Dan

Hey, you CAN still make a movie poster that's not just Photoshopped floating heads!

Thanks, everyone! 'Twas a good one.

+1.

Episode 1 airs on CBS proper, with episode 2 available immediately afterwards on CBS Access. From a marketing standpoint, that's really smart.

L&C, when it was on point, was not dissimilar to Batman '66: it had a specific goal in mind (in this case, Superman as a romantic comedy), tended to successfully meet that goal fairly regularly, but took a lot of crap from fandom that wanted it to be something else.

"Do not trust the Amish. They are NOT your friends." L&C could be really great when it wanted to be.

Too on the nose?

To go with your cake.

Because it's been a long day, and you deserve this right now.

Sigh.

This was terrific. Saying that it's the best DCEU movie is not saying a hell of a lot, but it was seriously fun. The action scenes (especially the first and the one about halfway through) were phenomenal, although the closing battle went on too long and felt bloated. Gal Gadot was excellent and turned Diana into a real character with motivations and emotions without once sacrificing her innate badassery. Chris Pine walked a delicate tightrope by making Steve Trevor not useless (seriously, comics Steve Trevor is the literal worst) while never overshadowing the title character (I was afraid of this, as some of the advertising has been very Chris Pine-centric), and you can see why Diana would see this guy as someone worth her time. Pine is the second banana in this film, and he's totally on board with that. But the main thing is that while I can overall say I enjoyed it, I know that the theater I was in was probably showing two or three movies at the same time that would have pushed the same "fun action splodey" buttons this did for me. However, Wendee saw someone on screen who looked more like her being unrelentingly awesome, and literally shrieked with delight multiple times. That's amazing.

Captain America Omnibus vol. 2: collects Captain America #114-148. Overall an improvement on the first volume. The sense is given that Stan really doesn't know what to do with Cap outside of The Avengers, and a lot of different things are attempted in an effort to figure the character out. We spend some time as Cap goes Easy Rider, taking his bike around to see America. There's a brief attempt to turn him into a more straightforward superhero with a secret identity by day that barely lasts an hour. More than anything, though, is the attempts at Relevance that start here and really make what are otherwise pretty fun stories kind of hard to get through. Much of this volume features the Falcon, who makes his debut a couple of issues in. At this point, he can't fly; he's just a guy Steve trains in a one-page montage and also he has a pet bird. However, Sam is a good addition to the book for the handful of issues he appears in at first, and when he comes back a year or so later, the book becomes Captain America and the Falcon (not a joke, people who aren't old enough to remember, that was the title on the cover for a fairly long time). With this, Cap more or less permanently sets up shop in Harlem, and a lot of time is spent discussing racial issues. Stan is the writer for the bulk of this book, and he was an outspoken opponent of bigotry, but a lot of what's here does read as a middle-aged white guy who means really well trying to talk about a subject he doesn't entirely get and is hamstrung by not wanting to offend anyone. There's really no overt racism on display here from white characters towards POCs; if anything, it's the residents of Harlem who are perhaps a little too angry at the world and need to be taught how to channel their energy more productively. It's as condescending as it sounds. However, in the last year, Stan hands the writing chores over to Gary Friedrich, and then it just gets offensive. The population of Harlem is a powder keg, angry and blinded by emotion and ready to riot at a moments notice, despite the fact that all the white cops are being so reasonable and not fighting back, given everyone's real grievances and also they're being tricked by the Red Skull. We also meet Femme Force, a division of SHIELD that's all ladies, who can do everything a man can do, except for when they can't, and also Sharon and Val are both in love with Steve and so they're super catty and come within inches of pulling each others' hair. Friedrich is doing his damnedest to channel what Denny O'Neil is doing over at DC, but even more hamfisted and over the top. Now, with that said, there's a lot to like here. The stories are better paced and make much better use of antagonists, throwing characters like the Grey Gargoyle, the Kingpin, and Spider-Man into the mix along with the obligatory Red Skull and HYDRA stories. The fact that Steve barely has a life outside of being Captain America is overtly addressed; he has nothing going on that isn't being Cap 24/7, and "Steve Rogers" only exists because you can't realistically put "Captain America" on a library card. The fact that Steve is a man out of time is not harped upon but does inform the character; he's pretty lonely, and treats Sharon like a cherished possession more than a partner, to the point that even Nick Fury is like "You know, she can probably make these decisions herself, Steve." He's actually called on it. The action isn't nearly as slam-bang fun as it was in volume 1, but the stories tend to make up for it. Gene Colan is the primary artist, and his stuff is always great, but Dick Ayers is just not the inker for him, so a lot of this work is really toned down and lifeless. John Romita takes over maybe 2/3 of the way through, and again, it's not his best ever stuff, but it's not bad at all. (If nothing else, he does an awesome Red Skull.) There's also a fill-in story by Gray Morrow, and that looks terrific.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Heavenly Creatures.

I don't have the link in front if me, but I meant to mention that Rifftrax has done the Batman serials, and they're available on their site.

It would be difficult to overemphasize the fact that We Were At War, and that Batman '43 was not even kind of the only piece of entertainment that had fairly ugly depictions of the Japanese at the time. It can't be denied, though, that Japan got it way, way worse than Germany did.

This. Two stories/four episodes in one sitting is stretching it. One episode a night, five nights a week was really the ideal way to consume Batman '66.

Glad we could ruin your dinner for you!

Oh, shit, I COMPLETELY forgot about the coffee scene.

Yes. I will have one of those, please.

And while Bioware has since tried to walk it back, it's pretty much come out that Dragon Age 4 is in the pipeline. Also, Red Dead Redemption 2 has been pushed back to spring 2018, but they gave us some pretty screenshots to make up for it.

I hate that I'm kind of relieved that there's been less terrible behavior than I anticipated, but there hasn't been none. As bad as "But what about the movie I wanted to see?" is, "Maybe this means Joss will fix it and it won't suck" makes me want to burn the entire planet to the ground and start over.

According to his widow, Cornell told her over the phone that he thought he had overdone it with the antidepressants and taken a couple of Ativan too many that night. That explains a lot. Ativan isn't an antidepressant, it's a sedative used as antianxiety medication. As a person with depression and anxiety issues, I have a prescription for both, and even when I'm having a depressive episode, at a time when I am making terrible decisions, I know enough that Ativan is the absolute last thing I should be putting in my system, as it's notorious for increasing the likelihood of suicidal behavior. Unfortunately, it's not unheard of for this to happen.

So he's basically on the ultimate victory lap right now.

The Twitter embargo (that's a thing?) has been lifted, and early word is very encouraging.

Confirmed.