I don't see how that is different from Seth's timeline. I mean, how did Old Seth talk to Young Seth and escape and drive a car when he'd been reduced to a faceless torso 30 years earlier? But if Old Seth didn't do those things, there's no reason to chop up Young Seth. So both things must have happened. And before you even get to the end, you see Young Joe shoot Old Joe immediately, which is the only way Young Joe can survive to become Old Joe and then go back and avoid getting shot and cause all this nonsense.

So in this particular story, the universe tolerates paradoxes. I don't have a problem with that.

To you that's tolerating paradoxes, to me, those are fundamental flaws that I didn't list--it's not like I was being comprehensive. In part, the actions of the characters depend on certain mechanisms and predictable results of actions, and there is nothing predictable. In truth, Joe's sacrifice isn't a sacrifice at all--he shouldn't be dead, he shouldn't be any worse off, he'll just reset to his silver hoarding self--fine, so he doesn't pork the Madonna figure.

But the character arc seems to require him to be giving something up, and finally valuing other people more than himself--something neither old nor young Joe really did (since his wife would theoretically have been fine if they never married--his problem was that he wanted to have the cake he was eating). But if you go by the rules that make the conflict possible, that's not a gesture of growth. It's a reset button on a scale only Captain Janeaway can really relate to.

I'm sorry, I have a strange feeling that Doctor Who may be to blame but I truly can't make sense of your first paragraph. It's not that I disagree with your interpretation; I honestly don't understand what it is. Which leaves me suspecting that there's something fundamentally different in how we approached this. Or, possibly I'm dumb? I've been dumb before. I just don't see a reset implied anywhere and I really don't see what led you to that.

spoiler for image in Iron Man 3.

I love the math involved in refuting this stunt. sexy brains.

[link]

Also, those high heels would NOT be staying on. At least, not on every woman. Unless my experience with my shoes not all being perfectly fitted is outside the norm. (And that's why my heels are usually Mary Janes or t-straps -- they stay on that way.)

And I'm amused that I had to whitefont all the shoe stuff so as to not give hints about that picture.

Tim Burton: How did it all go so wrong so fast?

Hmmm. There are parts of that article I agree with, but the writer thinks Big Fish is a bad movie, which is such an utterly wrongheaded statement that I am just sitting here sputtering.

Everyone knows I am a huge Tim Burton fangirl, but I admit he's made some crap. I don't think I'm ever going to get over my sense of betrayal about Alice In Wonderland. But Dark Shadows was fun (and far less "zany" than I had feared), and Frankenweenie is note-perfect.

the writer thinks Big Fish is a bad movie

He lost me there, too. He clearly doesn't like Southern gothic magical realism, but that doesn't make it bad. I love that movie.

It's my favorite Tim Burton movie, even over Beetlejuice. I don't watch it very often because I sob all the way through it (and I haven't tried to watch it at all since my mom passed away), but I do feel it's Burton's best work.

The fairy tale/tall tale feel of it is just perfect.

I did not know what to expect when I first saw Big Fish, but after 15 minutes, I just ran with it.

I'm not a person who naturally embraces magical realism (most times I have to be sold on it), and I was taken with Big Fish. I think you kind of have to be a Scrooge or have a contrarian personality to hate that movie.