Knee-jerk review: "28 Years Later"

1. Don't let the creepy marketing strategy fool you - this is actually a traditional sort of coming-of-age domestic drama that just happens to take place in a crazy post-apocalyptic setting.
2. That doesn't mean, however, that there's any shortage of scary, suspenseful sequences of "how will our heroes survive this?"
3. We'd somehow forgotten Ralph Fiennes is in the movie.  What a treat to be surprised by his entrance.
4. There are plenty of good movies out there, but not a lot of truly great filmmakers.  Danny Boyle movies aren't always great (see: Yesterday and the last 20 minutes of Sunshine), but there's no denying they are always artistic and exceptionally well-made.
5. Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later are top-notch, of course, but we always thought Trainspotting was way overrated.
6. Of course they'd eventually run out of arrows.
7. They're not zombies, you see.  They're infected with the rage virus.
8. How does he still have a supply of tranquilizers?  It's, like, 28 years later.
9. We don't want to spoil anything, but there's a rather shocking moment that Changes Everything about the infected.
10. There's always something tragic about that moment when you realize your parents are actually just flawed people who don't always make wise decisions.
11. Bonus points for the "Jimmy" call back at the very end.
12. Only in an English movie would the hero be called Spike.
13. The Swedish soldier delivers a welcome dose of humor in an otherwise very serious, dour movie of Important Themes.
14. The doctor may not be as crazy and dangerous as the villagers think he is... but he still seems to be little bit nuts.  In a benevolent cuckoo sort of way.
15. Much better than you might imagine.

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Knee-jerk review: "Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning"

1. We were getting worried because the first half-hour or so is exceedingly tedious with long info-dump exposition and table-setting. Eventually, though, it kicks into gear and becomes a proper summer action thriller.
2. We regret to inform you that Tom Cruise is genuinely starting to show his age.  He's in his early 60s now.
3. We love Hayley Atwell, but the pointless death of Rebecca Ferguson's spy character in the last movie remains a huge unforced error.  Did she insult the filmmakers somehow?
4. More and more, it's hard to dazzle us with an action sequence.  Hasn't everything been done already?  Turns out the answer is "no."  This movie has two knockout set pieces - the submarine dive and the biplane fight, neither of which has any dialogue.  Simply incredible.
5. A vast improvement over the disappointing and confusing Dead Reckoning, Part 1, but still not in league with the very best of the series (Ghost Protocol 2011, Rogue Nation 2015, Fallout, 2018).  Those three are action near-masterpieces.
6. In the real world, Cruise's character would have died four times over in this movie.  He makes a ridiculous "hail mary" decision, rolling the dice, and then just hopes for the best.  No one is that lucky.
7. The world needs more smart submarine thrillers.  Can we please have a sequel set entirely on the Ohio?
8. We almost laughed out loud when someone mentioned that a purely theoretical super-advanced piece of next-generation computer hardware was finally built by... Ving Rhames' character Luther.
9. Ditto the moment where Simon Pegg's character Benji explains in detail to computer novice Hayley Atwell's character Grace how to hack into a hyper-secure government facility.  How can Benji possibly know anything about that system?  These movies are crazy and often succeed in creating their own reality where anything can be hacked by Luther and Benji.  This was not one of those moments.
10. Nice Fail Safe call back.  If you know, you know.
11. Angela Bassett can be an acquired taste.  She's gives off that same steely, angry edge in every role.  But that's exactly what is required here.
12. After the disappointing (relatively; it still earned $570 million) last movie, you can see that the filmmakers tossed out all of that mumbo-jumbo philosophical AI nonsense and went back to basics: in The Final Reckoning, Cruise and his misfit team have to find and mate together two pieces of hardware to save the world.  Simple is better.
13. Clever and completely organic return of a character from the very first movie all the way back in 1996.
14. There's no way Paramount lets this golden goose die.  Cruise can totally return as a sage mentor figure and let some other young star do the action work.
15. Go see it.

