Oo-wee-oo, meesa look like Ben Kenobi, Oh oh, yousa Jedi named Sly Moore, Meesa no care theysa spake about us anyway, Meesa say how wude!

Disney's original vision for Star Wars in its theme parks is dead. What replaced it is comforting but common. I wrote about the new version of Galaxy's Edge, what it means for Star Wars fans and theme park enthusiasts, and the loss of ambition it represents. andrewbloom.substack.com/p/an-elegy-f...

Season 2 of the Netflix Punisher show was a marked step down from the season 1, but Agent Madani improved a lot between seasons. The character was pretty dull in s1, but the writers found compelling new places to take her in s2, and Amber Rose Revah leveled up her performance to match.

New piece coming soon

There are some pretty dopey things in Marvel's Defenders-verse shows from the Netflix days. But Trish Walker trying to follow in Jessica Jones' footsteps as a superhero and so deciding to type "How a hero fights crime in NYC" into a search engine (Bing no less!!) has got to be at the top of the list

The Disney Adult discourse is flowing once again, and geeze, this one is so easy. Enjoying Disney movies and theme parks and appreciating the art and history of both = good Making that enjoyment your entire identity and building your life and pocketbook around consuming Disney products = bad

The Disney Adult discourse is flowing once again, and geeze, this one is so easy. Enjoying Disney movies and theme parks and appreciating the art and history of both = good Making that enjoyment your entire identity and building your life and pocketbook around consuming Disney products = bad

TV on the Radiohead

Andrew-coded characters

So...uh...how are those autocaptions working out for you, Disney?

I just learned that H. H. Holmes' real name was "Herman Webster Mudgett", and now I know why he became a serial killer.

When someone asks how it's going:

"Doctor, you have to help me! I'm being accused of a terrible sort of cultural appropriation!" "Treatment is simple. The great James Cameron has a film called Avatar that teaches all about how appropriating indigenous people's culture and identity is wrong. Go and see it." "But doctor..."

Great piece from Todd Martens that is part obituary for the original conception of Star Wars Land, and part lament that it was never given the support needed to realize its full potential. I get why it's happening, but it's a bummer that Disneyland is turning Batuu into just another theme park land.

The Yosemite Sam dark ride at Six Flags alongside Space Jam did as much to define the Looney Tunes in my young mind as any of the golden era shorts.

Anakin's relationship with Ahsoka is more emotionally impactful than his relationship with Luke. We only got to see Luke and Vader interact interimitently in 3 movies. We go to see Anakin and Ahsoka's dynamic grow and evolve over the course of 3 T.V. shows and countless hours of shared stories.

The time has come for me to dress down The Devil Wears Prada: a film that tries to critique the fashion industry while constantly glorifying it, and strains to tell the story of a turn to the dark side for a protagonist who never actually does anything wrong andrewbloom.substack.com/p/i-have-no-...

Slightly diminish a book: - Ninety-Nine Years of Solitude - The Viscount of Monte Cristo - Asymptotic Jest

I used to feel that way and then I realized that I should examine my classist assumptions and lo and behold it is a diverse and international tradition with its share of oafs, like all hobbies, but also many really cool people

A live look at me waiting in line at Six Flags in the direct sunlight:

John Hurt's Caligula is one of the big highlights of "I, Claudius". It's an outsized role, and Hurt plays it to the hilt. But there's also these glimpses of the humanity beneath the insanity, to where the unhinged emperor feels like a poor toddler who doesn't fully understand the harm he's causing.

ISAAC CHOTINER: So, the food bowl. It's empty, you say? CAT: That's right. IC: And has it ever not been empty? C: Not that I can recall, no, it has not. IC: Fascinating. And this bit of food caught in your whiskers, where would you say that's- C: Now hold on, this is about the bowl, not

I've always scratched my head at the hate for the boyfriend in The Devil Wears Prada. He's such a nothing character that it's hard for me to get exercised about it. *The movie* makes a big deal out of Andy bailing on his birthday for work, and that's the part that's far more damning to me.

