This just makes me think I'd be way more interested in a movie about people rebelling against this insane Christian puritanism in their society than one about people just going along with "This is my one night to not be 'pure!' Better make it count!"

gwen howerton@kissphoria.bsky.social · 2h ago

i'm locked in on this film sorry to anyone else

“if we are supposed to believe that the film is making some subversive statement about the state of sex and bodily autonomy in this country, it cannot end with its leads embracing their chains. That’s just warmed-over conservatism running around in sheep’s clothing” By @oldfilmsflicker.bsky.social

One Night Only review: Pull out from this sex-negative rom-com

If this is what it takes to get a rom-com greenlit these days, maybe we should just let them die.

rogerebert.com

Generally not great when a live entertainment company recently found guilty of acting as a monopoly has control of any music journalism outlet

Wondering if the famous chalkboard math problem from “Good Will Hunting” was nonsense Turns out it’s real … but not actually that complicated for people who understand math!

The problem in Good Will Hunting - Numberphile

YouTube video by Numberphile

m.youtube.com

Here’s the key takeaway from our report: Epstein couldn’t have carried out his trafficking and criminal activity without the help of the highest ranking employees and executives at the most powerful banks in the world. Wall Street is complicit in Epstein’s crimes from top to bottom.

There are documented examples, if only they had the barest minimum of curiosity! www.criterion.com/current/post...

This isn’t true? And kind of embarrassing that a Hollywood trade, which should know better, is not only repeating her fallacy, but repeating a misnomer about what method acting even is??

Anya Taylor-Joy Explains Why Method Actors Are Almost Always Men

The 'Furiosa' star has a theory as to why it's always the guys who go full Method.

hollywoodreporter.com

"No amount of spin can sugarcoat the utter disaster of layoffs, creative consolidation, and sheer mediocrity that awaits if Richie Rich runs roughshod over the industry he claims to love so much." Get 'im, @mcastimovies.bsky.social!

Not only is David Ellison lying about his film plan, it's not even a good lie

Paramount Skydance CEO and heir apparent David Ellison is very upset that the media landscape can see right through him.

avclub.com

While the NYT runs an op-ed from David Ellison claiming we're all wrong about his politics and to just trust him, several outlets are reporting that 60 Minutes (which Ellison owns) decided not to air a story about Epstein's banking schemes. They even interviewed a senator for it!

60 Minutes Epstein Banking Story Didn’t Air After Sharyn Alfonsi Exit, Dem Senator Claims

Wyden revealed he was interviewed for the show in a Senate report alleging the country's largest banks turned “a blind eye” to Epstein's financial activity

yahoo.com

Paramount+ has announced that Viola Faviz will star in a new series called “Ascent,” to begin filming next year I can not get over how boring I find this kind of premise, of the “elite” so-and-so and their loved one in peril. I’m desperate for stories about regular degular people doing life!

"If there's one thing about the wealthy people in the United States," Lopez explained, "it's that they are big whiny babies, and that they've got a lot of money to make sure that you hear all their issues that they have with anything that goes on." hellgatenyc.com/nyc-tenants-...

NYC Tenants React to Pied-à-Terrorism: 'I Think It Speaks to How Detached Rich People Are'

A few of the millions of New Yorkers who don't own a home weigh in on the controversy.

hellgatenyc.com

Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.

"The critics are wrong about my political opinions, which for some reason I really really don't want to specify" LOL This is like when you're talking to somebody you just met and politics comes up and they laugh nervously and say, "Oh I just like to tune all that stuff out"

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...

NEW/EXCLUSIVE: Deutsche Bank failed to promptly report to US authorities more than $250M in suspicious transactions tied to Epstein, including funds used to pay women in Russia & other Eastern European countries, according to a new report from @wyden.senate.gov 🎁 🧵 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, BofA Enabled Epstein, Wyden Report Says

Democrat Ron Wyden cited nonpublic documents held by the US Treasury in a report that says banks delayed reporting suspicious financial transactions and calls for tougher anti-money-laundering rules, ...

bloomberg.com

These allegations, based on reviews of nonpublic records held by the Treasury Dept, are detailed in Wyden’s report, “Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.” The document describes Wyden's multi-year investigation into Epstein’s financial network.

appreciate Johnson calling attention to “language that muddies the waters between interpersonal unpleasantness and structural harm”, how some people that are just jerks that cause social discomfort aren’t actually harmful, and how thinking so limits and impairs what a community can be

This was a MOVIE

I have 22 boxes of diapers in my car right now and if you want to give stuff or money to mutual aid groups in Chicago you can do that directly. Here's a good list. If you're like me and cant always buy stuff, you can still help get them to some of the many people in this world who have butts.

