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besties and beloveds, protect your shit from ai.

on web: Blog Settings, scroll down to Visibility, then turn on this guy:

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Also can I just say, really fucking telling that a film about the repeatedly-duped customer finally suing the bastards for repeatedly selling him shitty products is being shelved by the giant media conglomerate known for…repeatedly selling us shitty fucking products

Screen shots are starting to surface from the Coyote vs. Acme movie.

There's a non-zero chance that someone has a complete copy of the film, which means a non-zero chance it might get leaked.

#coyote vs. acme #coyote vs acme

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I love that the screenshots actually look fairly true to the original Looney Tunes animation style. It really bothered me that the characters Space Jam 2 were mostly computer animated (and the few 2D animated scenes did NOT look anything like the Looney Tunes I grew up with).

Man. This sucks. I didn’t even know about this film before hearing this news. Seeing images of it that look good, clips from the score that sound good, and reviews comparing it to Who Framed Roger Rabbit and knowing we’ll never see any of it is just depressing.

Screen shots are starting to surface from the Coyote vs. Acme movie.

There's a non-zero chance that someone has a complete copy of the film, which means a non-zero chance it might get leaked.

#coyote vs acme #coyote vs. acme

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I HATE HATE HATE DAVID ZASLAV!!!

I HATE BOTH WB AND DAVID!!!

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Current Status

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So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Well, folks, the time has come for me to bid holiday movie tracking adieu.

This was never anything but a (more-than-slightly-weird) hobby which, quite honestly, became overwhelming several years ago, when the TV Christmas movie explosion made keeping track of the annual influx of holiday content way more time consuming than I ever bargained for. But, something—for instance, needing a distraction from a global pandemic, combined with a Type-A personality that loathes leaving a job left undone, plus a few fellow Christmas movie-loving online pals I’d made along the way—always kept me going…Until now. 

As someone congenitally unable to do anything halfway, I’ve felt increasingly uninterested in keeping up with all the ins-and-outs of holiday movie production for a while now. That, combined with Twitter’s increasing lack of usability, has led me to the decision it’s time to rest my paws, and hang up ye olde Santa hat.

In real life, I’m just a boring, stay-at-home mom who used to work in (non-Christmas movie) TV production. I started keeping a holiday movie list for a few like-minded pals, and when they wanted to share it with a few others, posted it online for easy access. What started as a couple updates annually (a did-you-see-this-article? sort of thing), morphed into a year-round hobby, and then something more akin to unpaid, part-time employment—not that making this a job was ever a goal. (In fact, I’ve studiously avoided being public and declined the very small amount of opportunities people have offered.)

While I did (very) occasionally hear a few things from folks I’d become friendly online with, none of that is what I shared publicly. Everything I posted was gleaned from publicly available news stories, press releases, IMDb listings, production info, casting notices, and social media posts. Though there was some dot connecting on my part, it’s all stuff absolutely anyone half-decent at research and logic could easily find and readily duplicate. (TL;DR I’m not special, and never thought I was.)

Thanks to those who were so kind to me over the years, and all who share my fascination with cheesy holiday fare. I will most definitely still be watching, and if Twitter still exists this holiday season, quite possibly will return there to share what I loved, and what I didn’t, but I’ll no longer be keeping a holiday movie list, with my apologies to the twos of folks this likely disappoints.

For what it’s worth (likely, not that much) I’ve updated all the upcoming lists—theatrical and TV, for 2023 and 2024—one last time (UPDATE: Well, now that the season is upon us did my best to keep the 2023 schedule up-to-date, least as of November 15, as a final hurrah), with what I know, as of today. There are, I’m positive, typos and errors and things that will be out of date as soon as tomorrow. But there it is, the end.

Cheers, and a very merry everything to all!

💛 Sleepy Kitty Paws

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Tell ‘em Maggie!

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“Hey—check this one out.”

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Victoria Monét performing ‘On My Mama’ on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. [FULL VIDEO] 🔊 @fallontonight

#she’s a star

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victoria monét and janelle monáe at the age pleasure LA listening party (06/10/2023)

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Are you okay? Onlookers reported you having some kind of breakdown. People were anxious that you maybe swallowed your tongue.

