Manohla Dargis
@manohladargis.bsky.social
Old hippie, tree hugger, childless cat lady, lover of animals and some humans, I write about movies for the New York Times. Member of the Times Guild, which is represented by the NewsGuild of New York.
A 🧵 Nepo baby David Ellison’s recent OpEd deflected attention from the reality that the Paramount attempted takeover of WarnerBros is corrupt to the core, a debt-time bomb, a natl security issue, would decrease diversity of voices in film/media/ journalism +a press freedom issue. #BlockTheMerger 1/n
TAPPER: Hold on -- hold on, 'cause I'm not done with the list of women who have accused you of violence. Are all three of them lying? REP. MAX MILLER: Yes. And I'm not getting out of the race because in 2016, President Donald J Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world ...
“Republican Representative Max Miller—accused of holding a gun to his wife’s head, scalding her with boiling water, and breaking his two-year-old daughter’s collarbone—has now been accused of sharing pictures of that same daughter’s genitals.” newrepublic.com/post/213934/...
Max Miller Shared Inappropriate Photo of Their Daughter, His Ex Says
Republican Representative Max Miller appears to have made the mistake while trying to clear his name of all the other abuse allegations against him.
newrepublic.com
Moreno on Max Miller: "My daughter lives in constant fear of this man ... you can't fathom what that makes me feel like when the dad's number one job is to protect your kids... if there's any minimum standard for being an elected official, he feels to meet it. I don't care about the politics at all"
About a month ago, it emerged from upstate New York that DHS was targeting online critics of ICE by trying to force them to sign a heretofore unheard of “Warning Notice” admitting that their criticisms were unlawful. Now the WSJ reports that those cases ... talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...
REVEALED: The Scope of ICE’s Surveillance of Its Online Critics
ICE’s Round-the-Clock Digital Dragnet About a month ago, it emerged from upstate...
talkingpointsmemo.com
Surely he can afford a better flack to write his self-promoting blather!
Jack Mirkinson@jackmirkinson.bsky.social · yesterdaywell now that he's made these vague and carefully detail-free assurances about his personal views, i see no problems!
JFC & LOL (thanks Mark!) gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/o...
Opinion | David Ellison: In Defense of the Paramount-Warner Deal (Gift Article)
The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of CNN
nytimes.com
Mark Harris@markharris.bsky.social · yesterday"Unfortunately, I can't give anyone a view into my heart and mind." Why? Are you unfamiliar with them? Ellison's whole "I'm not allowed to express my specific political opinions here, but trust me" approach is transparent nonsense. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/o...
Banks permitted millions in suspicious transactions tied to Epstein—and former 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi had the story months ago. But the report would never air. trib.al/ZShZlIS
JFC — asserting that “organic” is a buzzword akin to other “health-food” marketing is at best misleading. Choosing organic produce (if you can afford it, of course) isn’t just about one’s own personal health. There are larger concerns, like the health of farm workers. www.nature.com/articles/s43...
Organic food has lower environmental impacts per area unit and similar climate impacts per mass unit compared to conventional - Communications Earth & Environment
Organic and conventional farming exhibit no significant disparities in global warming potential, eutrophication, and energy usage per unit of product mass, according to a quantitative review of life c...
nature.com
NPR@npr.org · yesterdayWhy food companies love labels like "organic" and "high protein," why our brains are misled by them — and how to avoid paying extra for marketing. n.pr/4hdLaUR
enraging and appalling gift link 🎁 Uber’s Strategy for Fighting Sexual Assault Suits: ‘What Were You Wearing?’ www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/b...
Earlier tonight, @michellegoldberg.bsky.social read *another* quote from this weirdo that reflected the same general sentiment. www.sacurrent.com/news/san-ant...
San Antonio-area congressional candidate calls children 'cum trophies' in latest controversy
Brandon Herrera (left) and former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz clasp hands at a San Antonio rally during Herrera's first failed House run. Brandon
sacurrent.com
I found David Harvey’s “A Brief History of Neoliberalism” (2007) useful. It’s at my library, and it may be at yours. Harvey is also on Bluesky FWIW.
Raymond Guiteras@raymondguiteras.bsky.social · 2d agoI always thought neoliberal started with Clinton / Blair / Third Way market-means-to-social-ends in the 90s, and then worked its way backwards to Reagan / Thatcher markets-for-their-own-sake in the 80s. Do I have it wrong?
Proposition 39 is “seeking a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, and a solution that actually could cause additional problems… It perpetuates this false and dangerous narrative that there has been voter fraud in California.” Via @anitachabria.bsky.social www.latimes.com/california/n...
Commentary: Prop. 39 would turn Trump conspiracy into California law. It has a chance of passing
A legal fight has broken out around Proposition 39, a proposal to require voters to prove their citizenship at polls with ID. It's a partisan attempt to recycle the election conspiracy lies of Preside...
latimes.com
I'd like to know what Congressional Candidates #ScottWeiner and #ConnieChan think of this. Weiner is pro-developer and anti "red tape," which is code for enviro protections . Solano Co.: Homebuilders Petition State To Drop Endangered Species Protection For Hawk share.google/bD5MqEvf0EYp...
Solano Co.: Homebuilders Petition State To Drop Endangered Species Protection For Hawk
A homebuilders association is seeking to roll back protections for a hawk under California's Endangered Species Act -- the first delisting in 17 years, according to the state's Fish and Game...
share.google
“Two Americans. Two Chicagoans. Two remarkable figures whose voices speak hope to a divided world.” www.osvnews.com/pope-leos-me...
