This Los Angeles weather has me switching madly between my linens and my tweeds.

The water required to cool AI server farms could irrigate many actual farms.

I understand that there is a big football game this weekend, but this is the all-time great period to watch sports while doing other work. Between the Olympics, the WBC, and college sports high season, this is a an ADHD happy place of being half interested in sports.

I tried to put down in words what it was like to attend the the decidedly melancholy 2026 Sundance Film Festival. A sampling of the tremendous movies I highlight: BEDFORD PARK, JOYBUBBLES, THE OLDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD, THE FRIEND’S HOUSE IS HERE. Please have a gander. observer.com/2026/02/art-...

Nothing ages you quite as quickly as the words "Timothée Chalamet Retrospective."

I am working at a cafe on campus and for a second time in a week they are playing "What's Going On" by Four Non-Blondes. So what exactly is going on here?

Final Sundance count: 10 movies on the ground (in three days) and 10 on links at home, plus the first collection documentary shorts.

The nominations were strange but I can't help but feel that a good day for Delroy Lindo is a good day for movies.

Don't look at me. I liked CHRISTY.

My refrigerator is covered in magnets of the far off places my neighbors visit while I watch their dogs.

MLK was murdered while supporting Black sanitation workers yet every morning on his holiday my trash is collected per usual. Does anyone else have an issue with this?

I keep thinking about the fact that Bob Weir died on a Saturday night and Lou Reed died on a Sunday morning.

"There's nothing like winning a home game." -- Paul Thomas Anderson on picking up his third Los Angeles Film Critics beat director award.

That Marco Rubio's coke dealer is now the anchor at CBS news is not our biggest problem, but it is still a problem.

Condolences to the GOP on the death of CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames. I know you were hoping to run him for president.

I really wanted to start the year with a sense of optimism, but it requires a deep commitment to delusion that I simply cannot muster.

After watching Mamdani's inspiring speech, I found myself wishing that our largest city had a media capable of reporting on hum with integrity. Instead we have the New York Times, whose willfully dishonest coverage (also trans rights, Gaza etc.) would be disqualifying if we had another choice.

Congratulations to full time stock trader and sometimes congressperson Nancy Pelosi on your well earned retirement.

Every holiday season, I pause for a moment to reflect on the scene in GOODFELLAS where Henry's brother's doctor, played by Isiah Whitlock Jr., sees Henry in his burnt out state and advises him to rest. We all need those people in our lives. Rest well, Mr. Whitlock.

Tonight's weather has me checking Watch Duty.

The hat is a reproduction of the one worn by 1958 University of Miami baseball team; starting in January, I will be teaching at UMLA, the school's Los Angeles program. The new class involves weekly guest speakers, so if you're a UMiami alum and work in media, you may be hearing from me soon.

My favorite vote of the day.

Reading these applications are a highlight of my year.

I will be spending the whole day tomorrow locked in a library with a bunch of film critics, which means it's @lafilmcritics.bsky.social voting time again. (That may also be the plot to FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDIE'S 3.)

It was easier being a Clippers fan when Don Sterling owned the team.

If Mamdani visits Trump once a week, we might end up with universal daycare and Medicaid for all.

What does it say about the job of President that the last two people to have it became physically and mentally incapacitated while doing it and they functioned exactly as they did before? It had no impact on outcome.

Dude, your Dodge Charger needs a CPAP.

West Adams, 9:20pm. #dodgers

I think today we can officially quash the "Dodgers fans leave the game early" narrative.

It has been a while since I blueskyd. It's been a spell since my last review. And its been an eternity since I have seen cinematic lightning captured so dynamically as in Jafar Panahi's IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT. See it if you're able. observer.com/2025/10/movi...

Nation Museum of African American History and Culture, 2:14pm.

If they had an Oscar for casting, Sean Baker would have won 5.

This turned out to be a excellent night for film critics, unlike pretty much every other night.

Thank god the Adrian Brody speech has an intermission.

This Oscars is coming 47 years too late for THE WIZ.

Zoe Saldana was the best thing in Emilia Perez and El Mal was its best moment.

This James Bond thing is like Rob Lowe and Snow White for guys. #oscars

Why is someone talking on a phone at a bar incredibly distracting where someone talking to an actual person not?

We all expected Rome to burn. We did not expect Democrats to play the fiddle.

Note to news people: if you are standing next to your uncle watching your house burn down and your uncle says, “You’re house is not on fire,” the big news is not that he said that.

My hope is that we give Sebastian Stan an Oscar and California secedes on the same day.

Yesterday I learned that in 1976 Henny Youngman played a character named Manny Farber in the film WON TON TON, THE DOG WHO SAVED HOLLYWOOD and felt all my worlds colliding.

I gather all the news I need from David Lynch’s weather report. #rip

The one positive aspect of disasters— temporary unity and shared sense of purpose— has, like everything else on earth, been ruined by the internet.

Snow days are a lot less fun when it’s fire.

Movie critics don’t work in a vacuum. The 2024 films that ment the most to me were informed by two major events: my mom’s death in and the results of the election. Here are the movies that helped get me through. https://observer.com/2024/12/the-years-best-films-changes-in-perspective-and-heroes/

American: every December we watch IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and every November we vote for Mr. Potter.

What we never seem to understand when children commit mass shootings: the means is always the motive. Underdeveloped minds should not have access to firearms.