The movie absolutely nails that unease about the shifting decades. I wouldn't say it's always 100% successful, but when it does land, it lands hard.

The EW article itself spoils even more, with specific details about that loss.

You win! (as I laugh myself into depression)

Right? I've never seen the movie, and I won't, because of that.

Whoa, whoa…Tess is decidedly not Hardy's bleakest story. Jude the Obscure makes Tess look like a sunny day at Disney… It's so goddamn bleak, it almost spins round to gruesome comedy.

I also loved how the movie maintained its thread on science and experimentation, even if it was pitched at the kid level: from the first time we meet the college researchers, to their trial-and-effect process of getting their suits right, to their problem-solving in the final battle. These are done at a very…

In that case, Big Hero 6 (which is really great) would bring home the trophy (for its terrible Fall Out Boy song).

The mirror sketch was way too long for such a limp payoff, but I did laugh really hard at Peele sinking to the ground, pretending to be a shattering mirror.

Maybe Davis should have been a horror writer instead. Between this, his Halloween strips, and "Primal Self" from the 9 lives book, he does disturbing way more successfully than he does comedy.

Yup.

No accounting for taste and whatnot, and I can definitely understand most of these complaints (like how indulgent "Cabinessence" is, even though, viscerally, the songs all work for me), but this is the one I don't understand:

I don't know why, but I laughed the hardest at Wu offering to buy Mako a smoothie for going shopping with him. Like the kind of thing my mom would do if she needed to drag me with her. Couldn't stop laughing - I really love Wu's attempts at (bro)mance.

For me, the most transcendent moment in any Beach Boys song is in the Smile Sessions cut of "Wonderful," when the background voices swell in with a yodel (right around the 0:53 mark). The voice leading there, in what's a relatively (for pop music) unconventional harmonic progression, is just … Goddamn.

Can we talk about how awesomely appropriate Bolin's Civil-War letter was, given that he and Mako are finding themselves on opposite sides of the Earth Kingdom war? Brother against brother, indeed.

Great to hear! My copy is supposed to arrive later this week, so I'll let you know once I get through it.

The chocolate chips of good intentions will become the raisins of discord!

No shame: I was pretty taken aback by that ending, too.

Yah, my husband still makes fun of me, because the first three times he saw me tear up, it was during Grave of the Fireflies, The Iron Giant, and "Jurassic Bark". So even though he's seen me cry at live action since, he still tells everyone I only cry during cartoons, because he's an asshole.

Are you familiar with this industry? Failing upwards is probably more common than the reverse.

I wouldn't want Gilliam on Sirens: there are moments of weirdness in the book, but the tone is much more delicate than Gilliam's sledgehammer (and I like Gilliam a lot). I can't see him pulling off the the final stretch, which has a quiet melancholy that isn't really in his wheelhouse. If the Coens ever wanted to try…