I suspect the only person who appreciates Dave Franco’s upper lip is his dentist.

I think they’ll regret their seasons-long strategy of making Claire an opaque cipher of a character with jarring shifts in motivation and ability.

Probably a recycled design from the 1960s with the word ‘journalist’ now replacing the word... um, well, it was a different time

This does explain the bumper sticker Trump stuck on his desk.

Franco probably didn’t realize how much of a high-wire act this kind of film was going to be. I think there’s room to both praise his puppy-dog enthusiasm for interesting projects and also point out aspects where his reach exceeded his grasp.

“Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how’d you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.”

Not at all. The high incarceration rate fact directly contradicts the idea that NZ is some kind of Shangri-La with a naive and inexperienced police force; the idea that it is unlike where most readers live; the idea that because it is far away, it is otherworldly.

NZ has one ethnic group that represents the majority of the prison population but just 15% of the national population. This is a result of some of the same systemic issues as America’s, so I hope nobody is coming away from this police PR campaign with false ideas about a country that has very real problems.

NZ has the seventh-highest incarceration rate in the OECD.

And the swastika is a traditional symbol of Eastern religion but if you put it on a T-shirt you know what people are gonna think about you.

The answer to both might be called ‘the dignity gulf.’

I know this is a blog and not a news publication but you shouldn’t be getting in slapfights in the comments.

If you’re not seeing it, you’re not seeing it.

I’m not sure you’ve addressed the first-draft-style writing here.
It’s possible to like an artist’s POV and intentions and still criticize the underdeveloped aspects of their work.

I wish there was more rewriting in graphic novels. Masterpieces like ‘Ghost World’ absolutely nail natural language, but reading just the very first pane of the pages above borders on cringe. Language builds a world and situates characters as effectively as any visual treatment, and it’s frustrating when artists don’t…

Agreed. He was doing his best but outside Weekend Update the episode was one of the weakest this year.

There’s a term, ‘naive realism,’ that describes the delusion that your ideological opponents would change their views IF ONLY they had access to the same information as you. It seems that no matter how many times people see that contrary data simply entrenches opponents, people cling to their naive realism.

It’s not a vote — it’s a survey.

You can also watch a film like ‘Red 2' and see how the laggy editing ruins what would normally be a bland, kinda-watchable film by holding shots for a beat or two too long. Whether that’s Bruce Willis’ fault for refusing to do enough second takes or a rushed post-production I don’t know, but yeah, it’s certainly more…

I’m amazed this show made it past six episodes, let alone six seasons. I guess ‘upbeat and breezy’ is good-enough background TV.