This is the 23rd issue of what used to be an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional related thoughts and notes. In this particular issue, I’m also including some publication updates and information about the new paid tier.

If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed emails. If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your inbox.

Table of Contents

1. The News

2. What’s going on with the Schedule

3. FTNC Update

4. The Digest

5. Paywalled Archive

The News

I’ve enabled payments on Textual Variations!

Starting now, you can sign up for a paid subscription at $2.99/month or $29.99/year.

In connection with this, I have moved some older articles in the archives behind the paywall. You can browse them in the new category menu here but I’m also including a quick index at the end of this post for the sake of convenience.

So, signing up for or upgrading to a paid tier will give you full access to the archive.

Note that every new article published will initially still be free. So, if you sign up now without a paid tier, you won’t miss out on any new content.

Could this approach change in the future? Perhaps.

But right now I like to think of the paid subscriptions primarily as tips or donations that will support my writing, rather than the cost of new premium articles. So, if you could subscribe or upgrade to a paid tier, I’d really appreciate it.

Subscribe now

What’s Going on with the Schedule

If you’ve been following this publication for a while, you probably know that I strug-gle with sticking to a regular publication schedule. I’ve been meaning to get to a point where I can release a new post every week. But I’ve finally come to realize that this is simply not going to work, at least for the foreseeable future.

My best essays often take a considerable amount of time to research and put together. And there are often external factors that interfere with my plans. So, I’ve decided I’m just going to publish whenever I have the time and inspiration, thereby freeing myself of the stress and pressure inherent to the pace of regular Substacking.*

*Honestly, I look at some of my peers with envy. Like, how do you guys churn out so much content so quickly? Where do you get the energy?

Going forward then, my publication schedule is going to remain inconsistent. But I hope to make up for potentially long gaps between posts with high quality work.

FTNC Updates

I am still adding newsletters to the Film and Television Newsletter directory.

Here are the most recent additions:

The Digest

June 3

I don’t write a lot about games, but with Alan Wake 2, I had to make an exception.

A surreal, artful survival horror game that features the most seamless integration of live action and gameplay I’ve ever seen, it is easily one of the best things currently available on the PS5. But more than that, it is also part of a larger shared universe created by the independent Finnish company Remedy Entertainment.

Putting together a bunch of clues and breadcrumbs left by Remedy across multiple games, webpages and official investor reports, I wrote about why I believe the company’s recently announced mystery game is actually an Alan Wake spinoff called Doors, which focuses heavily on several supporting characters from Wake 2.

I was admittedly hoping for this post to have a bit more traction than it has gotten so far. But it’s still pretty early - Doors isn’t coming out for at least 3 years. So, I’m hoping when they do reveal the 4th game I will have been proven right.

August 1

This was originally part of a longer post I was gonna make, which would’ve included my thoughts on Batman v Superman and the Superman Animated Series. But ultimately, I decided to just focus on critiquing the new movie, which I found to be overrated and very problematic in certain areas.

It seems I’m not the only one who had a really big issue with how this film chose to portray Superman’s parents, to the point that James Gunn now seems to be backtracking from his original claim that the video was unaltered (within the story), at least judging by what some have discovered in the recent video release.

August 2

Back when Servant was airing on Apple TV, I was hoping to recap every episode. That didn’t quite turn out as planned, but I managed to review pretty much every episode of the second season, with the exception of 2.09. Since Substack changed its formatting, my original images for the episodic reviews started to get cut off in the regular menus and interfaces, so I decided to make a custom navigation menu, much as I did for Sarah Connor, making the recaps more visually attractive and easier to navigate.

I hope to complete the S2 reviews sooner or later, but I sadly don’t have time at the moment. Honestly, recaps are tough to keep up with. They take effort to make but they don’t really get a lot of views or drive the conversation. Still, I’d love to one day have reviewed all episodes of Servant, if I can make it worth the time investment.

It wasn’t perfect. I think its best and most consistent season was its third, and even there the first few episodes were a little wobbly. The final season stumbled towards the finish line, particularly with 4.07 and the rushed series finale.

But even with its creative missteps and low points, the M. Night Shyamalan series was always a pleasure to watch and arguably THE best series about the Covid era that wasn’t literally about the Covid era.

August 8

I really missed the good old discussion threads and Substack Chat just wasn’t really working for me, so I decided to try an old-fashioned open question post following a viewing of Zach Cregger’s Weapons, a good film that I think got a little overhyped.

One thing I noticed during my screening is how I couldn’t really keep my eyes on the screen during the really gory sequences, especially at the end. This was strange, as I remember being able to watch much more violent and gory films (eg. Day of the Dead) without looking away or flinching when I was younger.

All this led to the question above. I wish a few more people had responded and shared their experiences, but I’m grateful for the comments I got.

Paywalled Archive

These currently are all the archived posts that are now paywalled and require a paid subscription to access. I plan to add more posts to the paywall over time.

The Digest

December 12

This was the first installment of what I like to call the “Scrapbook” series, which I’m positioning as a subcategory of the VARIATIONS newsletter. For me, it was an opportunity to start writing and publishing a little faster by making the goals I set for myself a tad easier.  In such posts, I hope to gather all the stuff that doesn’t normally fit into other newsletters, like film/TV reviews, brief thoughts I’ve had about this or that topic, a link to nice article I’d read recently, cut material from larger essays, comments on recent developments in media or film revision, etc.

