In that way it’s kind of trending towards Murder She Wrote where Jessica Fletcher showing up often is the catalyst for murders that just wouldn’t have happened if she had been out of town.

If it helps ward states and localities off from offering filming incentives, it might be a good thing. The fuzzy math used to justify public funds directly going to these companies has never made much sense.

There’s plenty to excoriate Dr. Phil for, beyond what’s presented here, but the swerve to guilt-by-association for Michael Weatherly being a harasser is really weird. Has anything shown he has any culpability for the guy being a piece of crap? The NYT piece linked mentions him all of once as the producer.

The Razzies just feel like a relic of another time that has no meaning in today’s world. The internet has levels of cattiness and “we love to hate” energy that they can’t keep up with, while also making it much more obvious how toxic those attitudes can be for real people. Obviously nominating a kid for a bad acting…

I think it’s fair to say Louis-Dreyfus’ recent career has been defined by roles in New Adventures of Old Christine, Veep, and even the MCU where her characters would fit that mold (you could say Seinfeld too, I suppose, though I think there’s a different dynamic and it’s been years regardless.) It’s not really a knock…

Only if you have an economy of characters where there can’t be the 0-100 military type to propose that solution, instead.

Yeah frankly the amount of time everyone was running around without masks on in the game, and the amount of close-quarters combat where they walked it off absent an actual bite, is sort of ridiculous. Taking it outside video game logic into live action would make that doubly obvious. I dunno if this was the best part…

Stuff-in-a-screen films ultimately feel like a solution in search of a problem. Perhaps people don’t think there would be buy-in if you just dove into the computer for investigations in a more traditionally-formatted film, but the contrivance of “everything is happening in the view of this webcam” never really lands…

Yeah, I feel like the elephant in the room when a bunch of horror fans bemoan the lack of critical awards for horror films is that most horror films aren’t good. Turns out when you’re optimizing for scares and blood, characters and plots become secondary. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good or great horror films, or…

Counterpoint: The Last of Us was already basically an interactive film, versus being a video game first and foremost (Sony seems to focus on those with their first party games, from Naughty Dog’s recent output to the God of War reboot). If you just cut the gameplay segments and create one of those “video game movies”…

Yeah I think that’s the whole point of the Plane name. Basic high-concept “Die Hard on an island” thing (which is funny because we’re getting a rom-com spin on that too this year, with Shotgun Wedding.) They’re not trying to give you any ideas this is something trying to be more than a pulpy action movie (take notes,…

I’m not as down on the season as others were, and I think this finale cemented that it worked. Spinning characters in circles is fine, narratively speaking, if they end up in interesting places; for Brad, Dana, and Jo, that’s striking off, whereas I think having Poppy and Ian realize they actually were best off where…

Yeah it was definitely a case of a solid series that went on way too long, with the characteristic intricately-plotted Moffat stuff becoming the characteristic convoluted Moffat stuff. It doesn’t need more.

I agree with you about the substance. These are mostly just recaps now.

Why is the ADL’s bigoted (in your words) actions “shameful”, but Goldberg’s bigoted (also your words) actions merely “stupid”. And I didn’t realize if one criticizes Goldberg for (rightfully) saying hateful, wrong things, it was also an attack on all black people.

Not as we think of them now. The modern sense of policing was just developing in the western world (the first police department wouldn’t be established for another decade after this film’s setting), let alone forensic science and investigation. But I’m sure that conceit is one of the least ahistorical elements in this…

The best profanity in shows that I think about is when it’s deployed in just that kind of way. The limited “fucks” in Bojack Horseman, likewise, always worked so well because of their strategy deployment.

It was fairly novel for its time, but it hasn’t aged all that well. Shrek 2 is definitely a superior film.

The online arguments about Avatar’s cultural impact can be exhausting, but I get the point. The film was a massive success, but history is full of critical and/or commercial successes that are rapidly forgotten and don’t remain in the consciousness. It taking so long to release a sequel is certainly part of it, too.

I mean, if you can make another decent Pirates film, sure. But that seems... unlikely.