The 12th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards (2025)

THE 12th ANNUAL SLIP-ME-A-MICKEY AWARDS

The Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® awards are the final award of the interminably long awards season. The Slip-Me-A-Mickey™®, or as some lovingly call them, The Mockeys™®, are a robust tribute to the absolute worst that film and entertainment has to offer for the year.

Again, the qualifying rules are simple, I just had to have seen the film for it to be eligible. This means that at one point I had an interest in the film and put the effort in to see it, which may explain why I am so angry about it being awful. So, any vitriol I may spew during this awards presentation shouldn't be taken personally by the people mentioned, it is really anger at myself for getting duped into watching.

The prizes are also pretty simple. The winners/losers receive nothing but my temporary scorn. If you are a winner/loser don't fret, because this year’s Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® loser/winner could always be next year’s Mickey™® winner!! Remember…you are only as good as your last film!!

Now…onto the awards!

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR –

Caught Stealing – I’m old enough to remember when Darren Aronofsky was the cool kid on the cinephile block…oh how the mighty have fallen. Caught Stealing is the most idiotic, moronic, and laziest film imaginable. So stupid as to be offensive. Darren Aronofsky should be banned from making any more movies after this criminally dreadful film.

Alto Knights – I’m also old enough to remember when Barry Levinson was an important filmmaker. I’m very old. Levinson’s attempt at a mob epic is a staggeringly incoherent exercise that is shocking in its ineptitude.

Jay Kelly – Director Noah Baumbach and stars George Clooney and Adam Sandler are a Murderer’s Row of putrid and pedestrian performers…and for proof of that you need look no further than the saccharine shitbag of a movie that is Jay Kelly.

After the Hunt – Luca Guadagnino is a critical darling addicted to all things queer…in After the Hunt he once again shows himself to be a philosophically trite and painfully limited filmmaker. A tremendously putrid waste of time.

Song Sung Blue – The most batshit, tone-deaf, bizarro movie experience I had in 2025. An alarmingly awful movie that features some of the cheesiest supporting turns in recent memory.

And the Slip-Me-A-Mickey award goes to…

CAUGHT STEALING: As much as all these movies suck…most of them have at least one little thing about them that is a tiny bit redeeming. For example, Alto-Knights is awful but DeNiro is ok playing dual roles (and does it considerably better than Best Actor Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan). After the Hunt is atrocious but Julia Roberts does a pretty good job in it. Song Sung Blue is so bad it is amusing. Jay Kelly is terrible but ultimately it is a harmless little George Clooney attempt (and fail) at being charming and relevant again. But Caught Stealing? Caught Stealing has absolutely nothing redeeming about it. All of it is absolutely awful…which is a great asset when it comes to this category. So..congrats Caught Stealing!!

WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR –

Michael B. Jordan – Sinners: Mr. Jordan just won a Best Actor Oscar for a performance that is so amateurish and underwhelming it would make not just Sly Stallone, but Frank Stallone, blush. Jordan plays twins but is completely incapable of differentiating between the two of them – so much so that he has to wear different color hats so that we…and he…can know which one is which. Add in Jordan’s acting style – nothing but posing and preening, and his vocal style – mush mouth akin to talking with two Snickers bars in his mouth…and you’re left with a truly terrible, two-bit performance.

Adam Sandler – Jay Kelly: Adam Sandler’s career strategy is to be awful in as many shitty movies as he can and then give the most minimal of effort in an allegedly less shitty movie and have critics slobber all over him for his dramatic abilities. Don’t be fooled. Adam Sandler sucks. He is a shitty actor….and his soft talking, “aww shucks”, acting technique in Jay Kelly is an embarrassment to anyone who has the slightest bit of knowledge about the craft of acting. Dear Adam – please go away forever. Dear Adam Sandler apologists – you will burn in hell forever.

Ayo Edebiri – After the Hunt: Ayo Edebiri is so abysmal in After the Hunt it felt like she had never acted before and was thrown before the cameras with no preparation or notice – like a Make-A-Wish kid having their dying wish to be in a movie come true. As wooden and dead-eyed a performance as you will ever see. Truly remarkable for how awful it was.

