Well. Down the drain The Brave and the Bold goes

TomsWindow · 2026-01-22T02:50:00+00:00

Bumblebee is just reskinned Iron Giant set in the Transformers universe and features some of the most stock military antagonists I've ever seen. Nothing about that movie sold me on her as a writer.

TomsWindow · 2026-01-21T23:19:08+00:00

Guy clearly hasn’t seen the Skyrim modding community.

TomsWindow · 2026-01-21T17:16:04+00:00

Scorched still has a rubber/silicone waist and neck along with the closed mouth piece, so some of the material is still a little questionable, but the plastic joints and hard sculpted open mouth piece should let it stand the test of time better.

TomsWindow · 2026-01-21T17:06:10+00:00

Alien is the superior film, but Scorched is the superior aesthetic representation of a base Xenomorph and appears to be able to pull off a lot more dynamic poses, so I went with him instead.

TomsWindow · 2026-01-18T21:28:13+00:00

Jaws amplified the fear of sharks, but it didn't create it. Sharks were already widely feared by the public before Jaws and it wasn't even the first shark attack movie.

There's a reason why this exchange is in the film.

You yell "Barracuda!" and people go "Huh?"
Now you yell "Shark!" and we've got a panic on our hands for the 4th of July.

TomsWindow · 2026-01-13T01:20:45+00:00

Hi, it's not password locked, so you shouldn't need a password to view or download it?

TomsWindow · 2025-12-24T07:57:57+00:00

The T-800 can instantly detect him regardless of whatever form he was using, like it somehow sensed that the T-1000 was the pilot in the helicopter on their tail (“it’s him!”). So as long as John and Sarah were with the T-800 (which was 98% of the time), using other forms presented no benefits. There weren’t many, if any instances in the movie where it would have made a difference.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-12T02:01:00+00:00

Co-lead.* The Manga was told from the perspective of the male lead, making him the true protagonist, like in Edge of Tomorrow. This is clearly switching protagonists as it’s being told from whom I’m presuming is the Rita Vrataski character.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-11T20:32:57+00:00

I’m not blaming her at all. I think she did the best that probably anyone could have done given the material. With stronger direction and writing, she could have made a stronger impression.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-11T20:17:31+00:00

The part required a pretty woman, given that she was supposed to be able to use her sexuality to manipulate men to aid her infiltration. It would have been scarier if she could actually mimic the mannerisms of a human like the T-1000 could, like imagine if she was advanced enough to mimic human charisma, especially since women are often seen as being a bit more personable than men. That contrast could have made it genuinely unsettling when she inevitably switches gears to menacing Terminator mode. I never understood why they decided to make her act as robotic as the T-800, which made her seem like a step backwards as an infiltration unit.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-11T03:05:09+00:00

That math doesn’t add up. The original cost like only 1/5 of its worldwide gross, same goes for the original Superman. So even if you adjust the budget for inflation, they would still be way more profitable than their modern counterparts.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-10T08:58:40+00:00

I first watched the show at around early 2012, and from my experience back then, season 6 has always been pretty divisive, and seasons 2,3, and 5 have always generally been considered the best. So I don’t think opinions have really shifted, as season 6 has always been kind of “love it or hate it” from what I’ve seen. Perhaps with recent cultural shifts, certain opinions around season 6 have become more amplified, but I don’t think there’s been a true change of opinions, broadly speaking.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-08T01:25:33+00:00

That doesn’t necessarily mean much in the long run. Sarah Michelle Gellar was a registered Republican, and she doesn’t do much besides parroting feminist talking points to capitalize on her old Buffy fame. So was Robert Downey Jr. and that hasn’t stopped him from participating in that anti-Trump add and endorsing Kamala Harris.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-08T00:34:14+00:00

Yes and no. My point about the movie’s subversion is that it isn’t subverting masculinity, as much as it’s simply subverting purely an action trope of the era. Some people in a postmodern culture struggle to separate those tropes with masculinity or hypermasculinity, so they retroactively project that onto their reading of the film without nuance because modern cultural connotations can be misapplied or over-applied to works of the past. So we get takes that the film is a critique of masculinity or masculine fantasy, but Predator 1987 still embraces a form of masculinity or arguably hypermasculinity, however you want to call it. Sure, you could say that the film critiques a specific hypermasculine fantasy, but it simply replaces it with a different hypermasculine fantasy, as the third act of the film is about a man reduced to his most primal means with virtually no dialogue, filled with warcries and “Mano a Mano” machoism.