For instance, I knew I wanted to talk about Venom 3, but then I also simply had to respond to the noise that was being stirred up by the El Mayimbe article about the so-called “death” of the Sony-verse, and here I felt I had the freedom to do that, without needing to worry about how it was going to fit in with everything else. Making these has creatively re-energized me and so I plan on publishing a lot more of them on T.V. going forward. Hopefully, this year I’ll be able to make that 52-week undisrupted run.

December 19

For a little while now, I’ve wanted to talk about the sexual undertones of Alien Resurrection, a movie that I started out liking, then wrote off, then came back around to loving following a recent rewatch. I don’t think that would’ve been quite enough to make for a satisfying essay in and of tiself, especially as the subject already had been tackled. But it made perfect sense to include it in a scrapbook article, along with my thoughts on poor Kraven. (I’ve been encouraged to write a defense article of this movie, which is actually great, so I hope to do indeed make it at some point soon.)

I’m still figuring out a proper format for this series, as you can tell from the title and image. In this case, I thought of having a picture with an issue number but I might not stick to that in the future. I’m really into using .gifs these days.

December 24

X-Men to this day remains one of my favorite superhero movies.

I’d been thinking about writing about the canceled alternate “1.5 Cut” of the film (which I’d known about as I was an avid reader of DVDFile.com before it went downhill) for some time but never really got around to it until now.

Initially, I didn’t think there was going to be enough material for a standalone post, so I designed it as a section of a larger Scrapbook article. However, as I found more and more material to draw on in the course of research, the section grew until I realized it was substantial enough to indeed work as an article all by itself. I’m really happy with how it turned out and the response to it has gone beyond my expectations.

December 31

So, I was going to do a relatively brief Revisio-News article about the controversy surrounding It’s A Wonderful Life, which erupted on Twitter after writer Germain Lussier posted a now viral tweet about the missing Pottersville sequence. Many people were understandably upset that such a beloved film was being presented in this way, with the loss of the Pottersville sequence ruining what it was about.

Unfortunately, as tends to happen, folks started jumping to conclusions and the media picked it up, distorting reality even further. Before long, the internet was filled with half-baked takes about how “Amazon butchered a classic” to make it ‘less dark,’ apparently going by the synopsis of the abridged edition.

All one had to do though was look at the ‘studio’ listed on the Amazon page for the abridged edition or check the end credits to see that Amazon was not responsible for making it. Rather, a colorization company called Legend Films was. 

My research led me to discover that the edit was really made in order to circumvent whatever secondary copyright restrictions existed after the movie fell into public domain in 1974, and that it wasn’t the first or the last time someone tried to exploit the original version’s copyright situation. Of course, this also meant the article kept growing until it unexpectedly turned into a tentpole piece!

I’m hoping this becomes a go-to article for people confused about why the abridged edition exists and clears up any misinformation currently perpetuated on the web.

But what do you think?

Please let me know in the comments what your favorite article is of this December round-up. What really appealed to you? Do you think I should do more modest length, yet informative posts like the X-Men article, for instance?

Leave a comment

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The Digest

November 12

I’d been working for a while to figure out how to fix the FTNC page and make it work without the mention feature. At the same time, I was trying to write a proper essay.

As the Revised FTNC page was finished first, I decided to write this status update post in turn to announce it. I’m still working through a backlog of newsletters to add to the page. An update regarding the ones I’ve added so far is forthcoming.

November 19

The aforementioned proper essay post became this article on the 2021 blockbuster Venom: Let There Be Carnage. I had written about half of it almost a year ago, but for one reason or another never finished it. After seeing the third Venom movie, I felt inspired to try again, though to be honest, this turned out to be a much tougher nut to crack than I’d anticipated. The big problem was that there really aren’t any posts out there about the general effects of Covid on post-production budgets and costs.

So in order to get a better grasp of my subject, I started to delve deeply into the VFX industry, but I ended up over-researching it and spent a lot of time going into details that I ultimately didn’t need to make my case. What I will say though is that I’ve come away with the realization that VFX studios have been mistreated and exploited for almost 20 years now. Articles about impossible deadlines and super-rushed post-production schedules date back to the mid-2000s.

Some point to Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005) as a turning point, in that it convinced studios to demand a huge number of FX to be completed in record time.

This has to change if the American film industry is to survive.

November 26

This was a post that came to me on the spot while I was browsing Amazon Prime Video. One thing I’ve learned over time is to not trust the runtimes listed by streaming services and check the cut itself for verification. So, once I recognized that Freevee was indeed showing the theatrical cuts, it made sense to discuss them. It also gave me an opportunity to bring in my original review of the first Halloween from 2007.

December 1

I definitely wanted to write something about the VHS release of Alien: Romulus ahead of the Tuesday, December 3 release date. The very idea of creating a low-resolution, 4:3 retro-VHS version of a big budget studio film in the age of 4k digital remasters and widescreen high-definition television screens is, in and of itself, fascinating. I appreciated the effort to support the format and its aesthetic, even if I didn’t like the movie or the price tag. (Imo, the VHS should’ve been no more than $30 per copy.)