Idris Elba – A House of Dynamite: Idris Elba is great…but he was definitely not great in A House of Dynamite as the President of the U.S.A. Elba was like a fish out of water…literally. He could barely walk like a human being…and his speaking wasn’t much better either. I would be relieved if I read that Elba was strung out on heroin and LSD while he shot this movie…but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

Anthony Ramos – A House of Dynamite: This dude starred in Hamilton on Broadway and has been so fucking terrible in every single thing he’s done since then it is actually shocking to behold. In A House of Dynamite, he puts on a masterclass in awful acting…so much so that if it were a stage play I wouldn’t throw tomatoes at him, I’d throw rocks…sharp rocks.

And the Slip-Me-A-Mickey award goes to…

AYO EDEBIRI – AFTER THE HUNT: Ms. Edebiri is a big tv star on the show The Bear…but I simply can’t bear to watch her be such a shitty actor in After the Hunt. She’s such a bad actress she should not only stay away from doing movies…she should stay away from even watching them.

Worst Scene of the Year –

JAY KELLY - A CHRISTMAS CAROL-STYLE FLASHBACKS: When the character Jay Kelly starts walking through his past and is watching his young self (played by a different actor) go through critical moments in his life, I wanted to kill myself…but not before killing Noah Baumbach who wrote this shit and George Clooney who’s terrible acting in it. An all-time embarrassing piece of cinematic detritus.

MOST OVERRATED FILM OF THE YEAR –

Sinners – Ah yes…Sinners…a second-rate vampire movie that dipshits and dopes adore but that is so amateurish it pains to even recount. This film was slathered over by every numbnuts know-nothing ignorant of cinema…it is like every online asshole’s favorite movie ever. As I so astutely observed in my review of this nothing burger – this is the type of movie that dumb people think is deep and stupid people think is smart. Critics and many “fans” loved it because they were afraid to tell the truth about its artistic mundanity out of fear of being called “racist”. Yawn.

One Battle After Another – As a “film bros” and a PT Anderson fan, it pained me to see other film bros and PTA fans get a giant boner over this middling mess of a movie. This movie was so over-hyped and underwhelming it gave me the bends. Stop with the slurping already – this ain’t no masterpiece…it is bottom-tier PTA, plain and simple. Deal with it.

Marty Supreme – I diverge from the Film Bros community when it comes to the Safdie Brothers…they love them, I can do without them. Josh Safdie wrote and directed this grating and annoying and seemingly endless film…and he did it very, very poorly. A toxic and odious odyssey of Jewish arrogance and self-loathing that goes down like a matzo ball of shit and makes you want to retch….but critics loved it! Yuck.

And the Slip-Me-A-Mickey award goes to…

SINNERS – Sinners is such a second-rate piece of moviemaking it makes my colon twinge just at the thought of rewatching it. Pedestrian and puerile through and through…it is embarrassing that this movie was both a big hit and shameful that it received more Oscar nominations than any other film in Academy Award history. It is unquestionably the most overrated film of the year.

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATIC MALPRACTICE –

James Gunn, Spike Lee, Guillermo del Toro, Steven Soderberg: These are the Four Horsemen of the Shit-pocalypse who have taken a shit all over either their careers, their films or their audiences.

James Gunn got handed the reigns of the DC universe and promptly took a shit all over it with the truly awful Superman. The fact that we have at least a whole decade of Gunn taking shits all over the already shat upon DC universe does not fill me with any semblance of joy.

Spike Lee is such a spent creative force he did a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece High and Low – and to show how creative Spike is he titled it Highest 2 Lowest…yawn. To top it all off Highest 2 Lowest isn’t just an embarrassment of a title, it is an embarrassment of a movie.

The great Guillermo del Toro got to make his dream film – Frankenstein…and promptly made one of his very worst movies…and absolute muddled mess. Now he will never get to make his dream project again.

And finally, Steven Soderberg had all the pieces in place to finally return to form and actually make a great and meaningful movie once again…and dropped the ball entirely. Black Bag, starring the great Cate Blanchet and Michael Fassbender, was so forgettable you forget it exists even while you’re watching it.

These four heavy hitters should be ashamed of themselves for their shoddy work on these shitty movies.

POS ALL-STARS –

BLAKE LIVELY AND JUSTIN BALDONI AND ANYONE WHO CARES OR HAS AN OPINION ABOUT BLAKE LIVELY AND JUSTIN BALDONI – I have no idea what this entire story is about, but the fact that anyone gives a shit about these two twats irritates the living shit out of me. I want Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni to be locked in a septic tank together for the rest of their lives. I want anyone who cares about the Blake Lively – Justin Baldoni story to be boiled alive in a vat of elephant excrement.