Yeah, I was dancing.

SHIV ROY in Succession - 3x07, Too Much Birthday

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#they're married okay

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THE WHITE LOTUS 2.04 “In the Sandbox”

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# iconic

THE WHITE LOTUS | Arrivederci (2.07)

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Honest Thoughts on Bros.

I figured this would be the case going into it, but I did not find the leads relatable at all. Their cynicism annoyed me, and not just because they’re cynical (I mean, it was released just last year - there’s PLENTY to be cynical about), but because these characters as written both are tapped into so much access and luxury and comforts and proximity to power that the average gay person does not have that I just find it hard to buy their “woe is me I’m just so emotionally unavailable” act. I could maybe take it if these guys were working class or even paycheck-to-paycheck middle class living with roommates, but their lack of economic struggle (one is a lawyer and the other the host of a podcast with a million subscribers while also serving as director of a brand new national LGBTQ museum) AND the fact that they’re both conventionally attractive with strong social support networks just makes their worldview and the decisions they make so off-putting.

With the obligatory apologetics about centering “cis white gay men” every half hour, the film feels like it’s apologizing for its own existence, but only in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge kind of way. It’s like it’s making fun of the “woke” audience it’s pretending to pay lip service to (multiple references to who threw the first brick at Stonewall come to mind). More on this later.

The film’s main contradiction is ultimately its undoing: it wants to be a romcom and an anti-romcom at the same time. It wants it both ways, but does a bad job of convincing us it deserves it. It heavily critiques gay hookup culture, but thinks gay marriage is an antiquated aspiration, BUT also disdains and pokes fun at open relationships and polyamory. Its feelings about love and commitment start off flippant and then just end up lukewarm. It resents “love is love” and heteronormativity but is BEGGING straight people to buy a ticket only to blame them for causing the film’s bombing at the box office. Straight people don’t exist anymore (“They had a good run.”) but there’s still people like Luke’s character’s mom who doesn’t believe 2nd graders should learn about gay history — oh but there’s also that really awesome progressive straight couple that talks casually about bottoming with Billy within a earshot of their kids! So is this movie made for “us” or “them?” Cus you can’t try to guilt [straight] romcom fans into turning out for this movie only to spit in their face when they get there. It’s kind of cruel…which has always been my gripe with Billy’s brand of humor to begin with.

So many of the jokes rely on super-timely cultural references/trending topics (fearing getting “cancelled”, namedropping the latest celebrities) that likely won’t mean much to anyone in 5 years. Unfortunately this is the case with most new comedies these days, especially ones targeted to marginalized audiences, so I won’t come down on this movie too hard for this. But the film is definitely at its best when the jokes are more evergreen and not trying so hard to be relevant (I LOL’d hard when 1) Billy’s character abruptly freaks out over a bee landing on him during one of their dates 2) Luke’s character’s brother says [in reference to how gym-obsessed gay men are], “What are you guys even training for? A war?”)

The sex scenes take quite an odd approach for a romcom. They aren’t touching or romantic, which is fine. They’re kind of trying to be funny, but not funny enough. And they’re not very sexy either, but it doesn’t seem they’re exactly trying to be sexy. It’s kind of like they’re poking fun at sex scenes and sex in general, and attempting to flip the expectation of on-screen sex on its head a bit, but they’re also trying *not* to do this *too* much as to not repulse straight people or offend gay people. The results are…clunky. At least to me anyway.

Speaking of the sex, it’s kind of surprising how little nudity there is in this film for an R-rated romcom. There’s one foursome with strategically placed heads and a coffee table to cover things up, but then the guys are all in their underwear in all the other sex scenes. No real eye candy anywhere save for some shirtless torsos at club and park scenes. No frontal nudity at all, not even a comical boner poking under the sheets a la American Pie/The White Lotus. Off-screen intercourse and ejaculations. I think we maybe see half of Billy’s bare butt in a nonsexual scene at one point, but I don’t recalling seeing anyone else’s. Just kind of odd for a movie that wants to market itself as the first theatrical major studio adult gay romcom or whatever, that’s working SO hard to normalize queer sexual DIALOGUE and preaches about not “toning it down” for straight people, how tame the actual gay erotic imagery is in comparison. But perhaps they knew the homophobic MPAA might give them a tough time with even an R rating if they tried to put any of the nudity that’s commonplace in raunchy straight comedies within a gay context.