The Guide to Mutual Aid in Chicago – Resources – Borderless Magazine NFP

The Guide to Mutual Aid in Chicago – Resources – Borderless Magazine NFP

borderlessmag.org

“the show will also be the first-ever improvised multi-cam comedy” I hate that there’s the dearth of multi-camera comedies right now so I should be overjoyed. But one of the reasons I miss the genre is that it’s SO GOOD when the writing is top notch … and doing improv is something else entirely

Marta Kauffman Sets Improvised Sitcom ‘DINKS’ at Amazon Starring June Diane Raphael, Paul Scheer (EXCLUSIVE)

Amazon has greenlit its first-ever multi-cam sitcom, which hails from none other than the legendary Marta Kauffman.

variety.com

Somewhere in there I’m also supposed to fit in applying to various grants and fellowships without any guarantee I will actually win them. Did I mention that I am single, I support myself, and my cats are terrible secretaries? Your paid membership is a godsend! Pls help an overwhelmed critic!

Membership

I write for freedom, but I cannot write for free. Your paid membership makes freedom a little more possible. Thank you! Privacy Policy Terms of Service

soraya.press

I am a one-woman band. I don’t use AI. Not to write, not to edit, not to automate social posting. I am: — working on two essays for Soraya [dot] Press — prepping to sit as a talking head for a doc shooting this week but airing in December — RSVPing, requesting press creds/setting editorial cal

Seconding this as a deaf person** who also masks. Yes, I rely on lip-reading, but there are ways that I can make it work. And there are masks that enable lip-reading. **D/deaf people were used as a convenient excuse to say that masking is "ableist" 😑

Dr. Antje Gamble@drantjegamble.bsky.social · 3d ago

Also, I never will accept that wearing a mask was impeding anyone’s ’freedom’. I still mask, esp at work when I’m around hundreds of co-eds (who are always sick). I lecture for hours in a mask. I still live my damn life.

A single piece of confetti is called a ‘confetto.’ spaghetti = spaghetto graffiti = graffito

Ok now that apparently everyone has seen this in record time, I have a huge problem with Brand New Day and the implications of what Spider-Man does in it

Joshua Rivera@jmrivera.bsky.social · 5d ago

Alright as promised here is my big problem with brand new day do NOT read until you’ve seen the movie www.vulture.com/article/the-...

Please stop saying “lockdowns.” There were never true lockdowns in the US, and it fuels far right narratives to repeat this inaccurate statement. You can say closures, you can say restrictions, or better, you can say public health measures which saved many lives.

Dr. Lucky Tran@luckytran.com · 6d ago

People still complain about “lockdowns” but we had none in the US. We had stay-at-home orders, where although businesses were closed, you could still go outside whenever you wanted. Other countries had far stricter rules, and yet have been much more accepting of them as they saved many more lives.

Wrote this in November. Sadly, feels as relevant as ever The bodies we probably most obsess about — other than our own — are those we see on screen. It’s hard not to respond this way. A fundamental nature of TV and film is that it asks, no demands, that you look.

The state of Hollywood bodies

Celebrities are human beings. But they are also selling us something. Right now, that's thinness.

buttondown.com

i just wish the technology were making the world and the art it craves a little scruffier, a little weirder, and maybe a little more involving of the audience.

what the many, many “imperfections” of the vfx of the analog age forced me to do as a viewer was to engage my own creativity in completing in my mind what was imperfect on the screen.

but in the intensity of that photorealism, something has been lost.

i think cgi is a great tool but i don’t think how it has been used in mainstream cinema is particularly great. by and large it is used to make the impossible photorealistic.