“I am committed to doing the necessary work to get back to a healthy, safe and productive stage in my life.”

Great! Use the Oxford comma.

I assume all AVClub writers are constantly on their phones during  movies and TV.  This has shifted to an ADD vibe.

Board rooms are great tho!  I guess Succession is also bad?

“Normal” is an interesting question.  I agree with most of you that MOST people shouldn’t be doing that.  I do wonder whether we need some to do those hours.  I gather you think that almost no job should hit that volume?  At any time?  (Thanks for approaching this respectfully.)

I don’t think I understand this - can you clarify?  Are you saying you dislike characters who are in “challenging careers” or simply ones that are focused on them?  Out of curiosity, what shows do you like?  Because I think an overwhelming majority of the shows I like do enmesh the characters in their work.  But maybe…

1. I have never slept 8 hours per day, so that’s probably part of it. 4-5 hours is my norm.
2. I’ve done it over multiple careers - in a business/management lead in software, and multiple times as a lawyer (as an associate, then repeatedly in trials).

I certainly agree that if your career is not aiming upward, anything…

I really wonder what people expect from work nowadays.  64 work weeks suck, but I know SO MANY people who have done them.  In my youth, I routinely broke 100.  Is this a Gen Z thing?  I am not being difficult but I feel like there are strong implicit demands for workplaces that should just be made explicit.

She is prodigiously talented (as a singer and dancer) and charismatic, but I think she’s ironically benefitting now from having a relatively modest career history as an actress. We judge her for being often good, sometimes great performances for a stretch, then a nearly two decade slumming period, before returning to…

Wait, what? NO Supporting bids for Better Call Saul? And TWO each for Squid Game and Severance and THREE for Succession? I’ve watched all of these shows, all are good, but that is absolutely ridiculous. WTAF?

It was plural because there are two movies. I agree that Tom Cruise was the only old man flying. And apparently the only pilot capable of doing anything... because old Gen Xers (nearly a young boomer?) are more capable than Gen Z - perhaps the only “theme” of the movie other than “planes are fast!”

Counterpoint - it was a great movie and better (far better) than the weirdly lauded other movie about old men who want to fly fast and far.  Lightyear is lightyears beter than Maverick.

I think this is the right take (unsurprisingly for Hanks) and it should work for Swank and Redmayne. We’re disingenous if we pretend that these actors didn’t have important impact to the world through their humanist portrayals of marginalized people. We’re naive if we think that Hollywood would have legitimately cast a…

You misspelled Armie Hammer.

“Then a 9-year-old Monty Python fan best known for her performance of the group’s song “Sit On My Face” at her Toronto kindergarten classroom...”

Hold on. Her parents let her know this song (and sing it in public) in KINDERGARTEN? This is more alarming than anything in the film production.  

Wait... several of these women are over 45.  Is the problem that there is ageism or that the older actress parts are largely cast by a small group of repeat players?

In the world of reboots, seeing “Stranger Things” and “Candy” made me really think we were getting a return of Jerri Blank.

As someone who tries to be kind and caring, I have a huge soft spot for transgressive types. To so precisely nail insensitivity and mockery requires (I think) a shocking amount of empathy and craft. People like Gottfried, Carlin, and even Larry Flynt were gifted at that. The 9/11 joke I think is one of the best…

Even less so now.  Recognitions, did you take a job in finance?!

I’ve never seen SNL lean so into a performer’s unusual style as it has with Sherman. I’m not complaining, but I wonder if they would have let, say, Demitri Martin go into weird and conceptual skits?  Or let Gallagher do prop comedy all the time?  Letting Sherman go full bore on body horror is perhaps one of the…

Wow. I’ve never seen you play to the crowd so well! People can change! Sam Elliott! Recognitions! It’s a whole new world, people!