Oh, yeah, that's the unavoidable problem with these movies. But if you read about it, it's pretty complicated. It's obviously not excusable, especially by me, but he spent a ton of time in India studying, to do his best to avoid doing a racist stereotype, and has stated that he'd never do it today.

It's free on YouTube, btw

Honestly, yes. What do you need to know from the first? Johnny Five was a military robot who was struck by lightning and became sentient. No other important details, and they give you this info during the movie. It's so much better than first, without the antisemitic jokes.

Unironically, Short Circuit 2 is a powerful allegory about immigration and bigotry* that rings true in a pretty intense way that I wasn't prepared for when I sat down for a nostalgic rewatch of a childhood favorite.

*despite being, unquestionably, full of its own racist elements

No joke, Short Circuit 2 is the reason I originally felt that way. Punk Johnny Five, chasing down a villain for revenge to Holding Out For A Hero was a formative idea of what a kickass climactic action sequence is supposed to look like.

FUCK YES

Is the plot better? Debatable. But the heart of both films is about Johnny Five's alive-ness, and the sequel makes you feel the pain of his alienation much harder than the original. Because a lot of it is about people just being assholes in a realistic way, instead of the Army trying to blow him up.

At a work event, I was talking to the one cool person I knew about our times going to The Middle East, which our company's CFO overheard and fundamentally misunderstood.

I love you, based @trashnightvideo.bsky.social, and if Twitch continues to ban you for playing public domain cartoons, I will face Bezos and walk backwards into Hell

For me, Trash Night isn't a Bad Movie Night. It's a collective focused on spreading joy, which just happens to be through the medium of bad movies. And without hyperbole, I believe that whatever algorithm bullshit is getting them banned is a sign of everything wrong in this digital age.

Now, after more than 5 years of streaming curated nonsense on Twitch to an incredible and loving crowd, they keep getting taken down, even when airing the most innocuous, public domain content possible. It feels like another symbol of how the Internet that I used to love is falling apart.

At this point, it feels like weirdo trolling more than anything. But when the Brattle and everything else closed, you carried my extrovert soul through the most introverted moment in our collective history, and I will follow you to the ends of the earth.

He sure did.