BILL MAHER – Little Bill loves to fellate all things Israel and Military/Intelligence Industrial Complex. He is such a Zio-whore and so blind to his own hypocrisy and ignorance he has devolved from being hate-watchable to simply unwatchable. On the bright side…he has never been less relevant!!

JAKE PAUL/LOGAN PAUL – I don’t give two shits about who or what these two shitsticks are. I just want them to go away. If you want to be some asshole influencer who makes a trillion dollars off of dumbass Youtube viewers…go ahead. But once you cross over into my life…and things I am interested in…like boxing…then we have a problem. I’m glad Jake Paul got his jaw broken in two places by Anthony Joshua…I only wish I was the one doing the jaw-breaking. Fingers crossed someone cracks Logan Paul’s skull open soon.

POS HALL OF FAME –

PRINCE ANDREW – Imagine being born into endless wealth and privilege and never having to work a single day in your life and instead of being grateful and living a life of charity and good will…you decide to be a sexual predator who fucks young girls simply because you can.

Prince Andrew is the worst in a family full of worsts…quite an accomplishment.

Jeffrey Epstein’s dear friend Andrew, is like the rest of his in-bred, arrogant, parasitic, useless family, a predator to the core who loves to prey upon the poor and the weak. He despises those beneath him, both literally and figuratively.

He preyed upon the girls provided by Epstein not because he couldn’t get laid in the real world, but because he wanted to force a young girl to suffer for his pleasure. He wanted her to be uncomfortable…to be subservient to him…because that is how he is wired.

Truth is his whole filthy fucking family is wired like that. These royal vermin should be stripped on their titles, their lands, their wealth and their limbs…like William Wallace…drawn and quartered in the public square. That won’t happen, of course, because the rules don’t apply to people like Prince Andrew or the rest of his cohorts in the elite Epstein Class. They get to dance between the raindrops while we drown in the deluge of their depravity and destruction.

The best-case scenario for the Epstein class regarding Prince Andrew is what happened to his friend Jeffery Epstein…happens to him too. He is “suicided” and quickly thrown in the bin of forgotten history so that his story goes away as quickly as possible.

Worst case scenario for Andrew is that they lock him in a room with me for fifteen minutes. Now that would be entertaining!

And thus ends the 12th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® Awards!!! To the winners/losers…don't take it personally…and God knows I hope I don't see you again next year!! To you dear reader…thanks for tuning in and we'll see you again next year!!

©2026

The 12th Annual Mickey©®™ Awards (2025)

12th Annual Mickey©®™ Awards (2025)

The ultimate awards show is upon us!!!

The Mickeys©™® are superior to every other award imaginable…be it the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony, the Grammy or even the Nobel. The Mickey©®™ is the mountaintop of not just artistic but human achievement, which is why they always take place AFTER the Oscars!

This year has been a rather mundane one for cinema but there are still a multitude of films eligible for a Mickey©™® award.

Actors, actresses, writers, cinematographers and directors are all sweating and squirming right now in anticipation of the Mickey©™® nominations and winners. Remember, even a coveted Mickey©™® nomination is a career and life changing event. 

Before we get to what everyone is here for…a quick rundown of the rules and regulations of The Mickeys©™®…The Mickeys©™® are selected by me…I am judge, jury and executioner. The only films eligible are films I have actually seen, be it in the theatre, via screener, cable, streamer or VOD. I do not see every film because as we all know, the overwhelming majority of films are God-awful, and I am a working man so I must be pretty selective. So that means that just getting me to actually watch your movie is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself…never mind being nominated or winning!

Enough with the formalities…let's start the festivities!!

Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin...

Ladies and gentlemen…welcome to the 12th annual Mickey©™® Awards!!!

Let’s start things off with a bang!!

POPCORN MOVIE OF THE YEAR– There weren’t quite as many big budget popcorn movies this year as we are used to mostly because the Superhero genre is fading and fading fast. There were a few of them though…most notably Superman and The Fantastic Four, neither of which were anywhere close to being good never mind worthy of a prestigious Mickey©®™.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

F1 – I am a fan of F1 the sport and so I was an easy target for this movie…and while it is aggressively formulaic, it still delivered some racing thrills and while it is a low bar – that was enough for me. Congrats to the F1 cast and crew for the Mickey©®™ award!!

