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Astonishingly vapid, cynically saturated with tweenspeak (every third word is 'sus' or 'tea' or 'merc') and a bumpin' soundtrack, completely pointlessly set in Hawaii. Everyone is on drugs and/or a secret cult member, and horrible to the point that not even the B-Ark to Golgafrinchan would want 'em.

The plot makes no real sense, and is mostly (not really) explained during the end credits of the last episode. There's honey and Alaskan brain spiders.… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:58 PM on March 3, 2022

I just ploughed through this in a couple of days, and by and large really liked it.

What I found most frustrating about Shane is that he's a myopic, spoiled, selfish, egotistical, misogynistic, greedy douchewagon but he is not wrong about the room thing. He was right! Somebody booked and paid for -- in real-world dollars for the hotel where this was shot -- at least a USD$1000 per night room. And they put him in inarguably a worse suite, and then… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 9:21 AM on February 9, 2022

Yeah, I loved it. I'm always in for a creative team just going for it and throwing whatever they want at the wall. ssmith pretty much covered the same high points as I did; the Jesper Club was definitely my absolute high point of the season as well -- I was genuinely thinking they might be going for some sort of ancient supernatural evil thing, and then Drew just fucked right off out of Maine and it was never heard from again. Plus I really like the idea of Illeana Douglas,… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 2:10 AM on January 17, 2022

Late to this party, but saw it last night and really enjoyed it. Halfway through, we'd heard two or three songs that we were familiar with from '80s / '90s covers by more recent artists -- which got me wondering if the bulk of the songs on the soundtrack were songs from the '60s that became popular covers later on, and if this is Edgar Wright being Very Clever Indeed by peppering the movie with music that also establishes a modern/'60s resonance by people born post-'70s recognizing the songs and… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 2:15 PM on November 28, 2021

I really really wanted to like this, but have to say it was the most "meh" I've ever felt leaving a theatre after a Marvel movie. It felt like two movies in a bag fighting it out and neither one ultimately made it out of the bag anyway.

Like posters above, I was baffled by the Eternals having accents before their respective languages existed, and by Kingo basically saying "I do not want to be in the final reel of this movie" and noping out of the… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 1:33 PM on November 6, 2021

Just watched it with my wife (Halloween night! Why not) and we were both a bit taken aback by the weird asides and tonal shifts, like the whole Monsters are Due on Maple Street in the hospital bit.

Somebody who knows the franchise better -- is it weird that Michael Myers suddenly took a bunch of time out of his day to re-stage all the corpses with masks, etc. at the park? I get the whole "personalityless = boring" argument, but one of the… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:04 PM on October 31, 2021

I would also pay good money to see Paul Rudd and Adam Scott hang out and shoot the shit about Halloween 6 and Hellraiser Timelines.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:06 PM on October 31, 2021

I really liked this -- more than Hill House, which kind of fell apart in the final act for me, and much more than Bly Manor, which I didn't even finish. A few kind of random things that Kitteh and I were talking about as we worked through it...

- At one point we looked up whether or not Flanagan has any public substance abuse issues, because it's certainly a thing in his work. Turns out yes, and while the idea of… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:49 PM on October 23, 2021

Tough room! I enjoyed it pretty much entirely; I totally get the "there was a lot going on, and much of it shallow" take, but it felt like a movie happening in a complete world that we were just dipping into aspects of. I didn't really mind that a lot of it felt a bit opaque; I liked the idea of there being a lineage of Candysman* and the story hitting beats in time with new people manifesting a spirit kept alive through story -- kind of a Matt Wagner Grendel riff… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:39 PM on September 18, 2021

I don't know why some punch gun car movies really work for me and other punch gun car movies don't, but this one (as opposed to the John Wickses, recent Fast and Furiousi, and various Missions Impossible) just didn't land. It was great seeing non-white dudes tearing it up, and on paper it's not noticeably worse than lots of other recent things I've enjoyed, but I just felt kind of midly bored and annoyed through it.

A few random notes:… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:28 PM on August 22, 2021

I just saw this with my wife and we both loved it -- I don't know what relative darkness the director intended, but my only complaint was that about 80% of the movie was "so dark you have to squint" dark.

