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Movies and TV Shows kingmongoose7877 11 months ago 65%
**TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR Discussion Megapost** 2023-10-13 👩‍🎤🎶

| **Title** | Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour | | --- | --- | | **Genre:** | Musical, Documentary | | **MPAA Rating:** | NA | | **Runtime** | 02:48:00 | | **Release Date (USA):** | October 13, 2023 | | **Director:** | Sam Wrench | | **Main Cast:** | Taylor Swift, Amanda Balen, Taylor Banks | | **Summary:** | The phenomenon that is Taylor Swift continues, now on the big screen! Immerse yourselves in this once-in-a-lifetime concert film event and witness the history-making tour in theatres. Within hours after tickets went on sale, the film surpassed $10 million in pre-sales, which box-office analysts likened to the performance of a Marvel film. Admit it: *you're going!* | **Useful links:** - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift:_The_Eras_Tour) - [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28814949/) - [Movie Insider](https://www.movieinsider.com/m22058/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour) - [Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/taylor_swift_the_eras_tour) --- This is the place for all your general discussion, personal and/or linked reviews regarding the new 2023 film, *Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour*, pinned for your convenience! **Please**, for the benefit of the community, use [spoiler formatting](https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/02-media.html) if you must reveal! If you have a new movie release you think should be pinned, [let us know](https://lemmy.film/u/kingmongoose7877) (one to two weeks in advance, *please*)! **And remember,** just use the search icon 🔍 to find past *Megapost* discussions!

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Movies and TV Shows SubArcticTundra 11 months ago 100%
What should I watch after Seinfeld?

I've just finished watching Seinfeld for the first time, and as much as much as I'd love to watch it all again, I don't want to ruin it by watching it too much. I think what made me like the show so much was the fantastic, over-the top acting, the way the four very distinct personalities mesh together, and the fast-paced and versatile plot. Does anyone have any recommendations for other good shows that are strong in these three areas? Thanks!

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Movies and TV Shows neuracnu 11 months ago 70%
Circus Maximus (2023) www.youtube.com

**Circus Maximus** 75 minutes A 2023 American musical anthology film co-written, executive produced, and directed by Travis Scott. The film is Scott's directorial debut, with segments directed by a murder's row of talent: Gaspar Noé (*Irréversible*, *Enter the Void*, *Climax*), Nicolas Winding Refn (*Pusher*, *Bronson*, *Drive*, *The Neon Demon*), Harmony Korine (*Kids*, *Gummo*, *Julien Donkey-Boy*, *Spring Breakers*, *The Beach Bum*), Valdimar Jóhannsson (*Lamb*), Andrew Dosunmu (), CANADA, and Kahlil Joseph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_Maximus_(film)

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Movies and TV Shows CorrodedCranium 11 months ago 92%
What were some movies you had to look up explanations of after watching?

Beau is Afraid was the last one I recall. I think it was mostly the latter half of the movie where I started to get a bit confused and needed the ending explained to me. --- What movies made you look up some kind of explanation afterwards? I feel like I have done it several times in the past for more surreal movies but can't think of any other examples. It can also be a TV show.

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Movies and TV Shows kid2908 11 months ago 93%
Disney Mocked for Ludicrously Fake CGI "Actors" in Crowd Scene futurism.com

cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/317313 > There is a [discussion on Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37889031), but feel free to comment here as well.

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Movies and TV Shows small44 11 months ago 100%
Golden Kamuy Live Action Adaptation Trailer www.youtube.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6911586 > Looks very promising

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Movies and TV Shows ZeroCool 11 months ago 92%
Gargoyles Live-Action Reboot Officially in Works at Disney+ comicbook.com

A Gargoyles reboot is officially on the way. Months after a report suggested Kenneth Branagh could be helming a live-action reboot of the cult classic animated series, a new trade report says a live-action series is, in fact, in development at Disney+. While it doesn't appear that Branagh is working on it, the series has a pair of monstrous names attached. Gary Dauberman has been hired to write, showrun, and executive produce the series alongside James Wan and his Atomic Monster banner.