BEST HORROR FILM OF THE YEAR –

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

WEAPONS – Weapons is a horror film but it feels like a whole helluva lot more than that. Wonderfully written and directed by Zach Cregger, the film never fails to captivate and it leaves you constantly unnerved and relentlessly on edge.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – Not a sterling year for the art of cinematography…but there were some notable exceptions.

Bugonia – Robbie Ryan’s approach on Bugonia was a rather simple one but it was impeccably executed and created a crisp and clear visual to go along with the film’s muddied character arcs. A fine piece of work.

Train Dreams – Adolpho Veloso borrowed heavily from Terence Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s distinct style to give Train Dreams an ethereal and…dare I say it…dream-like visual style. Floating cameras and languid looks at nature are not easy to pull off but Veloso did it and deserves credit for paying homage to Malick and Lubezki’s brilliance.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

TRAIN DREAMS – ADOLPHO VELOSO – I am an enormous fan of Terence Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki…and while Veloso’s work is sort of Malick-lite…Malick-lite is better than no Malick at all. And to Veloso’s credit…he is borrowing from the best and he executes it masterfully.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR –

William H. Macy – Train Dreams: Macy’s turn as an old-timer in a logging camp is a brilliant bit of work that brings both a bit of levity and humanity to Train Dreams. Macy has been M.I.A. for some time now, so it was nice to see him back and at his best.

Pedro Pascal – Eddington: I find Pedro Pascal to be a grating screen presence…and he is that in Eddington…but he uses it to great effect. His cool and holier-than-thou character needed to be instantly, but subtly, off-putting…and Pascal is perfectly built for that.

Aiden Delbis – Bugonia: Delbis, a novice who is on the autism spectrum, plays a good-hearted and loyal cousin who is on the autism spectrum. You might think that he is essentially playing himself – a person with autism, but Delbis brings such a genuine and authentic energy to every scene he inhabits that he nearly steals the whole movie from such luminaries as Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. I have no idea if Delbis will ever act again, but it was a pleasure to watch him in this film.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

AIDEN DELBIS – BUGONIA: This is the supporting performance that impressed me the most this year. Delbis was so real, so present, so alive in each scene that it made his screen presence uncomfortable to watch…and that is the highest of compliments as he makes it feel like you’re eavesdropping on real life when he’s on-screen. Congratulations Aiden Delbis on your first movie and your first Mickey©®™!!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS –

Emily Blunt – The Smashing Machine: Blunt gives it her all in a terribly written part in a terrible movie…and she still shines through despite everything working against her. Blunt is a terrific actress and I hope she finds better material for her talent.

Amy Madigan – Weapons: Madigan is so great in Weapons it actually took me a half hour of watching the movie to figure out it was her…and even then I wasn’t so sure. An iconic performance that will no doubt inspire Halloween costumes for generations to come.

Rebecca Ferguson – A House of Dynamite: I wanted this movie to be good…it wasn’t…but Rebecca Ferguson was the only good thing in it. Given a dreadful script, Ferguson managed to bring a touch of actual humanity and reality to the proceedings…and has a genuinely moving moment that is nearly lost amidst the tsunami of suck.

Regina Hall – One Battle After Another: Hall gives the only genuine and grounded performance in this entire film…and it is deeply unfortunate that she didn’t have more screen time. Hall’s inherent humanity was so evident despite her minimal focus in the story…a really impressive piece of work when we got to see it.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

AMY MADIGAN – WEAPONS: Madigan has been working in Hollywood for over forty years and she is so great in Weapons that she finally reaches the apex of achievement in the art of acting…a Mickey©®™ award!!

BEST SCREENPLAY –

Eddington – Ari Aster: It is actually stunning how Ari Aster was able to turn the mania and madness of the Covid/Black Lives Matter and Post-Covid/Black Lives Matter era into one of the most compelling, insightful and intelligent films of the year. A stunning achievement that tells more truth than any piece of media in recent years.

