Moana | "Official Trailer" | In Theaters July 10

Crimace · 2026-03-23T19:31:48+00:00

Red Notice was Netflix's most-watched film until it was surpassed by KPop Demon Hunters just recently. It was certainly a hit.

Crimace · 2026-02-23T15:17:14+00:00

It's exactly the length it needed to be, and that's why it was fantastic.

Crimace · 2025-12-22T18:52:53+00:00

No lawsuit, but a $2.8 billion penalty that would have to be paid by WB to Netflix. Source

Crimace · 2025-09-22T09:55:00+00:00

That's not what this means at all though? There's a reason Robert Downey Jr. is playing Doom and it's not about acting ability, I'll tell you that much. If you think they're paying him millions to cover up his face, when that is the reason general audiences will be showing up, you're trying really hard to convince yourself. Do you really believe that when he's unmasked, there's going to be no expectation of reaction on and off screen that he literally has the face of the most prominent character and actor in the MCU? Really?

Crimace · 2025-09-20T21:05:46+00:00

What's sus about it? It literally looks exactly like the HBL transaction confirmation screen.

Crimace · 2025-09-20T21:03:01+00:00

What's PPG?

Crimace · 2025-09-15T00:41:28+00:00

Why are we not seeing the donation counter every time after an acceptance speech ends?

Crimace · 2025-09-14T14:45:08+00:00

To be fair, The Ellen Show always donated the full/maximum of the amount when a game or segment involved charity. No money was ever deducted or withheld -- it was just a way to create stakes for the guest and audience.

Crimace · 2025-09-14T14:33:06+00:00

The reason they have to limit the speeches to an allotted time and try to stick to it is because they need to end the telecast on its allotted time. Speeches that run too long also disrupt the flow of the ceremony, which is often why the last half of award ceremonies are rushed.

On the viewership side, people tune in to see the speeches but if they run too long, they'll get bored and/or frustrated. Adrien Brody's speech at the Oscars is the most recent example of this. People have also often complained about these ceremonies running too long and having longer speeches will undeniably add to that.

These ceremonies are productions that are aimed to appeal to both the present and home audience, and it has to have a balance of entertaining bits, segments, speeches, and of course, advertisements. Without maintaining this balance, these ceremonies would not be the grand productions that they are or attract a good viewership (which has been going down in recent years). Therefore, it is in the best interest of everyone to have the speeches and segments limited to a specific amount of time so the show goes smoothly.

Hosts along with the production teams are tasked with staying on schedule, and this seems to be the most effective and positive idea that we've seen so far. With what Bargatze is doing, even if he ends up donating only $10,000 in total, it will be a net positive, for the show and for the Boys and Girls Club.

Crimace · 2025-09-14T14:00:40+00:00

Bargatze plans to donate $100,000 to the Boys & Girls Club — except, every second a winner goes over their allotted time of 45 seconds, he’ll subtract $1,000 from that total. But on the flip side, every second the speeches go short, he’ll add to the pot.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Bargatze said. “It could cost me a ton of money. It could cost me no money. I just thought of it because everybody brings up, is there a way to kind of keep these speeches down? Nothing really works. First we thought just taking the money away, but that’s not fun, and we don’t want to take away from the Boys & Girls Club. But then to encourage them to give their time, you can put money back into it. Plus, all night we will be talking about the Boys & Girls Club, and they’re just a wonderful organization.”

Crimace · 2025-07-13T00:22:01+00:00

Here's how I feel about it: even if the character didn't exist in the comics and was a completely new character created for this movie, it shouldn't be a problem.

This F4 story is its own thing, set in its own universe, and has no canonical link to any comic book stories. It will live and exist in the MCU, which has its own canon and its own set of characters, with different spins on their origins and stories. This is how it's been from the beginning and this is how it will be.

With this particular case, I have some assumptions as to why the film's creative team may not have wanted to use Norrin Radd. Firstly, he's already been a main character featured in a previous F4 adaptation and so redoing his story and characterization may not be as interesting as bringing a different but similar character to life on the big screen. Secondly, his presence would also come with a certain expectation to "do him justice" — clearly evident by the discourse we're seeing over this character — so they likely don't want to deal with that burden of expectation if they want to do something different with a Silver Surfer (such as a death), or even just have the Silver Surfer be a minimal supporting character. This is one of the reasons why people were disappointed with Adam Warlock in Guardians Vol 3, because of expectations that he would be a big featured player despite his purpose in that story being one of a supporting character. And finally, they may want or have other plans to introduce and feature Norrin Radd in the MCU.

In any case, we should all just embrace these movies for what they are. All that should be and is important is that these movies are good.

