Just another silly Canadian.
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Sargent's right, of course, but the chance of news orgs doing this is zero. They didn't learn under Joe McCarthy, and they haven't learned it even slightly in the last decade and more. And one thing news orgs have demonstrated over the years is how adamantly and stridently they REFUSE to learn.
Alas, this should surprise no one. Netanyahu is no different than his Russian or American counterparts in this regard-- or, in fact, almost any regard. That he hasn't been ousted is as much a grotesque of Israeli parliamentarians as it is of Republicans to stand up to Cheetolini.
I very much doubt Conan would do it, even if in so many ways it would be perfect for him. But if he did, I can imagine him becoming the best Taskmaster ever. His ruthless logic would make Greg seem like a softie. But my guess is he wouldn't be interested.
Because I'm sure scientists will be jumping for joy at moving to... Alabama.
Ah, where's Connery when we need him...
"Grandma, is that you?!?!?"
I remember well the passing of the novelist Graham Greene back in 1991; now come the passing of the actor Graham Greene. A real shame to lose Mr. Greene so young (he was only 73). A fine actor and always a pleasure to see in anything. RIP. deadline.com/2025/09/grah...
It'll never happen, but imagine Conan O'Brien on Greg Davies' TASKMASTER. That would explode the show in so many ways, not least of which being that Conan would almost certainly be the first contestant whose belligerent, improvised comic logic could cow Greg at will. Greg wouldn't stand a chance.
This comes back up in my YT feed occasionally, and, beyond it being lovely, there's something very special about Catherine O'Hara, ever professional and ever the ironist, actually getting emotional. And you have to love how relieved she is when she can laugh again. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOWn...
Or, something a little more FARGO.
I still use it constantly. Maybe we have to start doing it like the Sesame Street version of "one of these things doesn't belong here..."
Oh, nothing, just Texas being Texas. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Imagine being a teacher and receiving something like this from a teenager. Then remember that it's coming from an 80 year-old man... who inexplicably has been given control of the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
As I've said far too many times, this is all going to get so, so, so much worse. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg.
If nothing else, it's at least nice to know that the Potter kids turned out right. Certainly far more so than their creator. deadline.com/2025/08/chri...
If you reckon this sounds unnecessarily despairing, ask yourself one question: at this point, how does America even begin to repair itself? That's probably the hardest question of all. Hell, America can't even remotely agree on guns killing children. That's just what America is and chose to be.
A friend recently asked me: "Do you hold any hope for America?" I answered, "no." I could've dissertated on America and what it has CHOSEN to do itself. But the response: "There's just no hope is there..." Me: "No."
At this point, "doing an executive order" (f*ck his capitals) is no different than him doing a morning poo. It's just what he does and somehow imagines must affect other people. But wait.. Maybe we were wrong. Not kakistocracy, not plutocracy, not autocracy: welcome to coprocracy: rule by shit.
Prof. Ewen also taught a poetry class (where I first met him, circa 1992) and one of the 30-odd possible final exam questions (of which we were to choose four) was: "Write the horse's response to Frost [in "Stopping By Woods...]. (No neigh.)" Gawd, I miss that wonderful man...
Prof. Ewen was also a unapologetic smoker who not only used to smoke in his office, long after the bans, but had ashtrays all over his office. This is apocryphal, but apparently someone once dared to call the Fire Dept on him and Prof. Ewen supposedly hectored the marshal until he just gave up.
I'm likely taking a milder and more anodyne definition of "eccentrics," but the professors I adored most would've been called eccentric in one form or another. I still remember the wonderful D.R. Ewen cackling, after I asked him to supe my BA thesis, "But Jeremy, you don't need supervising!"
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB really is just... nothing. A stacked cast, yes, but they're all coasting. The mystery is rubbish and the dialogue is as pedestrian as it gets. There's no discernible improvement upon any bog-standard, cliché-driven ITV cozy-pastoral murder-fare. It's literally nothing.
Huge hat-tip to the excellent @matteason.me for cluing me to this. Marvellous.
