Reed

I know this is probably just me...but I think Miz and Maryse might have the nicest, healthiest on-screen marriage on TV right now. Even though they're meant to be the villains. Like, they totally adore each other. You had that thing a couple of weeks ago where Maryse faked an injury and you could tell Miz was going crazy with worry until she revealed it was all just a ruse to save him. This is a heel? This is who we're meant to boo? Someone who's deeply, deeply concerned with his wife's welfare? Yeah, what a jerk.

The sequels, even Creed, were sports films. The original, meanwhile, is about two sad, shy, lonely people who feel life has passed them by and then finding each other. Boxing just happened to be involved.

I read a Kiefer Sutherland interview in the newspaper yesterday I had no clue they were doing a sequel to the film Flatliners and he's playing the same character, only as an aged college professor. Talk about being out of the loop, man.

I was watching Rocky on TV the other night. It reminded me of an argument I had with my (late) dad who was an ex-boxer and adored this film. It was about the ending. *Me* "You know, this is a romantic film, right? Not a sports film." *Him* "What are you talking about? Of course it's a sports film. It's about boxing." *Me* "No, it's a romance. The final seconds make it clear. Because Rocky lost the fight in the end...and he didn't give a fuck. He never even paid attention to the announcement of Apollo's win. He just cared about Adrian. The match meant nothing. Not really. Love did." *Him* "Why am I paying for you to take all these bullshit college film classes?"

RIP Michael Cimino. Heaven's Gate might be rubbish, but it is, at least, beautiful-looking rubbish

Wasn't there the time Sullenberger testified in front of congress about his pension getting cut in half? Corporate airlines famously treat their pilots like crap. Hey, if you want to go "dark" maybe that was a direction to go in? But then that probably didn't jive with Eastwood's "government bureaucrats are evil!" right-wing talking point.

Yeah, that's kind of what it seems like. "Perhaps...perhaps you should have turned around and tried to get back to the airport." Yeah, perhaps, but he did what he did and, hey, no one died. So, you can't really argue with his actions. And I don't think even uptight government bureaucrats would be giving him grief over it or calling him inept or giving him real pressure over it. The man was widely considered a brave, beloved hero at the time. Maybe Eastwood is trying slightly too hard? "OMG, they might disgrace this poor man and put him in jail!" Um, no. That would never have happened.

RE: The Sully trailer Did Sullenberger really get given a hard time afterwards, or is that just something Eastwood came up for the film for the sake of the DRAMAH~!, though? I never heard of anyone openly criticizing him (Well, how can you? Considering the circumstances.) But then I never followed the case too closely.

Paz De La Huerta's main talent as an actress: In real life, she's a crazy woman. But she has, perhaps, at least sufficient acting skills to portray an insane woman on-screen, too.

The main problem I have with the film is Mamet's insistence of "Well, he could be innocent. We just don't know? Maybe people just hate celebrities for being rich and successful and want to punish them!" Dude, he wandered out of his house and flat-out told the chauffeur: "I just killed someone." The chauffeur, with no reason to lie about anything, testified to this. And, as several ex-wives said in court, he liked threatening women with guns and Russian Roulette games and had being doing so for 4 decades. Like, you don't exactly have to be Miss Marple to work out what the fuck happened here. And it's nothing to do with people hating celebrities.

The Purge franchise is sort of the opposite of the Saw series. Saw started out with a genuinely interesting concept, but simply resorted to gore, blood, lame storytelling and a never-ending body count in the sequels, to the point most film-goers simply stopped caring. The Purge started out with a genuinely interesting concept...and is expanding on it. It's looking at the human cost. It's looking at how this situation is screwing up everyone. It goes into the politics. It goes into the anxiousness and terror of a situation like that. Because, yes, if the government was doing this stuff, several people would absolutely kick up a fuss and try to stop it.

I was re-watching that Phil Spector movie. You know, I still can't decide if Al Pacino is very, very good in this film. Or very, very bad. It reminds me a bit of Paz De La Huerta in Boardwalk Empire. A silly, cartoonish borderline-hilarious trainwreck of a performance that no one can possibly take seriously. But then, looking at the deeply eccentric and warped people they were meant to be playing, maybe that was the idea? I dunno.