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Knee-jerk review: "Final Destination Bloodlines"

1. Yeah, this is a pretty hard R.  A whole lot of blood and gore.  If you're into that sort of thing, you won't be disappointed.
2. We remember the first three pretty well: the one with plane crash (Final Destination, 2000), the one with the logging truck accident (Final Destination 2, 2003), and the one with the roller coaster derailment (Final Destination 3, 2006).  A check with Wikipedia reminded us there's also the one with the NASCAR race crash (The Final Destination, 2009) and the cool twist where the characters in Final Destination 5 (2011) ended up on the plane crash from Final Destination in 2000.  Oops.  
3. The whole premise of this franchise is ingenious - it's not only easy to understand the rules (escape death in a mass casualty event, death will come after you by any means necessary as soon as possible), but the movies get the chance to concoct all kinds of elaborately grisly accidental deaths.  Aside from horrific "OMG!" deaths so completely insane you almost have to laugh, however, the movies all sort of run together.
4. That said, this one feels different.  Bloodlines takes more time to develop the characters, all of whom are related.  These aren't high school acquaintances or grumpy strangers; these people all have long histories and complex relationships with each other.  Which means the threat they're facing packs a much bigger dramatic punch.
5. The whole generational "bloodlines" thing also adds a fresh spin to the premise.
6. You make a movie in Canada to get those tax breaks, you end up with a no-name Canadian cast.  Decent, but vanilla.
7. The lead actress in particular is a little bland.  She looks 35 but is playing a college student presumably in only her sophomore or junior year.
8. Opening 20 minutes are pretty incredible if you like disaster scenes.  Wow.
9. We spent the whole movie thinking the mom character was played by an older Lara Flynn Boyle.  No, it's someone named Rya Kihlstedt.
10. Bonus points for a couple of very fun plot twists involving how (if at all) one might cheat death.
11. Of course, most of these deaths go beyond horrible happenstance.  An MRI machine isn't going to turn on, for example, just because a clipboard falls onto a keyboard.
12. Not to get all film theory on you, but movies - like any art - reflect the cultural zeitgiest from which they come.  This is a series of movies that reminds audiences over and over that death is not only inexorable and inevitable, but extremely painful and awful.  That's a pretty dark sentiment.  Smarter people than us will have to explore why a movie with this hopeless a message has resonated with such a wide audience ($187 million at the box office and counting) in 2025.  No movie exists in a vacuum.  Choices were also made to revive this franchise after a 15-year absence from theaters.  Yes, it's all about the business decisions of the filmmakers and the studio rights-holders.  Pre-sold brands are always appealing.  But there are always also other forces at play, whether the filmmakers know it or not.  All art - even the cheesiest TV show or most disposable pop song - is political.

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Notes on the Mid-80s Bob Barker Era of "The Price Is Right"

We've known about the 24-hour "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel for a while now, but a recent household change to the DirecTV Stream provider (our roof dish is now just a useless artifact of technologies past) has made it much easier for us to tune in.  It's pretty much what the name implies: an unending string of "The Price Is Right" reruns from the Bob Barker years.  The channel has been playing as background noise around Cheese Fry Headquarters for about three weeks now.  We've slowly progressed from 1982 to 1985, which is right in the heart of the Cheese Fry's formative years where watching Bob Barker meant either: A) you're home sick from school or B) it's summer vacation.  Childhood nostalgia overload, audio-visual comfort food.

Here are a few thoughts about our ongoing experience with "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel.