My original plan was to: a) talk about how this edition came about thanks to director Fede Alvarez and the release of one of the film’s trailers via VHS tape; b) share my impressions of both Romulus and the superior Alien Resurrection. But when I discovered that the VHS edition was being exploited by scalpers, I knew I had to focus on this instead, and so removed all the supplemental material (pun intended).

As I state in the article, I expected more issues to crop up with the release. Well, lo and behold, it turned out that, contrary to the early announcements, this version of the movie is NOT 4:3 full-frame after all but is presented in cropped widescreen. That's good if you don't like pan and scan but not good if you're looking for the authentic VHS aesthetic. Also, there are reports that the sound quality is pretty bad.

BONUS FEATURES

The Kraven Opening Sequence

Sony has put the first 8 minutes of Kraven The Hunter online. I like it.

Putting aside Aaron Taylor Johnson's gibberish Russian, this is a really good opening sequence. Why?

• The narrative action is fluid, well edited, easy to follow.

• It immediately introduces the main character. There's no unnecessary prologue or teaser sequence that only serves to prematurely give away key info to audiences.

• It perfectly sets the tone, showing that this is a bloody, R-rated action movie with some black comedy elements. There’s confidence onscreen.

If the whole movie is like this, Kraven could end up being the best Sony Venom-Verse movie. Anybody else planning to see this one? I am of the opinion all the “MCU-adjacent“ movies has made thus far are actually underrated, even Madame Web.

But what do you think?

Leave a comment

Bullet Points

• Read a really nice critique by of the tendency to reduce cinema to single frames or shots in this essay here. A quote:

• I find it amazing how often Zack Snyder's maligned take on Superman gets refe-renced and/or ripped off by other more 'fan-friendly' Superman media. The just-aired Superman and Lois finale had a slow-mo dodge a la Justice League.

• Even if you don’t play it (I haven’t), read this fascinating essay on the videogame Slitterhead and its relation to the Walled City of Kowloon.

• Finally: a shout-out to for sharing and promoting my post on Romulus and my newsletter directory, the FTNC! Thank you so much!

Okay, that’s all for now, folks. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!

I’m planning to do a really big post in the second half of December and hope to keep a good pace of posts, though I’m probably shifting to a Thursday schedule for a bit.

Gonna try doing more simple stuff like bullet points, collected thoughts, etc., to boost my productivity. We’ll see how it goes.

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This is the 19th issue of what is typically an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional related thoughts and notes.

If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed emails.

If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your inbox.

The Digest

October 1

This is a guest post I wrote for the amazing publication, where I talked about what were to me some obvious changes that happened between the first and second seasons of the Amazon Prime Video series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

It came about after I saw the second season premiere, which opens with an extended flashback showing the ‘origin’ of Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), the guise the villainous Sauron appears under throughout the show’s first season. Having previously written an extended post on the secret Sauron backstory that S1 had hinted at, I was surprised at how much the flashback seemed to be retconning and contradicting what was previously established.

To avoid potential content duplication issues, I made the decision to keep this post exclusive to JwT but shared it exclusively with my subscribers here via email. If you’ve missed the email or didn’t receive it, please check it out now by clicking on the image above.

October 10

One of my long-term projects is a multi-part series of critical essays on The Matrix franchise. I originally intended it to be a 5-parter that would’ve focused largely on the sequels, allowing me to put to paper some thoughts and perspectives that I’ve had for close to 20 years. But over time, it expanded, as I realized there was a lot I needed to say about the first film before I could really dive into Reloaded, Revolutions, and (as of December 2021) Resurrections.

Initially, I wanted to publish the different articles composing this series across Medium and Substack, as I’d assumed this would help boost the project’s overall visibility. I later realized that it’s best to focus everything on one site, but by that point, I’d already placed two posts on Medium, where they continue to be among my most well-read pieces.

As I’m hoping to keep those two posts on Medium for the time being, I decided to make a custom guide menu that links to all the parts of the retrospective in one place.

October 22

I’d been seeing notes in my feed by fellow pop culture writers expressing the desire for a ‘Film & TV’ category for quite a while now. It’s something I myself have lobbied for, as I knew that there was at least 100 different publications devoted to the topic.

About a month or so ago, I started seeing references to a ‘Movie & TV” category in fact being available, even though it did not appear in my interface. Then it did show up only to inexplicably vanish alongside other new categories like ‘horror.’

Thankfully, I had bookmarked it before it went away and decided to make a writeup to make sure more people were aware of it. The response I’ve gotten so far has been amazing. I’m hoping this helps convince Substack to make it a permanent category!

October 29

This is a piece that I began writing earlier in the Summer but couldn’t quite finish until recently. Like many of my articles, it ended up growing in the telling. The second half of it, where I offer my theories about why the R-rated Pacific Heights appears in a re-edited, cable-friendly edition on Prime Video, was in particular hard to get right, as I had to deal with conflicting pieces of evidence and couldn’t offer concrete answers.

I hope the post sheds light on the issue of censorship in the age of streaming and ultimately leads to more transparency on the subject.

Overall, this was a relatively slow period, as I’ve been easing back into a regular writing schedule following the Summer disruption. Assuming everything goes to plan, I will have finished a couple of big articles before the year is over and revamped my film & TV newsletter directory, allowing me to update it again.

