Sure it is! Why, look at all those MAGA idiots who told Nike, “I don’t agree with this thing you did, so I’m gonna give you money for a product (your exact business model) and then destroy it on the internet, thus making me look like a very smart, stable, and cool person!”

I was all set to check out “The Mountain” this weekend just for Jeff Goldblum, but in the Peoria, IL area no multiplex has booked it. Have to keep those screens free for Disney remakes and superheroes and “Fast and Furious” movies, don’cha know. I mean, they might book stuff like “Midsommar” and “Yesterday” on one…

Once again H.L. Mencken is proven right.

Disney- never underestimate the public’s hunger for the exact same thing, only shittier. 

You’re right, those are family-friendly movies (though I think aimed at general audiences not kids in particular.) I think the difference with E.T. is that it starred kids and was told from their point of view without being dumbed down or feeling like “just for kids” entertainment.

Agreed. You get the most bang for your buck by using your CGI sparingly.

Superhero movies are closeted musicals. Everyone dresses up in garish costumes and does elaborate choreography to sweeping and/or kitschy music. Fighting allows them to say things that they otherwise couldn’t.

The movie’s use of Simon & Garfunkel’s music is vaguely revolutionary; most Hollywood directors had not yet figured out how current pop music could enrich their stories.

I’ve always had the interpretation that Mrs. Robinson seduced Benjamin as part of an elaborate plan. She wants her daughter Elaine to marry a specific man, knows that a romance blooming between Elaine and Benjamin would get in the way of that, so she starts an affair with Benjamin as a preemptive measure to make sure…

That’s true - I had it in my head it was a later season. For pure shock value this scene is hard to top. Until then Todd seemed like a goofball wannabe that the others tolerated because they need a fourth body. “Dead-eyed Opie-looking motherfucker” is exactly right.

I think the turning point was Jane’s death in season 2. That moment you screencapped was darker than dark. None more black.

I don’t think anyone was prepared for that show to get as dark as it eventually did, except maybe Vince Gilligan. The turning point:

Was it, or was it because everyone was all, “oh, it’s the dad from Malcom in the Middle! What kind of crazy hijinks is he up to now?”

“Audiences reportedly stood up and cheered during that wedding scene; maybe they didn’t let the implications of that final shot fully sink in.”

That’s Mrs. Sam Elliott to you!

“Benjamin Braddock is, after all, a self-obsessed rich white guy, and the problems of self-obsessed rich white guys have been thoroughly explored elsewhere. It’s hard not to notice that the movie doesn’t feature a single character who isn’t white”,

And then Zach Braff came along and told the story for a whole new generation with Garden State and the world has never been the same.

I don’t know anything about your situation, but I think a lot of it depends on who you are when you go into the movie (age, distance from the era, expectations, etc.). A lot of people go in thinking it’s going to be some big countercultural rebellion movie, which it so isn’t (I’m sure Benjamin went on to be fine…

Literally every single other man she knows is a one-for-one clone of her father, personality-wise. Pathetic as he is in a number of ways, Benjamin is at least not that. I don’t think the film does quite enough to portray how doomed Elaine must feel in order to see Benjamin as an escape route, but audiences of the time…