* Obviously, there's a very appealing time travel effect at work in watching these episodes.  The crazy fashion; the poofy, teased haircuts; the charmingly low-tech prizes (lots of grandfather clocks and groovy stereo systems) are all from what sometimes seem like a different universe.
* It's always tricky to evaluate legacy media from a contemporary perspective.  Bob has that polished, tanned, Johnny Carson-style charm. He's got a quick wit and a pretty dry sense of humor.  But, as a product of that era (he was born in 1923 and started hosting the show at age 49), he's also... a little sexist and condescending to the women contestants.  Just when we think we're imagining it and being overly sensitive, Bob says something overt and we'll do a "did he just say that?" double-take.  Lots of housewife jokes, lots of "husbands are the boss" jokes.  Sometimes he leers, sometimes he flirts.  This came as a shock to us, spoiling our 1980s innocence.  It also probably runs counter to America's more recent fond memories of Bob as the spry, white-haired elder statesman during the last few years of his run.
* All these youthful contestants jumping and running around in their 20s and 30s?  They're all now senior citizens. 
* Kind of a bummer to consider that the show no longer tapes in the CBS studio in Hollywood.
* Some things never change: the show today still uses a lot of those goofy synth music cues.  And a lot of the games are not only still being played, but look the same.  Like, zero facelifts or redesigns of any kind.
* In elementary school, our crush was redhead "Barker Beauty" Holly Hallstrom.  But now, looking back, there's no question that it's blonde Dian Parkinson who was truly deserving of any and all schoolkid crushes.
* The "Ten Chances" game has always seemed really to hard to play.
* This stretch of episodes includes the rather unexpected death of genius announcer Johnny Olson in late 1985.
* There are almost no cars given away that cost more than four figures.  
* A lot of these prizes remind us of our fashionable aunt and uncle who lived in a swanky part of Houston.  The brass beds, the chrome and steel dinette sets (is "dinette set" even a term any more?), the polished cherry wooden secretaries (remember those?), the mustard yellow garbage disposals, the big color cabinet TVs.  These are the 1980s trappings of the upper middle class.
* The show gave away a surprising amount of mattresses and carpet.  Were those also considered luxurious perks?  Maybe back then there wasn't a mattress store on every corner.
* Apparently, the presence of air conditioning and power locks are distinctive enough to be merit mention in Johnny's "a new car!" script.
* So there's this big green train that the models use pretty regularly to present the items for bid for the folks in contestant's row, slowly rolling out from the wings and onto center stage.  (Trivia: that game the four contestant prospects play has a name: "One Bid.")  There's a green engine that pulls a green platform.  There's fake steam.  It's all steeped in mid-80s cheese.  But the best part is the "waaAAH-waaaahhh!" wolf whistle sound effect.
* We can verify here that Bob does indeed sometimes wear the same suit more than once.  This is a detail that would only become apparent to a screwball like us watching multiple episodes.
* These shows are really, really old, but we still recognize almost all of the pricing game grocery store item brands.  The breath mints, cleaning products, soups, spaghetti sauces, snacks, cold medicines.  These things you can still find on the shelves at your local grocery store.
* In those days, for whatever reason, the contestants definitely skewed to white women.  Also, we're not hardcore obsessive Drew Carey-era fans, so we are speaking with very little authority, but it certainly seems like the Barker shows welcomed a lot of military folks in uniform.
* We're all the way up to 1985 and still we're not seeing any gag T-shirts with funny "pick me!" text and pictures.  When did that become a thing?

Another treat on this 24-hour "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel is that sometimes they'll show really old episodes from the early 70s when it first went on the air.  Bob looks and sounds really young; the contestants all tend to be sheltered, slightly dim housewives; the color scheme are these horrible yellows, oranges, and browns; and - get this - there is no Big Wheel.  Three people play and the top two stick around for the Showcase.  Heathens.

Come on down to the the rabbit hole!

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Knee-jerk review: "Thunderbolts*"

1. Marvel superhero fatigue is real.  We didn't even bother with Captain America: Brave New World earlier this year.  We admire the way the Marvel overlords have skillfully created such an intricate tapestry of characters and plots and characters across so many movies and TV shows since Iron Man in 2008 (if the MCU was a person, they'd be getting ready for their senior year of high school), but at a certain point it all starts to get pretty cumbersome.  The movies are no longer just movies - they're installments that exist solely to sell the next installment.  In doing so, however, each installment runs the risk of warping under the weight of everything that's come before.
2. Exhibit A: On the way to the theater, Ms. Cheese Fry asked "Do I need to have seen anything else before I see this one?"  A fair question.  Should we really have to do homework before going to the movies?
3. Exhibit B: When it ended, the guys sitting next to us totally geeked out, excitedly chattering back and forth not about the actual movie Thunderbolts, but rather the post-credits tag scene that's pointing to a future movie.  What did that tag mean and how will it connect to everything else? 
4. There's definitely an audience for this sort of thing where movies turn into editions of comic books telling an unending soap opera-style story of deaths, resurrections, double-crosses, and new characters.  There's a lot of people out there like our seat neighbors who eat this all up.  (And full disclosure: we can be pretty irritating explaining the nerdy intricacies of Star Wars and Star Trek mythology.) But when you're making $200 million movies for wide audiences who aren't following every twist and turn on fan websites, there's going to be some risk in turning a profit.
5. But this one is pretty good.  Thunderbolts feels different, probably because these are some pretty broken - and in John Walker's case, pretty unlikable - superhero characters who have no illusion that they're on the bottom rung of hero-dom.  There's a black cloud hanging over everything.
6. If done well, team-up movies like this - where characters who hate each other form begrudging temporary alliances that soon evolve into genuine kinship and collaboration - are a whole lot of fun.
7. Lewis Pullman, the actor who plays Bob, is a dead ringer for his father, the great Bill Pullman.
8. Add Florence Pugh to the official Cheese Fry Celebrity Crush List.  Dude.  Seriously.
9. In today's bizarre political climate, it's kind of cute to see a movie portraying Washington DC and mostly functional place that tries to earnestly follow due process and tradition.
10. The ending is kind of weird, but the filmmakers earn points for dramatizing the challenges of overcoming trauma and mental illness. 
11. It's a Marvel movie with big stakes, but because it's focusing on this little dysfunctional group, the movie feels small.  (Even the big climax of New Yorkers running for cover can't really hide that it wasn't shot in New York City.)  We mean this mostly as a compliment.
12. Unless we missed it, we are happy to report there are no laser beams and energy rays anywhere to be found here.  A small victory.
13. David Harbour steals the movie.
14. Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes for a formidable villain.  Flashes that gorgeous smile while she slices your throat.
15. That Black Widow child assassin training program was really something, huh?  Yikes.
16. Let us all stipulate that with the possible exception of the third Lord of the Rings movie in 2003, no pop culture cinematic event has delivered such a satisfying punch of cathartic resolution as 2019's Avengers: Endgame.  Chef's kiss perfection.  In today's fractured culture, we can't imagine anything ever matching that.