In any case I hope to have a more consistent output this month and the next.

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This is the eighteenth issue of what is typically an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional related thoughts and notes.

If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed emails. If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your inbox.

The Digest

August 6:

I’d been eagerly awaiting the release of the Rebel Moon director’s cut but had very mixed feelings when it finally arrived. Part 1 was made better by the added footage, while Part 2 was made worse. Thus, my article became a critique of the version that exists and a proposal for a version that doesn’t. I doubt we’ll see more movies from this franchise but I wouldn’t mind seeing another edition that combines the best elements of all the versions.

August 13:

This was a short follow-up to my original long post on the subject of erased streaming originals. Having finally signed up for Disney Plus, I was surprised to find that I could watch Gordita Chonicles and Amy Schumer, two shows that were reportedly gone for good following their original removal from streaming. I checked the trades and was surprised how little coverage the former’s return received and how the latter got no coverage at all!

Indeed, nobody seemed to care that Schumer’s series returned, even though everyone was in an uproar when it vanished. So, this was an opportunity to react to that.

August 20:

This is a post I’ve been meaning to do for a little while, both as I thought it was amazing that a Paramount Plus Original Series was now co-streaming on Netflix and because School Spirits is just a great series. I wrote it before all the recent news about Paramount merging and laying off employees though, so my speculations about its future did not account for all that. I sincerely hope it gets to continue in one form or another.

September 10:

This was a spur-of-the-moment article inspired by my catching a digest version of the original Alien on the web. Initially, I wanted this to be part of a longer VARIATIONS piece summarizing my thoughts on it and some of the other Alien films, especially the most recent entry, Romulus. But as tends to happen, the story of the Super 8 Cut kept expanding until the whole thing became too long, so I decided to break things up into multiple posts.

Keep reading for some of my thoughts on the Workprint Version of Alien 3 and the interesting similarities between it and The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug.

Bonus Features

Thoughts on 'Alien 3' and its Workprint Version

Nobody will convince me that Alien 3 is a good movie. It is the type of sequel that can only exist by virtue of betraying almost everything that came before it yet it also doesn’t work in and of itself.* Charles de Lauzirika’s restoration of the film’s Assembly Cut showed what it could’ve looked like at one point but the new version never managed to address the fundamental issues plaguing it.

*I absolutely hate how the movie has an Alien egg inexplicably show up on the Sulaco ship. If I were a screenwriter tasked with contriving a reason for the xenomorphs to still be bothering Ripley, I'd go with the idea that Newt was impregnated before Ripley rescued her. Still wouldn't make perfect sense but definitely more sense than what we got in the end

Nonetheless, it’s still fascinating for me to discover new or unreleased material from that picture. And as it turned out, back in 2016, somebody actually posted a thorough breakdown of a leaked Alien 3 workprint version, including video clips of footage that has still never been officially released. Having seen these, I’m pretty sure some fan somewhere had crafted a new cut that incorporates the best from the theatrical, restored Assembly and rough workprint versions into some sort of definitive edition.

One moment in particular really stood out to me: the one where Golic meets his end. The Assembly Cut never gives a clear idea of just what happened to Golic after he enters the Xenomorph’s trap chamber, with the film cutting to the creature just running away.* But in the workprint, we actually hear the xenomorph killing him and Golic’s death scream echoes against the black screen. This should’ve been in the Restored Assembly Version, cause Golic’s final scene otherwise feels just weirdly ambiguous, and the cut to the creature leaving seemed confusing.

*Sure, Golic’s death is discussed afterwards, but the scene itself just comes off as incomplete.

You should check out the whole thing here and judge for yourself.

Did 'Alien 3' Inspire the Ending of 'Smaug'?

I have been a long time defender of the Hobbit trilogy, telling everyone that would listen that the films are underrated, that yes they have their flaws, in script and editing, but they are nowhere near as bad as some people would lead you to believe.

What always surprised is the way some folks, even scholars, would disparage the climax of the second Hobbit film, Desolation of Smaug (2015, dir. Peter Jackson), the extended cut of which was the best installment of the new trilogy. The central claim is that the climax made no sense due to the fact that the dwarfs decide to immolate Smaug with molten gold, when they should know this wouldn’t affect him due to his resistance to fire. But to me, that’s an odd misreading as it seemed obvious that the goal was to drown the dragon in gold and so kill him via asphyxiation.

And the biggest piece of evidence for this is the fact that the climax of Desolation of Smaug bore an uncanny similarity to that of Alien 3, which ends with Ripley luring the xenomorph into a furnace area and attempting to drown it in molten lead.

A few years ago, I asked my colleague Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire to make a side-by-side .gif of the two films’ respective events. Here was the result:

Sadly, this doesn’t capture the part where the main character momentarily thinks the creature is dead, only for it to burst out of its molten metal covering, still alive and ready to kill again. One has to wonder if all this was just coincidence or case of filmmakers becoming inspired, perhaps subconsciously, by what came earlier.

I personally think it’s the latter case.