While I understand it's largely allegorical, I do have bean-overthinking plot questions, though (spoilers, natch):

1. Does Gawain's mother (Morgan le Fey, if she's Arthur's sister?) magic up the Green Knight with… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:34 PM on August 15, 2021

I read the abovelinked Vanity Fair article in the interim, and it does address the pronunciation thing directly, and the mom and fox elements in a kind of hand-wavy "it's messy!" sort of way.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 3:47 AM on August 16, 2021

I did not care for it, and have so many questions about Steve Trevor, Man out of Time.

Whose body did he take over? What happened to that guy while his body was being taken over by Steve Trevor? Did his consciousness get suppressed? Did he replace Steve Trevor in what we're supposed to assume is Heaven, Rick Jones/Mar-Vell Nega-Band style (to cross companies)? Was he trapped inside his own body, pounding phantom fists against… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:34 PM on December 27, 2020

I loved it, as did Kitteh -- we could have done without the Thanksgiving dinner argument lean-in at the midpoint, but that was only a very faint blemish (and we get the thematic relevance) in a pretty impeccable movie.

Comparing notes at the end, we both believed up til the midpoint that Harlan might have faked his own death somehow, trying to live out his final great mystery instead of just committing one to the page -- swapped out the morphine for… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:23 AM on November 30, 2019

Watched it today; it was a kind of interesting experience, as there's a dead obvious twist contained inside another dead obvious twist, and I was distracted enough by them telegraphing twist #1 that I was actually legitimately surprised when they doubled down on twist #2.

It's hard to get into this and stay relatively spoiler-free, but it's a competent piece of work; I don't think much of Sam Worthington but he tries his very best, and mentally… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 8:35 PM on October 12, 2019

It's like a nesting egg of workmanlike but ham-handed telegraphed plots.

If it had been just one -- the "dad's obviously tightly wound, pretty evident Sixth Sense style 'he's the only person who talks to anybody else' unreliable-narrator story", or the "spooky piano music pointed questions about organ donation creepy doctors and orderlies organ harvesting story", I would have been singularly unimpressed -- but the more… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 7:40 AM on October 13, 2019

My wife and I have developed our own expanded mythology for the tall ghost with the cane: he was a competent but easily confused mason with a new hat he was profoundly fond of, accidentally bricked himself up and became a ghost, and then some shitty kid steals his hat! Stupid kid.

So he takes his hat back, but the kid doesn't even apologize for stealing his hat, and Tall Ghost feels like he is least owed an apology, so he follows the kid around for… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 10:18 AM on October 26, 2018

We just finished watching it tonight, and loved the entire thing -- but yes, the whole series seems like it would have taken very little extra work to do it without the Juggalo polar bear.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 6:26 PM on June 2, 2018

I love the movie too -- saw it this morning -- but I have to admit that I'm on Team Killmonger a bit. The business off the top about "refugees would ruin everything!" being the generally prevalent attitude, and the whole business with "we're completely fine with monarchy and this whole trial by combat system of government until we don't like the guy who won so now it's insurrection" was an eyebrow-raiser for me.… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:53 PM on February 18, 2018

I can't get enough of a kick out of the fact that their super-future communications devices are TASCAM DR-5 portable recorders. Zero modifications or dressings. I have one sitting here on my desk at work.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 12:35 PM on February 5, 2018

So is touching dead birds just like okay in Germany? Because my mother had VERY STRONG FEELINGS on that subject and it seems like this is set in a town where fondling dead birds is like a pastime or something.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:19 PM on December 11, 2017

I'm 100% on board! Is it the season of Agents of SHIELD I was kind of hoping for after this premiere? No. If I were the showrunner, would I have taken it here? Nope. But at least they're doing things, instead of just retreading the same stuff to diminishing returns. I legitimately don't know what's going to happen next. I mean, I kind of expect we'll travel back in time and prevent the world from gettin' a'Quaked by the end of the season.

But after… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:19 PM on December 7, 2017

I enjoyed the movie a lot, and I think there's a lot there that's going to stick with me. My wife, who is much more of a reader than I am, had very strong and fond memories of the Chiang story and said it holds up well, despite the slightly ham-fisted shoehorning in of the International Crisis to make it a feature-length piece.

I have to admit I did Ctrl-F "Bill and Ted" because I had exactly the same reaction as fleacircus: they totally… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 3:25 AM on June 25, 2017

Tough room.

I have to admit I don't see the criticism. I'm show-only -- I mean, I read the book when it came out, but the only thing I remembered was "Wednesday is ____", which I'm 99.9% sure is a dead giveaway.

I like it.