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Movies and TV Shows ZeroCool 11 months ago 99%
Matthew Vaughn Quit ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ Over Fake Script Written for Halle Berry: ‘I’m Out of Here’ www.indiewire.com

“I went into one of the executive’s offices and I saw an ‘X3’ script, and I immediately knew it was a lot fatter,” Vaughn said. “I was like, ‘What the hell is this draft?’ He went, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m the director. I’m worrying about this draft.’ He wouldn’t tell me, so I grabbed it literally — it was like a crazy moment — opened the first page, and it said, ‘Africa. Storm. Kids dying of no water. She creates a thunderstorm and saves all these children.'” Vaughn continued, “[I said] ‘What is this?’ [They said] ‘Oh, it’s Halle Berry’s script.’ I went, ‘OK, because she hasn’t signed up yet.’ ‘But this is what she wants it to be, and once she signs up, we’ll throw it in the bin.'” While Vaughn said the idea of Storm going to Africa was a “pretty cool idea,” he did not stand by the tactic of misrepresenting the storyline to Berry.

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Movies and TV Shows girlfreddy 11 months ago 95%
The Year’s Wildest TV Tech Thriller Is a Cartoon time.com

AMC's ***Pantheon*** has one of the most brilliant storylines I've seen in years. It seems animation series are ratcheting up the battle for supremacy and I'm here for it.

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Movies and TV Shows finthechat 11 months ago 96%
The Fall of the House of Usher | Discussion

I didn't see a thread for this show yet. Sometimes Federation is iffy though. If there is already a post, I guess just delete this one. The Fall of the House of Usher is the new Mike Flanagan horror miniseries on Netflix, here just on time for Halloween spooky stuff. I just finished the show tonight and thought it was pretty good overall. Decent production (with the exception of digital green screen backgrounds everywhere), a solid ensemble cast, some surprisingly good monologues, some creepy scares, and a good enough ending. I went in not knowing anything about it except for its genre and was pleasantly surprised. Edit: also Mark Hamill doing a voice for his role was a treat What did you think?

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Movies and TV Shows AFKBRBChocolate 11 months ago 82%
Am I strange for not loving Everything Everywhere All At Once?

Just got around to watching it for the first time tonight. We had *so many* people tell us we'd love it and need to watch it, so it was high on our list. Great cast, and it won so many awards. I didn't hate it, but I was left scratching my head over all the hype. I like odd movies and books, so it's not that I couldn't handle the weirdness. It seemed like in the same vein as Scott Pilgrim, and if you told me it wasn't a bit box office but got a cult following, I'd totally believe that. My wife felt exactly the same way. Maybe it's just one of those cases where there was too much hype for us, but I felt kind of let down.

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Movies and TV Shows icepuncher69 11 months ago 87%
What did you thought about Castlevania Nocturne?