Revisio-News: Tarsem’s 'The Fall' Restored Cut

On September 27, Mubi is releasing a ‘restored cut’ of Tarsem Singh’s cult classic fantasy film The Fall, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland last month. I remember really liking The Fall when I got it on DVD back in 2006.

It was one of a number of dark, visually breathtaking fantasy films anchored within the perspective of a little girl that came out around the time. (Terry Gilliam’s masterful Tideland was another example.) I remember loving how the story changed depending on the Lee Pace character’s psychological and emotional state.

Sadly, my disc seems to have gone missing, which is a real bummer, as the DVD went out of print years ago, making it hard for the film to get seen in general.

This is one of the reasons why Tarsem decided to make this new edition, which will see the film become available in high-definition 4K quality for streaming. Though not billed as a ‘director’s cut,’ the new version is said to include a couple of new scenes totaling about 1.5-2 minutes of additional footage. I am really looking forward to it.

Scheduling Update

I had originally planned to have a really big article about the seminal TV series LOST available by now, to coincide with the show’s 20th anniversary.

But now it looks like that won’t be happening for a little while.

September is now really busy, and there are things that needed to be sorted behind-the-scenes before I can resume posting on the regular. Though I do plan to share a guest post I’m currently finishing for another newsletter, expect longer breaks between updates.

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This is the seventeenth issue of what is typically an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional related thoughts and notes.

If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed emails. If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your inbox.

June 11

This is one of my favorite personal essays.

I originally published it on Medium but it never quite got any traction there, so I decided to repurpose it here, and really liked the higher level of engagement. I hope to write more about my favorite movie of all time, especially as I’ve seen a leaked early version of it that was intended for TV broadcast before Lynch re-edited it into a feature.

June 27

This post started out as a bit more well-rounded, in that I initially planned to talk about other Mad Max movies, especially Thunderdome, but ultimately I ended up with way too much to say about Furiosa and decided to just stick with the one film. In my cover article, I talked about why I think the movie should’ve been longer and pointed to plot gaps that I assumed had occurred due to some connective tissue scenes being cut in post-production.

I was a bit sad as shortly after the article came out, another film/TV writer with some insider knowledge pointed out that my speculations were incorrect, in that the film’s final shooting script similarly had those gaps. This, however, lead me to do more research and I discovered that I wasn’t entirely wrong, for earlier versions of the screenplay did not have these gaps.

They came about as the original backstory for the title character underwent some interes-ting changes in the 9-year gap between the releases of Fury Road and Furiosa. I plan to publish a post about this fascinating evolution at some point in the future.

July 9

This was an old, deep-dive post I had initially written for my blog, back when I was trying to actively review every episode of the Terminator series, which is one of my favorite shows of all time. I hope to resume reviewing it at some point here on T.V. - there’s a whole second season to cover - though to be honest, I’ve found the traditional episodic review format a tad boring and not always worth the effort.

What can I say? Obscure genre show reviews just don’t get that many views, sadly. So, I’m gonna try to come up with an alternative format or larger articles, into which I could incorporate the TSCC episode reviews. We’ll see how that turns out.

July 23

Perhaps because a new Shyamalan movie is right around the corner, I finally got to writing this long post about superpower systems in the Eastrail 77 trilogy.

I’m always fascinated with how a longform story can transform over time and why, so it was a pleasure to finally delve into the changes that happened across Unbreakable, Split, and Glass. I plan to tie this into another, possibly even longer article about the 16-year evolution of Split, which began life as a cut subplot from the first movie.

Bonus Material: FTNC is currently on ice

The Film and TV Newsletter Catalogs is arguably one of my best posts.

Unfortunately, for the time being, I’m no longer able to update it due to some problems that have occurred with the ‘mention’ feature, which is intrinsic to the page. At some point later this year, I hope to revamp it so it can work without the use of mentions. Until then, however, it has to remain on ice. I apologize to anybody who wanted to be listed.

Bonus Material: Deadpool 3

I saw Deadpool & Wolverine recently, and I thought it’s not bad. I think it’s great how it uses the multiverse concept to bring in other FOX characters. Channing Tatum was so amazing, I hope he gets his own R-rated spinoff, preferably directed by Gore Verbinski.

You can hear me debate the film’s merits in a podcast with members of the Comics Code UH-Thority on YouTube. And if you have any thoughts you want to share about it, please

Leave a comment

Bonus Material: My X-Men movie rankings

Just to want to share this little image since we’re on the topic of the X-movies.

Deadpool and Wolverine would be slotted in the C-level, ahead of The Last Stand, as I see it as a B- or C+ kinda picture.

Scheduling Update

Just wanted to let everyone know: I’m not sure what the publication schedule will look like for August. I had thought about returning to the regular weekly schedule, but right now I think I might need a break until September.

Hope to complete a big article by the end of the Summer in any case.

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This is the delayed sixteenth issue of what is typically an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional and related thoughts or notes.

If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed emails. If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your inbox.

April 16

A spur-of-the-moment-type post that I came up with after discovering what I believe is an amazing deal for anybody with a student account. The DuluMax Bundle or Hulu getting fully dissolved as an individual platform might eventually make it obsolete.

So, I say, get it while it lasts, folks!

April 23

A short little post I wanted to get out there to celebrate one of my favorite sitcoms.

