Not that he needs me to say it, but @SiddhantAdlakha is a gentleman and a scholar, and one of the finest critics to write about the Marvel Cinematic Universe from a place of knowledge and insight.
Also, it is frankly terrifying that @ign would consider replacing him as a reviewer on #Loki because he gave an opinion on the show that rabid Marvel fans didn’t like.
It’s a potentially chilling critical precedent. “Validate fans’ opinions, or else…!”
It’s weird how insecure fans get about these things.
There are plenty of my peers and people I respect who hold different opinions than I do.
However, I am secure enough in my opinion to know in my heart that “Demolition Man” is a true masterpiece of American cinema.
Even ignoring its potentially chilling implications for the industry and the profession, what does this whole panic say about fandom?
Fans claim they want the things they love to be taken seriously, and then start issuing death threats the moment someone takes them seriously.
Anyway, this is a travesty.
And it doesn’t bode well.
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What’s really great - and what I kinda love about Belinda already - is that she really sets the Doctor up for that, by playing along for a line or two before dropping the anvil.
The Doctor absolutely 100% believes he has her charmed, and so walks smack bang into it.
I like the contrast between Fifteen’s bubbly happy personality and the way Belinda punctures it. She knows full well she’s a rebound, and not even for Ruby, but for Sasha.
The Doctor absolutely has “a playbook” for this sort of (platonic) seduction, and she spots it a mile out.
This makes sense. The one thing we know about Belinda’s past is that she had a longterm relationship with a controlling man who tried to dictate her life and was revealed to have something of a god complex.
The Fifteenth Doctor may not be as different as he’d like to think.
It’s honestly very fun and playful that “The Robot Revolution” opens with the revelation that Belinda is secret royalty.
It feels like Davies playing with the relationship between #DoctorWho and Disney+. Is Belinda a Disney Princess?
There is something appealing in Davies using that Disney+ money to construct a world that owes quite a lot to the mid-century science-fiction that inspired Lucas.
Rebels, robots, retro-futurism, even some of the advisors look like Jedi.
Crashing #DoctorWho into “Star Wars.”
There is also something endearing in Davies’ choice to throw the first ever TARDIS team of colour into conflict with a retrofuturist dystopia, built from recycled imagery that initially appears to be the product of AI, but is revealed to be a world built by a “Rabid Puppy” voter.
I'm probably going to regret posting that, because people always have sane and level-headed responses about Superman.
And people are inevitably going to point to, say, Tyler Hoechlin's Superman or whatever, and say he explored the loss of faith in American exceptionalism.
But the thing about Cavill's Superman is that he exists in a world where it honestly feels like America has lost faith in the idea that it is a fundamentally good or decent nation.
Hell, the President of the United States in 2017-2020 and 2025-2028 ran as a heel. As a villain.
“Joy to the World” was far from perfect, but it was refreshing to see a television show deal both directly and allegorically with the scars left by the global pandemic.
It both justifies Moffat’s old tropes (“the man who stayed for Christmas”) and feels genuine and sincere.
It is probably worth noting that Moffat’s mother passed away in hospital after a long illness during production of the tenth season, just a few years before COVID.
So Joy’s frustration about not being able to visit her mother in hospital feel very well observed.
(As somebody whose siblings worked the COVID ward, and who had an elderly relative in hospital during the height of the restrictions on visiting, that detail rang particularly true.
But also, you know, the Doctor being locked down in a hotel. Like my brother was in Australia.)
Rewatching “Twin Peaks: The Return”, and it feels like a show about the collapse of any sense of connection or continuity in contemporary American life.
This is true even in the show’s structure: “Twin Peaks” is no longer an ensemble, but a series of disconnected vignettes.
This is baked into the nature of the show. “Twin Peaks” aired on ABC. It dominated the cultural conversation. It was a phenomenon, a shared experience.
“The Return” aired on Showtime, on cable. It was arguably most successful on streaming. It felt like a show watched alone.
“The Return” is a story about these disconnected and dying spaces, the eroding heart of America.
The vast, empty, abandoned suburban housing estates. The eerie prison complexes. The eponymous town, which feels less like a community than a geographical happenstance.
Thinking about how Michael Mann’s transition to digital reflected his evolving thematic interests.
Here, two similar types of shot. In “Heat”, on film, the city blurs into a sea of lights in the background. In “Miami Vice”, on digital, objects miles away remain clearly defined.
“Heat” is a pivot point for Mann.
It feels like the last time characters like Hanna or McCauley could truly see one another, when background and foreground could be delineated.
It was the last moment that signal and noise could be distinguished from one another.
Mann returns to the template of “Heat” several times, in “Public Enemies” or “Miami Vice.”
But both of those movies are about the acceleration of what was already a major concern in “Heat”, the way systems and structures and information overwhelm any meaningful human connection.