Going back through the Netflix Defenders series, it's apparent how under-appreciated Deborah Ann Woll's dynamite performance as Karen Page is. Sometimes the material she gets is great, and sometimes it's just okay But Woll always delivers the emotion and intensity the scene needs no matter what.

This is one of those things that probably doesn't stand out unless you're watching the Netflix Defenders shows one after the other. But it's a little odd that Daredevil and Jessica Jones both discovered their long lost mothers at roughly the same time.

I don't watch much anime, but my wife convinced me to watch the first season of Frieren, and I really liked it! The best way I can describe the show is as a mix between Lord of the Rings and a Terrence Malick film.

Out of Context Daredevil:

Never trust a trailer, but this looks like tons of fun. The visuals in the chase segment look especially stellar.

This is the most passive aggressive water bottle I've ever encountered.

Happy Wrestlemania weekend

Did I just tear up a little watching Sting give Darby his blessing ahead of the world title match? I guess I did. #AEW #WrestleSky 🤼

I'm catching up on season 3 of Netflix's Daredevil series, and my favorite part so far is when people are protesting Wilson Fisk's release from prison and march in front of his hotel with signs that say "Tisk-Tisk Fisk" and "Stop and Fisk Him". One of the prop-makers was clearly having a ball.

My god. Essential, horrifying reporting here.

"Man i wonder what WWE is doing rn" -pat mcafee is the main character in cody rhodes vs randy orton "Nevermind!"

Well, on rewatch, I liked 'Shakespeare in Love' except for all those parts about Shakespeare being in love.

In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. My effort to fill in the gaps for Marvel's Defender-verse has made it to s2 of Jessica Jones. It's a mess, but Krysten Ritter was born to play the title role, and Carrie-Anne Moss is a treasure. I'd forgotten what a spiritual successor to Dexter this show is.

Gonna open a casino called "Pair-'a-Dice Lost".

Depluralize a movie: 1 Fast 1 Furious

It's kinda odd that both The Simpsons and South Park have Easter episodes that prominently feature Janet Reno.

This is one of the few pieces of my childhood that hasn't already been mined for nostalgia, so let's goooooooooo!

Archer has completely ruined my ability to take anything labeled "coarse" seriously.

I've often said that Livia Soprano is the scariest villain in all of television. But her namesake, Livia Drusilla from "I, Claudius" gives her a run for her money. Livia is the show's best character: a cruel and crafty yet very human puppetmaster. And Siân Phillips gives the show's best performance.

Despite my Luhrmann aversion, I finally watched Romeo + Juliet, and you know who's a surprising highlight in it? Paul Rudd! Paris is such a nothing role, but Rudd brings a blithe, dopey charm to it that makes it memorable.

I visited the Universal theme park recently. I was mainly there for Nintendo World and The Simpsons. But I took a stroll through Potterland, and was struck by how much Rowling's bigotry has tainted all of that for me.

Not that long ago, we had five distinct Star Trek series in active production at the same time. Now we have zero. And the only hope for more rests on new management who the Trump administration is actively praising for their propaganda potential. We could have had it all, kids.

With a new movie on the way, I decided to finally go back and watch the Netflix Punisher series. It's a reminder of both the continuing problems I had with those Defenders-verse shows and also what a tremendous talent Jon Bernthal is. The series isn't great, but he holds the damn thing together.

I know every show has pain points, but it's hard for me to imagine a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot with Chloe Zhao at the helm, with the showrunners from Poker Face on board, and good enough to get Sarah Michelle Gellar back, that wouldn't be worth giving a season or 2 to see what it could become.

This Cronenberg-meets-McDonaldland abomination from the CBS halftime show is going to haunt my nightmares for the rest of the tournament.

Chuck Norris was kinda my first Milkshake Duck. We gradually went from "Haha, the Conan lever and all those fun internet memes!" to "Oh geeze, he's miffed that one of those memes mentions evolution and it turns out he's a far right weirdo." An odd legacy, to say the least.