J Robert Smith
Throughout the crawling duration of It Chapter Two — all two hours and 50 minutes of it — I felt like I was being taken for a ride by a driver who was wearing a blindfold. This movie is so meandering, so stuffed with easily excisable scenes whose revelations wick off with the arrival of the next fit-for-the-cutting-room-floor vignette, it’s as though everyone made this all up as they went along. [snip]
— Jezebel, September 6, 2019
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Rob Meyne
When I was young (and we were still trying to shake off the reins of British rule), people used to make jokes about government doing things efficiently. There was common acceptance that, however poorly a business or charitable organization might operate something, you could always count on the government to do worse.
There are precisely zero major tasks that government in general does better than, well, anyone else. Government remains the province of $10,000 toilet seats, zombie-like bureaucrats, and billions of unaccounted for tax dollars. Yet, about half the nation seems to have somnambulated into America circa 2019 with a new paradigm that government is where you go to save money. It’s as sensible as if people suddenly decided to go to Kansas for surfing lessons, to Robert Byrd for lessons on black empowerment, or Rosie O’Donnell for weight loss tips.
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