i havent seen any discusion on this seasson here on lemmy so what the hell, im gonna start my own. I had some very mixed feelings on it, for one the action and animation was very cool, and the second season seems that its gonna be a break it or make it kinda deal in terms of the plot because the writting was mediocre and worse compared even to the 3rd season of the first series, which is the weakest season by far of the first castlevania. This is specially the case with the main 3 characters, first Maria is very passionate about the revolution and thats cool but the way they portrait it is very annoying, she just spouts the same revplutionary speeches over and over, and its never explained why she is so pasionate about it, you could say because freedoom is a universal motivation but it really isnt, speciallybfor her since she as well as her mom live away from the town, they arent really shown interacting with the townspeople so that to make a connection to understeand why they want freedom for them, or at the very least they could have shown her that she whent to college and learned about it on her philosophy class, or anything, luckilly they tone it down at the end by giving her more character and a conflict that goes into spoiler territory that seems that its gonna be cool how they expand upon it in the next season, but the first parts are very annoying and unexplained. Second is Richter, which is this seassons flagship belmont, he kind of makes no sense, it wasnt shown or mentioned that he was trained in vampire killing yet he is super good at it, you could say that thats because he is a belmonth, but due to his "spoiler" being "spoiled" its not possible he could have been trained as well as say trevor with the wip, not even by the people that he is living wirt now since they are magic users, not vampire hunters, yet he is impossibly good with it, and he really doesnt have a good explanation as to why he is a vampire hunter in profession, and to pretend he has a character arc they gave him a barely justified shonen protagonist anime power up scene where he kills a bunch of powerfull vampires with magic and this was specially made to justify having him running of crying in one scene where his "spoiler" shows up, this imo really shows the intentions of the writers, wich takes us to the last character i want to complain about: Annete. Annete was kinda like the writers darling, the first parts of the show focus on her and one whole episode its entirelly dedicated to her backstory, while the other characters barelly have foundation, and this wouldnt be as bad if she wasnt so annoying, since she causes some problems and one of them being a characters death due to her not being able to control herself at a very bad moment and isnt even at the very least made responsible for it, the whole contrary btw, and its not because she is clumsy or made a mistake, she has some very OP magic and its very good at using it, which while it shouldnt it kinda gets aded as a negative, not that she shouldnt be powerfull but you kinda understeand what the writers are trying to do and i dont like it, and when richters runs away they made her snap, throw a temper tantrum and shit talk him, making her come across at the very least as very unconcidarate, and granted, they have someone tell her that she shouldnt do that and she accepts it but still, but aggain, its very obvius why the writers added this, they whant to piss pepople of for controversy and about that, thats the characters purpose at its core, to be controversial, you could think it is not but it is. Not that a character shouldnt be diverse, but when they are made diverse nor even for diversitys sake, just for controversys sake, it brings the ehole character and discussion down. And it makes me sad that they are using a culture that has some cool potential for very nice stories and characters be used for just to piss people off and as a twitter argument, but well what can you do. It may not seem like it but i do recomend it if you liked the first castlevania series, its more of it at the end, but if you like the games you will probably be more perplexed about it, but if thats the case then you probably seen the first series and again, its more casltevania. And if you like diversity in you media then you will like this series, i know it sounds condecending, but i heard is a genuine thing people take into concideration to rate something, so yeah, its very diverse, you will like it. Other than that, the second seasson its already confirmed so, like i said, they could redeem themseles or make it worse, so we will have to see...

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moviesandtv
Movies and TV Shows Blaze 11 months ago 95%
[Meta] Is there any reason there is only 1 pinned movie megapost?

Hello everyone, Asking this question as maybe I missed a change. I know quite a lot of people liked the megaposts, and it is always easier to find them when they are pinned. The Exorcist, Saw X, the Equalizer 3 are still in theaters. If the mod team needs help with creating those posts, I'm sure people can help!

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Movies and TV Shows Blaze 11 months ago 96%
[Weekly thread] What is the best movie you watched last week? 15 October

It's been a while since those, what are your latest gems?

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Movies and TV Shows simple 11 months ago 94%
Invincible - Season 2 Official Trailer | Prime Video www.youtube.com

Some out-of-context spoilers in this trailer, be aware if you're sensitive to spoilers.

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Movies and TV Shows Amon_366 11 months ago 89%
Movie to watch list

Hi, is there somewhere a megapost or a list or a link to a website where i can find a good amount of suggested movies to watch, im not even talinkg about blockbusters or gigant production only. I watch everything and im interested in discovering good movies but it is hard for me to just find new interestinf titles

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Movies and TV Shows Blaze 11 months ago 97%
Michael Caine Announces Retirement From Acting people.com

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/8722763 > Archive link: https://archive.ph/xrzxY > > > Sir Michael Caine is retiring from acting. > > > > The 90-year-old actor confirmed his retirement — which comes after the Oct. 6 release of his latest, and now final, film The Great Escaper — in a new radio interview on Saturday. > > > > "I keep saying I'm going to retire. Well, I am now,” Caine told BBC Radio 4’s Today show. > > > > "I've figured, I've had a picture where I've played the lead and it's got incredible reviews. The only parts I’m likely to get now are old men,” the acting legend explained. “…And I thought, well I might as well leave with all this — what have I got to do to beat this?” > > > Caine’s retirement announcement comes after he hinted at retiring in an interview with The Telegraph last month, where he discussed his new role in The Great Escaper, his age and said he was "sort of" retired. > > > Caine shared during his latest BBC Radio 4 interview that he believes it’s important old age is portrayed in movies, offering that as part of the reason he has kept acting up until now. > > > When asked if he would ever return to acting, Caine replied, “No. There’ll be writing. I’ll write another book sometime because I so enjoyed writing.” > >

