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TV: The Paper E1 and 2

Pilot bad, second episode better.

TV: Chad Powers Pilot

A few okay bits and some good casting torpedoed by one really bad choice -- an unwatchable manic pixie gay friend. 

Fat Generals

I'm fine with Hegseth promoting fitness but does it apply to the commander in chief? 

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Script: The Apartment

Speaking of masterpieces, this is one. Irony upon irony upon irony. And the entire second half of the film takes place in - you guessed it - The Apartment.

But what makes it masterful is how the drama captures how life and love works. 

With One Battle, yes there is a theme nicely articulated in this review. But let's be fair, this is PTA telling the audience something whereas Wilder is revealing the audience something. There's a difference.

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Film: One Battle After Another

A PTA action film lauded by critics and letterboxd viewers as a masterpiece? A movie night out with the boys where PTA and Leo and Chase Infiniti show up to the theater to introduce the film? This should be just about as good as it gets for me at this point in life. And it was a great evening and an enjoyable film.

But a masterpiece? That is the question isn't it? Or, that's the question we are being forced to contemplate in THE DISCOURSE. I would argue too soon to tell and I'll need to watch it at least 1-2 more times to process. But...here are some thoughts-

1) My personal favorite parts of the film are the emotional dad out of place in this new world stuff both from Sean Penn and Leo. But is this masterful? I feel like every B and C level dad action film contains similar jokes and social commentary. Is it elevated here because of the intensity of Leo and Penn's performances? I suppose. Does it have more prestige power? For sure. Is it particularly innovative or insightful? Not really. But I still really like it.

2) The camera work and scene work is alive and playful and the film itself propulsive. It didn't drag. I was pulled along the entire time. For that, the film should be lauded. I have no hesitation about wanting to go back to watch the movie a second time in the theater. Maybe that's an indication of a masterful work...probably the best indication, actually. 

3) The plot and social commentary. Here's where I differ most from the consensus. While I see how people feel argue the film is very "of the moment," I think the movie has nothing to do with how it feels to be alive right here and right now. And perhaps this is my biggest gripe with the film. For all the contemporary themes and superficial relevance, this feels like a hallucination of a world that doesn't even remotely exist. In other words, I don't buy it. A white power secret organization? A black nunnery? A weather underground type of terrorist network? As compared to say, Eddington, these storytelling elements feel caught between a Roger Moore James Bond film and There Will Be Blood.

4) The Comedy. Yes, the theater laughed. People keep saying the film is funny. I laughed at moments. But let me be honest here - the laughs felt a bit like being at a party where other folks are high and finding something HILARIOUS and you're laughing, but not from deep within the soul. The bits don't seem to me funny on the page. They aren't written jokes, but rather played jokes. They depend on the performances so much. On some level, credit must be given to PTA to get that humor out of the serious actors but again...we come back to the masterpiece question. A masterpiece would have better writing. There, I said it.

5) The Car Chases. Some of the best and most innovative I've ever seen and one of the main reasons I would like to watch the film again.

Assassination

I do not support assassination, except in the case of AI actresses. 

Illiteracy is a Policy Choice

And Californians support it and vote for it.  Despicable. This is the legacy of Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Eric Garcetti, Karen Bass, and all the other CA politicians of their generation. 

Violence

Right wing vs left wing violence right now, today strike me as differing in character. My impression of shootings and attacks coming from the "right wing" are committed largely by lunatics with no coherent worldview, and are externally coded as "right wing" by the media and the Left. To give an example, the guy who shot up an Asian massage parlor. He was motivated by sexual rage and racism, which in and of themselves are not what I'd call political motivations. The guy who attacked Nancy Pelosi's husband seemed to me primarily delusional and conspiratorial. You can argue he had "political" motivations, but them seem to me dwarfed by his madness.

But left wing violence strikes me as primarily and explicitly political. Meaning there there are coherent political goals being organized through the violence. And these political goals actually have different kinds of support throughout what we would call The Left. Many lefties overly support Luigism, they wish cast "taking out Trump," and support attacking ICE. Most sane lefties will not overtly support certain tactics - like shooting up tv stations and ICE facilities, but they basically support the broader idea of opposing fascism by any means necessary. They stop short of supporting the violence against Kirk, but many of them feel he "brought it upon himself."

Now consider how the Right responds or would respond to the Asian massage parlor shooting or the Paul Pelosi attack. No where on the Right will have anyone saying anything about how the Asian masseuses "brought it upon themselves" or that the Paul Pelosi attacker "had a point." Not even close. In fact, the right sees these people for what they are: nuts. The Left sees their assassins/attackers as "going overboard" but "not totally wrong."

