of that dude’s head is an absolute riot.

I always wonder about the inner life of somebody like this. Logan Paul isn’t a robot, so they presumably have one. I mean, what happens when it’s all quiet in Logan Paul’s house and he’s alone, maybe waiting for a kettle to boil or some soup to heat up? Do all the questions normal people find themselves idly musing on…

I presume they were going for an ‘actually fell into a vat of toxic chemicals’ look. Which seems fair enough.

This may be just a thought that has been passing intermittently through Nicolas Cage’s mind for years - it’s just that it was an entirely meaningless string of words until Matt Reeves made a The Batman film, at which point he was like ‘oh right - yes, I should absolutely do that.’

They could probably retcon things as something like ‘everything Sam did in the timeline adjusted us to the one we have now rather than the one it looked like we had in the series’.

Everybody does say that that, and not only is there no particular reason to disbelieve them, but if they’re any good then they’re right. I don’t trust an artist in any medium who claims that what they are making is a direct, unfiltered product of their lived experience, like some sort of swooning 19th century…

The odd thing is that Mitski herself is fairly clear in interviews that none of her work should be read as some sort of direct personal confession.