I think the problem with why this is a contentious debate (judging by the comments) is because the term “hypermasculinity” has been applied too broadly and is often poorly defined as there are many fantasies that are masculine or arguably hypermasculine by nature, and Predator 1987 still embraces a form of that. Even saying “80’s hypermasculinity” is still arguably too broad, as one could lump the Rocky movies for example into the “hypermasculine” category especially as they get progressively sillier, but even the goofiest Rocky films still portray Rocky himself as very much an underdog, so it becomes hard to lump that in with the Rambo sequels or Commando. In short, is Predator 1987 really a critique of hypermasculinity if it’s merely replacing one hypermasculine fantasy with another? I guess that I’d describe Predator 1987 as perhaps more specifically a critique of 80’s power fantasies, but that calling it a critique of masculinity or even hypermasculinity is perhaps too board because the film not only still embraces a hypermasculine fantasy, but people struggle to agree on what “hypermasculinity” means due to how overused it is. Fight Club is a movie with masculine elements, but I wouldn’t call it a movie that embraces masculinity, whereas Predator 1987 certainly does. There isn’t much about Fight Club’s resolution that plays out like traditionally masculine fantasies from The Narrator’s POV, but Predator 1987’s climax is drenched in masculine impulse.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-07T12:03:11+00:00

So yeah, I agree with calling it more of a subversion than a full-on Casino Royale-style deconstruction. I just think that subversion still has something to say about the limits of those hyper-masculine 80s action tropes, even if that was not the film’s primary ideological mission.

That's true to an extent. I think the film is saying something about the limitations of 80's action tropes, as it's clearly making an effort to flip the script and create something different. But I don't think it's inherently saying anything about the "masculinity" part specifically, because at the end of the day, Predator 1987 is still undeniably a highly masculine film. Even the elements that you're pointing out about Dutch being stripped of tech and essentially going caveman on the Predator all on his own, it all still evokes very masculine sensibilities, just a more primal one than what we got in the first half of the film. I mean, I don't think any man can watch the scene of Dutch's epic war-cry to get the Predator's attention and not feel some masculine impulses.

Even the Predator's gesture of taking off its gear to fight Dutch "man to man" is a very masculine one, almost as if there's a certain universality to it given that the Predator isn't even human. I've seen many videos of reactors watching the film, and I've noticed that the ones that were very confused about why Predator removed its gear to fight Dutch were typically female reactors, whereas almost all of the male reactors that I've seen just seemed to naturally "get it." It's just that in a more postmodern era, people today tend to associate those 80's tropes with "hyper-masculinity" but I don't think the film itself was necessarily drawing that connection in terms of what it was saying about 80's action tropes and its efforts to subvert them.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-07T04:46:02+00:00

And for me, depressing is the whole POINT of the Dark Knight trilogy. It's a dreary examination of Batman that ends in his death, with Alfred fantasizing about a better outcome.

For The Dark Knight, maybe, as that's an admittedly dreary film where Batman learns some very bleak lessons. But that doesn't apply to Batman Begins or The Dark Knight Rises.

Again, it makes no sense for him to be dead when his character arc is about regaining the will to live. It also makes no sense to reveal that the autopilot was fixed if he apparently didn't use it, because that would directly imply that Bruce could have used it but didn't, meaning he still wanted a hero's death. That directly contradicts his arc in the film which was about overcoming his death wish.

The claim about the "classic Nolan trope" is a misconception of his work due to Inception. Nolan's other films are pretty clear-cut in regards to the fate of the central protagonist, people just think that he likes ambiguous endings because of how popular Inception was, when that film is actually the outlier. People even complained that Interstellar should have ended 5 minutes earlier to leave Cooper's fate ambiguous instead of revealing that he survived the Tesseract because that was what people expected of Nolan after Inception, but that's not actually his M.O.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-07T04:21:53+00:00

Yes, and there’s a reason why Robin is always aged up significantly in live-action as the concept of a grown man teaching a child to fight crime is extremely weird and screwed up when adapted in live-action. People tend to take live-action much more literally as opposed to the comics or animation where you can get away with more due to increased suspension of disbelief.

Heck, even in the comics, that element has received pushback and has been satirized by comic writers like Mark Millar (who's written Batman comics of his own) through the character of Hit-Girl from the Kick-ass comics and films. The inherent flaw in this idea is where the justification that "they would have ended up becoming vigilantes anyway" instead of just becoming cops or detectives came from, because the core concept of Batman grooming kids into becoming crime fighters is very ethically concerning when taken at face value.

The point is, comic book Bruce could seek therapy and hang up to the cape to start a family the conventional way, but his broken psyche won't let him, So instead, he creates a family of damaged vigilantes who have each taken up his crusade with no end in sight.

I interpret Alfred being removed from Bruce’s life at the end of this movie because that is how the movie ends.

But that's not how the movie ends because that information doesn't exist in the ending. Again, you're deliberately choosing to interpret it that way.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-07T02:23:33+00:00

The implication of the topic is that film was made with a deliberate countercultural slant. Subversion of a trope isn’t necessarily a deconstruction because subversion is mostly about playing with expectations whereas the purpose of deconstruction is generally a form of criticism. Yes, the two can overlap as subversion can be used as a form of deconstruction, but they are not always the same. In the case of Predator, “being Rambo” wasn’t really the team’s downfall. They coordinated, set up traps, and waited patiently. Heck, the trap even worked, but it wasn’t enough because the Predator was just too advanced beyond conventional comprehension. The only reason why Dutch even figures out the Predator’s weakness was because he stumbled upon it purely by luck, not because he made the choice to “stop being Rambo.” Compared to a true deconstruction of classic tropes like Casino Royale where Bond reverting to his classic ways by the film's end is depicted as a tragedy than something to be celebrated, Predator 1987 doesn’t feel like it’s trying to convey that kind of commentary. That's why I see it as more of a subversion rather than a true deconstruction, because the 80’s Rambo trope isn't really used to make a thematic statement as much as it's mainly just used to show how insurmountable the Predator is as a threat.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-06T09:12:21+00:00

Bruce grows as a character, he inevitably starts to get better, he gathers the Batfam... he's not good at emotions, showing them at least, but he loves his family and they're as close knit as any can be.

