Can’t even peacefully wait out a stomach virus exposure window without being interrupted by a nihilistic act of war anymore

Amtrak is getting as bad as rideshare apps with this shit

I keep writing "2025" instead of "2026" on all my dart boards

STRANGER THINGS was tv by fans for fans, and I mean that as negatively as possible.

Haven’t watched the Stranger Things finale yet, does Vecna win?

I really respect Bernie’s commitment to wearing the puffiest possible parka to every public event between November and March, he looks like a dad who just came in from scraping frost off a windshield in Vermont after a blizzard, and that to me is beautiful

Reading off a phone is A+ Poetry Representation

PATINKIN 💀

Nobody told the NYP about after-Xmas sales

My online new years' resolution is to share one (1) new essay I really like or appreciate every day. Today, let's do this piece by @judyberman.bsky.social, which is great, in part, because it thinks about its subject as a text that exists IN TIME! As we all do. HNY! time.com/7341726/stra...

Had dinner with old friends, danced to "New York Groove" (Hello version), lucked into the only classic loudmouth cab driver in the city with actually good opinions (and a great punk playlist), watched a video of Mayor Mamdani getting sworn in. It's 2026, the planet is on fire, but NY is maybe back?

"If you say anything negative about the mediocre entertainment that is making the most powerful entertainment company in the world richer, you are mean." OK, I can live with that.

"Let people enjoy things" isn't the populist cri de coeur some people seem to think it is. It's giving everyone who gets rich making entertainment products for mass consumption cover to cater to the lowest common denominator. At least make them put some effort into taking your hard-earned money!

The upcoming end of Stranger Things is probably the last television event I'll ever look forward to in my lifetime, and that's more a "me" thing than an "it" thing: in 2016 I was capable of having emotional investment in a television show and I no longer am, so this is a last remnant of a dead world

I now reflexively think of Stranger Things as protoslop, the antecedent to AI videos about nonexistent mall McDonaldlands. Judy lays out a timeline of how its relatively innocuous nostalgia bait devolved into content extrusion detached from anything that made anyone care — the slop funnel to a tee.

Stranger Things started out as a fun, clever, well-made little distraction from the hellscape of 2016. Then we all started living full-time in the Upside Down, a franchise-thirsty streamer stretched one season's worth of story into four, and—much like our brains—the show never recovered.

I have a longer piece on Stranger Things going up tomorrow I think but for now let me just say that this season, like last season, has been unwatchable

One show that keeps popping into my head when I think about Pluribus is The Prisoner. Anyone else?

There's so many experienced professionals out there suddenly being told how to do their jobs by god tier clowns.

Just detached my Pluribus review from a pedantic quote tweet from a person who understands neither that show nor the impermanent, infinitely resetting nature of comic-book plots, in part bc he doesn't even allow non-followers to respond to his posts, as an early Xmas present to myself.

My spoiler-free review of Pluribus finale: Somewhere, someplace…Chekhov is slow-clapping.

Pluribus is a brilliant show that forces you to watch it actively and interrogate your own responses. The finale, now streaming a couple days ahead of schedule, devastatingly illustrates how the capacity to love discriminately is both what makes us human and our downfall as a species.

BTW please donate to the Internet Archive to help keep it going. It is SUCH a valuable resource bsky.app/profile/rene...

Here's my first take on Chappelle's surprise drop on Netflix, fashioning himself as his town's Potter living his wonderful life is quite a choice this Christmas! decider.com/2025/12/22/d...

HBD Jane Fonda!! Legendary performer in New Hollywood pantheon - 20 pics 1966-1979 Our appreciation: midcenturycinema.org/node/139 More: w/Joan Baez: www.interviewmagazine.com/film/i-wante... @bridgetgillard.bsky.social: www.vogue.com/article/jane... @judyberman.bsky.social: time.com/7261061/jane...

I think it's funny that Netflix now reliably drops Chappelle specials with no warning at a time of year when most people, including TV and comedy critics, have already logged off for the holidays. We got some incredibly brave truth tellers here.

Dropping out of the governor's race AND leaving Congress? Extremely curious to find out what's really going on here.

Huge blow to the wardrobe department. No one wears a bonkers costume like Bowen Yang, I regularly start laughing before he says a single line. Obviously he's great in many other ways, too, but in this particular way he is irreplaceable.

Look, I'm only 2 episodes into Heated Rivalry, but I see that #5 is titled "I'll Believe in Anything," and I think we can just go ahead and declare it the most Canadian show of all time.

jealous that obama has time to read multiple 600-page doorstops a year. some of us have to work for a living.

We all knew it would be bad, but taking stock of this year really drives home how catastrophic it was for billions of people who have zero say in American foreign policy and are conveniently invisible to those of us who'd rather not look at the consequences.

Gender is complicated. What is simple is that gender-affirming care keeps many trans kids alive and safe from the most dangerous forms of despair. And you don't outlaw it unless you want to take those extremely basic things away from them.

The amount of pregnancy in this movie is just horrifying

Not sure my first viewing of Sliding Doors is living up to the hype, but whatever y’all are watching sounds a lot worse!

but what are the 17 best books of 2025 i *don't* need to read

It's not my holiday and thus not my business, but I don't get why there aren't more Christmas songs as good as "Fairytale of New York," the only one I ever listen to on purpose

lol, 20/20, with a hearty [sic] appended to "mixed tape" also i still use like 25% of these regularly

So shaken up by Rob Reiner that my heart lurched when I caught a glimpse of the Bob's Red Mill logo out of the corner of my eye

I think Reiner would be tickled to see how angry he made his enemies

I loved the way Rob Reiner humbly carried on the tradition of combining humor and activism—two modes of truth telling that are always more potent together—that defined his father and Norman Lear's cohort of entertainers. All 3 gone within 5 years. Feels like we're losing two generations at once

I think the one thing that connected Rob Reiner's movies across genres and tones was vitality. They just felt alive in the most electric way. Which just makes this that much sadder, really.

Even when the political news cycle is paused for the weekend, it's just horror after horror. Who can live like this?

As we mourn, I hope it's lost on no one that the real moral divide in our world is not between people of different backgrounds or identity markers, but between people who believe that all of those arbitrarily defined groups are equal and worthy of existence and thriving, and people who don't.

Latest on South Carolina measles outbreak: "Of the 111 measles cases recorded in that area...105 involved people who were unvaccinated while three involved those who were partially vaccinated...At least 254 people had been placed in quarantine as of Tuesday"

I have a feeling Little Disasters is going to be a casualty of post-All Her Fault mommy thriller fatigue. But that isn't fair, because it's a much better show.

You know what, I live in this district, and I think Lander singing "Won't you be my neighbor?" is gonna work

Ella McCay is not a real movie, and despite having seen the trailer at least a dozen times in theaters I will not be persuaded otherwise

And a hearty congratulations on a successful Golden Globes FYC campaign to Ben—oh wait, hmm, never mind.

Awards season (including critics circle awards, sorry) has totally poisoned film discourse. Of course it's nice to recognize excellence, but there is no need to pit wildly different works of art against each other in a zero sum debate to determine what each year's One True Movie is.

Kind of miss Baumbach's pre-Greta venomous era tbh