As Guy Branum has tweeted about before, I will give Billy and the casting crew *some* credit for putting Black, Asian, Latino, trans, femme and fat characters in this film, and not making any of them the butt of terrible jokes and stereotypes. However, seeing folks like Madison and Miss Lawrence in this movie in the few scenes we get of them just made me wish THEY were the ones who were on the screen more. I want the movie told from their perspective. Also the film still glorifies fit and muscular white bodies at every turn and does nothing to celebrate any other aesthetic so it all just feels more obligatory than anything else or done to shield the film from the criticism that it knew it would get for being about two thin cis white men (as it tongue-in-cheek reminds us over and over). The film goes out of its way to be self-aware about and poke fun at all the toxic aspects of white gay culture, acknowledging and (like I said earlier) practically apologizing for it at times, but stops short of transforming that reflection into any kind of change. That scene with Luke’s character and the testosterone injections is the perfect embodiment of this.

ALL of this said, I did laugh quite a bit during this film, more than I thought I would, and actually rewinded a couple times to laugh at moments again. It’s worth a watch if you don’t mind all the above, but I don’t know that I’ll ever desire to see it again. So I’d have to give it a 6/10.

The reality is, this movie was always going to have a lackluster performance in theaters given that neither of the leads were box office draws to begin with. Even if we weren’t still dealing with “post-Covid” audiences being choosy about if and when they turn out to the theaters, I doubt the queer community is sizable enough to turn out in droves and single-handedly give a big budget major studio film the box office returns it needs to justify its investment (perhaps I’m underestimating us and if this movie were better it could’ve happened with word of mouth). But I will say, the film did itself no favors by half-catering to/half-sticking its middle finger up at the straight moviegoers it claims it needed to turn a profit. I hope we get more queer romcoms with nice budgets and wide releases but I also know there have been plenty of indie films with modest budgets distributed through companies like TLA for decades now and we’ll never stop doing it for ourselves if Hollywood gatekeepers decide they don’t want to take the risk again.

#bros #peacock #gay film #queer film #gay cinema #queer cinema #film review

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I’m gonna get really real here. I used to hate #SpotifyUnwrapped day. While I enjoyed getting to see my listening habits distilled down to some fun infographics and animations, this day also used to be a cruel reminder that my own music was just sitting in obscurity. I never shared these stats in the past because…there really wasn’t much to share — while it seemed like all my artist friends had so much to boast about, my own data was pretty much nonexistent. I worked my 🤬 off to reverse all of that this year. I am so grateful to have released four new singles that have touched so many people. I’ve gained tens of thousands of streams and listeners from all over the world, been added to hundreds playlists (more than a thousand, actually 🤯) and have hundreds more of you following me than I did at the top of the year. And I haven’t even dropped the album yet (!!!!). Yall even went back and have been discovering my back catalog as well, which just warms my heart to no end (check out them Abomination numbers, @nahitsaight!) To every single one of you who make up these listeners and streams, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you’ve so much as shared a link or told a friend about my music this year, I am forever grateful. We independent artists live and die by YOUR word of mouth, so PLEASE keep it up! To the playlist curators and promoters, the press and blog publications, and the radio stations that have all pushed my music, yall rock SO hard. And to the 66 of you who have me in your top 10 this year (I know for a fact that I’m personally the 67th 😂), I have no idea who you are (Spotify doesn’t tell me that, unfortunately) but I imagine you must be following me on one of these social media channels, so I just have to say: I see you, I love you, and I promise you will not be disappointed in what’s coming next year. Thank you for making this year of return for me so miraculous. I’m honestly getting emotional right now writing this so I’m going to stop. But yea…this is incredible. 🙏🏾 ❤️ https://www.instagram.com/p/ClmprooO3A0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#spotifyunwrapped