Perhaps, but counterpoint: there is a reason Agatha Christie did not write Hercule Poirot Enjoys A Pleasant Cruise Down The Nile Where Nothing Bad Happens At All.

She’ll always have ‘My Name is Earl’. No one can take that away from her.

“Wow, this is a big movie to do on my own. Maybe I could co-direct with Bryan Singer?”

Whenever I think of Diana Rigg, I think of that episode of ‘Extras’ featuring her and Daniel Radcliffe (playing a sex-obsessed version of himself), who sidles up to her at the end and says, “Dame Diana, do you still have that catsuit?”

“I am reminded of the particular incident where Holmes and I stayed in on a rainy day and read quietly to ourselves for several hours.”

I never thought of it as a gendered term (and I’m old).

lol are you high?

Continuity in the Poirot Cinematic Universe is about par with 616 Marvel Comics Universe.

Implying that only Depp, in a cast with names like Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe and Michelle Pfeiffer, is a true “Movie Star” is quite the take, I’ll give you that.

Branagh: “Ok, for the third Poirot movie, Mystery at the Regatta, I want Kevin Spacey, Chrissy Teigen, Ellen DeGeneres, Louis CK, Casey Affleck, Aziz Ansari, and Jeffrey Tambor. On the soundtrack, I’m thinking edgy - I want an R Kelly/Marylin Manson collab.

The first movie’s cast had Depp, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Michelle Pfeiffer, Josh Gad, and Daisy Ridley (then fresh off a lead role in The Force Awakens). What you define as a “star” is somewhat subjective, but I suspect the average person would recognize most of those names.

I think you’re maybe reading into the context too much and / or selectively choosing which uses to remember. Google “whip smart AVClub” and you’ll see that the results that come up have them using it to describe male characters or celebs (Patton Oswalt came up for me), female characters or celebs, and even the writing…

nope, it has fewer stars and they’re smaller names = lower-wattage. That’s not difficult compared to “Orient Express” which can be accurately described as “an all-star cast but also Josh Gad.” Just comparing the posters leads to the conclusion: lower wattage (I haven’t even heard of three or four of the people on the…

Sometimes the Internet almost makes up for it’s existence...

I have never once thought of whip-smart (or smart as a whip) as meaning anything other than someone, regardless of gender, who is smart and gets things right away. Not sure where you’re getting your definition from.

It’s Midsummer you need to avoid

I’ve met her. (A very good friend of mine is a friend of hers and gets invited to all his parties.) He told me “Do NOT ask her about Gilligan’s Island.” So when I was introduced I said I was a huge fan of the TV series Dallas and her face lit up. (She played Julie Grey, an early secretary/mistress of JR’s.) She was so…

I feel like “Tina Louise turned it down” should be a euphemism for a particularly bad cash-grab.

In very bad film you don’t jump the shark, the shark jumps you!

The real hero here is the person who foresaw the need for bungalow structural integrity, possibly inspired by The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark.