Danny Franks

I wish Bill Lawrence hired more people who are actually familiar with the Premier League (even if it's just for the parlance that's used), because some of the stuff is just jarring. Higgins suggests "strengthening their roster" on the day pre-season training starts? Oh, that's an idea... that every other team in the league will have been working on the entire off-season. Also, no one in the UK uses "roster" for a squad of footballers. West Ham being portrayed as a titanic, modern "top dog" club when the height of its ambitions have always been midtable mediocrity. Yes, they've got a fancy, modern stadium. Because it's the 2012 Olympic Stadium, which they agreed to take a lease for. Yet somehow, this huge club of stars is happy to accept a guy who was the kitman for a smaller club just one year ago as their manager. I don't think Nate's storyline is going to work for me, because it just makes no sense at all. Sure, it's based on Mourinho going from translator to Bobby Robson at Barcelona to a top coach, but it took Mourinho seven years from joining Robson to becoming a manager. And, to be quite honest, I'm not interested in Nate's journey. I didn't like him much in season one, when he was the 'nice guy' underdog, and I couldn't stand him in season two when he started abusing his power. Why am I going to want to see even more of him now? So we can see him 'rediscover himself' or whatever? No thanks.

I don't tend to visualise characters clearly in my head, but I've thought from the first casting news that Meera Syal is perfect for Verin. That matronly, slightly flustered but unnervingly knowing demeanour fits her to a tee. Some of the other casting that's been announced has disappointed me, and I do have concerns about how the second book is going to be adapted without sacrificing some of my favourite parts, but at least Verin is right.

I read the book of this, and kind of enjoyed it. Some really interesting stuff, especially the focus on life in New York in the 70s. But it was very, very flabby and in need of editing. I also remember feeling like the resolution to the central mystery was absolutely lame and so vaguely written that it wasn't really resolved at all. They've shifted the setting to the early 2000s? Eh, I'll pass in that case.

She already had four years on Spin City behind her, before Friday Night Lights, so she was a known face, if not a star. I remember her being on a few episodes of The West Wing, and also in the Friday Night Lights movie. Of course, we all know that the designated break out star of the show was Taylor Kitsch but, thanks to being miscast as an action hero, he fell flat. He just didn't have action hero energy, even while looking like one, and neither John Carter or Battleship worked for him. He seems to have recovered to a degree, and has headlined a few TV miniseries while being a strong supporting character in some movies.

He's going to be the latest person to fail to get DC's cinematic universe off the ground. I'm sure he'll enjoy the full control there, after being so whiny about the writing of Guardians characters in the Avengers movies, but he's on a hiding to nothing.

This trend of making documentary series that are half talking heads, half badly acted, cheap looking 'dramatised events' needs to die. All that controversy over the ethnicity of the woman playing Cleopatra in the new Netflix series, I didn't see one article talking about how superficial and lazy the entire production was. It's all surface and baseless assumptions from people who, I would hope, are historians, cut into fragments by acted scenes that are equally as superficial. Either make a historical drama or make a documentary. Trying to blend the two just ensures you get a product that works on neither level. And it's a real shame, because there are so many topics recently covered in this format that could have been really interesting if they weren't so unutterably lame. Off the top of my head, Netflix alone have done Cleopatra, the Roman Republic, the Samurai and the history of Caribbean piracy, and they've butchered them all.

I finally watched The Batman, after being put off for ages by the runtime. I know it's a polarising movie, but I honestly think it might be the best Batman movie that's been made. It's seedy and dark and gritty. Batman is a weirdo who is genuinely unsettling and Pattinson nails the role. Zoe Kravitz is fantastic as Selina Kyle, and the strong supporting cast round out the movie well. What's even better, the villain is genuinely weird and unsettling as well, and there's no glorification of him, like in certain other Batman movies. They don't try to make him cool or charismatic. He's an awkward creep. Even though it's not an adaptation of The Long Halloween, it captures the feel of that story amazingly well. My only complaint is that there was a bit too much going on at the end. The copycat Riddlers were unnecessary. If it were up to me, I'd have changed the bomb plan to be Riddler's victory - destroying key landmarks in Gotham, targeting influential people, and actually succeeding, but Batman manages to save key people like the mayoral candidate.