So yeah, there is a difference in character here and one needs to be very blind not to see it.

Liberal World Order

Another day, another leftist political murder. At this rate, it's about once a week now. 

Apparently, the guy attempted to shoot up an ICE facility, mistakenly killed two illegal immigrants and then shot himself. I cannot imagine a better metaphor for what leftism looks like to most Americans these days. Incompetence, unintended consequences, and suicide. And you wonder why we have Trump. 

There Is A Solution 

To all the madness of the world: playing baseball in the early evening. 

Paul Kingsnorth

Is worth listening to. 

So many nuggets of wisdom...one of which is that our "culture" is already dead and we shouldn't be pretending it isn't anymore. 

Assassination

Some guy was just convicted of an attempted assassination of President Trump yet somehow we treat Jimmy Kimmel being off the air for 3 days as bigger news...

Liberals

Do any liberals find it concerning that left wingers are shooting up TV stations, killing conservative activists, targeting Republican and Democrat officials, and tried two times to kill Trump?

Do they intend to do anything about it or just push the both sides narrative?

Percentages

What percentage of those outraged by the Kimmel suspension actually watch the show? My guess: 15%. Which tells you what product they are most interested in: the outrage experience.

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TV: Slow Horses S2 E1 

This is a good show. 

Palestine

All these countries are now recognizing Palestine as a state. Notable exceptions being the people it actually impacts - both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Only a small detail. 

Logging

Film: Highest 2 Lowest

Turned off after 25 minute, I couldn't bear to see Spike, Denzel, or Kurosawa be treated this way. I need to forgot this ever happened. 

TV Show: The Studio E1 and 2

This strikes me as a show for people who like the Nicole Kidman ad before AMC films.

There are more cameos in 2 episodes of this than all of Entourage. How much did they spend on this thing?

This show portrays Hollywood as hell. But...not yet clear to me whether the show is aware of it or not.

Marty Scorcese cries at the end of the episode 2. It should be know this is the man who stayed up all night plotting the murder of a studio executive who wanted to change the ending of Taxi Driver only talked out of it by some more level headed filmmakers (these are rumors). I doubt he would cry.

TV Show: Seinfeld S9

Generally considered a "bad" season considering the finale. Clearly running on fumes with respect to ideas and overacting and self-awareness plague the main cast and yet...many of these episodes are absolute bangers. Reverse Peephole and The Cartoon are great little episodes. 

Tik Tok

"Trump also said this week that the United States government would receive a “tremendous fee” for putting the deal together."

Seems to me our country is becoming more like a corporation. Kimmel went afoul of HR. We take a cut of Intel and Tik Tok to pass along to our shareholders (citizens).

Not a good trend. 

Draw The Line

Libs now saying "we draw the line" at government censorship. Were they vocal about Biden admin demanding Facebook take down information about vaccine side effects? Were they equally upset about Obama weighing in on Roseanne Barr's cancellation? Or the use of progressives use "soft power" within institutions to censor? 

Do I like what Trump admin did? No. Do I think what Kimmel said was that bad? Not really. But let's face reality here - we're in a culture war that the liberals dialed up to 11. Conservatives are gonna punch back using the leverage they can where they can. They found something here. Is this a chilling moment about free speech? I don't see it as some sort of different boundary that's been crossed. Does anyone? Really? Yes, I want a detente. But what does that mean for Kimmel in reality? Back on the air for 2-3 more years? Then a podcast. Is our body politic much different either way? No.

A Compromise

Kimmel brings on Roseanne as his co-host.

Part of Me Wonders...

If ABC jumped the gun on Kimmel to anger him and get him to quit in protest so they could cancel the show and pin the blame on Trump. 

The Leave Us Alone Crowd

From the left wing perspective, how should the "leave us alone" crowd fight back against left-wing totalitarianism / wokeness / cancel culture, etc. I'd like to know. Because it seems like every effort has been deemed racist or fascist. 

Free Speech

Everyone seems to be worried about free speech with the Kimmel situation. But let me tell an example and see what you think...

I sometimes read a Reddit thread called r/Burbank for local information. A few weeks ago, an anti-ICE thread began popping up in the Burbank thread because of video of raid ICE supposedly did on a local business here in Burbank. This thread had 100s of entries all of which were strongly against ICE and some of which were threatening harm against ICE. 

The only problem - Burbank PD and the local newspaper already reported the video was NOT of ICE, but rather LA Sheriff's doing some type of drug bust. 

