Movie about a master assassin caught between the warring crime families whose star-crossed offspring sired him, one from Philly and one from Boston: JAWN WICKED.

I must, before I link to this, offer a brief apology It mods Gilbert and Sullivan to suit paleontology And in discussing variance of mighty reptiles long extinct It's gonna lodge itself into your brain persistently, I think www.youtube.com/shorts/ctsGN...

My wonderful wife got me a gift card to buy something from the Criterion Collection for Christmas, in case you were wondering what decision paralysis looks like.

Hot dang, they’ve got Ida Lupino’s THE HITCH-HIKER on here — been wanting to check that out.

There are some artists whose work just feels like it's giving your eyes and your brain a hug. @maxsarin.bsky.social is one; @colleencoover.bsky.social is definitely another.

I dunno, if no one’s interested in publishing what I write, I have a pretty long list of likely reasons why (starting with “I guess I need to write better?”) before I even get close to “it’s because I’m a straight white dude.” I mean, Dan Brown’s still getting published, so…

A category all its own in the Darwin Awards.

Gotta admit that my enjoyment of the final season of STRANGER THINGS is somewhat compromised by all the "kid" characters visibly having 401(k)s now.

I got vol. 3 of @hobtown.bsky.social’s HOBTOWN MYSTERY STORIES for Christmas, and … it’s kind of a masterpiece? Has an incredible formalist trick to it that I dare not spoil — worth experiencing blind for yourself — but which works phenomenally well.

GHOST OF ATROCITIES PRESENT: what the hell man where r u GHOST OF ATROCITIES PAST: I know I know sorry PRESENT: ive been here at cecot for like three hours, u were supposed 2 be done by midnight PAST: im trying its just PRESENT: just what PAST: he keeps saying "MORE"

And Tiny Tim, who did not-- Oh. Oh, Tiny JIM, you said. I, uh I don't I ... I have some real bad news about Tiny Jim

“They said three spirits, three spirits, big beautiful spirits, they’re just not enough for you, sir. Six spirits, nine spirits, twelve spirits, I got spirits like you wouldn’t believe, lining up, the most spirits they ever sent for anybody, they said.”

Somehow watching the NORAD Santa Tracker has become a Christmas Eve tradition in our house.

This isn’t a Christmas song, but maybe it ought to be. Peace on Earth, y’all. youtu.be/wFrqclcm8pU?...

I love IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, but in recent years I’ve really come around on MIRACLE ON 34th STREET as well. A cynical, gimlet-eyed movie in which nearly every character acts out of narrow self-interest … and yet all those acts get warped around the gravitational pull of Kris Kringle into goodness.

Thinking about one of my two favorite holiday movies, made by a pair of conservative Republicans, about how immigrants are good, we all deserve decent housing, endless greed is evil, community organizing saves the day, and all we need to aspire to is having enough, and having people we love.

How much do historians know about Homer’s blindness? A lot of the imagery in the Iliad is strikingly, specifically visual, which makes me wonder whether he was born blind or spent some part of his life sighted.

I’ve found when writing that I don’t know what I’m doing wrong until I’ve actually done it. Taking the time to think about what’s wrong and how to fix it has led me to so many better versions.

… wait, is FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’s just Baby’s First Pizzagate?

*putting on sunglasses and a black fedora to go Christmas shopping* I’m on a mission from Claus

Excellent reporting here. They not only report assertions, but independently confirm the data that supports them AND explain the methods by which they gathered and examined that data. All in a relatively short span of time.

The Cybertruck of boats

To hear my agent tell it, the publishing industry is just one long uninterrupted series of holidays before which no work can possibly be done, nor decisions made.

I feel like we don’t talk enough about how Frank Oz is one of our funniest living human beings. Every time I see this, I laugh just as hard as the first time I saw it.

I mean, I didn’t before, but if he keeps this up, I might have to.

The best part is, when it induces the seizure, you're already lying down comfortably!

In which @mtgillikin.bsky.social If-Books-Could-Kills the nonfiction book written by UVA's new (temporary?) President.

Every Rachel Maddow history podcast is like 75% pointlessly repeating what you’ve just heard, and 25% magnificent, diamond-edged-scalpel subtweeting.

Skill issue? Lemme tell you, pal, my whole LIFE is a skill issue

God give me the confidence of the folks rolling around in a van emblazoned with their pictures, contact info, and the name of their apparently Mexican band, LOS ILEGALES. (And keep them safe and happily playing music.)

Wow, I didn't know ANY of these folks posted regularly about movies of varying ridiculousness and stuff happening in Charlottesville!

One reason my new job's great: They let me use the word "fleshbags" when writing social media posts. (Article by the ever-intrepid Sean Tubbs.)

Excited for the debut of my upcoming televised debate, "Is A Once-Proud Major News Network Now Run by Flailing Incompetents?" I feel confident my framing of the issue in that title is sufficiently impartial. The debate is between the ghosts of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.

My children have reached the point in the evening where tranquilizer darts are the only possible solution.

You probably wouldn’t scrupulously clean your entire kitchen in the morning, then make a giant mess of it while making homemade pizza that very night, but that’s just because you’re not a genius like I am.

We talked about this. It's "sic semper tyrannis," y'all, not "seek simpering dean of business."

The number one movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go. A crooked judge. Corrupt deals to bulldoze neighborhoods and destroy public goods for private profit. Institutional bias against a segregated minority group. Hollywood censorship. Yeah, sounds about right.

Nothing says "legitimate process" like "we announced the new head of this entire organization at 3:30 p.m. on the Friday before Christmas after literally every stakeholder overwhelmingly told us not to."

Whoever is in the Republican party today, and was especially in the Republican Party, say, 30 years ago, needs to reckon hard with what the future of the party looks like.

Solemnly tying a red headband on, and smearing camouflage paint on my face, before I get out the Swiffer to start wet-mopping the kitchen floor

I was not aware I needed crime-solving livestock in my life, but apparently I was wrong?

One thing I learned from two decades at The Motley Fool: When you merge your underperforming stock with another random company in a completely unrelated line of business, everything is going great, your company is well-run and definitely worth investing in, and no one should bother looking further.

Question for anyone interested: Who's your favorite _underrated_ filmmaker, living or dead? An unusual suspect who turns in quietly extraordinary work on the regular. I've never seen a bad Gina Prince-Bythewood film. BEYOND THE LIGHTS, THE OLD GUARD, THE WOMAN KING, all stellar.

Thanks to @gruber.foo, I have now seen David Lynch's wonderfully Lynchian letter to projectionists for MULHOLLAND DRIVE, and I think you deserve it in your life, too. www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...

THE SMALL PEOPLE IN BIG CHAIRS CONTINUE

That’s me in the corner That’s me in the spot Light Losing my religion

I mean, it'd get me to watch.

When your Chief of Staff lets you use the power of your office to take revenge against your personal enemies, but only for 90 days! You know, as a little treat. No more retribution after that. You get to have dessert first, but then, then!, you make sure to eat all your vegetables.