Disqus - Latest Comments for janinedm

Re: Christopher Nolan Is Too Kind in Response To Nerd Backlash Over ‘The Odyssey'

janinedm — Thu, 14 May 2026 13:18:31 -0000

I studied Latin and translated the Aeneid instead of the Odyssey and had the same reaction. "Accurate" language is Ancient Greek here. The distinction between using modern vernacular or Shakespearean English for your translation is made up to sound smart.

Re: Keegan-Michael Key's Wife Is Doing Damage Control

janinedm — Thu, 07 May 2026 18:08:40 -0000

When the show was at its height, Key was seen as the better performer. We can't know what he's capable of. I'm not as sure as others that he's a middling performer just because he's always been in middling projects. Anyway, I find it hard to argue that this dynamic is advancing his career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7-i2CAwpEY

Re: What's Next For 'A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms'? Don't Worry, The Showrunner Has a Plan

janinedm — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:37:45 -0000

I could do with more seasons of the two of them having discrete adventures around Westeros, though I disagree with the ending being Summerhall. The series should end when the pair stop wandering and have to settle in King's Landing.

Re: AI Is Out in the Wild Creating Its Own Chat Rooms and Going on Dates. Should We Be Worried?

janinedm — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 09:31:19 -0000

Exactly. I don't think this is cute. AI is already a huge and growing consumer of energy. We don't need it running queries or engaging in generative actions without being prompted by humans.

Re: The SAVE Act: An Explainer

janinedm — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:11:09 -0000

Just to add to this, married people (usually women) who have taken their spouses last name, and trans people who have changed their names may be disenfranchised because the names on their Birth Certificates aren't the same as their current legal name.

Re: The ‘Christy’ Box Office Flop Proves That Sydney Sweeney Is Not a Star… Yet

janinedm — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 12:46:30 -0000

I think the voting record and jeans ad discourse are a symptom of the fact that she has no brand at all. So people can easily graft anything onto her. It's also the reason she's not a star. Hot isn't a brand. Zendaya is fashion and cool. Jenna Ortega is a little bit goth/dangerous. I'm not sure her team even knows what Sydney Sweeney is supposed to be. Anyone But You into Madame Web into Immaculate? I don't get it. And I have never set foot on a movie set and I could have told her that Sydney Sweeney fans and serious female boxer biopic fans don't overlap. (Thinking about the Rock's last movie, it may be that this type of serious movie about fighters doesn't work and the success of the Iron Claw was its own thing.)

Re: Jennifer Lawrence Explains Why She Didn't Need an Intimacy Coordinator with Robert Pattinson

janinedm — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 11:09:39 -0000

I agree with your estimation of the fallout, but isn't it her problem to deal with? Why is the internet mad?

Re: Kevin Federline's Attempts to Get Back at Britney Spears Via New Memoir Fail Miserably

janinedm — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 13:19:49 -0000

Like, I don't know why my earlier comment was seen as a defense of KFed. Because I say that she may never get better? Her entire support system was used as her captors/abusers and the mental health system was an accomplice. Every tool that might help her will rightly be met with suspicion. So it will be hard for her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have the same right to fix or fuck up her life that the rest of us have.

Re: Kevin Federline's Attempts to Get Back at Britney Spears Via New Memoir Fail Miserably

janinedm — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 13:14:53 -0000

Now, now. I'm acknowledging that he was a good father while maintaining that he was a sonuvabitch where the conservatorship is involved. He laid low with his sons because Jamie made sure he was well compensated, which is fine. I just draw a line at anyone defending the length of the conservatorship or even hinting that it be reinstated. I don't even own a single Britney Spears album and I think the conservatorship is evil on ethical grounds.

Thought experiment: let's say someone was in a medically induced coma with a condition where there was a very small chance of cure if brought out of the coma. Let's also say that the patient receives very large annuity payments. Would it be ethical for the family to keep the patient in a coma for over a decade because that's the most financially stable arrangement? In my estimate, absolutely not.

So, yes. He's a good father but when it comes to Britney, he's a leech. Worse than a leech, because leeches suck blood because of their physiology. I don't even see the debate here. It seems like we only entertain it because Britney Spears is involved, but American legal (and medical!) ethics don't allow for anything like this. This type of conservatorship should be measured in months.