Oh, you are awesome, man. Well bloody done! Thanks!
So, the greasy shartwits over at the @nytimes.com have now put both the Mini and Letter Boxed behind a paywall, to which I can only say: fuck off, then. Would I every pay for NYT Games? Maybe when the NYT admits it stole Connections from ONLY CONNECT and forks over some cash there. Bastards.
Slight twist on the below in Ep. 3 with the invocation of WIlfred Owen, but also a bit obvious as Owen has been the poet of the truth of war for more than a century now. Do most Americans not typically read Owen in elementary or high school? Or is that just more typical elsewhere?
Years ago, I was given a Jack Carr book for a birthday present. It was such unreadable paramilitary tough-guy wank that I tossed it in a local book-bin immediately. Prime's THE TERMINAL LIST: DARK WOLF, also from Carr, is just more of the same rotten wank. It's erotica for wannabes in Aviators.
Haha... "tips." Like Greg Louganis would "tip" into the pool.
FFWD to tomorrow's press release of Gowdy's immediate firing "for cause."
Or just a Pooh Roll.
AUTHORS, ASSEMBLE!!!!!!
I think I know who started that rumour...
So, it's THE LADY VANISHES, then? www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qbf...
This is such an old refrain now, but it remains shockingly and appallingly true: the press absolutely refuses to recognize how thoroughly it has worked to normalize Cheetolini and to gloss over behaviours it otherwise would have found aberrant. And it's only getting worse.
Who knew bidets could talk?
Prime's UPLOAD ended well enough, given it seems to have been more "finished off" than ended, but it seriously underused Kevin Bigley, easily the show's biggest comedic asset. Someone needs to give him a series of his own. UPLOAD did him dirty in the end.
Congratulations, America, you've only got (at least) 3.5 more years of this wanton psychosis. And, no, we will never, ever let you forget: you did this to yourselves.
Cut to Charles: "Wait, now I have to wait for this old woman to die off, too?"
Oh geez, so why's Snoop trending n--- oh, for f*ck's sake.
At least in terms of task design, the Aussie and Kiwi versions of TASKMASTER just keep blowing the original British series right out of the water. The AU and NZ versions of tasks now are much more simple, inspired and elegant. The UK ones just get uglier, clunkier and more grasping.
And yet this won't slow AI developers one damned bit. They're chasing a very lucrative technological panacea and corporations want it last week, not next.
Aw, that's too bad. Great innings, though. Jerry Adler was always a welcome presence in anything. deadline.com/2025/08/jerr...
@theweeklyplanet.bsky.social Your favourite Crook Bloke returns... / welcome to the Phantom zone... www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN3d...
Realized almost immediately that the 2-word solution to today's Letter Boxed is QUADRATIC COWBOY and now I can't stop thinking about what the hell that would look like.
But, fundamentally, everything about FINAL feels too much-- WAY too much-- including the big action set-pieces. It can't stop upping the complications, to the point all suspension-of-disbelief goes right out the window and it just becomes a joyless slog that's far more exhausting than exciting.
All of the problems I had with DEAD RECKONING, I had far moreso with FINAL RECKONING, with credulity utterly demolished repeatedly. FINAL often feels like it wants to be wordless, with just visuals and score, considering the wretched, overwrought dialogue does the film no favours whatsoever.
One of the central problems with an argument like this which admits that "Twitter is a cesspool" is that, logically speaking, it means choosing to continue living in a cesspool, with all of its fetidness, disease and toxicity. It's like stubbornly choosing to turn yourself into a Troma character.
The enshitification of American academia is predictably moving from a canter to a full gallop.
Call it Peter Pan Journalism: if you will it into existence long enough, it will happen. Lord knows, we keep seeing it happen time and time again.
Great, just what American schoolchildren need: even more psychos with firearms. www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...
That whole thing reads like it was written by Redstone's PR team ias if it were a script for A&E's BIOGRAPHY. Read it again and imagine Peter Graves' voice narrating: every beat of it fits the shtick.