 It Was Just an Accident – Jafar Panahi: Panahi took a simple idea and turned into a monumental storytelling achievement that explores the deepest depths of humanity, morality and ethics. Remarkable script.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

EDDINGTON – ARI ASTER: This screenplay is so brilliant it boggles the mind. That Aster was able to weaves so many tales of mania and hysteria and turn them into a cohesive story about the conspiracy that lies beneath the conspiracies…is nothing short of genius.

BEST SCENE –

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT – I won’t give anything away but the ending of this movie is so well-executed and so brilliantly set up that there is just no other competition. It is the perfect combination of great direction, great writing and great filmmaking…and just like the film itself…it is simple yet perfect.

BEST ACTRESS –

Rose Byrne – If I had Legs, I’d Kick You: Byrne is a fantastic comedic actress, but with this film about an overwhelmed mother she proves her dramatic acting chops in spades. An absolutely stellar piece of work that never relents and never delivers anything but the truth…even when it is lying.

Jessie Buckley – Hamnet: Buckley’s turn as Shakespeare’s witchy wife could have been a mess in lesser hands, but she brings a powerful magnetism and earthy heart to the role that brings it to life in an extraordinary way. A visceral and moving performance that reveals Buckley to be among the best.

Emma Stone – Bugonia: Stone is always so good it is easy to overlook how good she actually is…and in Bugonia she is putting on a masterclass. Stone’s work is as captivating as anything she’s done and is incredibly subtle and nimble. An impressive piece of work.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

ROSE BYRNE – IF I HAD LEGS, I’D KICK YOU: Byrne is so good in this film it is jaw-dropping. A difficult yet delicious role that lets the beauty Byrne be ugly and unlikable and to fail and flail and fall flat on her face without ever playing for pity. Bravo Ms. Byrne…you may be a terrible mother but you’ve finally gotten yourself a Mickey©®™ award!!

BEST ACTOR –

Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon: Ethan Hawke gives a startlingly great performance in this film as the diminutive giant Lorenz Hart. The film is essentially a stage play but Hawke fills the screen with a verve and aplomb as the drunken and fading lyricist and it is the best work of his career.

Joaquin Phoenix - Eddington: Joaquin Phoenix is the best actor we have, and his deft and visceral work in Eddington is just more proof of this fact. Phoenix dissolves into his role as Sheriff Joe and his descent into the madness of Hurricane Covid/BLM and all the rest is staggering to behold. A brilliant and bold performance.

Jesse Plemons – Bugonia: Plemons’ work in Bugonia is extraordinary as he is simultaneously sympathetic and repulsive…a hero and villain all at once. Plemons’ inherent humanity works to his great advantage in this role as he engenders viewer’s empathy but then he abuses it and you are left confused but always captivated.

Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent: Moura is a phenomenal actor and he does his very best, most complex and most skilled work in The Secret Agent…essentially playing three roles (I won’t give away what I mean by that). Moura is such a master craftsman that it is impossible to take your eyes off of him even when he is doing the most mundane of tasks in this film. A truly impressive performance.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

JOAQUIN PHOENIX – EDDINGTON: This is a loaded category but Hawke was so deliriously great in Eddington that he gets the coveted Mickey©®™.

ACTOR/ACTRESS OF THE YEAR –

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

EMMA STONE: Stone…one of the very best actresses in the world, was in both Eddington and Bugonia this year…two of the very best films of the year…and she did terrific work in both of them. Kudos to Emma Stone for picking challenging material and for using her clout to get important films made…and congrats on ANOTHER Mickey©®™ award!! (She won in 2024 for Poor Things)

BEST ENSEMBLE –

Eddington – A stacked cast all do extraordinary work…led by the brilliant Joaquin Phoenix.

Bugonia – Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Aiden Delbis absolutely crush their roles and as a whole are a formidable acting trio.

It Was Just an Accident – A collection of Iranian actors I have never heard of come together to create as stunning a cast performance imaginable.

The Secret Agent – A sprawling cast all do solid and sometimes spectacular work in this brilliant Brazilian film.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT – It truly is remarkable how good all of these actors are and how insanely compelling they all are as well. The film is in Farsi but you could watch the whole thing and not read the subtitles and still understand everything they are conveying and still be deeply affected by it.

BEST DIRECTOR –

Ari Aster – Eddington: Aster’s masterful direction on Eddington helped the film avoid the multitude of traps it could have fallen into…and he did it with a deft touch and a brilliant understanding of the deeper story he was telling.

