Sure, but it’s not like we didn’t know where Breaking Bad was headed - it’s right there in the title. A better example of a truly seat-of-the-pants TV show might be Mad Men, which was one of my favorite shows, and which featured excellent writing, but I’d argue its ending was more of a “fade to black” than a…

I would have zero interest in this, but Zoey Deutsch. She was easily the best thing in Zombieland: Double Tap, and might make this watchable, too.

He loses interest in writing once he knows the ending.

I’ve been on the Keanu train since Speed and The Matrix, but he really won my heart with his appearance on Always Be My Maybe when he played himself, but as a total Hollywood douchebag. Anyone willing to make that much fun of themselves in service of the plot has a permanent place on my “good guys” list.

Happened to me with Bill Gates. I was working at his Foundation several years ago, and was sitting in an empty hallway waiting for a meeting to get started. Bill G comes out of a nearby doorway, takes a look at me over his shoulder, turns away, and lets rip as he continues walking down the hallway. That’s what $30…

Narrator’s voice: “People were confused as hell.”

The former HBO execs running Apple TV looked over at HBO Max’s “The Gilded Age” and thought, “We can top that!”

My first job out of school was in 1997. Since then, every job I’ve had - with one exception - came from replying to a job ad. I’ve seen the “always be networking” advice, and I’ve put a lot of time into it, but it’s never resulted in so much as an interview, let alone a job offer (with that one exception). I feel like…

Well, sure, but Netflix was throwing lots of money around, too, so it doesn’t seem like it’s the amount of money that’s the determining factor. Now, maybe Netflix’s huge creative budget went to (say) 1,000 projects while Apple’s went to 100 projects, but there would still be a question why Apple seems better (for the…

There’s also a Galena in Illinois. I spent a three-day weekend there a long time ago, and I remember them making a big deal of the fact that Ulysses S. Grant once lived there, for about six months, before he became famous. It’s also a small enough town that our guidebook called out a gazebo as a special attraction -…

I’m curious about the process behind Apple TV+’s run of success. Netflix got a lot of press and a little praise for their algorithm-based approach (which might have been partly fictional, but at least it provided a somewhat plausible picture of how Netflix made its creative decisions). So, is there someone at Apple…

So, it’s a movie that glorifies farm life, makes a virtue of ignorance, and represents a quality education and life in the city as corrupting forces that separate a man from his values. Was this picture by any chance bankrolled by the Republican Party?

And maybe, while we’re at it, we can see a trans-dimensional, super-powered demon of evil who does not conveniently turn out to be powerless in the face of pop music.

2025 for the hoi polloi

Tig Notaro as the Flash would be hilariously absurd. I’d wait in line to see that version of the movie.

I can’t imagine any other reason to do it. The movie was otherwise a pretty faithful version, and it boasts in-his-prime Kevin Costner, Burt Lancaster’s final role, a young Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones, and a terrific musical score. I mean, I was a big fan of “The Good Place,” but it’s hard to imagine looking at that…

It could be that Furiosa became a buff badass over time, or it could be that AT-J has depths we haven’t seen yet. Time will tell.

So we’ve got George Miller saying that there’s a story here worth telling, and we’ve got you saying there isn’t. I don’t know, I think my money is on George Miller.

So, earlier this year we had Deep Water, an “erotic thriller” that made no attempt at being erotic, and now we have another “erotic thriller” that, judging by the trailer and synopsis, does not appear to be a thriller. Can we please save the term “erotic thriller” for movies that are, you know, erotic thrillers?

I was curious about the sort of person who would take the time to post that, so I scrolled through their other comments. Every single one of them is a punchline. They come across like a wannabe stand-up comic at open mic night, desperately reaching for a laugh.