Film and TV thoughts from inside the industry beast. Also: culture, politics, and history. Hollywood, CA.
2000 Avenue of the Stars
Joined October 2020
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Problem Tomatoes 🍅 retweeted
John Malkovich says he turned down Martin McDonagh’s offers to star in “A Behanding in Spokane” and “Seven Psychopaths” before finally accepting “Wild Horse Nine”:
“By this point, most people would take the hint. But Martin is a man who once wrote a character who cut off his own fingers just to prove a point. So thank God I didn’t have a scheduling conflict.”
Malkovich presented McDonagh with the Best Directing award at the Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards.
El Salvador’s CECOT prison cost $115 million to house 15,000 people.
This LA homeless future crack den is $72 million for 140 people.
Karen Bass cuts ribbon on $72M homeless housing project in LA, costing taxpayers nearly $650K per unit trib.al/X8MOFoy
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Who slept with a Chinese spy this time?
Breaking News: The FAA grounded all flights nationwide in what appeared to be a major outage affecting its air traffic control system. This is a developing story. nyti.ms/4AAVtZL
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Problem Tomatoes 🍅 retweeted
Crickets from the anti Skydance monopoly crowd.
Netflix seems primed to pounce on NBCUniversal as Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. reshapes Hollywood’s balance of power.
“The pressure across the industry to be more scaled has never been higher,” says one senior studio executive. “People are feeling more pressure to consolidate. But it’s gotta be the right fit.”
NBCUniversal could be a natural fit for Netflix, combining Peacock’s 48M subscribers with Netflix’s 325M+ and making brands like Bravo a distinct tile on the Netflix app.
Read the full breakdown from @xpangler: wp.me/pc8uak-1lI6aI
Problem Tomatoes 🍅 retweeted
Not that it will matter, but below is the full passage in which Houellebecq uses the term "great replacement." @MarkLandler @nytimes @LibrairieRCamus @mhouellebecq
“At first, I was very shocked that this was called a theory. It’s not a theory, it’s a fact. I’d not read Renaud Camus. I’d wanted to read him for a long time, because I have a great deal of respect for Emmanuel Carrère and he’s written on several occasions that “it’s really a shame Renaud Camus defends these positions. He’s such a good writer!” Anyway, I eventually read him, and it’s true, Renaud Camus is a good writer, there’s no doubt about it. So, he’s observed a great replacement or, to be more precise, the modification of the ethnic and religious composition of the European population. As a matter of statistics, it’s undeniable. But, contrary to what I believed, there are traces of conspiracy theorizing in him. I was surprised that an obviously intelligent man should put forward the idea that there was a conspiracy orchestrated by what he calls the “Davocrats,” a sort of group emerging from the Davos forum. For me, it’s obvious there’s no conspiracy. Where immigration is concerned, no one controls anything, and that’s the whole problem.”
The original French:
« D’abord, j’ai été très choqué qu’on appelle ça une théorie. Ce n’est pas une théorie, c’est un fait. Je n’avais pas lu Renaud Camus. Je voulais le lire depuis longtemps, parce que j’estime Emmanuel Carrère et qu’il a écrit a plusieurs reprises que « c’est vraiment dommage que Renaud Camus défende ces positions, c’est un si bon écrivain ! » Bon, j’ai fini par le lire, et c’est vrai, Renaud Camus est un bon écrivain, ça ne fait pas de doute. Donc, il a constaté un grand remplacement ou, pour être plus précis, la modification de la composition ethnique et religieuse de la population européenne. C’est une évidence statistique. Mais contrairement à ce que je croyais, il y a quelques traces de complotisme en lui. J’ai été surpris qu’un homme à l’évidence intelligent émette l’idée qu’il y aurait un complot orchestré par ce qu’il appelle les « davocrates », une espèce de groupe issu du forum de Davos. Pour moi, il est évident qu’il n’y a aucun complot. En matière d’immigration, personne ne contrôle rien, c’est bien là tout le problème. »
Michel Houellebecq and @renaudcamus in the NYT. A "theory," a "concept," "a racist concept," "a racist concept *by* the writer Renaud Camus," "White Christian Europeans"... It's all so tiresome.
My sister married a Muslim man who presented himself as deeply devoted to Islam. Before their wedding, he spoke constantly about religious discipline, modesty, family values, and the importance of having a wife who respected Islamic teachings.
At first, our family believed she had married a man with strong principles. But shortly after the wedding, we began noticing a disturbing change.
He started controlling what she wore, where she went, whom she spoke to, and whether she could visit our mother without his permission. He discouraged her from working and gradually isolated her from friends and family.
Whenever she questioned him, he had the same response:
“You’re my wife. Your duty is to obey me. I’m only protecting your faith.”
One afternoon, she called me crying…..
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How is EDDINGTON "prophetic" when it's a 2025 movie about the COVID era?
Free each other's hearts. Ari Aster’s prophetic masterwork Eddington joins the A24 Screenplay Book collection, alongside Midsommar and Hereditary. a24.shop/EddingtonScreenplay…
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Problem Tomatoes 🍅 retweeted
I’m sure Midlife Mark Ruffalo and Bonehead Bob Bonta will be tripping over themselves to block this dangerous merger, right?
Hollywood's Next Big Deal: Will Netflix Make an M&A Play for NBCU? variety.com/2026/tv/news/wil…
Immigration is an economic issue.
ICE enforcement in San Antonio is crashing apartment rents.
Apartment rents are falling and delinquency is rising dramatically in most of SA metro.
According to CoStar the San Antonio market is ranked dead last in the Country for vacancy. Parts up SA are 16% delinquent.
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Woke 1 was crazy. Diversity is our strength.
We’re Dangerously Close to Another #OscarsSoWhite Year. Can Zendaya, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal and More Prevent It? variety.com/2026/film/awards…
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Pedro Pascal is white. Latino is not a race. Never has been
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Pas…
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People don’t like having a lower relative standard of living than their parents.
Imagine a historian in 2035 writing a political history of the 2020s, and he points out that every election, the out-of-power party won a cost-of-living election and then used their mandate to ignore or exacerbate affordability only to be destroyed in the next election, where voters again said “to be clear, I don’t want whatever bullshit you’re up to, I just want life to feel more affordable,” and then, once again, the winning politicians prioritized everything except affordability, and this story repeated itself over and over again.
One of my strongest held political opinions right now is: Democrats should do everything they can to avoid that history being written.
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Problem Tomatoes 🍅 retweeted
These people are monetizing using public spaces at little to no cost. A mass fraud on on the public.
While our politicians were repeating “diversity is our strength” like a religious mantra, China was figuring out how to use our internal divisions against us.
Turns out this was an op spearheaded by the pro-China "Party for Socialism and Liberation," using Instagram Reels to convince residents the investment would harm the black community.
Bleak stuff.
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