Re: Kevin Federline's Attempts to Get Back at Britney Spears Via New Memoir Fail Miserably

janinedm — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 11:16:00 -0000

I think Kevin has been a good father, and it's been good that the boys had him. At the same time, I think Britney endured great physical and mental abuse well into her 30s from her parents. What you're describing: controlling what they eat, harming them so they look a certain way, are things that have been done to her since she was little. The custody arrangements keeping them apart were 100% necessary and correct, but as I understand it, he also uses these events as proof that the conservatorship should never have ended.

She may never get better. I would not be surprised if she rejects/resists mental health counseling because it was used to cage her. The conservatorship wasn't used as a safe place to help her get well. It left her sick, but under control (by her main abuser). It's immoral for her to never get the chance to live an independent life. And that's going to look ugly. He can protect his boys without 1) writing tell-all books or 2) re-imprisoning his ex-wife. Especially now that they're old enough to refuse to see her.

Re: Did James Gunn Just Turn the DCU's Nick Fury Into a Villain?

janinedm — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:56:45 -0000

Thanks for that. I might do a rewatch myself.

Re: Did James Gunn Just Turn the DCU's Nick Fury Into a Villain?

janinedm — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:53:26 -0000

I hear that. I'm not the fan-theory type. But episode 8 Rick Flag was SO out of character that it honestly feels like a different guy behaviorally. The actions track but the coke and bear hugs and going out with the boys to celebrate don't seem like him to the point where I found it fishy.

Re: Did James Gunn Just Turn the DCU's Nick Fury Into a Villain?

janinedm — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:33:06 -0000

By the finale, we see him in similar circumstances to how we saw Luthor as the villain in Superman...

Are we 100% sure it's actually Flag? Flag in Peacemaker season 2 is morally flexible, but after that visit to the prison he's waaaaay out of character. Doing coke? Ignoring the soldiers' deaths (sometimes)? Forgetting that he gave Harcourt permission to call him Rick and the way he gives Bordeaux the brush off. I wonder if there's been some sort of switcheroo or mind control or something with Lex Luthor. I'm not saying that Flag Sr wouldn't do these things, but with the partying and all, he's acting more like Lex than the tough guy with a stick up his ass. That speech where he pitches the prison planet sounds more like Lex than Flag to me. I feel like if Flag under his own steam were doing this stuff, he'd finish his day by drinking whiskey and staring at pictures of his son.

Re: Recap: 'Peacemaker' Keeps Ripping the Roof Off in Brutal Episode 7

janinedm — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 15:38:36 -0000

I'm not sure Auggie was a good guy. He didn't support the government, but think about this: in the Jim Crow south, there were plenty who were 100% fine with segregation, but found the Klan distasteful. They found the execution to be excessive, but they weren't nascent John Browns just waiting for their moment. They were fine with the results but didn't want the ugliness.

Re: How Elephant Graveyard Exposed Joe Rogan's Comedy Cult

janinedm — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:21:09 -0000

I'd give it a watch. I've been following Elephant graveyard since his takedown of Burn the Boats
His videos aren't long because of lack of editing. He has a slower delivery more reminiscent of Steven Wright and employs a lot of callbacks. It's actually very entertaining.

Re: 'The Truth About Jussie Smollett?' Doc Isn't What You'd Think

janinedm — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 11:51:14 -0000

I could understand, after a flight, wanting to stretch your legs and get away from the people you're with (though you'd instantly regret it in that weather), but I completely reject that the so-called assailants were just hanging out outside to spot him at 2am.

Re: 'The Truth About Jussie Smollett?' Doc Isn't What You'd Think

janinedm — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 14:54:25 -0000

It was the weather for me. Chicago was in the middle of a polar vortex. I've experienced them. it's not just "cold," it's punishing. I looked it up and that night it was 1 degree Farenheit, 30 below freezing. We're talking Arctic temperatures. I will not buy any story that includes people hanging out outside in that. After that, the rest of the story falls apart.

Re: 'The Gilded Age' Has Character Growing Pains

janinedm — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 11:03:10 -0000

The writers do seem to have lost the plot with Marian. Has anyone noticed how they keep saying that her reputation will be hurt by a third broken engagement? According to Society, she's been engaged one time only. Whatever she had with Tom Raikes, it was never announced and for that matter, her engagement to Larry hasn't been announced. I know she knows it will be her third time accepting a proposal, but it's all indicative of sloppy writing.
In further sloppy writing, they had Oscar and Jack inexplicably withhold that you can do a lot at the Haymarket other than sex in order for her have that reaction, which was lame on the writers' part.