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Movies and TV Shows Blaze 11 months ago 81%
Why Are Modern Blockbusters So... Not Very Good? | Some More News www.youtube.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6774164 > cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6774132 > > > Check out c/breadtube for more left video content and discussion. > > - [BreadTube](/c/breadtube@lemmy.world) > > - !BreadTube@lemmy.world

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Movies and TV Shows GeekFTW 11 months ago 96%
Archer | S14 Finale Event - Into The Cold | FX youtu.be

December 17th, 3 episode finale event to formally wrap up the series! (The writers were given short notice, so this will serve as a proper intended series finale. Also please mind the spoilers for anyone who has not seen the S14 finale.)

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Movies and TV Shows MC_Lovecraft 11 months ago 91%
My Review of Friday the 13th (1980) letterboxd.com

In recognition of this IRL Friday the 13th falling during Spooky Season, tonight I watched [Friday the 13th (1980)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/). I've seen this one a couple of times, but always in the context of a Halloween party or something, so this is the first time I actually learned the characters' names, which was nice. This was the first movie to try and replicate the success of Halloween, and it really kicked off the 80s Slasher boom. There are recognizable elements from prior horror classics as well, Psycho most notably, that make it clear there is more going on under the hood of this film than its reputation might suggest. That said, the plot is paper-thin, only about half the characters have even a single actual personality trait, and there is a recurring theme of casual racism towards native Americans, so it's not exactly a masterpiece either. The movie begins on Friday the 13th, 1958, with a bunch of camp counselors hanging out singing christian folk songs to each-other, as teenagers are wont to do any time they are left unsupervised. A pair of somewhat less godbothering members of the group slip off to make whoopie in one of the cabins, only to be brutally slain in a sequence shot from the killer's perspective, concealing their identity. Until the climax of the film all of the kills will be shot this way, or otherwise obscured in such a way as to preserve the 'twist' of the killer's identity. Annie (Robbi Morgan), Alice (Adrienne King), Bill (Harry Crosby), Ned (Mark Nelson), Jack (Kevin Bacon, in one of his very first appearances), Brenda (Laurie Bertram), and Marcie (Jeannine Taylor) arrive at the camp years later (in "Present Day" which becomes increasingly hilarious the farther we get from whatever 'present' is depicted in a film) as it is being renovated and reopened by Steve, a man who is 30% porn-stache and 60% jorts. The counselors-to-be are warned off by local doom-sayer, Ralph, whose depiction of a Cassandra-like prophetic weirdo inspired a whole horror genre stock character that still gets some mileage these days. The gore in this movie is fairly inventive, if clearly low-budget. Tom Savini worked on a lot of the effects, and his fingerprints are most obvious in the excellent scene where Kevin Bacon has an arrow shoved through his throat from underneath his bed. Once the identity of the killer is revealed some of the kills feel a little implausibe in hindsight (such as Bill being lifted fully off of the ground and impaled with multiple arrows) but it's not hard to justify including fun practical effects in every kill when you're making a Slahser film, no matter how much or little sense it makes. I like this movie. This and the first sequel codified about a billion 80s horror movie tropes, so they can feel a little over-played when watching them today, but that's more Seinfeld Effect than a real criticism of the films. My biggest actual gripe with this movie is that the ending is absolutely terrible. There are two places where the film could have cut to credits and been fantastic. When Alice is discovered adrift on the canoe by the police, the morning of the 14th, the film could have ended and been a solid, if not very meaty, horror narrative. The second option would have been to keep the next few seconds and end on Jason pulling Alice into the lake, which mkaes zero sense but is a fantastic shocker ending. Instead, the film does both and then takes us to a hospital scene where it is immediately revealed that Alice is just fine, and maybe she just dreamed Jason, or maybe not, but either way she's going to be okay. I hate cop-out endings in horror films. You've already brutally murdered 80% of the cast, you don't need to give us a happily-ever-after (even if Alice is concerned that Jason may still be alive). I'm going to give this one a 3.5/5. I considered bumping it up to 4/5 considering the legacy this film has, but I try to only give stars based on an individual film's merits, and this one is just okay. It is occasionally quite good, and then for long stretches it's kind of boring. The reveal that the killer is a little old lady who may or may not share her head with her dead son is genuinely great and surprising, and it would have been completely sufficiently scary without throwing all the logic out the window at the very end, but even that doesn't completely spoil what is an extremely 'okay' film in my final evaluation.

