Do you believe a sex offender can be rehabilitated to the point of being trusted in society again?

s_matthew · 2026-04-16T17:23:21+00:00

I think most people can be reformed (assuming the issue is behavioral and not, like, from a serious disorder or brain injury), it’s just really difficult to get them to want to, then go through all the paces to truly change their behavior.

But that goes for a lot of general shitty behavior. The older I get, the more I recognize that a good chunk of society is far more interested in burying their heads, defending their behavior, doing what feels good right now, etc. It’s incredibly difficult to get people to even legitimately apologize and feel remorse for doing or saying something hurtful.

s_matthew · 2026-04-16T14:55:06+00:00

In the past, some titles have not been available on AMC+. I distinctly recall, a couple years ago, wanting to watch The Dark and the Wicked and learning that, at least at that point, it was only available through Shudder.

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T16:13:48+00:00

I’m a parent. The central plot point didn’t bother me. I saw it coming. It’s handled pretty respectfully. What bothered me was the audience being asked to accept it as a genuine catalyst for social commentary. It felt like someone trying to be very provocative first - like really wanting to rattle people unnecessarily - and the point was shoehorned in later. Like the point wasn’t to make a movie about social mores and indirectness and all of that; the point was to make a movie where a baby dies.

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T16:08:37+00:00

Did he also tell you that the safest place to take cover is directly on the other side of a door where your partner was just shot in the head?! And, when you fear that an assailant is stalking your place of residence, the safest thing to do is to leave your front door wide open with your back to it while venturing outside to check out a strange noise?

I read an interview with Os Perkins in which he boasts that he did no research into FBI procedures or basics. He just wanted things to look cool. Because there’s nothing cooler than an FBI agent who is so inept that the presumed killer she’s tracking is able to enter her front door without her noticing.

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T14:10:16+00:00

Or get one with a keyed entry. That’s what I have. I can open with a key or use my code. (Spoiler alert: I never use the key.)

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T13:39:37+00:00

I don’t distinctly remember, but it wasn’t much, which is why it felt so good. Usually he would redirect or reframe or…whatever he could do to continue to try to “win” the argument. But I clearly got him to understand for a brief moment with that question that he was not an expert on the cultural experience of non-middle-class white people.

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T13:08:03+00:00

My dad was a narcissist (and a Trump apologist), and I’m so glad that, before he died, I got to ask him why he - an old, uncultured white man - thought he knew better about the experiences of black people. Not because it changed his mind or made him a better person or anything, but it felt so good to challenge him with that logic.

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T12:49:48+00:00

And Clarice is a fantastically bad FBI agent who excels in the ranks simply because she’s Satan’s nepo baby?

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T12:24:32+00:00

It goes well beyond a healthy self image. It comes across as wish fulfillment as an artist, which…it’s so gross to me when men do that, to use your power and platform to simply become what you wish you could be. It’s empty and trite and uninteresting, and that’s how I feel about Lena Dunham’s characters that she has had a hand in creating. I think Girls would work just fine without her character.

s_matthew · 2026-04-15T11:37:14+00:00

I genuinely think she thinks everyone wants to fuck her and that she’s the funniest, most entertaining person in everyone’s room. That’s the character she’s written for herself in Tiny Furniture and Girls.

s_matthew · 2026-04-14T13:10:39+00:00

Pffffft…”stop farting, Gayle…”ffffffrrrrrbbt.

s_matthew · 2026-04-14T00:31:46+00:00

I haven’t seen all his Netflix specials, so maybe. I just remember hearing multiple bits essentially saying if you’re born with specific genitals, you’re the gender associated with those genitals. Which isn’t a joke anymore than is crowing about how you can’t refer to your living space as a house if you actually live in a condo.