Though I still think the series should’ve had a full 22-episode final season, I loved how it ended and am looking forward to the Georgie and Mandy spinoff show, though I’m hearing that it’s a multi-camera series, which is a bit of a letdown.

I’d written this initially as a section in a VARIATIONS article but ultimately decided it would work best as its own standalone little post.

Which, now that I think about it, means it’s a spinoff article about a spinoff!

April 30

Another guest post, this one by . It’s a nice medium-sized post about the TV series “Slings and Arrows.” I had only seen one season of it previously but I really liked it and I remember it being highly rated on A.V. Club.

May 14

I wanted to write a new VARIATIONS post.

I like these as they allow me to gather a bunch of different mini-articles together into a proper ‘newsletter’ without having to needing to delve too deeply into any single topic.

Having had thoughts about the negative reception of Rebel Moon Part 2, I decided to use that as the headliner. This allowed me to plug in a brief section about the Scott Pilgrim anime that I’d written previously, but couldn’t find a place for until now.

May 22

I wasn’t initially planning to write about Mad Max, at least not for this month.

But then I saw Jonas Ussing’s excellent video series about how studios basically lie about their movies not having CGI and became aware that Furiosa, a movie I eagerly anticipated, was being unfairly pre-maligned about its VFX quality in no small part due to the false perception that its predecessor was almost completely CGI-less.

As I started to delve into the subject, especially the claim about Fury Road having “90 percent practical FX,” this extended post took shape.

My research in turn inspired me to look back at some of my unpublished material on the role of digital effects in film alteration. I got into it so much, I mapped out a whole series of articles that I hope publish here in the future, likely next year.

Bonus Material: More Thoughts on 'Furiosa'

Now that I have actually seen Furiosa in theaters, I want to add that the film to me didn’t have any CGI issues. Perhaps there were shots where it was more noticeable or ‘lower quality’ but if so, I never noticed them. The film always kept me immersed in its story and nothing I saw onscreen was distracting.

Visually, Furiosa is stunning. Polished and beautiful yet also weird and gritty in a way that is true to its origins as low-budget exploitation cinema. It is very much an arthouse block-buster, a bold and confident auteur film made with a huge budget on a massive scale.

Look, I could complain about the fact that it seems to completely skip over a crucial plot point or two (like how Furiosa is actually accepted into the role of Praetorian), but otherwise, this is an excellent picture and possibly the best prequel ever made, a rank previously held by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).

I love how effortlessly it segues into the events of Fury, essentially reframing the first movie as an extended payoff to the narrative setup of Furiosa. And if Miller indeed manages to make Mad Max: The Wasteland, then he may very well have re-framed it again as a big crossover movie where the two main leads team up after going on solo adventures.

Please go out and see it in a theater.

I know we’re in a period of inflation, and there is less disposable income, and theaters are less attractive due to streaming or other things to worry about, and post-Covid anxiety, etc., etc.

BUT: we need more movies like this, more big budget studio films willing to take legitimate risks and not play it safe. And for that, they need to make money. Okay, PSA over.

If you have seen it and have thoughts to share, then please…

Leave a comment

P.S. 

A friendly reminder that T.V. is switching to a bi-weekly publishing schedule, so the next post should arrive on June 11. In turn, this means that the next Digest will arrive in two months or so, after I will have published four more articles.

At least, that’s the plan for now. These things are always subject to change.

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This is the delayed fifteenth issue of what is typically an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short. It includes links to my recent posts, as well as some additional related thoughts and notes.

If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed emails. If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your inbox.

March 5

This is the first guest post I’ve hosted, courtesy of writer , who wrote about a cool sci-fi series that explores multiple timelines, each of which shows different ways one person’s life could turn out, kinda like the movie Sliding Doors.

March 21

The second guest post comes from , who examines the differences between the live-action and manga versions of the series One-Piece, specifically when it comes to the characterization of the female characters.

March 26

I return to original posting with a short but focused look at the much lauded Dune Part 2, which I found to have a rushed climax. I speculate why this happened and compare it to the similarly rushed conclusion of David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation. This has become one of my most popular recent posts, apparently thanks to search engines.

Since publishing it, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the main reason for the rushed storytelling is indeed budget. I cannot fully confirm this at the moment, but my theory is that because Covid made movies cost more in general while considerably diminishing theatrical audiences, studios like WBD have started cutting back on budgets for their blockbuster pictures, forcing filmmakers to in turn cut down a picture’s scope and running time.

April 2

I meant to publish this long article on Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon Part 1 back in February, but life intervened and so I had to delay it. In some ways, I think this was for the better, in that I was able to time it to precede the Netflix release of Part 2 on April 19. I wound up writing this in a “FAQ” style, responding to many questions that arose following the premiere of the film in a sanitized 135-minute PG-13 Cut, rather than Snyder’s director’s cut.

That the picture was released in this manner was not at all surprising to me. I reported about the multi-version release strategy when the news broke back in September of last year. But it seems to have taken a whole lot of people by surprise, resulting in a bunch of incorrect and often poorly thought-out conclusions about Netflix and Snyder himself.

Having since seen Part 2, I now believe that the two parts should’ve been one movie and that Rebel Moon could easily work as a single 3-hour PG-13 film. I’m also sad The Scargiver, despite being a better film in every respect, is being bashed by critics. I’d love to share more thoughts on all this at some point. Maybe when the R-rated versions come out this Summer.

