Audiences have always been interested in good storytelling. The reason the MCU took off was because it told good stories. The problem is that the stories have become too formulaic or half-baked.

People showed up for Deadpool and Wolverine, so the issue isn’t about comic book movies.

EDIT: My comment about D&W isn’t meant to hold it up as an example of good storytelling. As I said, the stories have become formulaic. My mentioning of it is meant to point out that many comic book movies succeed despite mediocre storytelling. You can’t say “audiences are tired of comic book movies” when many are still clearly successful.

Excellent movie!

The nonlinear style was actually done really well

Loved the use of color in certain scenes, really made them pop (fun fact, the actor Giovanni Ribisi was Director of Photography. Apparently he had a small role in the movie too but I don’t recall it)

Willa Fitzgerald showed off huge acting range as The Lady. You know which scenes I’m talking about. Holy shit

Kyle Gallner didn’t show off as much range but was totally convincing as The Demon

I hadn’t seen either of them in anything before but I hope they get bigger projects after this. I think not having huge, well-known stars helped immerse me into the story though. In fact it was kind of jarring when Ed Begley Jr showed up because I actually recognized him in a movie full of people I had never seen before

Project Hail Mary. Great sci-fi story and the narrator really does an outstanding job. No sex that I can recall. Maybe an occasional mild curse word? If so it wasn’t overkill.

Every day we stray farther from God’s light

I thought it was good but not as moving as the first. I like that they explain the function of anxiety, similar to how they showed that Sadness had a function in the first. Originally Anxiety was going to be the villain, but they avoided that trap.

Some of the teen stuff is cringey. And there’s nothing on par with the Bing Bong moment in terms of sheer emotion. But overall it was a good movie.

Just curious, what are his reasons for not wanting to upgrade?

In the US there’s the saying “you can’t squeeze water from a stone”

Arcane. Hands down 10/10 on practically every possible metric, but the thing that really got me was the way they portray trauma and the subsequent impact on mental health. I work with folks who have experienced trauma and I thought this was one of the best depictions of the aftermath I had ever seen in media.

Also, this is a perfect depiction of a Greek tragedy, in the sense that everything ends in tragedy not despite, but because of everyone’s best intentions. As the story unfolds you understand everyone’s motivations and they all make sense. There’s no perfectly good or bad characters, just a lot of people doing the best they can with the cards they were dealt.

Overall I enjoyed it. I really liked the setting of the French Revolution and the way that the Church allied itself with darkness in the face of an existential threat. Very relevant I think to many religious institutions today.

I REALLY liked Olrox. An Aztec vampire that can transform into a serpent god? Yes please. And they made him a three dimensional character, neither totally good or bad.

I agree that more time could have been spent on Rictor and Marie’s upbringing, but that wasn’t critical. I assume Rictor just comes by his skills naturally by way of being a Belmont and doesn’t need formal training. Marie was obviously trained by her mom. I really liked her power of conjuring creatures from another dimension, especially that one particular moment on the last battle with her foot.

Anne was a cool character but I agree she took too much responsibility for Eduoard’s death. But she’s also young and he was one of her only friends, so I can also kind of understand. She has a lot of growing to do.

I thought the idea of reformed Night Creatures was intriguing. Elizabeth Bartlett was underdeveloped as a villain, and Drolta wasn’t much better. Grandpa Belmont coming out of left field was weird and didn’t add much to the story since he didn’t do much.

Whatever it’s flaws, they weren’t enough for me to not enjoy it.

I’d keep it the same, but with blackjack and hookers!

Here’s a good discussion on why you should vary your news sources along with some charts to show how sources vary and specific examples given. Maybe you can find what you’re looking for in there.