I’m glad Kristen Bell as a thing finally happened, she had amazing range in Veronica Mars, acting as a character who frequently acted as other people in a way that you could subtly see how Veronica’s acting decisions reflected her actual character

I’m pretty sure she swept through three layers of persona in the course of a line sometimes, and then Hollywood didn’t know what to do with her, like “I dunno she’s a new young actress maybe put her in a bikini for Forgetting Sarah Marshall?”

And she looked great in a bikini but even then, it really looked like she might drop out of mind for a while, subsisting on VM nostalgia, but then Frozen and The Good Place (And all those national ad campaigns! Don’t underestimate that!)

And good for her. She’s done Broadway and Off-Broadway before, I’d love to see her starring on stage some time.

My secondhand social media impression of The Good Place is “Dollhouse x Touched by an Angel” and please let that be true because Kristen Bell deserves it.

Saw an ad for “The Good Place” and it’s nice Kristen Bell’s getting work

No unironically, Veronica Mars was like a seminar in range and then they were like nah

In Sarah Marshall “well ok what if we put her in a bikini” and she looked GREAT but nah

So after Slabtown I went to another bar and ended up watching Spartan. Why have I never heard of this? Why have you never heard of this? From 2004, it has

Val Kilmer!

(Val Kilmer is actually great in those Bruce Willis roles where a competent action protagonist realizes he’s in a ridiculous situation. I hear his one-man show as Mark Twain is a sight to behold.)

Kristen Bell!

(In a pre-Veronica Mars role where she gets to play flinty-yet-scared-yet-tomboy-sexy, which is absolutely her thing, she shoulda done Domino)

written and directed by David Mamet!

(which - you realize shot by shot he’s still a little stagy, but he’s got a good cinematographer and the shots flow well)

plus Derek Luke (who? but okay) and William H. Macy (meh). I caught the beginning of it and I thought it was the end of a good movie, turns out it kept going.