Also, since you bring up Norton, I think you’ve got the rewriting issue wrong. The screenwriters famously make it difficult to get credit for rewrites (typically because of fear of directors making enough changes to claim screenwriting credit for themselves. Most script doctors go uncredited. Typically the rules are…

I get where you’re coming from, but every time the writers strike, you see productions try to get around the strike by claiming that the fact that what wound up on screen wasn’t the same as the last script submitted before the deadline wasn’t a scab rewriting the script, but rather actors spontaneously ad-libbing new…

I don’t know about a grand insult, but her comments were unprofessional. People aren’t running out to tell Vanity Fair every time an actor flubs their lines, or is late to set, or needs a hundred takes to get a scene right. Her running to complain to the press about how crappy the writing was on her show, and giving…

Yes, but only if you first signed up for the free 1-year subscription. You could just ignore the free subscription offers completely and not be charged. With a lot of the people complaining about their secret “just a joke” complimentary checkmark, the current pricing doesn’t seem to be the obstacle, the obstacle is…

Apple didn’t give people Apple+ selectively. The complimentary Apple+ deal was disclosed to the public (indeed, it was advertised as a feature). IIRC, the people who had purchased new devices weren’t automatically signed up for A+, the user still had to sign up for it to count as a subscriber. Plus the number of new…

The idea that popular people you want to hear from are on Twitter is the center of the whole service’s appeal. People are on it because popular people are on it. And basically, Musk’s plan with Twitter Blue requires that thinking to extend to his premium service. So now that we’ve reached his Hitler’s Birthday…

Pay isn’t typically about fairness, it’s about demand. At the time, there were other productions that would pay Douglas $10+ million to star in their film, so that’s how he gets that salary. If they’d cast Michelle Pfeiffer, she probably would’ve gotten something closer to the $3 million she reportedly got for Batman…

I think supervised probation is like parole, where you’re required to check in with a probation officer, subject to impromptu visits, warrantless searches, and drug tests, that sort of thing. Unsupervised probation doesn’t have the monitoring, but you can still get in trouble if you violate probation terms (don’t take…

It seems very likely that they’re using him to roll on Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed—the news that he pleaded out was announced right around the same time that charges were announced, IIRC. The one thing I’ve speculated was if Halls knew of Baldwin ever taking the gun out to fire with live ammo, it would wreck Baldwin’s…

Is CODA not on Apple+ anymore? I don’t think it’s one of the stronger Best Picture winners, but it’s a crowd-pleasing movie, and a lot of the movies on this list either got panned in the AV Club reviews or had a tepid reception. A lot of C’s and at least one D-grade film (Cherry, which Dowd thought was “embarrassing”).

I worry about Marvels. I liked Captain Marvel, but it wasn’t great, and its popularity came, in part, from a bait and switch: better watch this new movie, she’s going to be real important in Endgame! And then in Endgame, she’s barely in the movie, and doesn’t really play into the story except as a deus ex machina. And…

I’m sure Schimkowitz considers this, too, a failure of branding and PR, and not Lerman’s fault.

Don’t feel bad. The 90s had a number of actors, like Lane, who were widely understood to be gay, but who were technically closeted in that they’d never declared their orientation to the press. I doubt very many people went into the Birdcage thinking that Lane was straight. But there was a strong feeling that even if…

I think there at the end is why you’re wrong about the money. When you’re an employee, particularly a highly-compensated management employee, any exclusivity or non-competes aren’t just about exclusivity over profits you generate, they’re exclusivity for your attention, and in Hollywood, for your prestige. If you’re…

Not sure the money is the big deal, here, as much as the conflict of interest. If you have a management position at your job, and then you produce a movie for another studio in violation of your contract, that’s a problem, even if the movie isn’t profitable.

It’s funny, because aside from Ahsoka, most of the stuff that Filoni fixed about the Prequels didn’t come from the characters and lore he added, it was mainly just improving Anakin’s characterization and making the story and characters that already existed make more sense.

I’m pretty sure the long shot of the training beach shows that there are people on jet packs over the water, so I think the guys on the shore are firing at them. Not saying that it seems like the most effective way to practice, but it seems on brand for people who are also practicing shooting flamethrowers at each…

Well, there’s got to be some explanation of how he wound up on Nick Nolte’s planet, in a weird compound surrounded by mercs, since that doesn’t seem to be Max Von Sydow’s style.

I don’t know, I think the flying bird story had more meat on the bone than people are letting on. To get to the next step of the story as I expect it, you needed an episode that gave the two top contenders to try to take the Dark Saber from Din—Paz Visla, who already tried, and Bo, who inexplicably hasn’t—a chance to…

It’s like a Looney Toons gag: