MY HOT TAKE: I thought that the original sheet cake/quietism thing was mildly dumb, and that Fey owning up to it is mildly good, and that her karmic scales are thus balanced.

Although also it didn’t seem like Fey was that involved with Season 3 generally, since I thought that most of the episodes were less hilarious except the one she was in. I feel like maybe she was busy with Great News? So it might not be fair to give her credit/blame for that college episode.

I didn’t have a political problem with the “college student wokeness” episode, but I also don’t think it was funny at all. My problem was that it was totally unmoored from how those issues actually play out at colleges. It was like the writers read an NYT trendpiece about kids these days, and that was their entire…

I hate the “opinions about politics = outrage” rhetoric, because it’s always so one-sided. Nobody ever says that when they agree with the opinion they’re criticizing. It’s always something they disagree with, and they’re too chickenshit to actually engage with the contrary opinion, so they resort to attacking (usually…

Oh yeah, I totally agree with your point, and I think you’re absolutely correct to point out all the ways the piece (the book? the history of popular music from the 60s-80s?) could and should have been better.

My point is more of a general and abstract one. I think that there’s a very common strain of thought among…

This is great to me, because apparently it was shot in Las Vegas (but not the same Strip locations that always get used), so I recognize all of those places. That comic shop is closed now! That gas station was on the outskirts of town when this would have been filmed, but the area has rapidly developed now! I’m pretty…

They fired him, as part of the site’s transition away from actual critical analysis and toward Sponsored Deals and Trump-related clickbait.

I mean on the one hand, I don’t think “being white” and “having an informed and cogent opinion about racism” are mutually exclusive, and I especially don’t think that people need to prove their bona fides before criticizing racism. But on the other hand, you do make a very good point about the AV Club generally being…

There actually is a fattie in the Karl Urban one! He’s at the very end of this clip - you can see the little stomach wheel next to his corpse.

Ronaldo is super cringey! But I kind of feel like that’s the point, like he’s the show’s obsessive fanbase who is creeping his way toward a healthier, less obsessive relationship with his fandom. Which is a really nice meta thing, I think.

No, he was convicted. It typically works like this:
(1) The prosecution and the defense agree to a “plea bargain”, which is a contract. Like any other contract, it’s only binding between the two parties; a judge is not bound by it.
(2) The judge holds a hearing called a “plea canvass”, where the judge questions the…

Well, the thing that makes “criminal law” a distinct legal area is that it’s not just about an individual harm; it’s about a harm to society. So society needs to get made whole in some way, not just the individual victim. And whether or not Polanski has adequately paid his victim, he manifestly has not paid back…

He also runs the Beach City Laughguards, an improv troupe composed of Mr. Smiley, Barb, Amethyst, and Peridot.

I mean, I don’t think anyone ever (certainly no national-level politician) merits this kind of hagiography. Ginsburg has done a lot of good stuff on the Court, and a lot of bad stuff (she’s written multiple decisions screwing over Native American tribes, even though neither the law nor the politics actually compelled…

I don’t think any of the current Justices did (Anthony Kennedy inherited his dad’s practice but I think that was only civil stuff).

Fun fact: while none of the current Justices (except possibly Kennedy) have any criminal defense experience, SEVEN are former prosecutors! (Kennedy isn’t and neither is Ginsburg).

Another…

I don’t think that’s quite the right analysis though, because except for the Warren Court post-Lochner SCOTUS has been a pretty firmly right-wing institution in most areas of law (civil rights, civil liberties, criminal defense, federalism, etc.). So like, yeah, Ginsburg has been pretty solidly on the left wing of…

I mean, I understand the critique you’re making of absurd oversexualization, but on the other hand “secret wig gun” is insane and great

“Male gaze” doesn’t just mean “the literal physical act of dudes looking at ladies” though. It’s about the cultural structures that are built on top of that act, extending outward and impacting other stuff. Like, it’s the assumption that men are active subjects of sexual desire and women are passive objects, which in…

A Monica Rambeau movie needs to happen as soon as possible, so that it can set up for Nextwave.

I feel like that was a deliberate decision, though. She and Cap didn’t get a lot to do in this movie, because they’re going to get basically all of the stuff to do in the next movie. I think it goes back to what Siede was saying about the structure of these movies, where characters rotate in and out of being leads.