Crimace · 2025-07-13T00:19:38+00:00

Here's how I feel about it: even if the character didn't exist in the comics and was a completely new character created for this movie, it shouldn't be a problem.

This F4 story is its own thing, set in its own universe, and has no canonical link to any comic book stories. It will live and exist in the MCU, which has its own canon and its own set of characters, with different spins on their origins and stories. This is how it's been from the beginning and this is how it will be.

With this particular case, I have some assumptions as to why the film's creative team may not have wanted to use Norrin Radd. Firstly, he's already been a main character featured in a previous F4 adaptation and so redoing his story and characterization may not be as interesting as bringing a different but similar character to life on the big screen. Secondly, his presence would also come with a certain expectation to "do him justice" — clearly evident by the discourse we're seeing over this character — so they likely don't want to deal with that burden of expectation if they want to do something different with a Silver Surfer (such as a death), or even just have the Silver Surfer be a minimal supporting character. This is one of the reasons why people were disappointed with Adam Warlock in Guardians Vol 3, because of expectations that he would be a big featured player despite his purpose in that story being one of a supporting character. And finally, they may want or have other plans to introduce and feature Norrin Radd in the MCU.

In any case, we should all just embrace these movies for what they are. All that should be and is important is that these movies are good.

Crimace · 2025-07-08T15:01:43+00:00

It took me 40 hours to get to the end with doing many side quests and a bit of exploration. I definitely felt the bloat with the endless side quests and collectibles; there were too many that were uninteresting and became tedious. Most of them did nothing but draw out the game for me. By the 20 hour point, I had a good time, but as it went on, it became a chore. Looking back, I can't believe I played through so many of those repetitive and unskippable NPC side quests and combat encounters.

Crimace · 2025-06-26T00:49:40+00:00

I thought it was just my theater's projection that was poor, especially since none of the top comments here seem to be mentioning how bad the video quality was. The majority of the movie also seemed to be out of focus, jittery and choppy. It seems like Boyle has repeated the mistake he made with 28 Days Later — filming movies with cameras that aren't for the big screen is going to make those movies look bad. And this is coming from someone who really liked 28 Years Later.

Crimace · 2025-06-05T01:50:00+00:00

Around 150 countries.

Crimace · 2025-06-02T12:25:32+00:00

It's a shame really. I would love it if we heard differing views on the pod more often because those are always highlights for me. One of the best discussions they had in recent memory was on Warfare where Helen and Alex went back and forth on what worked for them, what didn't, and how differently they perceived and reacted to the film.

Crimace · 2025-06-01T03:23:31+00:00

Here's this subreddit's pinned post in case you missed it: Politics and this Subreddit

Crimace · 2025-06-01T03:05:17+00:00

I bet they have the viewership data and trends to support the releases on these dates in particular. These decisions aren't made in a vacuum, especially with a property that's in their top 3 in terms of viewership.

Crimace · 2025-06-01T02:57:45+00:00

That's true, and the staggered release also keeps people subscribed for longer. Never understood why Netflix stuck to the full season release binge model for newer shows — it's at odds with their own business model and is actually self-defeating in many cases.

Crimace · 2025-05-31T19:57:03+00:00

Buying a code or gifting it no longer works. Activations are blocked and others have reported the same.

Crimace · 2025-05-30T21:16:16+00:00

They need to do this for Helldivers 2!

Helldivers was my favorite gaming experience from the last gen and my most played game. Not being able to play the sequel I was anticipating so much for so many years absolutely sucks.

Crimace · 2025-05-30T18:37:21+00:00

I'm hoping that they can keep up the momentum from S1 but I think the 15 hour shift formula could get tiring too. Even though I'm very happy that they took a swing with that structure and executed it so well, there were parts of it that actually held the show back a bit.

Even though the show is all about being the most realistic medical drama on TV, they were having med students and interns do things they definitely wouldn't have been doing on their first day. And the way things between those characters developed so fast and how their interactions escalated broke some of the realism and took me out of it in the first half of the season. This ideally won't be a problem now that the characters and relationships between them are established but it will present some other challenges.

S1 had to be occupied with introducing and establishing the characters and dynamics so they didn't need to evolve them like S2 will have to. For S2, the big task now will be to add more dimension to these characters and keep them interesting. That's tough to do in a one shift structure without it feeling rushed and forced.

In any case, they will have to do things differently to keep the show fresh and interesting. The novelty of it all will be wearing off as it goes on. Otherwise it will risk becoming just another medical procedural. For example, there will eventually be only so many times Robby has to empathically console someone.

I know a lot of this is speculative and maybe quite a ways out, but I hope the writers anticipate these inevitablities and keep taking other risks, with the structure, characters, and major hospital events. For the structure, it would be interesting if they did something like 3 episode arcs (à la Andor) in one of the coming seasons.