Pope Leo's meeting with Patti Smith highlights rocker's Church-adjacent artistry
"It was a long audience that felt more like a conversation between two people discovering they were old friends, sharing memories."
osvnews.com
He had an *amazing* print collection (his apartment was *crowded* with so many film cans it was nearly impassible). I heard that’s why NYU hired him but who knows. He was greatly knowledge in some ways and lamentably blinkered.
A Dutiful Dreamer@adutifuldreamer.bsky.social · 3d agoI think he and Lillian Gish were good friends. Here's a picture of Everson (right) with Martin Scorsese (left), Eileen Bowser (second from left), head of the MOMA film dept, & Gish that Everson's daughter Bambi Everson posted on her Facebook page.
Anyway, your problem isn‘t finding the time to take notes. The problem is that taking notes is thinking and thinking has to be done by someone. women have been doing a lot of metacognition that looks like a task when it’s really thinking.
The diarrhea lettuce company, Taylor Farms, uses slave labor contracted from the Arizona Dept. of Corrections. The backbreaking labor is often performed by imprisoned Mexican nationals who would be otherwise ineligble to work in the US. They are paid $1.50 an hour.
The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor
The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.
futurism.com
Think of all the A.I. possibilities! Tom Holland singing Rhianna’s “Umbrella” to Zendaya in ancient Greek, for one…
Alissa Wilkinson@alissawilkinson.bsky.social · 3d agoI didn’t want it updated to modern sensibilities, just wanted a random new character whose consciousness is modern to provide exposition and explain everything that I don’t understand
William K. Everson, a kind man who loved Griffith so much he couldn’t see the damning truth about “Birth.” When he said that, I thought “Oh, fuck, I’m going to fail” (and did). I think that he’s the same prof who taught the NYU class that former student Spike Lee has rightly criticized.
S Pahwa@sonipahwa.bsky.social · 3d ago🤮 which NYU prof was that??
One thing I admire is that even as film critics like James Agee continued to praise “Birth” decades after its release, the NAACP kept up its fight against the movie. This is from 1947 (credit: LOC).
Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa@benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 3d agoNice! I've taught that subject in the past. It's a great way to introduce how powerful of a political tool film had become. The NAACP had all sorts of other issues to focus on, ones where they could make stronger cases, but they saw BoaN as an immediate threat that needed to be responded to.
“The Birth of a Nation” was a Klan recruitment tool! That museum film departments, film historians, film critics etc valorized the movie until fairly recently is both disgusting/depressing and itself worthy of study. (Back in the day, one of my NYU profs insisted that Griffith wasn’t racist.)
Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa@benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 3d agoNice! I've taught that subject in the past. It's a great way to introduce how powerful of a political tool film had become. The NAACP had all sorts of other issues to focus on, ones where they could make stronger cases, but they saw BoaN as an immediate threat that needed to be responded to.
This is only a partial account, of course, but Melvyn Stokes’s book on “The Birth of a Nation” has several chapters on the NAACP’s fight against the film.
Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa@benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 3d agoHas anyone written an account of Black activism around racism in the movies during the teens? Something like that would be so useful for teaching in film history classes. I've only found pieces with partial accounts.
“the 2-year-old daughter of a congressman and granddaughter of a US senator wound up with a broken collarbone. ‘The bruising surrounding the clavicle fracture made the injury suspicious,’ wrote one of the detectives who summarized the Zoom meeting.” www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Assault, misogyny, verbal threats: Records detail new allegations against Rep. Max Miller
Police reports and filings in a bitter custody dispute raise new questions about the conduct of an Ohio Republican as he campaigns for a third term.
motherjones.com
The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 3d agoRep. Max Miller: "I've been portrayed as an abusive husband, an abusive father, and a violent man…Let me begin with the most painful accusation of all — I have never abused our daughter."
“24,330,171 Population under age 18 Location: Iran (Islamic Republic of) Year: 2025” data.unicef.org/how-many/how...
How many children are there in Iran (Islamic Republic of)? - How Many
data.unicef.org
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3d agoSen. John Kennedy says his response to Iranian cyberattacks would be to "eat them up and spit the bones on the floor"
Exclusive: Daphy Michel, from Haiti, was dropped off in Pittsburgh in 20F temperatures wearing summer clothes. She froze to death. Another ICE homicide. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Family to sue after woman released from ICE custody froze to death
Exclusive: Daphy Michel, from Haiti, was dropped off in Pittsburgh in 20F temperatures wearing summer clothes
theguardian.com
NIH: “Many Intensive Care Units Were Overloaded While Nearby Hospitals Had Excess Capacity During The COVID-19 Pandemic” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37406237/
Many Intensive Care Units Were Overloaded While Nearby Hospitals Had Excess Capacity During The COVID-19 Pandemic - PubMed
Strained hospital capacity is associated with adverse patient outcomes. Anecdotal evidence suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, some hospitals experienced capacity constraints while o...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3d agoRFK Jr: Trump wanted to end lockdowns. In Fauci's diary, he talks about how the president was calling him trying to get him to reopen the country BASH: The lockdowns were down by governors K: They cited Fauci B: Govs were hearing from hospitals that their ICUs were overrun K: That's not true