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This is the fourteenth and much-delayed issue of what is typically an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest, aka MTVD, for short.

For various reasons, my regular publication schedule became disrupted back in January, and I neglected to make a digest post in Feb-March, so I’m now playing catchup. I’ve also decided to make this digest a bit more fun by offering a few new insights here and there.

If you’re a new subscriber, please check some of these out to get a better sense of what this newsletter offers or catch up on previously unread or missed posts. If you are a more casual subscriber, you can change your settings to receive just the digest section in your email.

January 9

A short piece on the changing Substack interface and how it messed up my graded episodic images for my reviews of shows like Servant. I worked really hard on these, making sure they’d fit the square box and everything, only for the platform to literally cut off the corners.

January 11

My first guest post on the excellent Lord of the Rings newsletter . This is a long piece, where I theorize the covert backstory of Sauron implied on the Amazon Prime original series, The Rings of Power, and speculate about his future.

I am very proud of this piece. It took a considerable amount of research and I think is among my finest tentpole articles. Also, I sincerely believe that I will have been proven right on many counts when Season 2 of the series finally airs.

January 16

A summary of my thoughts on Baz Luhrmann’s extended miniseries recut of Australia, which is available on Hulu. I’m happy to say I called it when it comes to predicting the ending.

I don’t agree with every change Luhrmann made, such as when it comes to the color palette, but I do think this was overall an improvement on the theatrical cut and am sad that US critics again largely rejected the film.

January 19

In response to Substack messing up my graded images’ formatting, I decided to make my own custom navigation page to the episodic reviews of the excellent Terminator TV series. (It’s one of my favorite shows and I hope to review S2 at some point.)

I was heavily inspired by the original interface and format of the Classic AVClub, which made it super easy to find reviews of specific episodes and attached grades to images. Hopefully, this will come back now that the outlet was bought by Paste Media.

BTW, if you like episodic reviews, be sure to check out Episodic Medium.

January 30

Here, I lament having to end my 17-week streak of uninterrupted posts and request some fellow authors for guest spots to help me prevent really long gaps in the schedule. This didn’t quite work for February, but it definitely helped in March, as we’ll see later on.

Also, I never got a badge or anything from Substack congratulating me on my uninterrupted run. Really, I was hoping for one, especially since a fellow author I see keeps sharing his badges on Notes. Total envy here. Like, what does it take to get a badge like that?

And how do some people do it for 52 weeks in a row? I have no idea.

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Dear readers, this is the thirteenth issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to posts published over the course of December 2023 on Textual Variations.

If you like any of them, please share or crosspost to help T.V. get more readers. Seriously, this is a reader-supported publication, and could use the exposure. Please help!

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December 7

December 12

December 19

A Discussion Thread that raises the question: “What’s the Moment You Realized that Movies Can Exist in Different Versions?”

In the course of it, I share my story about realizing as a kid that there were different versions of the weird 80s Martial Arts movie No Retreat, No Surrender.

December 26

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Dear readers, this is the twelfth issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to posts published over the course of November 2023 on Textual Variations.

If you like any of them, please share or crosspost to help T.V. get more readers. Seriously, this is a reader-supported publication, and could use the exposure. Please help!

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November 7

November 14

November 21

November 28

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Dear readers, this is the eleventh issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to posts published over the course of October 2023 on Textual Variations.

If you like any of them, please share or crosspost to help T.V. get more readers. Seriously, this is a reader-supported publication, and could use the exposure.

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October 6 

 October 13

October 20

October 27

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Dear readers, this is the tenth issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to posts published over the course of September 2023 on Textual Variations.

If you like any of them, please share or crosspost to help T.V. get more readers. Seriously, this is a reader-supported publication, and could use the exposure.

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September 4

September 7

September 14

September 24

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Dear readers, this is the ninth issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Yes, it’s very, very late. Sorry about that. Summer is a little tricky and I wanted to make sure I actually had enough articles to share with y’all. Anyway, here you will find links to posts published over the course of May-August 2023 on Textual Variations and maybe a link to an external article on Medium.

If you like any of them, please share or crosspost to help T.V. get more views.

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August 24

August 9

The Agents’ Body-jumping in ‘The Matrix’ Makes No Sense

A free link to the latest article in my ‘Matrix Retrospective’ series, where I examine some of the film’s legitimate plot holes, while also making the case that they don’t destroy the immersive illusion it casts on audiences.

May 31

May 10

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Dear readers, this is the eighth issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short.

Here you will find links to articles and threads published over the course of April 2023 on Textual Variations, as well as related Substack Notes. If you like anything, please share, crosspost, restack, etc. to help T.V. get more views.

Articles

Threads

• Are Movie Theaters Worth it when they Regularly Ruin the Movies?

Select Notes

Dear readers, this is the seventh issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to articles published over the course of March 2023 on Textual Variations. If you like any of them, please share or crosspost to help T.V. get more views.

March 24: How 'Knock at the Cabin' broke up Shyamalan and Universal

March 16: Revised “Catchfire” Evinces DGA Revoked Hopper’s Pseudonym

March 9: "Servant" 2.07-2.08: A pair of disappointments

March 2: Is George Martin struggling to demystify the Others?

