Not questioning the awfulness of finance bros, but the fact that Finneran pleaded guilty and paid damages surely raises his standing to among the best of public poopers.

I was also wondering how they knew she’d passed the sign 15 times in one day, and yet nobody managed to trail her, but perhaps there was a doorbell cam or something that recorded her.

It’s also pretty distinctive in an olfactory sense, but that might be less evident outside.

I’m old enough that it was really after my time, but I still got through it on novelty, and chuckling at the various Easter eggs. Also, I’m retired, so I’ve got the time to blow.

Definitely that “clickbait” syndrome that others in this thread have mentioned. Though, complaining about clickbait in the kinjaverse is truly swallowing one’s own tail.

Indeed. The lack of trees amid the houses is unfortunate (as it is in all such developments), but at least the monotony is mitigated by their being more interesting designs.

The inverse perspective on that is Spielberg’s observation that if you ratchet up the tension sufficiently, an audience will gratefully accept whatever resolution you offer. I believe he said that specifically in reference to the exploding air tank in Jaws, but he went on to create the whole “The Mission” episode of Am…

Consistency can be a legitimate gripe. I can understand all the gripes about Wonder Woman 1984's “wishing rules” and other stuff where the narrative feels arbitrary and stupid. But, yeah, when your complaint is something like “how can a non-living toy ‘die’?” you just sound like some chain-smoking Euro-reviewer who’s…

I find it remarkable just how stat-dense baseball was already, even in the post-Civil War era. If some of the early industrial statistical analysts of the pre-WWI era had happened to put their minds to it, perhaps the “Moneyball” era could have begun 75 years or so earlier.

Still has it indeed! :)

He actually had a reasonably big post-mortem role in Far From Home. He could definitely do similar “flashback to the groundwork I laid for the next major plot arc” or “supporting character in a prequel” roles.

Supposedly she trained intensively to do all her own whip-work in the movie. Which I really hope she gets to employ in another role someday... ;)

Many thanks! And it very much confirms my assertion — he really was operating apparently oblivious to themes that were clearly there from my perspective. I’ve heard similar things with reference to Grave of the Fireflies — that its author considers its theme to simply be the importance of obeying one’s elders, lest…

Well said and observed! Though I think it’s a bit grayer of an issue whether a dog’s smile is really indicative of an emotional response. I think the the theme of the film is really the implication that the gestures and cues and underlying thoughts and emotions are fundamentally intertwined. We learn to walk the walk…

I’d had a feeling for awhile that this was coming. I’d had a vague awareness of long term projects of his, and it seemed like a long time since I’d heard any more about them — often a sign age and health issues are accumulating.

I wish I’d seen that, because if his intent was really that Ava was a Frankensteinian victim - a sensitive soul misunderstood by a callous creator - then he’s a classic example of the author who doesn’t grasp the complexity of his own work. ;) Not “getting” the feminist angle just makes it that much more amusing.

To the extent that Ava’s supposed to have the viewers’ sympathy, I thought that was to drive home one of its key themes — about wishful thinking as a cornerstone of social interaction. Caleb wants to be a “white knight”, rescuing a beautiful prisoner, and the audience wants to root for that same underdog, despite the…

Certainly negligible to the multinational PepsiCo, but I think national and regional distributors are compartmentalized in terms of finances and management (see also the origins of Fanta, and the cola shootin’ wars in Thailand), so I’m not really sure how big a hit that might have been to Philippine Pepsi.

Bidi bidi bidi Rest In Peace.

This Fall: Litigator — The story of a camouflaged alien creature that shows up mysteriously after major accidents to brutally sue everyone into bankruptcy, decorating his office with their skulls.