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Movies and TV Shows Varyk 11 months ago 95%
Looking for a specific The Thing interview with John Carpenter

I'm looking up fan theories again and keep coming across the claim that John Carpenter in an interview has said the 2002 video game is canon to his 1982 movie, but out of literally dozens of references I have not come across a single link or article quoting John Carpenter yet. Is there anyone out there in movieland who knows what interview I'm talking about? Thanks for any help

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Movies and TV Shows focus 11 months ago 97%
Well, it was nice while it lasted?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6730022 > #A24 #FilmLemmy

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Movies and TV Shows ZeroCool 11 months ago 96%
Phyllis Coates Dies: TV’s Original Lois Lane Was 96 deadline.com

Phyllis Coates, who became television’s first Lois Lane when she was cast in the classic Adventures of Superman series starring George Reeves, died yesterday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills. She was 96. Her death was announced by daughter Laura Press to our sister publication The Hollywood Reporter. Born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell in Wichita Falls, Texas, on January 15, 1927, Coates and her family later moved to Hollywood. Along with some vaudeville-style performances, Coates launched her showbix career as a chorus girl during the 1940s, often touring the the USO. Later in the decade, she landed small roles in such pictures as Smart Girls Don’t Talk (as the Cigarette Girl, 1948) and My Foolish Heart (1949), and appeared in a series of “Joe McDoakes” comedy shorts as Alice MacDoakes. In 1951, Coates was invited to audition for the role of Lois Lane in the low-budget feature film Superman and the Mole Men. Starring Reeves as Superman, the film was a de facto TV pilot, and by the end of the year both Reeves and Coates were asked to join the upcoming TV series. Coates stayed with the series for only one season – 1952-53 – a decision chalked up to conflicts with producers and other projects waiting. Noel Neill took over the role in the second season, and stayed until the final sixth season (a seventh was planned, but Reeves’ unexpected, and still mysterious, death in 1959 ended the show). Until her death, Coates was the last surviving regular cast member of the classic superhero series. Though best remembered for Superman, Coates would build an extensive roster of TV and film credits in a career that lasted well into the 1990s. She appeared in the now-classic monster movie I Was A Teenage Frankenstein and on ’50s and ’60s TV shows like The Lone Ranger, Lassie, Leave It To Beaver, Hawaiian Eye, Rawhide, Perry Mason, The Untouchables, The Virginian, and Death Valley Days; in 1970’s TV-movie The Baby Maker with Barbara Hershey: and, during the 1980s, Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and, later, one 1994 episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, in which she played the mother of Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane. Coates was married four times, the first to Richard L. Bare, director of the McDoakes shorts and later of the TV hit Green Acres, and subsequent unions with jazz musician Robert Nelms, Leave It to Beaver director Norman Tokar and medical doctor Howard Press. All four marriages ended in divorce. Coates is survived by daughters Laura and Zoe, and granddaughter Olivia.

