Christensen also wasn’t done any favors by the dialog written for him in those prequels. Sir Laurence Fucking Olivier couldn’t make “I hate sand” work.

Breach is another really good one in a similar vein (docudrama based on a true story about a sneaky guy getting caught being sneaky) from the same director.

It’s so gloriously cringey and uncomfortable when Stephen is so desperately trying to worm his way out of trouble and weirdly asks Chuck if he can take him to the airport because he can’t be by himself and he’s not sure what he might do, and Chuck is like, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

I just rewatched that last night after not having seen it in years, and it really holds up. Christensen is great in the title role (it’s well known that George Lucas was never an “actor’s director” who can bring out the best in a performer, but Billy Ray seems to be), and Sarsgaard is fantastic. You can just feel…

I didn’t do anything wrong, Chuck!

DC movies jumping on the ol’ multiverse bandwagon. Is there anything they do that isn’t just doing what Marvel does, but not nearly as well? (Although I hear The Suicide Squad is quite good—I want to see it, but have been putting it off because I’ve developed a low tolerance for gore.)

I hated Batman v Superman and I didn’t even bother to watch either version of Justice League, but I didn’t hate Affleck as Batman. The warehouse scene was the shit. That’s basically my favorite kind of Batman, the kind that makes a surprise attack on a warehouse full of heavily armed thugs and just beats holy hell…

“This should be agony. I should be a mass of aching muscle—broken, spent, unable to move. And, were I an older man, I surely would. . .but I’m a man of thirty—of twenty again. The rain on my chest is a baptism—I’m born again. . .”

Lucky.  Lucky old man.

I had to double-check to make sure I wasn’t showing pending comments.  Can they send people back to the greys?

I’m not defending the guy, but based on what I’ve read he doesn’t exactly sound like Bill Cosby, just your run of the mill producer slimeball.  Not that that’s a good thing, but his deal sounded more like insensitivity and selfishness than outright harassment.  Still not a good look, though, and I wish they had…

LeVar was a little rough, but I think he would have improved once he’d settled in. Was Alex Trebek as smoothly polished in his first week hosting Jeopardy! as he was after decades at the job? What am I saying, of course he was. But most people take a while to settle into a groove and work out the kinks, and LeVar…

“My name is Buck and I like to fuck . . .up Jeopardy!”

You can go to jail for that?

Those guys are a couple of hosers.

I got that story wrong, because it had been a while since I’d heard it. My friend’s acquaintance was actually one of the area reps for the show, and was always bugging him to be on the show. She described how the process goes down, which was basically what I described above—everything’s agreed on well in advance,…

A friend of mine is an antique collector, and he would see Mike at antique shows back before he was on TV.  He described him as a “know-it-all dick.”

I really miss Junkin’ with Val & Dave on the old Turner South network. It was a real low-rent sort of show, but I was a lot of fun. They would go to flea markets and garage sales over the southeast, chit-chatting with the sellers and picking stuff that they would later sell on eBay to see who made the most profit. …

A friend of a friend of mine had the Pickers visit her, and she said that all the deals are made up front by behind-the-scenes people, and all the prices are agreed upon.  Then the main guys show up on the day of shooting and they all pretend to haggle.  My rule of thumb is, if it’s on TV, it’s fake.

“I don’t believe in 10 years he’s said five nice things to me... unless he was cutting somebody else down and we were both laughing.”