This past weekend the news was dominated by Comic-Con, Hollywood’s annual overheated orgy of fan service and flop sweat. And though neither Chris Ryan nor I attended this year — my slave Leia outfit was at the cleaners, unfortunately — a little thing like firsthand knowledge never stopped the two of us from forming strongly felt opinions. And so we cleaved through big stories like Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman/Batman movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, and X-Men: Days of Future Past like heat vision through the nicest sideboard in Wayne Manor, taking time to explain just what, exactly, an Ultron is and why there’s a talking tree bound for household fame.

All this talk of formulaic movies led us to a detour into the actual formula that’s ruining movies: Blake Snyder’s dangerous Save the Cat. But since Chris and I both actually like cats, we thought it best to abandon that negativity and breeze through the Emmy nominations. Consensus? It’s not Tatiana Maslany’s time yet, even though she played multiple roles. At least not until Eddie Murphy gets the shine he has been too long denied. Taste the soup!

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