He is Ezekiel Sims and the Wikipedia entry might give more background on the original character, although he has been chopped and changed so much he is almost unrecognisable.

The reason the character is so one dimensional is that they radically changed the story (why cast members have been so happy to throw it under the bus, as what we saw wasn’t what they signed up for) and we’d have got more of his motivation. As the character is key to some of the big storylines and lore upgrades, he might have also helped set up future films. Instead they still seem intent on killing the franchise, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because a Spidey-less Spider-Man fictional universe is a stupid idea, badly implemented.

And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare.

A nonce is a sex offender. As in: "we had to put him on the prison’s nonce wing as the other prisoners would try and kill him.’

This isn’t exactly a great defence:

“He wanted to create opportunities for him to talk to these ladies.”

Except he wasn’t:

Instead of stopping to talk to the woman after that, he walked past her.

It sounds more like he was getting off on it for some messed up reason

I’ve had absolutely no issues and I’ve been using them for years - they’ve been rock solid and reliable. I switched to a ZigBee dongle and packed away the hub. I also use their switches and plugs, all good.

I thought it was a month to miss but I enjoyed Acción Mutante and the other two are on my watchlist, so I am in for Love, Death & Apocalypse.

It’s not too difficult to stick to that because here it’d be largely the Mail and a few tabloids, which tend not to be used in the serious news sections here anyway unless it’s a piss-take of the Mail.

I get mine from IKEA.

Champions and Two Taoist Tales for me. Taoism Drunkard in particular is really out there, I’d have preferred if it had been teamed with Shaolin Drunkard (which must be in the pipeline) but I’m happy with the set.

Excellent analysis that torpedoes a lot of explanations for this slow year.

In 2024, the domestic box office will be in its 22nd year of sustained decline. And due to the pandemic, audiences are behaving as though they’re between 32 to 37 years into this decline. Fewer than two thirds of Americans still go to the movies, and on average, they will purchase just about 3 tickets annually (hence the average American buying about 2). The practically addressable number of tickets is even more modest as a handful of signature releases each year (e.g. an Avengers, Jurassic, Avatar, Despicable Me) will devour 5-10% each. These constraints mean that the box office – audiences – won’t support many films, or many great films. The misses will consistently surprise moviegoers, critics, stars, and reviewers. This is not a new challenge, per se, but it has never before been more brutal (note that while the modern dominance of comicbook movies is often likened to the heydays of Westerns, Westerns thrives at a time where Americans headed to the theater 20-35x a year!). This will have to change budgets, talent incentives, risk proclivities, franchise plans, and more.

This is key, I feel. If people are going only three times a year, they are going to the biggest most hyped films as it is less of a risk.

Still, changes are probably due. An independently operated MoviePass was always a dumb idea, but to renew frequent moviegoers, it’s clear that some form of AYCE subscription or subscription perk will be required. AMC A-List is a good start, but doesn’t Disney+ have an additional tier (perhaps Disney++) that provides free or discounted tickets to Disney films while they are in theaters? For that matter, distributors should sell premium movie tickets that include EST entitlements or discounts (this may not increase attendance, but it should increase total revenue per customers).

I have the Odeon’s pass and it pays for itself if you go twice a month - I go twice a week and 5 times last week.

Some recent changes should probably be unwound, too. While rapid PVOD windows have helped some money-losing films recover their investments, this model probably just trains audiences to skip uncertain releases because they might be available at home in three weeks anyway.

This seems like an important change - if the cinema is the only place to see a film for a while, then they will go back to the cinema.

Now that famous saying makes sense: the luck of the Japanese.

Now that would be a plot twist - the world’s leafiest is actually the world’s tiniest lettuce.

I saw a documentary about people in this area of the sex trade and there was a woman doing a brisk trade in used undercrackers - she bought multi-packs from M&S, cracked open a tin of tuna and was rubbing tuna water into the gusset. It really helped boost her productivity. That’s the kind of outside-the-box kind of thinking this country needs to get off it’s knees.

The shop reportedly only has male buyers at the moment.

Weird that.

That’s like shooting fish in a barrel. A harder challenge would be to find someone in Reform who isn’t awful.

Now that’s taking the piss!

I have been thinking about a hedgehog highway since there was a thin coating if snow and you could see tiny footprints going down our path, out into the pavement and back down the neighbour’s path. I’ve apparently got four and I might as well give them a chance to roam about in more safety.

I’ve enjoyed:

• Jumanji reboots - more an ensemble piece but he does well
• Hobbs and Shaw - ridiculous and over-the-top but entertaining
• Doom - not often he plays the baddie
• Southland Tales - not exactly a Rock film

The Rock has always prided himself on being the hardest working guy in the room, which is fine but can lead to dickery (like pissing in bottles). Cena has a similar work ethic but puts it towards being a great guy. It’s notable that James Gunn has a tight team around him that contains people he knows work hard and work well with others and Cena is now part of that team. I don’t expect to see Black Adam in the Gunniverse, unless it’s a quick cameo.

Ratings here refers to the viewer numbers not whether some terrible people have been review-bombing Rotten Tomatoes.

But Deadpool and Wolverine will clean up at the box office, so there’ll be articles declaring superhero movies are back. The real story is that corporate-mandated superhero films that no-one asked for and are just another link in the franchise sausage being churned out are not getting people into cinemas, where they will turn out form something they want to see. The interesting test will be when the Gunniverse starts - if that’s a success while Marvel continue to flounder then it may give them the incentive to change course. They are already cutting back on their output and I hope that means telling quality stories the creators want to tell (that may interlink as a second thought), as that’s how the MCU started.