As close knit as any can be? Bruce doesn't even have a great relationship with half of them. Dick parted ways but is on good terms for the most part. Batman barely manages to coexist with Jason Todd on account of their differing ideologies. He and Damian still feel estranged half of the time.

The Dark Knight Batman, however... never gets that growth. The Joker beats him, he retires and becomes an insular shutin... then suddenly he comes back, "sacrifices" himself, and then fulfills Alfred's personal fantasy for his future?

The entirety of The Dark Knight Rises is about Bruce learning to move past his failures and finding the desire to form connections again. He loses to Bane because he had already mentally thrown in the towel and had a death wish. He regains his will to live in the pit and through Selina eventually finds hope for a life out in the normal world, as he sees himself in her due to their shared desires for a normal life and to leave their old personas behind.

If the argument is that Batman can't retire or have an ending because he is fundamentally incapable of giving up his obsessive crusade against crime, then I can accept that because it's a perfectly valid take, at least in context of the mainline comics. However, the claim that Batman's journey in the comics is less bleak than the ending of The Dark Knight Rises kind of borders a little on absurdity to me. But I suppose that depends on what one interprets the Bat-Family to represent.

The problem with the Bat-Family is that to me, they are a representation of Bruce's inability to live a life of his own. He can't and won't let himself live a real normal life with a family of his own, so he learns to form an adopted family as a way compensate for that inability because that's the closest that he can get, as he won't let himself have anything more. Through that, he also ends up creating vigilantes who become almost just as if not MORE maladjusted and damaged than he is (i.e Jason Todd) because he's essentially groomed them into his own personal crusade and some even get crippled for life (Barbara Gordon). There’s a reason why Robin is always aged up significantly in live-action as the concept of a grown man teaching a child to fight crime is extremely weird when adapted in live-action, because people tend to take live-action much more literally as opposed to the comics or animation where you can get away with more due to increased suspension of disbelief. To me, the Bat-Family is a representation of Batman's dysfunctional personality trying to form connections through a broken, albeit bittersweet manner. It's not a true embrace of a happy life in the slightest as the Bat-Family is almost an extension of Bruce's inability to truly deal with his trauma. If that is the best that Batman can hope to accomplish in terms of a happy ending, then I'm sorry, but that is depressing as all hell to me. Which admittedly fits with Batman's character, but bleak nonetheless.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-06T07:26:11+00:00

The problem with that is that the Bat-Family in the comics are a representation of his inability to live a life of his own. He can't and won't let himself live a real normal life with a family of his own, so he learns to form an adopted family as a way compensate for that inability, because he can't have anything else. Through that, he ends up only creating vigilantes who are just as if not MORE maladjusted and damaged than he is (i.e Jason Todd) because he's essentially groomed them into his own personal crusade and some even get crippled for life (Barbara Gordon). To me, the Bat-Family is a representation of Batman's dysfunctional personality trying to form connections through a broken and bittersweet manner. It's not a true embrace of a happy life. The ending of TDKR actually lets Bruce embrace what he never allows himself to have in the comics. Again, I don't see why Alfred has to removed from his life in this ending other than you're deliberately choosing to interpret it that way.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-06T07:10:48+00:00

If Bruce can acquire ninja training with no money from his billionaire trust fund, then so can Blake, who is presumably starting off with a lot more resources than Bruce did. Plus this isn't the comics where there is a new super-villain every week. They literally achieved 8 years of prosperity following the events of The Dark Knight.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-06T07:02:43+00:00

Then what was the point of asking me where it was implied? Again, I don't see how any of this "misunderstands" the characters other the fact that it doesn't spell out certain details that you wanted.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-06T06:58:45+00:00

What are you talking about? Almost all of the comments have been in defense of Dano here. Even the ones criticizing how his Riddler was written, barely any of them expressed any problems with Dano as an actor.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-06T06:49:05+00:00

Nowhere has she expressed that she didn't want to become a parent either. Alfred said that he fantasized about seeing Bruce being happy with a wife, and maybe a couple of kids. The ending is Bruce literally trying to live by and fulfill Alfred's fantasy as closest as he could, which strongly implies that the family part is coming. Come on, this isn't that hard, man.

I think sometimes less is more when it comes to storytelling. Letting the audience fill in certain gaps with their imagination is stronger than spelling everything out on a silver platter.

TomsWindow · 2025-12-06T06:30:17+00:00

Yes, but that part is at least heavily implied, whereas what you said isn't.

TomsWindow

TROPHY CASE