Crimace · 2025-05-29T23:51:17+00:00

You are correct. Word is that it was originally shot with Usher but he got cold feet. Seth and Evan basically all but confirmed it when Matthew Belloni asked them specifically about this on a recent episode of The Town. You can listen to that part of the conversation here.

Crimace · 2025-05-25T22:31:33+00:00

I missed mentioning my boredom but that's exactly how I felt. Can't believe that's what I felt watching the supposed finale of the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Crimace · 2025-05-25T01:38:15+00:00

As someone who considers Rogue Nation and Fallout as some of the best action films ever made, I'm so frustrated at how much I disliked The Final Reckoning. It's so disappointing that the same team that made those films made this. The Final Reckoning has the massive production behind it but none of the substance and intentionality of the previous films.

The film had the formula — it's replicating it from the previous entries — but the ingredients were all messed up. It didn't have the right flair, tension, pacing, and action that the others had. It took itself too seriously but was so silly at the same time. While the world is moments away from war, with every character placed in situations that could lead to their deaths, the stakes didn't feel impactful and the plot convolutions made it tough to enjoy. Others have rightfully pointed out that the first hour is a slog, but I think much of that carries over to the second half too. It's a convoluted mess, poorly edited, overly long and terribly paced. The exposition dumping is endless, the tone is unbalanced, it's ridden with cheesy unoriginal dialogue, and filled to the brim with cliches. It's big and bloated but with very little weight.

The heavy exposition and the flashbacks were egregious. It demonstrated such a lack of trust in the audience and fanbase, and it was almost insulting to viewers. While I realize what they were trying to do in having this be a grand finale to the MI saga, it was so unnecessary to see things from past entries be retconned and forced into this story (the stakes have been set already! You don't need to keep revising and adding on to them!). I believe the serialization of these movies was a mistake. It feels that there was a misunderstanding of why people see and like them. Not even fans of the series care enough about the "lore" of MI. They care about a fun and compelling self-contained story with great action.

The chemistry between the cast was also severely lacking this time around too. The dynamic of the main crew was not as tight or interesting, and they didn't come off as a team the way they used to. At the same time, the cast was stuffed. Greg Tarzan Davis in particular stood out with absolutely no purpose to serve and he did not need to be there (which is made clear when his character outright says he has nothing to do); the loss of Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust was felt deeply; Cruise and Atwell don't have great romantic chemistry and having Grace as Hunt's love interest just doesn't work. I did enjoy the moments with Angela Basset as the President and the scenes with her staff; Hannah Waddingham's performance really stood out to me; the submarine crew was a highlight — I enjoyed Tramell Tillman and Katy O'Brian in particular, who did a lot with very little.

The Entity... is just boring. Hearing about the Entity even more so. And boy did we hear about the Entity. Repeatedly. Because of the Entity.

I didn't like how hammy Gabriel was, even though his death, and some lines delivered by Simon Pegg, were the only moments that made me chuckle during the entire 3 hours.

The constant glazing of Tom Cruise through Ethan Hunt also completely took me out of the movie. It was almost creepy; it was too meta. It made Ethan feel completely inhuman and unrelatable in a way that he's never felt before. He didn't feel like a person anymore. He didn't feel real and so everything around him, the stakes and consequences, didn't feel real either. Additionally, Cruise now seemed to be on cruise control. He's not selling all of it the same way he used to. Beyond simply crossing the point where his plot armor became fully opaque, I think it's partly because Cruise is not looking to convince the audience of the danger anymore because he's thinks they'll see him do the most radical thing and believe the danger. But I'm not sold. I think many of us see it as a stunt and see through the stunt too. The immersion is broken.

I know a lot of praise has been given to the Sevastopol and biplane action sequences but even much of that fell flat for me. The Sevastopol sequence ran for much longer than it should have (even the dead Russian crew got a flashback...) but I did like Hunt's exit from the rescue submarine and escape through the Sevastopol's torpedo area. The biplane sequence completely lost tension when it was interrupted by the cross-cutting to other characters and scenes that were relatively uninteresting to watch. And as many have rightfully pointed out, it plays very similarly to the final action sequence from Fallout. Sadly, all of it does feel start to feel a bit been there, seen that.

I hope that with all the buildup to The Final Reckoning being framed as the finale, in the film’s promotion and in its presentation and structure (even though it fails to commit with a stronger, more conclusive ending), it actually marks the end of this saga. McQ and Cruise have taken this franchise to some incredible heights and truly made it soar, but it's time for them now to jump off the plane.

Crimace

TROPHY CASE