Yorgos Lanthimos – Bugonia: Lanthimos has a distinct taste and style and I am a sucker for it…and he brings all of his weird talent and skill to bear on Bugonia and it is a joy to behold.

Jafar Panahi – It Was Just an Accident: A simple story and a minimalist execution of that story reveal Panahi to be a master moviemaker and a brave one at that.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…

ARI ASTER – EDDINGTON: Aster has shown over the course of his career that he has a keen eye and a sharp and original mind…but it wasn’t until Eddington that he has made the leap from very good to great. Eddington reveals Aster to be not only a great filmmaker but an astute observer and commentator of our troubled times when the overwhelming majority of his peers are too blind to see the forest for the trees and to recognize the reality of recent history and the current moment. Aster has earned this Mickey©®™ award the hard way…not by telling audiences what they want to hear…but rather by telling them the very uncomfortable truth.

BEST PICTURE –

5. The Secret Agent – A cinematic glimpse into the moral morass that was Brazil in 1977, writer/director Kleber Mendonca Filho masterfully pulls all the pieces together of his sprawling story and leads viewers on a personal and perilous journey into the jaws of fascism.

4. Bugonia – Yorgos Lanthimos dives deep into conspiracy culture and never comes up for air as his film keeps viewers in the dark about the secret at the center of it all. Your expectations and assumptions die a slow and glorious death on Lanthimos’ cinematic guillotine.

3. Train Dreams – A deeply moving and affecting mediation on life and its meaning from Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar. A deliberately paced and wonderfully shot film that very quietly, yet profoundly, asks the question we all would prefer to ignore.

2. It Was Just an Accident – Jafar Panahi brings viewers on a compelling odyssey through the maze of modern Iran’s fascist existence. Morality and humanity are endangered species in this world and Panahi is able to use them to tell the truth about his existence in a corrupted world.

1 Eddington – Ari Aster’s film is so daring and so bold that it boggles the mind. That the film was not well-received is no surprise, as the targets of its truth bombs were the same guardians of popular culture who were at a minimum complicit with the moral, ethical, intellectual and political corruption and madness it portrays. As the years go by this film will continue to grow in estimation and will ultimately be proven to be the greatest film about the truth and consequences of the Covid/BLM era. It will be considered not only well ahead of its time but extraordinarily insightful about its own time.

MOST IMPORTANT FILM OF THE YEAR

Eddington/Bugonia – Eddington and Bugonia are the two most important films of the year because they do something that no other films even attempt to do…tell the uncomfortable truth.

Both films reveal the reality that “conspiracy theories” aren’t crazy…they are just ahead of the learning curve and if given enough time will be proven correct. The truth is that the time between something being called a “conspiracy theory” and it being proven correct is at an all-time low. If you hear some buffoon shrieking about something being a “conspiracy theory”…just wait three months and it will no longer be a “conspiracy theory” but an acknowledged, and resolutely ignored, fact.

Eddington, in particular, was brilliant in its evisceration of the idiocy of the mainstream, anti-conspiracy, mindset. It showed not just the surface level moronity of the Covid/BLM bullshit, but dug deeper and gave brief glimpses of the wider power structure pulling the strings of our world and creating the shadows dancing on our cave wall that we think is reality.

If you can watch Eddington and Bugonia and then go back to watching cable news or reading the New York Times and believing a single word you hear or see…then you need to have your head examined.

Truth is anathema in a world ruled by the demonic Epstein Class. Look no further than the current war raging in the Middle East, or the fact that our global empire is controlled by an evil Zionist entity for proof of that. Both political parties are so beholden to the Epstein Class and their Zionist overlords that who you vote for makes no difference whatsoever.

Moral, ethical, political and corporate corruption is so blatant now it goes unnoticed and unmentioned. The ruling elite want you angry, they want you confused, they want you disoriented, they want you disheartened….and that is why they rub your nose in the shit of their demonic criminality in broad daylight. That is why they steal, rape, kill and pillage right in front of you and laugh at any suggestion they’d be held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

That is why they refuse to close borders – so that European and the U.S. populations can be overrun by third worlders who will turn Europe and the U.S. into third world countries – if you don’t believe me go to Los Angeles – a massive third world city where hordes of helpless and hopeless people live and shit on the streets – and we are incapable of helping them because of corruption.

