Toy Story 5 takes the 31-year-old franchise someplace new, as the gang confronts 21st-century technology in the form of an interactive tablet for kids. The result is a startlingly deep inquiry into the meaning & purpose of play--not to mention a hilarious, delightful movie. slate.com/culture/2026...

The prominence w/ which Spike Lee is featured 🏀👑

Toy Story 5 takes the 31-year-old franchise someplace new, as the gang confronts 21st-century technology in the form of an interactive tablet for kids. The result is a startlingly deep inquiry into the meaning & purpose of play--not to mention a hilarious, delightful movie. slate.com/culture/2026...

"Has a director this talented ever had so few genuine masterpieces to show for it? Oh, but when he hits the ball square, he changes the world." Always read Walter Chaw:

Evel Knievel, but in the service of actual evil

Buster Keaton rides a dandy horse like the one Karl Drais invented in the 1923 silent period comedy Our Hospitality

Last chance to point out again that they're so dumb/lazy they neglected to take off the second "the," so that for months the building has been called "The Donald Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts".

As part of Slate's Spielberg Week (all of which is worth reading! slate.com/tag/spielber...), I wrote on Disclosure Day, a philosophical yet rip-roaring sci-fi thriller that returns to one of the director's lifelong obsessions: the first contact between humans & alien life. slate.com/culture/2026...

As part of Slate's Spielberg Week (all of which is worth reading! slate.com/tag/spielber...), I wrote on Disclosure Day, a philosophical yet rip-roaring sci-fi thriller that returns to one of the director's lifelong obsessions: the first contact between humans & alien life. slate.com/culture/2026...

Waiting in a subway station & as two trains pull in at once, the conductors are yelling & laughing across the platform about last night’s game. 💙🧡

Clear my schedule, @bilgeebiri.bsky.social just published a long-ass (16,000 words(!) Spielberg oral history.

Live&let die? Think again! My new #HitParadePod on @slate.com is a tour of near-miss hits—No2s, 11s & 41s that became legendary. In this episode…the ’70s: How’d Wings’ No2 Bond theme outlast a No1 ballad? Why’d Steely Dan’s yacht rockers miss the Top10? How’d Elton’s blue-jean baby miss Casey Kasem?

This exact image (both frames) is up on the wall near my desk so I can see it every day. Joyeux anniversaire, Agnès!

Great thread on Marcia Lucas, the editor whose work was a key part of Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, & other classics of the New Hollywood era & thereafter.

The end of last night's bee felt a bit anticlimactic in real time, in that the result of the speed spell-off round was judged offstage, so you never quite saw the moment when the winning word came. But rewatching this mind-blowing speed round is like seeing an elite athlete in peak form. Go Shrey!

This year's Scripps National Spelling Bee just ended, but if you missed it & want to watch, it's being run a second time immediately after, at least on Ion TV (& maybe other stations as well--enter your zip code at spellingbee.com.)

Me right now: literally in the basement thinking about the government.

Burying the lede here: FOUR TIMES more likely! 🙃

Taylor Sheridan protagonist gets NYT opinion column

"Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times." I genuinely do not know what this means. What is the best search engine to use now to do normal research with one's own brain? Preferably free, but I will pay if I have to.

This @joshgondelman.bsky.social spoof of looksmaxxing is ... an actual masterpiece of humor writing?

Constance Cummings for Broadway Thru a Keyhole (1933). #botd

Caveman Lawyer II: Neanderthal Dentist

This guarantees I will never see a movie at Alamo ever again lol open.substack.com/pub/embedded...

The extremely rare catcopus.

In fairness, Febreze is one of humankind's greatest achievements.

This was on my BFI all-time top 10 ballot. Just a special movie.

Weigh-in for souls, 15th century, English (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

If you're a big enough fan of the first Devil Wears Prada to have ever texted a friend that viral video of Bowen Yang lip-synching the "cerulean" speech, the sequel provides a satisfying balance between nostalgic callbacks & updates to suit the sadder 2020s media landscape. slate.com/culture/2026...

Oscar Isaac was in the Criterion Closet and he’s the first guy who I think properly understood that he gets all the movies for free and just overloaded the bag

Andy Serkis's 1984: Julia and Winston end the movie locked in a loving embrace under the watchful yet benevolent eye of Big Brother

Great implementation of the ADHD strategy known as "body doubling," where you join up with a partner to complete tasks you've been putting off. Spend this May Day evening untangling yourself from the tentacles of capital!

This is excellent, and especially thrilling because it's the first thing I've read on this topic that gets past its supposed inevitability to assess what AI ed tech is actually like, and what it actually does. www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...

[recording a dvd commentary] So these guys are all pretending. All of them. The guns aren't shooting bullets. It's all pretend stuff. That guy's real name is Keanu.

Now do Don Jr.

Here’s “Gugusse and the Automaton”, the just-found-formerly-lost 1897 George Méliès film with a new score by Nick White and me. This collab was 100% Nick’s idea, and I’m glad of it! I’ll be making and posting a horizonal version of this at some point. Enjoy! youtube.com/shorts/TrRgg...

In honor of a certain immortal bard's birthday (& death day--they are observed on the same date, though his exact bday is not known for sure), give yourself the treat of listening to Sir Patrick read three of his favorite Shakespeare sonnets. He has a new audiobook out in which he reads all of them.

Me agreeing to a new project knowing full well it’s gonna add stress 🇲🇽

The My Lie massacre

I don't think I've ever read a sentence as unappealing as "Jim Caviezel is Jair Bolsonaro."

Frankenstein (1910). Kind of wild to consider that its release is closer in time to the publication of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel than to the present day

Yes you might say I am “still interested” in the book I already purchased yesterday, in the app in which you are advertising it to me, in the ecosystem under which you have all my personal and purchase information, on the device in which you are currently notifying me

It may not work trying to do this here, but: I mistakenly bought two tickets for the wrong night to see the Improvised Shakespeare Company. If any NYers are interested, lmk & the tix are yours. They make up a play on the spot! Tonight at 7 at Brooklyn Improv in Wmsburg: www.improvisedshakespeare.com

I'm on record as a David Lowery fan--I adored both A Ghost Story & The Green Knight--but his Mother Mary, a two-hander psychodrama about a haunted pop star's reunion w/ her designer & ex-best friend, never quite gelled for me, much as I admired its imagination & ambition. slate.com/culture/2026...

I'm on record as a David Lowery fan--I adored both A Ghost Story & The Green Knight--but his Mother Mary, a two-hander psychodrama about a haunted pop star's reunion w/ her designer & ex-best friend, never quite gelled for me, much as I admired its imagination & ambition. slate.com/culture/2026...

Did a quick Google to check if my Mother Mary review had posted to Slate yet & got this amusingly dumb AI result. (Also the part about me writing on MJ Hegar is completely wrong.)

The secretary concluded with a homily on the difference between American and French McDonald's menu items.

Emily Dickinson Museum nailing it with their poem choice for Tax Day:

I'm on the Writers on Film podcast with @www.johnbleasdale.com – talking about the sordid saga of QUEEN KELLY and why I wrote a book about it. podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/p...

In general I'm feeling allergic in this moment to experiencing politics as entertainment, but JD Vance's "feud" with the Pope (actually just JDV trying to start beef while the Holy Father goes about his day) is legit funny.