Well, those are just good old conservative values, right there. This will happen to every movie or TV series that has a woman, POC or (especially) a POC woman as the lead character. This is the hill that chuds are choosing to die on, because a key aspect of their culture war, and even of their own identity, is that only white males can be marketable as heroes. Disney is a great target for them because they know there's already ambivalence amongst a lot of people as to whether these live action remakes are necessary or wanted. It gives them a bigger potential audience for their poison. None of these people cared about The Little Mermaid to begin with, and they don't care about it now. Just like they probably won't care about the next movie or TV show that has a lead that isn't a white cis man. But they'll be up in arms about that too.

Fox will replace him with someone worse and they won't miss a beat. Meanwhile, Carlson will be podcasting by the end of the month, still trying to get his messages of divisiveness and hate out there. I must confess that I'm curious about Fox's decision, though. It's nothing to do with a moral stance, or even with him costing them money. I suspect some of the messages uncovered in the lawsuit involved him saying derogatory things about Fox executives, and that was the line in the sand for them.

I watched the first two episodes of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, because I finally played the Cyberpunk 2077 game. However, I cannot get over my disdain for Japanese anime. I'll be blunt - the vast majority of it is made for teens and adults with cases of arrested development. All the tropes are so juvenile and geared directly towards thirteen year old boys and men who think like them. Moody, dickhead teen boy protagonist who mopes and lashes out emotionally all the time. He's an arse to people who care about him because they just don't get how deep he is. A scantily clad, sex object female lead who is inexplicably attracted to the moody, teen boy protagonist even though she's presented as far more capable and knowing than him. If I watch long enough, I feel sure there will be a second female character introduced, who is shy and sweet and also falls for the moody teen boy, but just can't bring herself to say anything. Voice work that makes my skin crawl, with all the gasping and squealing (usually, but not exclusively, by the female characters). A lot of the animation is just as bad, with comically exaggerated facial expressions and the female lead sticking her arse in the viewer's face half the time she's on screen. Frankly, it's embarrassing to watch. Yes, I know there are some exceptions but, as a genre, I find it near unwatchable despite having tried with several different movies and shows. This is not, by the way, an invitation to tell me what anime I should watch to make me realise how wonderful the genre actually is.

Speaking of conventionally handsome men, I watched the Dungeons & Dragons movie last night, and was really impressed with Regé-Jean Page. Absurdly handsome and charismatic, to the point where it's realistic that Chris Pine's character is jealous of him. He nailed the deadpan, 'so humourless he's really funny' paladin character. I suspect his supporting role in that movie will be used to launch him as a big screen leading man. Sophia Lillis is great too, and she'll have a long career playing quirky, awkward girls who everyone crushes on.

Isaac in Sex Education was written so badly that the writers didn't even realise they'd made him a gaslighting manipulative Nice Guy who actively tried to separate Maeve from any support system she had, so she would rely only on him, and he could push his romantic interest on her. Then, in season three, they seemed to try to rewrite the character as though he was a noble, misunderstood guy who got to proudly move on from his brief relationship with Maeve with a line about how he doesn't want to be her second choice. He was never held to account for anything he did, and even when he admitted to Maeve that he listened to the voicemail Otis left, deleted it and never told her, she was mad at him for about two days before having sex with him. I mean, the writing in that show went downhill rapidly when they started to pretend that Otis/Maeve weren't about 90% of the show's appeal in season one, but Isaac was definitely the worst addition. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a good example of a show where writers fell in love with a character and forced them into a more prominent role, and then forced them into an unnatural position as romantic lead and redemptive hero. I'm talking, of course, about Spike. I've been tired of characters who are too cool, or too dreamy, to be hated for a long time, now. Even when they do terrible things, swooning fans will make excuse after excuse after excuse. I rarely get onto shows at the start, so the fandom often plays a role in whether I'll actually watch something. And there are plenty of shows that I'll avoid like the plague because of the way fandoms treat certain characters. The "deliciously evil" trope is a complete turn off for me. It's one of the reasons I lost interest in Game of Thrones, and why I have no intention of ever watching the spinoff show, which seems to rely completely on people fancying Matt Smith as a charming psychopath.

