Not sure if I can make it to opening reception but this is an exhibition I'm definitely attending once I'm Back... www.howlarts.org/event/the-dr...

$22 million opening box office weekend for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER doesn't indicate the Zeitgeist juicer many were expecting/rooting for.

"As Art Cashin once observed over dinner – 'If there was a report tomorrow that heroin addiction was skyrocketing among teens, the first question you’d hear on Wall Street is ‘Who makes the needles?’” --from John Hussman's most recent market letter www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc25...

THE MORNING SHOW (Apple TV) persists in acting as if going before the cameras and reading off a TelePrompter and bantering in between requires gladiatorial stamina and steely nerves, absurdly embodied by America's Sweetheart, Jennifer Aniston, and America's Other Sweetheart, Reese Witherspoon.

I mistakenly left off the exclamation mark for THE BRIDE! And we all know that an exclamation mark in a movie title is a guarantee of excitement.

The trailer for Maggie Gyllenhaal's volts and bolts THE BRIDE makes for quite a goulash.

Whatever one thinks of the storylines, guest stars, etc., one undeniable plus of the new season of ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING (Hulu) is that Selena Gomez is looking fabulous, beaming with presence, and glamorously costumed.

None of these New York-centric productions--HIGHEST 2 LOWEST, CAUGHT STEALING, BLACK RABBIT--ring authentic, despite thick application of grit and grime, dim indoor lighting, & sirens in the background. They're too indebted to other movies--MEAN STREETS, AFTER HOURS--and too male-driven to register.

I admit being prejudiced against movies about degenerate gamblers in a constant state of agitation who borrow/steal from everyone around them while dodging loansharks looking to collect or, failing that, lop off a finger, toe. Gambling movies nearly always have more adrenaline than true vitality...

Regrettably, I think I've just about had my fill of Walton Goggins. (Those Walmart ads.)

Will there be a half-time show at Charlie Kirk's funeral?

The handheld camera work in the original SPINAL TAP gave me motion sickness and the pace dragged, so I don't look back on it with the warm, fuzzy nostalgia so many do. The reunion sequel looks haggard and poky, the matching blonde hag-witch wigs plucked straight from the dryer.

A mere sixty years after Virna Lisi did the same shaving cream bit on the cover of Esquire. If only George Lois were around to cry foul.

You can write this only if, by virtue of your income, identity, or both, you are utterly removed from the consequences of politics. To pretend that the racist, misogynistic, anti-gay vileness that Kirk spent his life spreading is secondary to the fact that he spread it "the right way" is appalling.

Again

A bit late getting to it but this by Frances Wilson is the best zeroing-in I've read as to what makes that miniseries about the Mitfords, OUTRAGEOUS, so clunky and lackluster. "It is an achievement to make the Mitfords seem dull..."

Gerry Howard made the resurrection of this essay possible and we are all the better/wiser for it. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

YouTube keeps flogging clips from THE NAKED GUN that are purportedly hilarious and each one lands with a thud. The entire movie must be unendurable, or at least endurable only if suitably fortified with food, drink, magic fingers.

HIGHEST 2 LOWEST is a wealth-flaunting film with a lot of dumb sports-fan easter eggs. The big-butt rap video near the end was a multiple affront.

Not even the glaucoma of nostalgia should blind viewers and reviewers (especially reviewers) from recognizing how terrible Spike Lee's HIGHEST 2 LOWEST is, another valentine to New York grit and hustle that seems woefully out of sync. The film primarily functions as watch and jewelry porn.

As a quick-on-the-draw public intellectual, David Rieff puts his name to a lot of high-minded statements & petitions, but-- ...when the first two signatories are Christopher "Mad Dog" Rufo and Jordan Peterson, that's a tipoff that the whole thing's a crock. manhattan.institute/article/the-...

Malcolm Gladwell and Elizabeth Gilbert suggest that there is something inherently morally and intellectually corrosive about being a Best Selling Author Oracle Savant.

