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.

Quick, for $500: name what day of the week it is.

Beatles Tarot was a holiday party hit!

RaMell Ross’ NICKEL BOYS, which opens this weekend, is the best film I have ever reviewed. https://observer.com/2024/12/nickel-boys-is-an-experiential-masterpiece-and-one-of-the-years-best-films/

Every generation throws an assassin up the pop charts.

It’s hard for me to get my head around PEEPING TOM airing on TCM right now. For most of my life, that movie was really difficult to source.

I’m grateful for a great many films this years. Among them, Jesse Eisenberg’s A REAL PAIN. https://observer.com/2024/10/a-real-pain-review-heartfelt-full-of-pain-laced-with-humor-and-remarkable/

Controversial opinion: movies belong in movie theaters. My #ThePianoLesson review. https://observer.com/2024/11/the-piano-lesson-review-stained-by-blood-haunted-by-history/

I just saw the new white supremacy movie THE ORDER, or as they renamed it after the election, THE CABINET.

Who do you think should play Matt Gaetz in Sean Baker’s next movie?

And I am a Hugh Grant fan…

I am a film critic and an adjunct professor of film and journalism at Emerson and Syracuse. I’m from DC and live in Los Angeles. I will be looking to engage on all of those axises (axi?)