The third worlders are here to replace the “natives” because they will work for less and are less attached to those pesky right bestowed upon us by God. In other words they will accept the boot in their face better than the natives. This is how the Epstein Class wants it…because third worlders are easier to exploit and are necessary as a revolutionary force against the middle class.

The Epstein Class wants to make everything worse for you because it makes everything better for them. Gas prices skyrocket…sucks for you, is good for them. Inflation? Bad for you, good for them. Rising crime rates? Bad for you, good for them. Housing through the roof…bad for you, good for them. Prices for healthcare, food, shelter, college…out of control…bad for you…good for them.

The ruling elite of the Epstein Class and their Zionist overlords aren’t indifferent to your plight…quite the opposite…they actually hate you with a passion. They want to see you suffer and they want to exterminate you. They want you and your bloodline permanently extinguished.

They want your sons to die in foreign wars for their benefit and your daughters to be raped by foreign hordes in their homeland. They want your culture to disappear and they want your country to be unrecognizable to your ancestors. They want Europe, Ireland and the U.K. to look like the slums of Pakistan or Nigeria and the U.S. and Canada to look like the slums of Mexico or India. This is what these unrepentant, foul demons desperately want. This is what they are working toward…and every day that passes they are closer to their ultimate goal…your extinction.

You are nothing but a resource to exploit and an obstacle to ultimately obliterate for the Epstein Class…and they want to, and will, turn you into roadkill. They already control our economy, our media, our politics, our government and for the vast majority, our minds.

Eddington and Bugonia do not have happy endings…and the truth is…I don’t think our civilization infected by the Epstein Class and their Zionist overlords will have a happy ending either.

Two other films that point to what our near-term future looks like are The Secret Agent and It Was Just an Accident. Those films show the normalization of fascism and how fascists states are marinated in a corruption so deep that it becomes commonplace and simply ordinary.

Politics are so corrupt in those films (in Brazil and Iran) that corruptions seeps into every interaction in everyday life. To get treated in a hospital you must pay off the receptionist…then the nurse…then the doctor. To get protection from crime you must pay off the cops, pay off judges, pay off criminals.

Corruption is everywhere and eventually sinks in so deep as to corrupt the hearts, minds and souls of everyday people. Humanity is removed in favor of a moral and ethical corruption that spreads like a cancer and can never be eradicated.

This is where we are right now…our country and our populace is so morally and ethically demented that it embraces a suicidal path that will guarantee its destruction. You can’t vote your way out of it, no political party is free of the Epstein Class virus…no smooth-talking politician can save the day. The disease of the Epstein Class and their Zionist overlords has metastasized and it is killing the U.S. and Europe in a very deliberate and agonizing way.

There is no off-ramp…there are only momentary reprieves from the anxiety over the reality of our current moment. Know this…this car keeps moving at a rapidly increasing pace to its final destination…hurtling off a cliff.

Well…on that bright note the prestigious Mickey©®™ awards come to a glorious conclusion. Thank you for reading and for all of your comments…I hope we have a much better cinematic year in 2026 than we did in 2025…but either way the Mickeys©®™ will be back to let you know the best of the best in the art of cinema!!

©2026

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 153 - Oscar's Round Up and Predator: Badlands

On this episode, Barry and I share our takes on the Oscar's ceremony and then talk all things Predator: Badlands, now streaming on Hulu. Topics discussed include the shoddy Oscars production, the underwhelming Oscar line-up, and the hopes for the Predator franchise. There's also a scintillating Predator-themed brainstorming session which produces pure movie-business gold!!

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 153 - Predator: Badlands

Thanks for listening!!

©2026

98th Academy Awards - 2025 Oscar Predictions Post

98TH ACADEMY AWARDS

It is that time of year again when the good narcissists of Hollywood gather round to pucker up and kiss some ass and break their arms patting themselves on the back…IT’S OSCAR TIME!!

Everyone knows that the Oscars are the most important, most profound, and most holy of events in the human calendar. God created the earth in six days and on the seventh day he watched the Oscars…and was flabbergasted that a pedestrian piece of shit CODA won Best Picture a few years ago.

Speaking of pedestrian, don’t believe the hype regarding 2025. This past year has been a rather mundane movie year…there were a handful of movies I liked but none of them rose to the level of being called “great”. That hasn’t stopped the ever-growing collection of sycophants and shitheads who have declared the relentlessly sub-par One Battle After Another and Sinners to be cinematic masterpieces. Yawn.

