There was still a bit of it as late as the early oughts, in films like Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) and Daredevil (2003) where the protagonists fight, and then hook up, and then fight some more. It’s worth noting that even in the 60s and earlier, the various references, threats, and slaps weren’t really supposed to stand…

Men and women slapping in each other, often in direct proximity to making out and/or having sex, used to be extremely common. 

To be fair, the main thing that was wrong about the Penguin’s prior cinematic appearance is that he got dragooned into a Tim Burton movie, Mayor Freak, about how an unscrupulous tycoon manipulates a monster from the sewers (but somehow also from the circus, which indicates that in Mayor Freak’s world, people attend…

I’m guessing you’re not an attorney, despite all the legal terms and certainty you’re throwing out there. I get you feel that “accident” isn’t a strong enough word for what happened, which was awful and pretty clearly goes beyond the bounds of normal negligence. But criminal negligence, even criminally negligent…

Baldwin made statements in large part because the press was literally chasing him around from the moment the incident occurred. If Travis Fimmel had been the one holding the gun when it went off, this would’ve been a two-week story around here, with maybe an update when the new season of Raised by Wolves premiered.

A third accident is still an accident. It’s a worse accident, representing greater negligence because people should have been forewarned by the other incidents and corrected their behavior and/or hired more competent people. But unless you have good reason to believe someone intended to cause a death (like the stupid…

Thanks for all the reviews, and for this piece, which is an excellent way to look back and say goodbye (regardless of how The Batman turns out—I’m hoping for a high note, but you never know).

Great point. And weirdly, one I think all critics understand at the low end of the scale. I don’t think I’ve seen Dowd or anyone else give a movie a D-grade saying the film was simply below average, within a few tweaks of being an okay film. If your film gets a D-grade, you’re being told it’s a failure. An actual…

Moriarty left, but I’m pretty sure Florek and Brooks were let go because of the mandate to add women to the cast (although, knowing the town Florek is from, it wouldn’t shock me if he was also conservative). So I guess that leaves Sorvino? Having met him, makes sense he’d be right of center.

I see where you’re coming from, but it doesn’t make sense to me that Martin’s reaction to losing interest in this story would be to take steps that can only expand and prolong it. Usually, when a fantasy or sci fi writer gets bored with their series’ main story it either gets wrapped up in a messy rush, or taken in a…

I’ll have to disagree a little on the “neither shocking nor edifying” part. In the abstract, it looks like a repetition of Robb’s story: idealistic young prince gets over his skis and pays the price. But the specific tropes being explored weren’t the same. Judging by some of the male GoT fans I’ve met they could…

“Exile” to Staten Island is truly a cop’s idea of consequences. He keeps his job, his rank, and even his position as a homicide detective. He just has to <gasp!> do it in an outer borough. 

Did you miss The Wire? It was pretty good.

And plenty of the younger DAs were going for convictions to pad their stats, even when it became apparent the suspect may not have done it.

While it takes too long (as with everything in the later books), I kind of liked the way that storyline nods to the original premise of the series. That prince is so convinced that he is a key piece to the puzzle of this story. And where in most fantasy series, that conviction would be rewarded and he would play some…

The other way to look at it, however, is that the big franchise movies are subsidizing the work of small, personal filmmakers. Those small movies still get theatrical releases, rather than going exclusively to streaming, in large part because the Spider-Men and Shang Chis of the world make enough money to keep…

Maybe the lead prosecutor will have a homoerotic-but-adversarial relationship with Donovan’s cop. The first episode starting with someone discovering a totem pole made of human torsos (and Donovan being suspiciously quick to the crime scene) would be just the thing the L&O franchise needs to liven it up a bit.

Even Melnick got face turns in a couple of episodes where she put principle over winning at all costs.

Most of the time when GRRM gets roasted for not finishing the Song of Ice and Fire, it’s because (as he is here) he’s gone out to the public to promote his other projects. It’s not unreasonable, when a guy steps up to ask you to invest more of your time and money into his creative endeavors, to get upset that the…

it happened with the last three Star Wars movies,