Movie genres I can no longer abide: >Boxing/bare-knuckled brawling bloodfests, esp w/ a redemption arc attached >Romcoms that attempt to subvert/reinvent the romcom >Hostage/ransom dramas (w/ temporary exception for new Spike Lee) >Pseudo-70s Getaway driver/robbery sprees >Period Westerns

I realize many veteran actors are game, up for it (whatever "it" might be), especially when the rest of the cast is equally prestige, but that doesn't excuse the mortifying use of Jennifer Saunders in Lena Dunham's TOO MUCH, and the idiotic, ageist palaver bwtn Felix and Jess afterwards--

Declaring CAUGHT STEALING the best Aronofsky since BLACK SWAN isn't the sterling endorsement that some reviewers think it is.

Wonderful night at Citi Field as my beloved Mets completed the sweep of the Phillies, and I got to meet Mr. Met! @mets.com #lgm @phillies.com

Saw a quote from Lena Dunham where she said her plan/hope for season two of TOO MUCH was to move past the "meet cute" into the complications and negotiations of marriage. What a mistake. Nobody wants to watch that. Maybe that's why Netflix hasn't yet pressed the renewal button.

The trailer for IS THIS THING ON? looks so mopey. And murkily under-lit, as so many movies are these days to save on light bulbs. Swampy interiors and mugly tattoos.

Walter Kirn Bot: It’s not a bruise—it’s a brand. The silent proof of a man who clutched the machinery of the Deep State & didn’t flinch. Some see a blotch; others see the scorch of shaking hands w/history. He wears it like a badge, a testament to the fire he’s willing to face.

Violence is never the answer (except when it is) but I fully sympathize with Ray in MR. INBETWEEN pushing that dude through a glass door when he repeated the word "kitschy" in his face.

So a few weeks later do we know if THE NAKED GUN "saved" mainstream movie comedy or not? I haven't been keeping up enough to know if it hit some magical mark or not.

I just made a donation to South Gaza: Tents, Food & Water. Please consider pitching in. chuffed.org/project/1132...

Carrie should have been happy having a stuffed animal sharing the restaurant booth with her. It beats having to listen to Charlotte's inanities.

Watched an episode and a half of PLATONIC before packing it in. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY conjoined with WILL AND GRACE (minus the gay aspect) and Seth Rogen in a dopey bucket hat doing his usual sputtery passive-aggression and eyeglass adjusting. Not as obnoxiously self-infatuated as THE STUDIO but...

And just like that AND JUST LIKE THAT has been put out of our misery.

My theory is that HBOMax executives previewed the season ending episode of AND JUST LIKE THAT and said, We have to kill this thing now before it can mutate. The toilet bowl scene is a metaphor for the entire revival project.

Donald Trump is the Long Covid of the American body politic.

Saw a car in the Wawa parking lot with a decal reading "I shit myself" over the Taco Bell logo and I just don't get what gives anymore.

Did they exchange Valentine’s Day cards too?

When I deactivated my Facebook account I thought that I might miss Paul Schrader's idiosyncratic, cranky-auteur posts, but if the reports are true that he's putting up gobs of AI glop featuring himself and the Michelin Man, I'll just leave the door closed.

If anyone on AND JUST LIKE THAT was the least bit culturally literate they'd ask Duncan, "Why are you doing a life of Margaret Thatcher, what's left to say after Charles Moore's definitive two volume biography?," then watch his pipe bob up and down.

Two strokes of brilliant guest-casting in last night’s THE GILDED AGE: Merritt Weaver as Bertha’s acerbic, not-buying-it sister, and the great Andrea Martin as a medium whose pipeline to the dear departed is a bit patchy.

Being an actual resident of New York City I don't give a fuck what people from Glen Cove think - the vast majority take the train in for Ranger games, get soused at Tracks, then go straight back - fine with me, so shut up

Given the shortage of affordable housing in New York, the spectacle of Carrie Bradshaw sashaying through her near empty Gramercy Park townhouse in high heels and begrudging a longtime friend the sustenance of a single yogurt, banana, and Mexican Coke is an AFFRONT. #MamdaniforMayor

My opinion on the Bob Vylan / Kneecap controversy is that the IDF just bombed a seafront café

The latest episode of THE GILDED AGE (Max) has fortified my resolve to support Mamdani for Mayor.

I love this graphic design more than life itself.

Prof Epps (law prof, among his other accomplishments) knows what he is talking about.