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This is the sixth issue of an ongoing monthly-ish series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to articles published over the course of December 2022 through January 2023 on Textual Variations.

Due to some behind-the-scenes production and scheduling issues, this issue has been pushed back from its originally planned release date and now covers two months instead of one.

December 2022 Articles:

Servant 2.05 goes back to old habits

Dennis Hopper v. Alan Smithee: The Rival Cuts of ‘Backtrack’

Servant 2.06: A mythology-heavy shot of "Espresso"

January 2023 Articles:

James Cameron's Best Cut is Always the Theatrical Cut

The Film & TV Newsletter Catalogs

On FTNC and a Planned Break

This is the fifth issue of an ongoing monthly series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to articles published over the course of November 2022 on Textual Variations.

November 1:

Textual Variations

"Servant" 2.01: "Doll" is a bit heavy on plot

Original Airdate: January 15, 2021 Written By: Tony Basgallop Directed by: Julia Ducournau Plot Summary: Dorothy attempts to track down Leanne, believing her to have kidnapped Jericho. Sean and Julian attempt to cover their tracks…

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3 years ago · 2 likes · Mikhail Skoptsov

November 8:

Textual Variations

"Servant" 2.02: 'Spaceman' brings back the atmosphere

Original Airdate: January 15, 2021 Written By: Nina Braddock & Tony Basgallop Directed by: Julia Ducournau Plot Summary: Roscoe unexpectedly returns with no memory of the past several days. Sean and Julian decide to hypnotize him, hoping to learn another clue to Leanne’s whereabouts…

Read more

3 years ago · Mikhail Skoptsov

November 15:

Textual Variations

Servant 2.03: 'Pizza' burns through plot with style.

Original Airdate: January 29, 2021 Written By: Nina Braddock & Tony Basgallop Directed by: Ishana Night Shyamalan Plot Summary: The Turners decide to open up a pizza delivery business to make their way into a house Grade: A…

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3 years ago · 3 likes · Mikhail Skoptsov

November 20:

Textual Variations

Apple gave me a free ‘Planes, Trains’ deleted scene upgrade

About two years ago, I purchased John Hughes’ classic Thanksgiving comedy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (PT&A, 1987, 93 minutes) on Itunes/Apple TV, so I could watch it for the first time with my girlfriend.* It was, imo, a decent release but one not high on special features. It had only one deleted scene, for example, which was a bit of a bummer, as …

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3 years ago · 4 likes · Mikhail Skoptsov

November 22:

Textual Variations

Servant 2.04: "2:00" goes for artful horror

Original Airdate: February 5, 2021 Written By: Tony Basgallop Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan Plot Summary: As she interrogates Leanne about her son’s whereabouts, Dorothy starts mysteriously waking up at 2 in the morning…

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3 years ago · 2 likes · Mikhail Skoptsov

November 29:

Textual Variations

How to make a Table of Contents in Substack

If you are a Substack author, especially one who writes long detailed articles or newsletters that tackle multiple subjects, you might occasionally find yourself wishing your post was easier to navigate and thus more enjoyable to read. Particularly helpful in this regard might be a…

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3 years ago · 4 likes · Mikhail Skoptsov

This is the fourth issue of an ongoing monthly series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short.

Here you will find links to articles published over the course of October 2022 on Textual Variations. At the moment, I’m thinking of possibly retiring archival and recommended links, so they will not be included this month. If you want to learn more about alternate versions, textual revisions, or just read some interesting film and TV criticism, then sign up below!

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October 2022 links

• October 4: "Sarah Connor" 1.08: A strong blend of elements

• October 11: "Sarah Connor" 1.09: A great ad hoc finale

• October 21: Can ‘Black Adam’ break the DCEU Crossover's Losing Streak?

• October 25: Sony extended "Spider-Man," yet butchered "Carnage"

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This is the third issue of an ongoing monthly series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short.

Here you will find links to articles published over the course of September 2022 on Textual Variations, archival links to articles I’ve written for other platforms and a recommended reading. If you want to learn more about alternate versions, textual revisions, or just read some interesting film and TV criticism, then sign up below!

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Textual Variations September 2022 Links

• September 5 - "Sarah Connor" 1.06: A mind-bending puzzle film

• September 12 - CUTs 1.04: "Export and Foreign Versions in the Silent Film Era"

• September 19 - "Sarah Connor" 1.07: The season's finest

• September 27 - CUTs 1.05: Vitaphone and The Beginning of 'Sound Versions'

Other/Archival Links

• From Classic-Horror.com: Silent Hill (2006, dir. Christoph Gans) review - November 13, 2007

• From MEDIUM: Mulholland Drive Inspired Me to Become A Film Scholar - January 31, 2021

Recommended Links

• From Film Crit Hulk’s Patreon: “The Indulgence Thief: M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN and the Superhero Trilogy We Need” - September 9, 2022

  • A welcome new positive take on M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass.

If you’d prefer to receive a monthly update rather than every single article in your inbox, then you can sign up and then change your subscription settings (either at sign up or later via ‘manage my subscription’) to receive email notifications from this digest exclusively.