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Knee-jerk review: "Drop"

1. Pretty enjoyable and sharp.

2. Bonus points to the attempt by the filmmakers to give the two leads fairly well-developed backstories.  That can only help.

3. Whether you realize it or not, a lot of movies follow the trope of "the ending is the same as the beginning, only different."  Textbook example here.  It's the best way to clearly show how the main character has grown.  Same situation, different choices.

4. A simple premise - woman is ordered by an unseen villain to kill the man she's meeting on a first date - isn't necessarily the same thing as a plausible premise.

5. It's an obvious point, yes, but still effective: if you're in a public place and think someone is threatening you with a smartphone, take a look around.  Everyone is on the phone!  Everyone is suspect.

6. Pretty sure that wasn't the Blackhaws logo on that Chicago hockey puck gift.  Could the producers not get permission?

7. We were unfamiliar with Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar.  Impressed.

8. It's a Hollywood thriller rule that if you have a scene set in a room with a lot of glass that's multiple stories off the ground, that glass is going to break and someone's taking a swan dive. 

9. Can totally see a swanky (the hostess is such a shamelessly unpleasant snob) sky rise restaurant like this called "Palate."  Second choice must have been "Taste."  We couldn't help but wonder how much they were charging for that duck salad.

10. In the real world, even an understanding, nice guy would have run out of patience with his loony date's constant distraction and absence from their table.  No way he sticks around.  Way too may red flags, no matter how low cut that top might be.

11. We're not entirely clear how the villains learned enough about this first date to insert themselves into the proceedings.  Seems like they picked her because she'd be a good patsy, so then did they somehow manipulate the couple's dating app?

12. Only in movies does poison come in sleek little glass vials.

13. The biggest problem is the third act.  The villain seems pretty smart and has thought of everything... except for the quality of the henchman hired to hold the heroine's family hostage.  That guy is a total amateur and his stupidity is the only reason there's a happy ending.  He does his job with any level of professionalism and the movie's over.  That choice totally undermines those last few moments of conflict - just as things should be reaching a fever pitch, the tension totally fizzles.  The plot is cutting corners and bending logic to help our resourceful and determined heroine, who really up to that moment hadn't needed that kind of help.

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Notes from a "Wheel of Fortune" Taping

If there is a club for game show geeks who have attended a taping of the Big Three, we are in that.  We attended a "Price is Right" taping in the final weeks of Bob Barker's reign back in the mid-2000s and shortly thereafter, we attended a taping of "Jeopardy" when Alex Trebek was the host.  On our recent trip to Los Angeles this spring, we got tickets to "Wheel of Fortune."  We're definitely more hardcore "Price Is Right" and "Jeopardy" fans, but one cannot deny the longevity and appeal of "Wheel of Fortune."