It never ceases to amaze how the press always reports stuff like this as if it's normal. Imagine how the press would have reported the same story if Biden or Obama, or even Reagan or either of the Bushes. But current press scrubs and scrubs harder than Lady Macbeth. deadline.com/2025/08/trum...
Makes sense, though I heard or read the observation ages ago... maybe 25 or 30 years ago, even.
I wish I could remember who first said it, but it remains one of the most astute and evergreen political observations I've ever heard: the press treats conservatives like men and liberals like women. Think of all that entails, esp. in terms of credulousness, scrutiny and phrasing, and it's spot on.
But of course... As inevitable as the fucking tides. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
"A no-brainer." And we wonder why principles and institutions collapse like kneecapped winos. This Vichyism isn't going anywhere anytime soon. If anything, it's only going to get much, much worse. deadline.com/2025/08/shar...
I don't need to get to know some; I am one. Very much so. Have been since childhood. But it's also that I love Skyler Gisondo getting to be what used to be called a "chick magnet." If you've ever seen his adorable and perfect performance in SANTA CLARITA DIET, it's like "aw, hell yeah."
Jeezuz. You deserve so much better.
In retrospect, the most fantastical (but also oddly heartening) element of Gunn's SUPERMAN is that all of the women are fawning over reedy, normal Skyler Gisondo and not David Corenswet. As if...
Ah, but to quote Mel Brooks:
The one truly oddball recommendation is a film I don't want to slag, though: DEAD OF WINTER, the little-seen thriller from 1987 with Mary Steenburgen, Roddy McDowall and Jan Rubeš. Of all the films for Google to pull, how it came up with that one I will never know.
If you want a laugh, type "best movies of all time" into Google and have a look at the surely AI-generated "top picks." They're nothing less than INSANE. Some I got: WIND; GUNS UP; TRAPPED; SCARY MOVIE; DEEP BLUE SEA; RING OF FIRE; RED EYE; THE VILLAGE; HOCKEY NIGHT; and K-PAX. Bonkers. (1/2)
What a dreadful idea.
"How Very Soviet" Vol. CDIX
The only thing missing from this is a song by Sarah McLachlan.
I guess now is the one time it's right to kneel before Zod...
Oh, damn, what a shame. Adored Terence Stamp. If you haven't give THE LIMEY a go: few films of his ever game quite so much to do. And, damn it, George Lucas: you had Terence Stamp in the STAR WARS universe and you f*cking wasted him... www.bbc.com/news/article...
More importantly, nothing in SUPERMAN prompted me to think I'd want to watch it again for one reason or another. It ultimately feels like I dutifully did my homework and it was... fine. Nothing more, nothing less.
So, everything I worried about after the trailers proved true. It's over-busy, over-hurried, too-twee and too-indulgent, with a ton of bleh to ugly CG and supposedly emotional moments just felt pat, weightless and unearned. It's more accomplished than THE FLASH, but with (mostly) the same issues.
Well, watching SUPERMAN, now I can see why Gunn esteemed THE FLASH.
Cut to Will: "A (Joe) Penny for your thoughts????"
That rare thing: a worthwhile Tiktok.
[cut to news reports of sudden revelations about how he actually likes to be restrained]
Oh, you mean his dank, infested, rotten mindset? www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Wait, what? A new run of Mitchell & Webb? In September? How the hell did this manage to fly so far under the radar?!? www.youtube.com/watch?v=GacZ...
Because of course they are. How very Soviet.
Should also be said that the finale is a clusterf*ck of clichés and desperately, pathetically, groveling for a second series. I doubt people will care: they'll forget it by morning. In better hands, BUTTERFLY could've been a cracking 2-hr movie. But streamers do love their flabby storytelling...
The writing for Prime's new show BUTTERFLY definitely needed a LOT more work. Even at 6 episodes, it's badly drawn out with serious plot and dialogue problems, esp. in terms of its leads. The bland direction hardly gets the best out of Korea or its action sequences. It's all just kind of... okay.