So I posted the article to the ICE thread and said this was violating the terms of the discussion board on two levels: spreading misinformation and promoting violence (against ICE).

What was the moderators response?

They booted me off the anti-ICE thread because of a different rule: no voices allowed in support of ICE.

Consider this. I wasn't even commenting on ICE, nor did I want anything to do with the ICE thread. It only came to me because I was on the r/Burbank thread. So I wanted the correct information to be out there. But instead, they opted to violate their own stated rules: pushing disinformation and promoting violence. 

Now you tell me...is this the free speech we want? Because this is what free speech mostly feels like in left-coded spaces. 

Podcasts

This is one of the best episodes of anything I've listened to in a long time about a subject I wasn't curious about at all.

And man, how did Ezra Klein become one of the voices of "my" generation? He's insufferable. He makes Ben Shapiro seems like a good hang. Someone recently wrote Yglesias and Klein were LLM voice before LLMs and think they are onto something. Aggressively neutered men.

Logging

Script: Ladybird

Why does Greta Gerwig's perspective work for me, but Lena Dunham's does not?

For The Record

I've never seen the terms "demon" and "demonic" thrown around so much in the public discourse. For the record, no, I do not believe the Left are possessed by demons. And no, I don't like the direction of the discourse. But do I think the woke are a huge, major problem that fantasize about murdering their opponents and wishcast it into existence? Yes I do. Do I think exorcisms would help. No, I do not.

But if our options for "fitting into" somewhere in American society are reduced to hardcore Christianity and some version of Wokism, I feel that the Woke people are really, really, really not going to like the outcome. 

The Genocide Crowd

Find me someone who supports Israel's actions against Iran and Hezbollah but thinks the war in Gaza has gone too far. You can't. This is why I find the genocide argument hard to buy. It's inseparable from an Israel-shouldn't-exist argument. So what do I call what Israel is doing? War. An evil, ugly, war. This is what I understand war to be. And why it should be avoided, if possible. In any real war, both sides commit crimes by the standards of peacetime. This war started with a crime! My biggest critique of Israel is not having a faster path/strategy to victory against such an inferior opponent. And yes, the human toil is terrible and horrible. But I think inevitable so long as Hamas remains in power and Israel remains a country. So either, Israel can dismantle itself as Jewish state. Or, Hamas can surrender all weapons and political authority. I see the latter as more plausible. Until then...both sides have chosen their path. I'm not so sure it matters what the rest of us do. I suppose the powers that be can force both sides into a corner only to rehash this same play over in 5-10 more years. Is this what the "stop the genocide" crowd wants? Would kicking the can down the road work? 

So Weird

I just came across a youtube channel where a pretty girl watches old movies and comments on the movie while watching. Is this where we are? 

No Prominent Left-Wingers Calling For Violence

Yet knowing fascists are evil and there are groups like antifa whose entire purpose is to violently attack fascists, here is Kamala Harris calling Donald Trump a fascist.

Lord of the Flies

Yikes - what's happening in Nepal. 

Honestly, I'm surprised the kids in Western nations haven't attempted to seize the pension and retirement assets held by boomers yet. They're too distract by systemic racism and transphobia and other meaningless topics.

Logging

TV: Alien Earth thru E6

These futuristic lab facilities for housing alien monsters seem less secure than a Wuhan lab. 

Book: The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Getting more interesting around page 150. Some great insights into what you might call middled aged love and fears of being alone. 

Book: Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume

Times have a changed...a few examples...

In this book a 2 year old falls on his face and loses his teeth and no one seems to think it's much of a big deal, including the 2 year old.

The same kid has a birthday party and the parents just leave their other 2 year olds at the party and come back 1.5 hours later. 

A fourth grader does a 20 page report for class with two classmates about fixing the New York City transportation system. I can barely get college students to write a 7 page paper now about movie adaptations.

TV: Beavis and Butthead Pilot

My kids loved it, but I had to turn it off for content purposes. Did not want to explain masturbation.

Film: Puss and Boots The Last Wish

Good for teaching screenwriting, what can I say

Script: The Fugitive, early draft

In it, Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) turns out to be the "bad guy" who wanted revenge against Kimble because he let his wife die in a triage situation. Yeah, ridiculo. Interesting, however, what they knew about the story at this early stage and on some level how bad the script was...yet...it had many elements that remained in the final movie. A great study of how a bad script can be quite close to a great script. 

This Is A Good Conspiracy

Were TMZ staffers cheering Charlie Kirk's death or cheering because of a car chase at the exact same moment?