I think it's fair to say that everyone who has worked for Vince McMahon has a complicated view of him. Mick Foley, for example, has talked at length about how much of a nightmare Vince could be, but also pointed out times when Vince rehired wrestlers he had no use for just because "sometimes, Vince likes to be nice." He gave chance after chance to walking disasters like Marty Jannetty, he hired guys who had publicly insulted him, and there are countless stories about him being so approachable when guys had ideas for their characters or matches. On the other hand, I've heard so many stories that paint him as a complete fucking sociopath and unfeeling monster. He loved nothing more than repeatedly humiliating Jim Ross a loyal servant to the company for years, and got pissed when someone told him skits like the one where he played a doctor extracting increasingly strange things from JR's rectum weren't funny. There's a story where he and a senior member of his backstage team decided to race each other to the next venue, and Vince tried to drive the guy off the road. He once had police arrest someone who worked for him as "a prank" that he found hilarious. Jim Ross once had to convince Vince that they should hire Gail Kim, a female wrestler, by explaining to him that a lot of men actually do find Asian women attractive. Vince once suggested doing a wrestling angle where he fathered a baby with his own daughter. She refused to take part so he instead took two wrestlers, gave them brother and sister characters and had them written as an incestuous pair. He hates sneezing, considers it a sign of weakness. He apparently refuses to ever be seen unshaved, because that means he's "letting the stubble win." In short, Vince McMahon is a fucking nutcase, and I would have thought anyone who has worked with him would try to avoid defending him too fervently.

I think they may need to recast. This incident has given some people who worked with him in the past reason to speak out: https://thedirect.com/article/avengers-5-actor-arrest-accused Doesn't sound like Majors is a good guy.

Their treatment of Sharon bordered on Fox/Sony levels of, 'we need this character because they're important in the comics, but we have no idea what to do with them.' They either needed to stick closer to the whole Winter Soldier/Death of Captain America storyline or admit that there was no room for Sharon in the movies, once they'd decided Nat was going to be Steve's bestie. It's not like I'm much of a fan of the character, or of Emily van Camp, but they just bungled her role. I will always maintain that Cap 3 should not have been Civil War, it should have actually been a Cap movie, focusing on Cap and his support characters. They should have scrapped Ultron (god, that movie was a low point) and made the second Avengers movie Civil War, taking place after Winter Soldier. Then Cap 3 could have taken place with Cap leading the underground Avengers - Nat, Sam and Clint and Sharon - and trying to track Bucky down, as was set up at the end of Winter Soldier.

I enjoyed Ghostbusters, but didn't find it very memorable. It's a fairly standard, action/comedy movie with a good cast. Which, of course, is exactly what the original Ghostbusters movie was as well. Acting as though it was heresy to make a Ghostbusters movie with women really set the post-Gamergate battlefield for all those losers. They've been perpetually outraged ever since, by popular media and (which is particularly galling to these people) 'nerd culture' becoming more diverse and recognising that women and brown people, and sometimes even gay people, exist and are of value. No matter how much they rage, they aren't winning. I pointed out the other day that most of the good parts of MCU Phase 4 have revolved around female characters - WandaVision, Hawkeye with Kate Bishop, Yelena Belova, Kamala Khan, She-Hulk. Many would add Wakanda Forever, but I didn't care for it. Supposedly, the casting process for the Fantastic Four is, 'get Sue right and then cast everyone based on her'. Which certainly wasn't the case in previous incarnations of the group. Bo Katan and Ahsoka Tano are female characters who seem set for their own Star Wars shows, and it was really Disney's lack of planning that ruined the sequel trilogy being built around Rey and Finn. There's still a way to go, particularly when it comes to non-white and queer representation, but the chuds will lose those fights too.

I've only really seen her on Celebrity Masterchef. Can't say she did anything on that to make me a fan. I'm trying to remember if it was her or another woman who made constant jokes about eating too much food. Which... yeah, okay, we get it. Come up with some different material.

I think Ellie likely would have said yes. Her mindset throughout the episode is quite fatalistic, and she admits at the end to survivor's guilt over Riley, Tess and Sam. But Marlene wasn't brave enough to ask her to choose. Partly, I think, because she couldn't look Anna's daughter in the face and ask her to die, and partly because there was a very real chance she'd say no. Marlene and the Fireflies believe this is their real shot at a cure, so I don't think Marlene would accept 'no' being the answer. She'd be left with having to order the execution of a fourteen year old girl, who she'd known since birth. I'm sure Joel knows, too, that Ellie would likely have said yes, which factors in to why he lied to her and then doubled down on the lie. If Ellie is in this kind of mindset and learns that Joel sabotaged her chance to do something meaningful, she wouldn't only feel betrayed by him, but she might try to go back and offer herself up.