1. This was what we were most excited about... when the contestants glance off camera during the game, what exactly are they looking at?  Well, there's two giant flatscreen TVs on the wall just to the left of the puzzle board.  On the top vertical screen, all three contestants are listed by their corresponding wheel "pointer" color.  This tracks their cumulative winnings throughout the game, plus also the money they have in the bank during the current game.  The bottom horizontal flatscreen provides a list of all the available letters.  When someone calls a "C," for example, then that letter disappears off the list.  Vowels are grouped together below the consonants.  That bottom screen also reminds the contestants of the puzzle category.  "What Are You Doing?" seems to be pretty popular right now.  
2. So during the game if someone flubs a line or there's a technical problem, after the episode ends, they'll go back and do retakes as if it were a scripted show.  That was a big surprise to us.  There was a microphone problem when Ryan Seacrest hugged a contestant goodbye, so the two of them had to totally recreate that spontaneous moment for a retake.  The best moment came when there was a problem with the overhead shot of the wheel (should that be capitalized Wheel?) when it landed on a specific wedge.  After the episode ended, the prop guy - there is apparently one guy who is charge of the wheel - had to spin the wheel just right so that it would land on that specific wedge for the camera.  It took him about eight tries to nail it.  The audience cheered.
3. They do pipe in the sound effects you hear on the show, like the slide whistle bankrupt sound and the "doo-doo-do-do" chimes for a new puzzle.
4. No, the audience doesn't shout "Wheel!... of!... Fortune!..."  That's recorded.
5. We saw three episodes taped.  Each one took about an hour.  Not just for the redos, but there's also a lot of adjustments to be made to the wheel - replacing the prize amount wedges - during the commercial breaks.  The biggest delay came when a flashing plastic wedge wasn't flashing.  They had to take it apart and repair some wiring.  Also fun was to watch the one guy whose sole job during the breaks was to come wipe down the padded vinyl contestant railing.  He did it every time.
6. There's apparently a very active alumni group of past contestants who seem pretty obsessed with the show and also very impressed that they were on it.  We stood in line with a couple of them and then later had the misfortune of sitting behind them in the bleachers.  They were shameless in making sure everyone around knew they'd been on the show.  One of them even wore her game day name badge.  "Look at me!"  It might be interesting to talk to a contestant, but not these obnoxious characters.  They were pretty loud and abrasive in the bleachers, almost acting like they were special guests - the stage manager had to ask them to knock it off at one point.  There are no repeat contestants (we think), so these two are essentially milking a single 30-minute appearance.
7. Before each game, the contestants all shoot short promos for their hometown station.  That's when we were reminded by the stage director that it's "Wheel of Fortune" not "The Wheel of Fortune."
8. We can't be 100% sure, but there was a stagehand near our section of the bleachers holding up laminated sheets for Ryan.  We think this was to help cue him which contestant was due to spin next so he doesn't have to keep track of that.
9. Vanna came out and talked to the audience, of course.  She told us that she's worn thousand of outfits over the years, but never the same thing twice.  They're all loaners from designers.  Vanna does repeat the shoes, though.
10. Apparently, they're looser with solving the puzzle these days.  Seems like in the Pat era you had one shot and God forbid if you fumbled your words.  But now you have a set amount of time to solve, phrasing and rephrasing as needed until time runs out.  But that timer failed on one of the puzzles we saw, so they threw that whole puzzle out and did that segment over again with a new one.
11. There's a whole other set-up during the final prize puzzle what with that little prize wheel.  It gets wheeled out from backstage on a special cart and three guys then slide it into position next to the larger wheel.  After the show is over, they load it back into the cart - securing it with several bolts - and wheel it backstage.
12. The stage is pretty wide but not very deep.  In that familiar wide shot you see of Vanna standing at the puzzle board, there's about three cameras crammed together just out of the shot to the left, all pointing at the contestants.  They've framed it perfectly.  One inch to the left and you'd see them all.
13. Vanna no longer has to even touch the puzzle board.  Apparently, there are lasers that sense her hand and reveal the letters.
14. It may be blasphemous, but we think Ryan is better at this than Pat Sajak.  He's smoother and more genuine.  Pat could sometimes seem a little above all of that gameplay nonsense.  Like he just sort of tolerated all of this.
15. The show can control the height of the riser the contestants stand on - if you're too short to reach over that railing (sanitized during every commerical break!) to spin the wheel, they'll lift the platform for you.
16. If you're in the audience, you're doing a lot of clapping.  We never noticed this watching the show, but you clap when the contestants spin, you clap when they get a letter, you clap when they solve.  The show told everyone that when Vanna claps, you clap.  Plus there's one of those old-school flashing "Applause" signs hanging over the bleachers.
17. As you might imagine, there's a camera on a ceiling mount pointing down at the wheel.  Pretty cool.
18. At no time did the wheel spin by itself.  Those "beauty shots" (as they call them) of the spinning wheel was initiated with a hard yank by that prop guy in charge of the wheel.  By the way, unlike "The Price Is Right" there is no penalty for not spinning the wheel all the way around.