Well, for once, it's not as bad as it could've been. At least each has some sort of case to be made for the honour. But it sure as hell isn't en event I'll watch when/if it's televised. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
If you don't understand below: it was a then-13-y/o kid in his first screen performance* in episode-long oners-- and not only nailing every single second, but channeling lightning. * Added note that the famous 3rd episode, his near-two-hander for the whole thing, was the first one filmed.
The Emmys are usually just a churn of statuettes between typical nominees-- but this year we're almost certainly going to see the youngest Emmy winner in its history: now-15-y/o Owen Cooper for ADOLESCENCE. Even some of his fellow nominees seem to accept he's going to win: he was just THAT good.
Well, if Kat Graham's institution would go Vichy, invading the Smithsonian was inevitable.
I suppose the best thing about America as it is now is that parodists can no longer go too far. No exaggeration or caricature would be beyond the pale now.
It has been free on Tubi (at least in Canada) for years & years now. I still remember, though, the to-do when they brought in Jon Pointing to replace Joel Fry and he was often slagged for merely being "pretty." Unfair then, downright stupid now.
Damn, that cast... Of them all, I'm most happy to see Dianne Wiest in the mix: we never seen her as often as we should. / and imagine what a PARENTHOOD sequel would look like now... www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMHP...
Yet, funny how all of that was so gradually smudged away over time. Can't for the life of me think of any major institutions which readily abetted in that process. Weird how that happens, isn't it?
Well, maybe a few calls to some familiar voices, but, very little compared to what real journalism would require. Hence the lazier, cheaper and faster elements I noted.
Because it's easier (c.f., lazier), faster and cheaper to constantly write about politics and political issues primarily in terms of gamesmanship and theatre. Or, in their preferred terms, "strategy" and "optics." It requires much less work, time, detail and editorial supervision.
Been hearing things like this, or variations of it, since 2017. Hell, then, it would have been much easier and the evangelical wing would likely have backed Pence. And, for the party's control over itself, it would have been the smart decision. And yet, it never happened-- and won't happen now.
In theory, this could be a good thing-- but there's next to no chance it actually will be. I suspect this was also one of the unspecified elements of the insane 60 MINUTES settlement. But this is all just so Vichy. And we're only going to see more and more and more of it.
Remember who you're talking about... it's definitely ED-209.
Ugh, the "NORBIT cost Eddie Murphy an Oscar" meme is back. No. No, no, no. Once Alan Arkin was his main competition (with Forest Whitaker nominated in the wrong category), Murphy didn't stand a chance. It's easy to forget now how deeply and widely loved Alan Arkin was. Murphy... not so much.
My favourite doctor and companion
Hell of a cast there, jeezus. Bill Gannon with Father Brown and the naked horse mutilator who eventually became the head of MI-5....
G-d, Netanyahu is just an absolute psychopath. This is the genocide version of OJ's "If I Did It" lunacy.
Tried watching Ridley Scott's NAPOLEON (the theatrical edition) and had to tap out early as Nappy's little bitchboy incel routine became intolerable. No amount of cinematic grandeur would have made that worth sitting through.
Every single time you imagine the NYT couldn't get much worse, the bloody thing manages to outdo itself. That the NYT would even *consider* a piece like this is beyond woeful.
... and let's not forget that the NYT published Jayson Blair and eventually had to autopsy the affair, with the resulting autopsy soft-soaping pretty much everything the NYT did to enable that. (And, well, Miller...) Rather had to quit for much less. The NYT... maybe with an eventual "oopsy."
I'd put my chips on the Crimson, in terms of accuracy. I'd put my chips on the NYT for what we'll all be stuck with as the narrative going forward. How many times has the latter been the case already (Judith Miller, but her emails, justice reform, get to know your local wanna-Nazi)? On & on & on.
Perhaps the most shocking thing is that Acosta just readily did more to discredit himself as a journalist than Cheetolini and his minions could ever have done. Can we please-- please, PLEASE-- have some journalists who don't self-immolate with their cravenness and/or willful blinkeredness?