I didn't like him at all in The Phantom Menace but, let's be honest, none of the acting in that movie was good. Because the director was terrible and controlling and forcing people to stick to his vision and dreadful script, which even he later saw the flaws in. People love to hate on the sequel trilogy, and I will admit the lack of a coherent vision and the apparent need to redeem the handsome white guy really hurt them, but they're still infinitely better movies than the prequels. Unfortunately, it seems like Daisy Ridley's career, in particular, has been hit by the backlash against those movies. That's a shame, because I found her incredibly likeable and engaging.

This is how those chuds will react to anything promoting a protagonist who isn't a straight, white guy. It doesn't work, but it makes them feel better in their mediocre little lives. YouTubers, streamers and other online 'content creators' make a living off propagating right wing hatred and they're not going to stop while platforms allow them to.

Elizabeth Olsen shouldn't even agree to come back unless she gets promises that Wanda isn't going to be written as a crazy psycho lady who can't handle her emotions so she becomes a bad guy. I'm still hoping for an all-female MCU movie one day. I hoped Black Widow would be it, but they had to stick the terrible Ray Winstone in as the bad guy, and David Harbour as the comic relief. So give me a Wanda, Yelena, Kate, Shulkie, Kamala and Carol movie. It does seem like most of the best new additions to the MCU in Phase 4 have been women, which is cool.

So because this will be a bit detailed on Part 2, I'll put it in spoilers:

The wonder in his voice when he told Tommy she was immune suggests to me that Joel did think there was some chance of a cure. His determination to take her to the Fireflies, even when they had no clue where to find them as well. Because if he didn't believe in a cure, the logical thing to do would be to suggest Ellie just stays in Jackson, where it seems safe. Talking around Joel's thought processes and reasoning that he had doubts, that the science didn't make sense, undermines his actions. He was saving Ellie, no matter what. They could have given him a ten hour presentation on exactly how the cure would work and a rollout plan that was fool-proof. He'd still have killed them all to get her out of there. And Joel being pretty ruthless when it comes to protecting his own - that family with a kid on the highway, who he instructs Tommy to drive past. He's not some generous, altruistic hero, even before the Mushroom Apocalypse. Tommy would have stopped, so would Sarah. Joel said no. Joel does say that she seems "a little quiet today" so I think we can assume that she's not always withdrawn and shut off, but it comes and goes. That seems realistic for PTSD, which is something Ellie surely has after what happened with David. I liked that it served as a role reversal to scenes like the one at the beginning of episode 4, where she's peppering him with questions about Tommy and he doesn't want to answer. Then, it was because Joel was deliberately closed off, but here it's just that Ellie is distracted and can't focus on what he's saying. Don't get me wrong, I'd have loved an extra ten minutes of runtime in the episode, showing us more of their journey, and that there were ups and downs in her mood. But I got their closeness from Joel's 'I need to cheer her up' attitude and Ellie responding sincerely, albeit with a delay. I think it's because Marlene knows she's doing something wrong. She knows she should have given Ellie the choice, but she couldn't face doing that. Joel is saying what Marlene should be saying, to honour Anna's wishes and her memory. But Marlene has her higher duty* so she can kill the daughter of her oldest friend. But she still can't tell Ellie she's going to do it. She's thankful to Joel (although she never liked him in the first place, so she's not warm to him) right up until she realises that he's going to be a problem - he's formed an emotional bond with Ellie and Marlene has likely seen and heard (from Tommy) what sort of man Joel can be. *I like to think that Anna was thinking of this when she asked Marlene to find someone to raise Ellie, not to do it herself. Marlene is similar to Joel, in that she'll sacrifice anything and anyone to get what she wants most. She isn't someone you'd want raising your kid.

They didn't create so much as co-opt an existing sub. Then proceed to be sexist, misogynist, homophobic and transphobic (hey, throw a bit of antisemitism in there too, as Neil Druckmann is Jewish). Then they started to send death threats to Neil Druckmann, Laura Bailey (who voiced Abby) and others involved in the game, on both the production and acting side. Then they started to send death threats to YouTubers who covered the game positively, and lie about YouTubers supposedly threatening them. These were people who refused to even play the game, yet proclaimed their hatred for everything it did, based on the spoilers they read, and acted on that hate in incredibly toxic, damaging ways. That's why they're hateful.

Remarkably similar to the hateful subreddit. You might want to take it less personally, considering you aren't even going to watch it.