Re: For the Girls? Sabrina Carpenter's New Album Art Inspires Some Strong Reactions

janinedm — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:40:22 -0000

I'm no expert on Carpenter. It's not me genre, but every time I've seen her she's played off of the tension of looking like male gaze bait while refusing to play her role. She explicitly courts the desire, but then will not be had except on her terms. Someone compared her to Bugs Bunny; she also references Road Runner and Wile E Coyote except she's neither character, she's the fake tunnel painted on the cliff wall.

Re: ‘Murderbot’ Review: One Relatable Death Machine

janinedm — Wed, 21 May 2025 12:11:50 -0000

In the book series, she eventually develops PTSD. I think it's a good narrative decision to not have it suddenly appear in Network Effect. She's still decisive and calm around/for the Preservation Alliance team.

Re: Original ‘Naked Gun’ Creator Slams Liam Neeson-Starring Reboot

janinedm — Thu, 08 May 2025 13:31:05 -0000

I kind of feel the opposite, reading this interview. Zucker's obsession with recent references takes on a different light when you think of his most recent work, the Scary Movies and the Superhero Movie. When you watch those, the humor seems to be limited to references. As in, the jokes are just the references. So, I could see his approach making sense on paper but being deeply unfunny (like every Scary Movie since the Wayans left).

Re: Carrie Coon Ditched Marvel Because of Their Insulting Offer

janinedm — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:24:30 -0000

You do your own makeup in a small indie because you feel fortunate to work with Daniel Day Lewis. You do Marvel movies for money. Makes no sense without the money.

Re: 'Scamanda' Review: It's Okay. Bad Things Happen to Bad People!

janinedm — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 18:41:27 -0000

I can see it. I have a friend who, between her and her abusive ex, was the obviously better choice. But he had decades of creating and exploiting traumas and, with a few well placed acts of terror/mind games before each hearing, she'd be a wreck in court while he was cool as a sociopath. She briefly completely lost custody.

Re: 'Scamanda' Review: It's Okay. Bad Things Happen to Bad People!

janinedm — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 16:02:03 -0000

I consider myself a connoisseur of the scam/white collar subgenre of true crime (check out Swindled if you haven't). And the tell about the Scamanda, Sherri Papini and Belle Gibson stories is their personal lies are in service of dangerous cultural lies. In each case, and I don't mean this as blaming the individuals who supported them so much as the institutions who propped them up, their stories were proof points for larger dangerous institutional lies that would not have real world back-up otherwise.

Scamanda: How much must it have appealed to her church to point to a woman with terminal cancer who learns that she's pregnant and doesn't abort the baby to save her life, but goes through the pregnancy looking fresh as a peach! Unlike the real women with cancer who do this and then die, making the church look bad for encouraging it.

Sherri Pappini: Easy. "I knew those bad, bad Mexicans want to hurt our beautiful white women."

Belle Gibson: A cornucopia of usable crap for every wellness grifter, holistic medicine kook, and weird orthorexics who want to paint diet culture as health.

So, as a scam-gourmand, I hope the takeaway is not to stop believing women but to try to retain your sympathy for individuals but resist these cultural framings. The way I figure it, it keeps you from being awful or hard in a way you're ashamed of later while protecting you from getting swept up because now their story is tied to some other deeply held belief (i.e. Christian womanhood, immigrants, Gardasil).

Re: The Female Rage of 'Apple Cider Vinegar' and Predatory Wellness

janinedm — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:37:15 -0000

I keep thinking about how diet culture and the conflation of thin prettiness with health plays into all this. Would Belle have gotten the book deals and adoration if she spread the same story while being a size 14? Nope. And as much as the series does a good job to put viewers in a place where the well-meaning men sound paternalistic and awful, there is the background fog that these women all come from a culture that told them to control what they put in their bodies.

I also keep thinking of Milla's total revulsion when she met the cancer survivor who'd allowed her leg to be amputated. I don't think she's a villain for that. She knew full well that she'd be seen as less hot without the arm and understood what that meant in the world we all live in. I don't think Milla's character was a villain in general. The actress played her as so scared/in denial that it was hard to think of her as a perpetrator beyond the general situation where all women can become victims and perpetrators of what we're taught.

I guess what I'm saying is that as much as the paternalistic medical system might push women to the extreme end of wellness culture, it's not that much of a push because beauty standards and diet culture have us most of the way there.