I thought Thor had a little of that too, Branagh definitely used his classical shakespearian mentality to color a lot of the asgard stuff. But yes Iron man 3 is a Shane Black film first and foremost. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear if they were pulling for Mel Gibson to be Killian, if it wouldn’t cause a whole myriad…

I really like it too - it has a genuine tonal darkness to it that doesn’t feel forced, and the scenes of Stark and Happy coming up against the Extremis soldiers are genuinely some of the tensest action scenes in the MCU. (Stark blowing up that one with just an open gas line and dogtags in a microwave is easily one of…

While the Mandarin is a dated character, the Kingsley version we were initially presented with was a genuinely intimidating update.

I like Iron Man Three (as it was clunkily called on screen), it fit the Shane Black template of quippy fun and decent action.

She’s making the right people angry, so she’s doing fine in my book.

As a Liverpool fan, I’d have chosen Trevor’s joy at the Reds scoring a goal.

Agreed. The Leftovers was a show that had mysteries but did a good job of never really explaining everything. And it was still satisfying to watch because it did at least give you payoffs to the biggest things it set up. It just did a great job of making you not care about all the insignificant details. Plus it also…

Couldn’t ask for anything better.  Damn show made me cry.

I think what it comes down to is that The Leftovers just did a much better job of communicating what kind of show it was going to be and what the focus was. 

Came here for Leftovers love.  It’s a show that still sticks with me and the finale is the best I can think of.

Diana Rigg has had an amazing career.

I thought the explanation on The Leftovers was amazing in a way that didn’t seem possible. They way they used it, to explain something else (what ‘happened’ to Nora) was so smart.

What’s interesting to me is that the central mystery not being a priority (and you are spot on that it’s a reason why it stuck the landing) is almost definitely due to the reaction to the Lost finale. Lindelof took the criticism so hard that he made it extremely clear with Leftovers, from the beginning, that they…

LOST lost me at the end when the creators were like “The Island doesn’t matter”. Fuck them, the island was the whole point of the show.

“Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me.”

And folks are already making the same argument for GoT, that the show “lost its way” when it turned into a battle of the “good” living forces against the army of the dead. Except that’s literally the first thing we learn about in the books and where the story clearly is going. It may not be as interesting…

That Shield finale still sticks to my mind and is a great example of what made that show as awesome and ahead of its time as it was. What I respected the most about it, in a growing degree after seeing so many other shows falter in this, is that it never lost sight who Vic Mackey was. He was always the villain at the…

Leftovers was outstanding

The final season of Lost was sort of like the Star Wars Prequels, where the creators seemingly had no idea what it was that people enjoyed about there creation. The entire series of Lost was about the mystery, the happy ending with all the characters going into the beyond together felt unearned and completely out of…

Yeah, to be clear, it seems that as a business decision, this was the right call. They want Big Moments, so they write everything around creating those big moments. That’s what the Battle of the Bastards was: a big moment. That’s what Hardhome was, too. That’s probably also what the Battle of Winterfell will be.…