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Movies and TV Shows GeekFTW 11 months ago 97%
‘Archer’s’ Final Mission: Sterling and His Frenemies Sign Off After 142 Episodes of Awful Behavior. We Will Miss Them. variety.com

> > > I first heard about FX’s “Archer” in the ready room of VAQ-135, a navy squadron who were serving an interminable deployment aboard an aircraft carrier somewhere near Midway Island. (This sounds very much like a humblebrag that Sterling Archer would obnoxiously drop into conversation). It was 2010, and the pilots had lost whatever idealism they’d once had during an endless deployment that had them flying 12-hour missions from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan. I started hearing the officers stage-whisper “danger zone” whenever one of them got called in to see the commanding officer over some minor fuck-up or summoned to the flight deck in the pitch black of an ocean night. > > > > Now, famously, “Danger Zone” is a Kenny Loggins song that plays a significant role in the homoerotic original recipe “Top Gun,” the urtext of naval aviators. But the way the pilots were saying it suggested they were taking the piss. Eventually, one of them explained to me that “danger zone” was one of the catchphrases of Sterling Archer, the dissolute Bond-on-a-bender at the center of “Archer,” a spy comedy that had premiered the year before. Sterling, a pilot explained, was the son of the louche and alcoholic Malory Archer who’d founded a spy agency populated by a half-dozen other assholes who ran profoundly dangerous and pointless missions for a revolving series of international actors. > > > > I was working on a book and cosplaying at being a Navy officer, and then flew off the carrier to head up to NAS Whidbey Island, where I checked into the base hotel in pursuit of my first good night sleep in a month. There, I made the happy mistake of downloading the first season of “Archer,” and that was that. I didn’t fall asleep — instead I fell in love, which says something about me that I’m not sure is completely positive. > > > > The first episode begins with Sterling (H. Jon Benjamin) strung up on a wall about to be tortured. His handler speaks in a bad Russian accent: “Sterling Archer, code name Duchess, known from Berlin to Bangkok as the world’s most dangerous spy.” An unimpressed Archer then asks his tormentor if he is going to be tortured with the flaccid voltage of the guy’s go-kart battery. The man sighs, the lights go on and behind a two-way mirror is silver-haired Malory Archer, voiced by Jessica Walter, expressing exasperation. We quickly learn that this is a simulation, and Archer’s code name of “Duchess” is also the name of Malory’s dog who she loved very much — as we see in a portrait of dog and Malory posing naked like John and Yoko. > > > > The use of Bangkok is also not an accident, as Sterling is the male slut of the 21st Century, or the 20th Century, as the time of the show is comically never established and is somewhere in the 1960 to 2020 range. (There are Cold War standoffs, but also cellphones and desktop computers). Sterling never knew his father; Malory isn’t even quite sure who it was, perhaps a KGB spy or maybe Buddy Rich. (Sterling inherited the libertine gene from his mother). > > > > The wordplay between Malory and Sterling is the diseased artery that keeps the blood of the show pumping. In an early episode, Malory warns Sterling to keep his least savory dates away from her pharmaceutical stash. > > > > Malory: I don’t want another one of your sullen *removed* using my medicine cabinet as a Pez dispenser. > Archer: That wasn’t her fault! Who puts Oxycontin in a Xanax container? > Malory: People with servants! > Archer: But if they’re stealing pills, how does it help to switch the labels? > Malory: Because they can’t read English! > > > > “Archer” is the sole creation of Adam Reed, who wrote or co-wrote the first 103 of the show’s 142 episodes. The setup is that of a standard workplace comedy, with the twist that every character is a narcissistic asshole. It is set in the Manhattan offices of the International Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS). (It was named before “ISIS” became a known actual terrorism organization, and was dropped in 2015 as a result.) On the show, ISIS is populated by assorted arsonists, careerists and food addicts, starting with Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler) as Sterling’s Black sometimes girlfriend. She is beautiful and ambitious, but has unseemly large hands alternately described as the size of cricket bats or Johnny Bench’s catcher mitt. The agency features HR director Pam Poovey (Amber Nash) the daughter of a Wisconsin dairy farm who has a weight problem until she discovers cocaine and develops a drug problem. Her subordinate is Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer) who likes to be choked, start fires and is later revealed to be the heiress to the Tunt railroad fortune. In the back