I ask everyone to read this, but especially my leftist friends who spoke up for Palestinians in the war on Gaza but remained silent about October 7 for fear of being seen as supporting Israel. Innocent victims are innocent victims wherever and whoever they are. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Kleber Mendonça Filho with Udo Kier at a screening of Filho's terrifically funny, ineffably saddening new film about Brazil's brutal 1970s, "The Secret Agent." From which we have much to learn about the ineptitude and chaotically destructive power of dictatorship.

This man is the Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/h...

RIP Robert Redford, who made rich and handsome matter.

"Oh sure, I'll sign that, looks right on to me." The sheer folly of this pledge, when the overwhelming majority of Israeli filmmakers and film institutions are leftwing or liberal and do not support the heinous Israeli government’s war on Gaza. variety.com/2025/film/gl...

I wonder if those people attacking and harassing Israeli tourists abroad would like to be attacked and held personally responsible for Trump while they're on vacation: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/w...

Imagine the night terrors of the admissions officer who decided that J.D. Vance — who cribbed from Mein Kampf to announce "the professors are the enemy" — would make a fine DEI Yalie. Recalls the Roald Dahl story about the birth of a baby to a young Austrian. "You have a fine baby boy, Mrs. Hitler."

This little fellow has been standing there all afternoon. I wonder if his E-Mom has tried sticking her head out of the window and hollering him home for dinner. It’s worked for centuries.

On the plus side, Colbert is a vocal, practising Catholic. So the pseudo-President just lost a chunk of constituency.

Art says it all:

In Major Cringe today, Bibi handed DT a certificate confirming he'd nominated him for a Nobel peace prize. I've heard tell that AI can rustle up a nice certificate in moments.

At least 27 dead and 20 girl campers missing in Texas floods. He who defenestrated the National Weather Service warning system is off golfing.

Massive, boisterous, peaceful crowd in Santa Monica today. Hardly noticed the dope who hired a plane with a banner saying HBD to the King. He must have meant Lear.

The long view of LA Protest: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Worried friends and consumers of national media, this tiny red circle is where the L.A. protests are. For this he sent in the National Guard.

Criterion Closet came to my neighb and I got to hang out. I swagged Army of Shadows, In the Mood for Love, and the one I wrote the essay for , the Russian 8-hour War and Peace, which I saw when it came out in Glasgow in 1970. #Criterion #CriterionCloset

This is how it’s done! FRIDAY: South Park, San Diego, neighbors weren’t having it. When ICE rolled up on an Italian restaurant in unmarked cars and started grabbing workers, the community hit the streets. (Sound up)

Musk " was spending time with... prominent figures in the emerging pronatalist movement, and urging his wealthy friends to have as many children as possible. He believed the world needed more intelligent people, according to people aware of the conversations." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/u...

This is how resistance is done. Please share widely. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClT8...

Retiring from USC Cinema School today, with a lovely champagne reception to make sure I leave. And now I must be off to stumble around in my jammies mumbling, “What is a weekend?” and watch videos of baby donkeys being cuddled by muscled farmers. Cheerio.

All Holocaust survival stories sound like fiction, but Unbroken, a documentary now playing on Netflix, is particularly astonishing. Seven siblings escaped the camps by sticking together resourcefully. Then came America, and the tale grows more amazing. Absolutely worth your time.

Is Pete Hegseth’s wife his support animal, his surrogate thinker, or his in-house AA meeting? “Pete Hegseth’s wife reportedly attended meetings with foreign defense officials”

Hats off to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic for modeling integrity, courage and canny business sense. Should you wish to show your appreciation, a digital subscription to the mag would help. Loved by neither the far left or far right, it's more independent-minded than centrist and very lively.

'Tis the Ides Of March. Beware of men in togas. And Teslas.

Excellent read on the importance of incremental resistance, which anyone can do: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Support & protect this woman

French minister Claude Malhury has it right. (And he has adorable Spock ears to boot.) thebulletin.org/2025/03/for-...

2/25/09: Claude Chabrol's last, Bellamy More: @cinebeth.bsky.social: www.kpbs.org/news/arts-cu... Ebert: www.rogerebert.com/reviews/insp... @ellat.bsky.social: www.npr.org/2010/10/28/1... [Bonus footage: Our user's guide to every CC feature: midcenturycinema.org/2018/03/18/n...

On the sloppy "work ethic" of the technocracy, and how it condemns the rest of us to constant scrambling for gigs. Yep, it's about Musk: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/o...

Not coming down from here, not nohow, till Those People are sent packing from our land. Meanwhile, you may serve my elevenses up here, Jeeves.

Not to be outdone by his arch-rival Musk, Steve Bannon gave a Nazi salute at CPAC. Upon which the Far Right leader of France canceled his appearance at CPAC. Keep squabbling among yourselves, fascist babies, don't let us get in your way.

Come on Brits, have a cuppa, gear up that stiff upper lip, get back in the EU, and fight. You have nothing to lose but Vance, Putin and other assorted Nazis.

One day all this will implode. Dictatorships don't last forever, and their warped, self-aggrandizing creators don't understand loyalty, friendship, or justice. Who's up for an Alt-Kennedy-Center for the Arts, and an Alt-every-institution the Evils gut? The repressed returns!

Appallingly, Trump sees devastated Gaza as "a lovely piece of land" that he wants to clear and develop as a resort. Here's what hundreds of rabbis had to say about that.

www.newsweek.com/american-bus... Please act accordingly!

All the more delightful given that Samohi is the horrible Stephen Miller's alma mater. Go kids! smdp.com/featured/sam...

John Carpenter accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award at the LAFCA Awards last night

With apologies to Seuss: He will not like this one little bit. "As President Trump... opened what could become a global trade war, a growing number of countries, including America’s closest allies, are forging their own economic partnerships without the United States." NYT

Tim Snyder on the logic of destruction" snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-...

Even in what ought to be his role as the nation's consoler, DT intones the script as if it's his turn in elementary school at Reading Aloud Time. And then uses the occasion to attack Biden. What a loser.

The overlooked movie "The Apprentice" is better than I expected. Great performances by Sebastian Stan as Trump and Jeremy Strong as the appalling Roy Cohn, the film roots DT's lifelong appetite for strongmen and pathological aversion to "weakness" in his bullying Dad, and loss of his brother Fred.

Robert Reich's recipes for resistance: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

As I recall, the last line in "The Social Network" has Rashida Jones saying to Zuckerberg, "You're not a bad guy, you're just trying to be one." With remarkable success, it would seem.

Looking around the "developed" world, one sees the extreme right almost everywhere. But the countries that have been able to contain them in pockets have one thing in common: WELFARE STATES.

Meanwhile, over in Gaetzland: "It was unclear who had applied the disgraced congressman’s makeup, but the combination of very light concealer around his eyes and dark foundation on the rest of his face made for an odd look, like a sort of reverse Hamburglar." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

By all means take today to feel depressed, I'm hearing it all over. Depressed is where these SOB's want you. So cheer up and gird up tomorrow and do one thing to help the pendulum swing back. History says it will.

A great exchange on how the Left ceded the working class, especially the regional working class, to the Trumpie nativists. I would emphasize, in particular, American terror of the words "class" and "class inequality." www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/o...

Nailed it

Dear Deity, please make Melissa McCarthy the host of next year's Golden Globes. And in that glam-satire outfit. Thanking you in anticipation.

Happy New Year, all! Or else.