I Disagree

Mainstream media are reacting to the Kirk killing with the appropriate sobriety. But the Left side of the aisle are still willfully blind to what's happening here. They want to make this an issue of political violence on "both sides" is rising. That is wrong. Straight up. Or even if partially right, it obscures the issue. The issue is political violence on the left has become normalized, supported, and tolerated ever since 2016. The immediate left-wing reaction to Trump's election from the get-go became fantasizing for his murder. No one can deny this. I guarantee every single left winger around the entire country has been in a social situation where someone made a joke about killing Trump. Anyone who says something differently is misremembering or lying. The casual use of terms like "fascist" and "genocide" and "racist" to describe any political opponents is deliberately laying groundwork for violence to be committed against your political opponents. This is the problem. 

Political Murder

There's a chance right at this moment, with the glimpse into the abyss, to move back from it. 15% of the far left crazy liberals won't do it. I can only imagine the thoughts being expressed on Blusky and Reddit right now. But the so-called "rest of them," and the normies who were silent every time they heard their peers quietly make pro-Luigi or "if only the Trump shooter hadn't missed..." comments can indeed, if they want to, stop participating in the madness and put the loonies back into place and force their politicians to do the same.

This Is Actually Correct

A democrat calls boob jobs and filler "gender affirming care." 

Gender treatment and boob jobs DO fall into the same category - but it's called cosmetic surgery. It is not medical care. It's making someone look the way they want to look. 

Now personally, I find this to be a waste of money most of the time but if people want to do it, we live in a free country. And I think it can even be good for some people when used in moderation. The problem with the so-called "gender affirming care" is putting it into the category of medically necessary treatment. Boob jobs are not what we would call medically necessary treatment. The question is about whether medical insurance (government and private) should be paying for these things. I think the answer is quite obviously NO, especially if we care anything at all about the cost of medicine. 

Said Better Than Me

"If you are even 1% happy someone has been shot because you disagree with their opinions, you are the problem."

Right Winger

Charlie Kirk has died. 31 years old. I didn't listen to the guy much, but as I understand it, his schtick was to go to colleges and debate left wingers. Real horrible stuff. Now watch the left wingers push the blame onto him and Trump for "hate speech." Hate speech on the left is anything they disagree with. These people are fucked up and deserve nothing but misery.

Right Wing Violence vs. Left Wing Violence

When is the last act of violence committed by a right winger that received any tacit endorsement or celebration by the mainstream right wing? 

Whereas-

Trump attempted assassination

Luigi 

And now Charlie Kirk

All receive tacit, quiet cheerleading on the Left. Fuck them.

Ben and Jerry

Angry at parent company for not supporting their political attitudes. 

If you want freedom to express political opinion through business, you can't sell out. Sorry. No sympathy.

Sometimes

When I read quotes or selection on the internet, I sometimes don't know anymore whether they are earnest or mocking. 

Sounds Like The Next Thing Trump Should Solve

No one can find the tv ratings of the WNBA since Caitlin Clark injury.

A Conflict

Too many people in China accept being slaves, but too many people in America think they are kings. 

But Bandara Is Not in Control of Ukraine

This analogy falls completely apart when you realize a far right wing lunatic is not the power in Ukraine. 

If Ukraine was indeed governed by a group "worse" than Russia in no way would we support them.

'Mickey (James Gandolfini) May Do Time' Scene | Killing Them Softly

Gandolfini

No one breathes like Gandolfini.

Ned Beatty's NETWORK speech-by Paddy Chayefsky

Was He Right?

Maybe, maybe not. At least consider there is a still a thing as the USA whereas IBM, AT&T, Dupont, Exxon, etc, no longer hold quite as much sway...

Stones

These kids have more stones than Malcolm Gladwell, one of the premier public intellectuals in America. Think about that. 

Bad Idea

Surgeon commits insurance fraud to get his legs cut off. "

Hopper had suffered from body dysphoria since childhood and saw his feet as an “unwelcome extra” and a “persisting never-ending discomfort,” said defense attorney Andrew Langdon.

No words.  

Troll Level: Big Boss

Trump DOJ considers ban of transgenders from owning guns. 

You see the trap he's laid? Is he going to get Democrats to support gun rights? By their own logic, they should support the ban and hope to extend it, but in so supporting, tacitly acknowledging that trans people are mentally unwell. 

Big Boss level.

And You Wonder Why They Don't Thrive

Houthi children vow to drink American blood. 

I think our elementary school kids could take 'em, but most Americans (not me) would not boast or talk about this.

What We're Up Against