lab is Krieger (Lucky Yates), a scientist of sorts who was raised in Brazil, possibly conceived with Hitler’s DNA. Then there’s Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell), an often cuckolded agency accountant who is charisma-free if well-endowed. Watching with a side eye is agent Ray Gillette, a gay Southern dandy voiced by Reed, who battles with the semi-homophobic Sterling over pressing issues such as whether Ray’s bronze medal from the Winter Olympics makes him a loser. (Ray insists it was a triumph, but when Sterling leaves the room he sighs and drawls, “It was a huge disappointment.”) > > > > “Archer” is driven by black humor and black hearts. It has something in common with fellow FX show “The League,” which also debuted in 2009 (and ran until 2015), and it’s hard to see either show being greenlit in the allegedly more enlightened time of 2023 with their helpings of gay jokes and rampant misogyny. Yet there was a significant difference between the two shows. There was exactly one woman and no gay characters or people of color in “The League’s” main cast, and the men’s boorishness is celebrated. “Archer” is different: Every time Sterling expresses his 1950s view of women, race relations or gay life, he is pummeled —both verbally and physically — by his so-called colleagues. > > > > Sterling is the focus of the show, but he is no hero. We all can see he is a pathetic alcoholic who will never get his mother’s approval. (She’d passed on Sterling’s parenting duties to his British valet Woodhouse, who Sterling pays back by rubbing fine sand into his eyes for sport. This may or may not be why Woodhouse is a heroin user). > > > > None of this would work if “Archer” didn’t have the best voice cast in the history of animated television. (You can throw projectiles at me, just know I am in my underground bunker). The acidic banter flows seamlessly like you are in a Tylenol with caffeine fever dream. Benjamin’s Archer has a stentorian super- spy voice that is a perfectly comic counterpoint to his actual buffoonery. Walter did a variation of Lucille Bluth if she was always randy and reminiscing about lost sex weekends in Phuket. Nash’s Pam has a vulnerability, not much seen on the show, as she pounds Tall Boys for breakfast and participates in bum fights. I’m not saying “Archer” is on the level of, say, “The Simpsons” or “Bojack Horseman,” but the cast is a notch above. > > > > While some “Archer” seasons have arcs, most are contained 22 minutes of dyspeptic laughs with a side helping of Reed playing with the concept of comedy catchphrases, including Sterling shouting “Phrasing!” whenever someone makes an inadvertent double entendre, which happens about 17 times each episode. But even this is a snarky wink: In a later season Archer shouts “Phrasing!” and the rest of the agency informs him they’re not doing that anymore, to his great disappointment. > > > > “Archer” is the sitcom equivalent of Oasis, whose early stuff is flawless, but whose later seasons, while uneven, still contained some banger singles. There is not a duff episode in the first seven seasons, with the best ones including guest voice work from cable legends, including Matthew Rhys, Timothy Olyphant, Anthony Bourdain, and Walters’ real-life husband Ron Liebman as Malory’s mismatched boyfriend Ron Cadillac. The ability of Reed to establish the crew quickly in different scenarios — whether it be as undercover workers in Bourdain’s kitchen, or in the countryside of Rhys’ native Wales — proves how deftly Reed created his characters. > > > > Alas, this is “Archer,” so not all is sunshine and merry-go-round ride. At some point around 2017, when the show switched from FX to FXX, it seems like someone made a bet with Reed about how insane he could make “Archer” without the show getting canceled. Sterling went into a coma — no, really — and the show time traveled, in no particular order, to 1947 Hollywood, a 1930s Pacific island, outer space and on the Oregon Trail in the 1860s. (OK, I made the last one up). Reed left after Season 10, and the show stumbled some more after the death of the irreplaceable Walter in 2021. I can only hazard a guess that “Archer” was left to soldier on by FX knowing it could run endless midnight “Archer” marathons to stoned college kids for decades. > > > > Miraculously, “Archer’s” final season has been a return to the show’s classic roots, with Kane assuming Malory’s seat as head of the agency and new London agent Zara Khan (Natalie Dew) playing Sterling’s new foil who enrages the decaying playboy because she is his doppelganger: Overconfidence and narcissism ooze from her perfect pores. > > > > Tonight, “Archer” signs off. There’s an embargo on the episode’s details, but if you think the final chapter will feature a wedding or some happy wrap-up you haven’t been paying attention. Sterling Archer and his colleagues remain irredeemable jerks. Just the way we have always loved them. > >

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