I do love the idea that there might have something vaguely supernatural about Columbo. Kinda makes sense. How else does he sense, right from the start, who the culprit was and know they're the ones to go after? Simple detective instincts? Of course. But he was, IIRC, never wrong.

Why does the world continue to insist Dr Ken is funny when he quite obviously isn't?

Though Yelchin never struck me as a guy who would have made it "HUGE~!" in Hollywood. He was just a bit too weird and quirky. But he'd have definitely carved out a nice career for himself. And dying at 27, in a freak accident through no fault of your own, is just an absolute fucking tragedy. Man, I at least hope he didn't suffer or anything.

He was the best thing, by far, about Terminator: Salvation. I think we can all agree on that.

In this respect, them basically admitting the wife was real, later on, was probably a mistake. The man should have always been flat-out ambiguous and a total mystery.

My favourite Columbo theory was that Mrs. Columbo didn't really exist at all. She's just another method he uses to manipulate the villain: "Hey, I'm just a nice, hapless, henpecked, average blue-collar Joe!" That was why we never saw her. Granted, that theory doesn't quite pan out. (I vaguely remember one of the '90s episodes where he spoke to her on the phone.) But I do think half the silly, rambling personal stories he told to the culprit were utter, total bullshit.

The key to Peter Falk as an actor: Everything he did outwardly said: "I'm just a lazy eyed, unattractive, average Joe! Nothing more or less! Look at how bedraggled and silly I am in my old raincoat! Can't you simply dismiss me? Couldn't anyone?" But then, the more you see him, the more you examine him, you grasp his shocking wit and intelligence and charisma going on inside of him. That's why Columbo works as a TV show. What is ultimately lurking underneath the facade.

Basically. You always feel bad for the villain as the paranoia and claustrophobia creeps in and, eventually, they realise, that, yes, Columbo is a frigging genius who has been acting like a fool and luring them in just to incriminate themselves. And you detest Columbo for putting them through this psychological horror game. But Columbo is essentially a good, nice person, too. Highly manipulative? Phony? Scheming? Sure. But he's also just a working class man (blessed with a genius IQ) simply doing his job. That rare crime show when you feel truly bad for everyone involved.

I got some Columbo DVDs and was binge-watching them and, yes, Dear God, this is one of the best crime shows ever. It's not whodunnit. (We are usually told that right away.) It's not how they did it (We are usually told that right away) It's not why (We are usually told that right away, too.) The real mystery of this show is how, the detective, who has figured it all out from the the beginning, is going to get the bad guy to either confess or incriminate himself. Then everything is a psychological mind game And Peter Falk heavily implying on the DVD documentary that Columbo was basically a genius who was manipulating everyone from the get go, still sticks with me. Still a revolutionary concept for a series.

Technically, yes. But "The Empire are just shitty at running things" makes a ton of sense in canon. Things could have easily fallen apart in 20 years. Palpatine and Vader wanted power for power's sake. They didn't care about maintaining quality of life or keeping things going like they had before. So things fell apart. "Lord Vader, Corellia is having a crisis with its damaged, failing infrastructure! Also, the teacher's union are on strike!" "What the fuck do I care about that? I just choke people. I don't exactly have organizational skills here."

The subtle implication about the Empire/First Order during the movies. Yeah, they're scary. Yeah, they're genocidal. But they couldn't ever competently rule anything. Not properly. Hence why they keep pouring all their resources into building these planet-destroying lasers that keep getting blown up. This has happened three times now, by the way. Yeah, I can buy they were so selfish and lazy they let everything go to shit in those years. That's what happens in a dictatorship.

Not a big fan of the Star Wars prequels but Bryan Young’s spirited defense of them in How Star Wars Conquered the Universe (by Chris Taylor) is rather impressive. Taylor: “Isn’t it inconsistent that in the prequels we see all this amazing new technology but by the time A New Hope comes around (in the future) it’s all kinda old-fashioned-looking and grimy and minimalist?” Young: “It simply shows how incompetent and corrupt The Empire is: They’ve let everything to go shit in the time they’ve been in power.” Me: “Wow…that is actually a great explanation for that.”

Random thought: But how much did Mark Hamill improve as an actor over the years, though? He was kinda wooden and stiff in Star Wars, got way better come TESB and ROTJ and come the end of The Force Awakens the dude is basically stealing the show with one jaded, unhappy, stoic, haunted look. His voice over work has been spectacular too.