It's meandering, which is fine. I can see why people tuning in expecting two-fisted action where Mr. Wednesday and Muscle Moon fight a monster/god-of-the-week, or a driving plot where… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:14 PM on May 15, 2017

Given how much the writers of this show looooooove bringing Ward back to life, I will not be surprised if there's an escape from the Framework into an LMD at the end of the season. And possibly for Evil Fitz as well.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 6:06 PM on April 22, 2017

Yeah. No. Look.

I'm sorry, but that whole "Steve is a bully because his teacher doesn't care enough to help" thing is just such an odious crock of absolute festering bullshit that I was exercising some serious self-control not to snap my iPad in two.

Just scratching the surface:

- Kids who punch other kids in the throat do not belong in school with non-throat-punching kids.
-… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 2:57 PM on December 19, 2016

The "Daisy Butt Shot" thing made both my partner and I look at each other with a whaaa? expression.

Among Andy Daly's many gifts to humanity are the creation of Don DiMello, Theatrical Producer, a semi-regular character on Comedy Bang! Bang!, and any time I see anything like that, I just picture Don DiMello in the writers' room grunting "bring out the goils" and, well, it doesn't make things BETTER, but at least it amuses me.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:40 PM on September 28, 2016

Just wondering if there's a consensus on speed for posting other episodes; I'm moving through the season like a house on fire and think it's a big step up from Three. Looking forward to discussing it!
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:35 PM on June 22, 2016

Just got out of the theatre 30 minutes ago, loved it, thought there was a perfect amount of Spider-Man, but I was trying to puzzle out Zemo's actual plot on the bus ride home, and here's how it works, I think.

[MAJOR SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY, FOR SERIOUS]

1. The Avengers have been sort of responsible for killing my family, and I'm really mad about that.
2. I also happen to know that the Winter Soldier killed Tony… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 8:03 PM on May 5, 2016

My wife will not rest until I create a ringtone for her phone that is just Mads saying "mic drop" on an eternal loop.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:39 PM on August 29, 2015

I love that Mads has just completely released the Hannibal and now looks like a dude who sells $0.99 T-Shirts on Venice Beach.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 6:01 AM on September 6, 2015

FANNIBALS KEEP CRASHING THE AUCTION SERVER

This is the third day in a row this has happened. I'm now watching the prices of things with grim amusement and reminding myself that I would have gone just as mental for Deadwood props a decade ago and would be kicking myself now for paying $500 for a hat Ian McShane wore for five seconds. So the fact that all of this stuff is light years beyond my range is kind of a mercy.

But I love the fact that… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 9:26 AM on April 6, 2016

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/03/30/superman-and-the-damage-done

is a worthy read.

I'm stuck on one single point of contrast between the Christopher Reeve Superman and the Snyder one: how they land. It's a half-second that expresses the contrast perfectly.

One alights. The other one smashes.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 8:54 AM on March 31, 2016

I watched this yesterday with Kitteh, and I don't think it's as light and frothy as many reviewers seem to think it is... I want to see it again, because there's a lot of stuff I want to unpack here about the nature of faith and belief.

Mannix is (somewhat) agonized over "doing the right thing," which is most focused on the Lockheed offer, his blind trust in Mr. Skank, and, in the end, his total dedication to the system. A compulsion to confess most things… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:35 AM on March 21, 2016

I am starting a Tumblr called The Inevitable Callum Keith Rennie: any SF TV show shot in Canada gets a countdown clock, which keeps going until INEVITABLE CALLUM KEITH RENNIE.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:33 PM on March 5, 2016

I would love to see Drax / Batista in the Arrowverse, for Oliver / Stephen Amell's sake, since Batista is a wrestler and Amell is a huuuuge WWE fanboy. But between GOTG and Spectre et al I doubt the CW can afford Batista anymore...

Making this happen would involve crossing the Marvel and DC universes, and seeing as Marvel can't even negotiate the return of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and (until recently) Spider-Man to their main stable, I can't see… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 9:56 AM on January 25, 2016

I can't believe this film has been out as long as it has and the Internet has failed to capitalize on the comedy potential of a John Kricfalusi- style Ren & Snokey.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:48 AM on December 31, 2015

The other thing that made it difficult for me to engage was how unlikeable I found Avery and his family, which of course demands self-examination given the context. But I found it really hard to get over how much they downplayed the fact that he ran a woman off the road and threatened her with a gun, and threw a family pet into a fire.