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Knee-jerk review: "Novacaine"

1. Maybe this is the old man perspective, but it sure seems like there was lot more of these kinds of entertaining, highly-polished B-movie actoiners back before streaming took over the world and people used to actually go to theaters every weekend.
2. We were pleasantly surprised that the filmmakers took so long to establish the main characters and their relationship before the shooting started.  If audiences care about the characters, they'll be more emotionally invested in what happens to them.  Screenwriting 101.  The dialogue in that first act sets up the entire movie.  Lean and sharp.  Plot comes from character wants and needs.
3. We really, really should have seen that plot twist coming.  We've gotten so rusty.
4. Gruesome.  We didn't understand at first how the bad guy died at the end, but then suddenly we realized and it was completely insane.  Gross.
5. Jack Quaid has definitely got the gawky, stammering geek thing down.
6. Imagine slurping down a shot of ghost pepper sauce.
7. We love movies that take a high-concept premise like "imagine a guy who feels no pain tangling with ruthless bank robbers" and then explore it in every possible way.
8. We can take take most movie violence no problem since we know it's all fake, but there's something about breaking bones that crosses the line for us.  Maybe it's just the sound effect that adds that extra level of squeamish realism.
9. By now doesn't everyone know that the bad guy is never really dead the first time he's "killed"?
10. Poor Nigel.
11. Everyone is hiding something.

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Ranking Wait Lines at the Airport

In order of increasing irritation and aggravation --

6. The line to board the plane, part one - At least at the gate you have room to sort of stretch out on on those fake leather chairs, charge your phone if you're lucky to find a working outlet, grab some overpriced food and drink, ignore the background noise of whatever toothless pseudo-news program is running in the background (even vanilla-flavored CNN seems to trigger certain folks), and study the strange assortment of people walking by in all kinds of clothing, hairdos, ages, and body types.  It can be a long wait, but at least you have amenities.
5. The line to check your bags - Like so many businesses now, customers are asked to do extra work that used to be handled by airline employees.  And so we dutifully use kiosk touchscreens to print boarding passes and luggage tags.  This free labor, of course, provides no cost savings.  The good news is that this line usually moves pretty quick, both at the kiosks and then also dropping off your bag at the counter.  We imagine this step will soon be eliminated somehow and we'll end up being the ones to toss our bags onto that conveyor belt.  What service do those clerks provide other than asking about lithium batteries? 
4. The TSA security line, part one - These lines to confirm your identity to bored TSA agents (digression: notice how suddenly they're taking your picture now? a very sly, quiet further eroding of our privacy) are extremely long and snake around like you're about to get on a Disneyland ride.  Thankfully, most of the time these lines move much faster than they look.  Most of the time.
3. The line to board the plane, part two - Showing your boarding pass goes pretty quick with the agent at the gate, but then you hit the rush hour traffic jam of the jetway as people you can't see are undoubtedly up there in the plane moving like blind, slothful turtles as they creep along the aisle, wedging their enormous bags into the overhead bins, then hunting for their seat.  It's a jarring transition from the spacious comfort of the gate seating area.  If we ruled the world, we would 100% ban all carry-ons that won't fit under the seat in front of you.  No joke - we'd rip those overhead bins right out.  They're a cancer.  If you're one of those annoying people who insist on wasting everyone's time cramming a too-big suitcase into the overhead bin, you are part of our national nightmare.  Do better.  Check your bag like a civilized human.

2. The TSA security line, part two - Aside from our old man gripe that most of this is just empty theater to make everyone feel safer, the main irritation here is that every airport seems to have different rules.  Shoes on or off?  Laptop in or our?  Out bag goes on the belt or in a tray?  Does the TSA even realize they there's no uniformity?  Sometimes they seem annoyed that you're confused.  Bonus points for the glassy-eyed TSA agents who don't even really try to communicate what we need to know because they're just muttering their canned lines over and over like a robot slowly dying inside.
1. The line to get off the plane - You're tired and grumpy, shoehorned into that tiny little seat.  You're ready to go.  But instead, you're stuck for what seems like an eternity, staring into oblivion as dozens of rows of people in front of you move in super-slow motion to deplane.  Zero urgency.  What's most frustrating is the time it takes to actually see something, anything happening in those first few rows.  Again, the biggest culprit involves having to reclaim the overhead bin suitcases.  Cancer.

For more fun Cheese Fry rants about air travel, check out this 2016 post.

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