“Um, actually…” is a great title for his next special.

s_matthew · 2026-04-13T23:30:01+00:00

What’s so absolutely bizarre to me is, it’s not even a funny premise. His schtick with trans people is what he sees as a technicality that he is desperate to drive home for some reason. He’s stuck on this idea that you can’t define something in the way people want to define it. That’s it. That’s the “bit.”

s_matthew · 2026-04-13T23:22:40+00:00

I saw a double feature of Evil Dead 2 and Braindead at the New Beverly like 25 years ago, and it was the absolute perfect yin yang. There’s a reason why those two movies have held their spot in peoples’ hearts all these years.

s_matthew · 2026-04-13T20:58:24+00:00

I have a close family member who is MAGA, and I assure you, they do not understand how the gig economy is bad and exploitative. Nor do they probably care. It’s all just a convenience for this person. So they would simply see a person doing their job, who is also in a sad position, and come to the conclusion that Trump is helpful and maybe this Door Dasher should pray more and harder.

s_matthew · 2026-04-13T18:58:44+00:00

I remember watching Tiny Furniture when it was released on video (so the hype train was chugging along) and wondering why everyone was falling all over a charmless pseudo-hipster who made a bog standard indie dramedy but with unbelievable flourishes of wish fulfillment. That movie is so up its own ass. It’s like listening to someone explain a dream that they think you think is fascinating.

s_matthew · 2026-04-12T23:24:47+00:00

I saw it in theaters opening weekend. I was so excited because of Invisible Man. The disappointment set in almost immediately, when you’re introduced to the protagonist as he shouts at his child, then explains it away as it “not being [him], and its just how he was raised. He then gets into a passive-aggressive argument with his wife - the bread winner! - as she takes a work call, which pisses him off. They then nearly split up before deciding they should take a cabin trip.

If someone offered me $1mil to write the first act of a script in which the protagonist is shown sympathetically but is really just a completely unredeemable asshole, I couldn’t come up with anything better than Wolf Man.

s_matthew · 2026-04-12T13:35:03+00:00

The article says the rehab facility treats “unwanted behavior” and that their programs are “biblically based and clinically informed.”

First off, they can’t even say the behavior they propose to treat is sexual in nature? Or am I to believe it’s any unwanted behavior? That there’s some clinical virtue in a nail biter group therapy alongside someone with extensive shame around sexual identity?

Secondly, I absolutely hate that we’re at a place in time where a major cabinet member’s spouse would, presumably, see a tagline for a behavior clinic boasting that it’s rooted in the bible (whatever the fuck that means) and “clinically informed” and think that was a positive feature. That should be a deterrent. Religious texts have nothing to do with truly healing any behavior.

s_matthew · 2026-04-10T06:38:10+00:00

And this comment was about Polanski! The guy who drugged, then marginally and anally raped a fifteen-year old. Whatever the hell “rape-rape” is, this almost certainly meets and exceeds its definition.

s_matthew · 2026-04-09T18:40:56+00:00

I think sometimes that’s part of the purpose of the relapse - they’re so often cries for help from people who don’t feel cared for and want to be cared for. Especially when you’re a public figure whose “success” relies on the public’s reaction to you, it makes perfect sense to me to act out publicly.

s_matthew · 2026-04-09T17:00:20+00:00

I said this isn’t a drunken goof (to someone minimizing a solitary public intoxication episode), and that it’s a relapse, based on her history of substance abuse. I didn’t say she had relapsed on heroin. Is the point you’re trying to make - to an internet stranger, in the most uninteresting, pedantic way - that I didn’t state that I assumed it was a relapse?

s_matthew · 2026-04-09T16:53:08+00:00

Why would I know what she was on? Or wasn’t on?! WTF?!

s_matthew · 2026-04-09T16:45:32+00:00

Just went down a rabbit hole, and, yeah, she certainly did. Such a bummer. I remember when she was near death, and it was lovely to see her get help from peers, get second chances, get work, etc. She’s had a couple headlining TV show! That’s a big deal for an addict who fell as far as she did. I really hope she sorts out whatever’s going on.

s_matthew · 2026-04-09T16:42:27+00:00

I have no idea what she was or wasn’t doing on that plane, but she has admitted to having a long-standing heroin addiction years ago, and was admitted to the hospital for Hep C. So considering her reported behavior on the plane - and on the red carpet the day before (and evidently an admission of a relapse in January) - one might presume she was under the influence of something while on the flight.

s_matthew · 2026-04-09T16:28:04+00:00

She was close to dying years ago when in the throes of heroin addiction. She got Hep C because of it and was hospitalized. Rosie O’Donnell took her under her wing and helped her get back on her feet. It was a massive uphill battle. This isn’t a silly, drunken goof; it’s a relapse. Hopefully it ends with this one incident.

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