I can't disagree; I finished the first episode with the vague feeling that I just wanted to take the entire county… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 7:07 AM on December 22, 2015

Hooray! I just dropped an almost entirely unwarranted plug for this movie into the current front-page thread on "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus". Love the hell out of it.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 6:50 AM on December 22, 2015

PHIL LEFT BEHIND HIS MURDERIN' HAND

This led to my wife and I riffing on our Murder Hands for about two minutes. Murder Hands!
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 6:06 PM on December 14, 2015

I know this is totally out of continuity vis a vis the comics, but at the end of the episode I got really excited about the idea that Darhk is working for Apokolips, and is trying to reconstruct or reverse-engineer a Mother Box. Human-seeming with "magic" powers, a sinister agenda, grooming an entire sector of the planet for takeover... Darhk Side Is?
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 4:45 PM on November 16, 2015

I liked it, on the whole; the new costume is a bit less practical but this isn't really a show about practical people. Within the context of overall-liking, and mentioned fairly thoroughly above...

- Diggle's helmet bugs the ever-loving crap out of me.
- Was Diggle always this huge? Has there been a costume change? He looks like his arms have grown six sizes since S03.
- Did not see the little… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 3:21 PM on October 10, 2015

Working theory: Doom somehow hijacked Warren Ellis' fictionaut technology from Planetary, came to our world, and got a job writing the Fantastic Four movie.

That was bad. I mean, I wasn't a huge fan of Age of Ultron, or the pre-First Class X-Men movies, and I thought Man of Steel was pretty dumb, but that was baaaad. That wasn't "hey, I didn't like the way the director took this" bad, or "man, I didn't care for how they treated my old… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 12:40 PM on August 8, 2015

A day later, and the thing I find most maddening is that the whole thing could have been about 300% better -- not perfect, but not so God-awful -- if somebody competent had just made one pass at the script.

I'm not talking "overhaul everything," just a week-before-shooting redraft by somebody with a passing familiarity with the comic and its canon, and, y'know, dramatic structure and plot and so on.

Imagine:… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 12:26 PM on August 9, 2015

Loved it on the whole, but have Nerd Problems with the inconsistent application of Pym Particle physics... if the whole deal with Ant-Man and the suit is that size changes but not mass (punches like a "bullet", etc.), how does Hank have a shrunken tank that doesn't weigh two tons? How come the giant Thomas doesn't have the structural integrity of styrofoam? Etc.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 5:11 PM on July 19, 2015

Loved it on the whole, but have Nerd Problems with the inconsistent application of Pym Particle physics... if the whole deal with Ant-Man and the suit is that size changes but not mass (punches like a "bullet", etc.), how does Hank have a shrunken tank that doesn't weigh two tons? How come the giant Thomas doesn't have the structural integrity of styrofoam? Etc.

Shrunken human movies never make any physics sense, you can't think… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 6:54 AM on July 23, 2015

For the first third of the movie, I was kind of annoyed by the score -- it seemed kind of maladroit and hyper on-the-nose, like the worst of Murray Gold on the new Doctor Who series -- but by the mid-film, it was obvious that it's a deliberate riff on the whole satirical part of it. It's kind of amazingly inappropriate; sweeping synth accompanying Lou when he does even the shittiest things, like the soundscape from an '80s movie where a kid with one leg… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 11:18 AM on June 29, 2015

I sometimes forget that Morello is dangerously insane; the closest thing (right down to the accent) that I've ever seen to a live-action Harley Quinn, and I suspect the upcoming Suicide Squad movie will not disabuse me of that notion.
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 1:22 PM on June 24, 2015

I'm a fan of the show in general, and enjoying this season in general, but am I alone in feeling like the swing towards making every inmate lovable has kind of eradicated a lot of the initial tension that made it interesting? In the first season, there were at least four characters (Suzanne (then 'Crazy Eyes'), Pensatucky, Red, Boo) that were actively unnerving in their own ways, and legitimately felt potentially dangerous.

Through the last two… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 11:22 AM on June 19, 2015

So, as a non-comicbook-reader.. what's the manifest difference between the Arrow (a dude in a green outfit shooting green arrows) and the Green Arrow?

In addition to the above, and depending on who is writing the character, Green Arrow is classically a rrrrrrrraging socialist and anti-establishment figure. One of the reasons the frankly conceptually ludicrous Green Arrow/Green Lantern '70s comics became classics was the odd… [more]
posted to FanFare by Shepherd at 9:38 AM on May 19, 2015