The Oscars have diminished greatly in the 21st Century, and its loss of cultural cache has been hard-earned. The film industry has forgotten how to make great movies and that is a function of poor leadership and decision-making at the studio level, and artistic atrophy at the filmmaking level.

Movie stars are a relic of the past…and influencers are the medium of the moment…Timothee Chalamet seems to be a little bit of both and not enough of either.

As for the awards come Sunday…well…I have not lost an Oscar pool since I’ve been swimming in them…so if you want to be a big hit at the Oscar party you no doubt will not be attending because no one has Oscar parties anymore because no one cares about the Oscars…then you’ve come to the right place.

In all honestly…I would not put money on my Oscar picks this year. I have struggled to figure out what the hell the Academy has been doing in recent years and all the usual Academy tells seem to be getting turned on their heads. Will that stop me from boastfully declaring my picks while acting like I know what I’m talking about? No, of course not.

Thankfully the world is deeply enmeshed in a plethora of peace and prosperity and no pedophile cult of Satanic elites is running roughshod over the world and no war where innocents and schoolgirls are callously slaughtered rages anywhere – especially not in the Middle East…so since everything is calm and cool and safe and peaceful so we can all focus on what really matters the most…THE ACADEMY AWARDS!!

So…let’s get to it!!

This year it is an all-out battle between One Battle After Another and Sinners. Sinners has a record 16 nominations, and OBAA has won all the precursor awards. I disliked both movies so I have no dog in this fight…and would be happy to see either of them lose. There should be some indications early on which movie will win big on Oscar Night…and the first two awards will be pretty important.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another

Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein

Delroy Lindo – Sinners

Sean Penn – One Battle After Another

Stellan Skarsgard – Sentimental Value

Who will win: DELROY LINDO - SINNERS

Who should win: I guess Jacob Elordi?

Indicator win: Sean Penn – OBAA big night/Delroy Lindo – Sinners big night

Ok…this is a really tough one…Sean Penn has won a bunch of pre-cursors…but Delroy Lindo has all the momentum somehow and is the pandering choice. My guess is…pandering wins. Lindo is a fine enough actor but he does nothing even remotely interesting in the over-rated Sinners. If I am being honest the only performance that I thought was good in this group was Jacob Elordi. (I have not seen Sentimental Value – and Skarsgaard could definitely win). If Lindo wins then Sinners is going to have a HUGE night!!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value

Amy Madigan – Weapons

Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners

Teyana Taylor – OBAA

Who will win: AMY MADIGAN - WEAPONS

Who should win: Amy Madigan (Note that I’ve not seen Sentimental Value)

Indicator win: Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners huge night/ Teyana Taylor – OBAA huge night.

Teyana Taylor was the leader for a long time but her momentum seems to have diminished…and now it appears to be a race between Amy Madigan and Wunmi Mosaku. I really like Wunmi Mosaku…but she does nothing of note in Sinners…and if she wins here, it is completely a pandering pick. Madigan on the other hand has two things going for her – this is essentially a lifetime achievement Oscar, and also…she is very good in the role. So, I am going with Madigan but will not be the least bit surprised if Mosaku wins – and if she does it is an indication that Sinners is going to have a BIG night.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Blue Moon

It Was Just an Accident

Marty Supreme

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Will win: SINNERS – RYAN COOGLER

Should win: It Was Just an Accident

Indicator win: If Sinners loses then this night is turned upside down…would be genuinely shocking.

Sinners is winning this…end of story. The script and the film is garbage….but it’ll win.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Bugonia

Frankenstein

Hamnet

OBAA

Train Dreams

Will win: One Battle After Another – PT ANDERSON - OBAA

Should win: Train Dreams

Indicator win: If OBAA loses this award this will be a major shock and turn the night on its head.

This could be much tighter than people expect…but I do think One Battle After Another pulls it off…but don’t be surprised if Frankenstein or Hamnet sneaks in for the win.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Arco

Elio

KPOP Demon Hunters

Little Amelie or the Character of Rain

Zootopia 2

Will win: K-POP DEMON HUNTERS

Should win: I’ve not seen any of these movies.

KPOP Demon Hunters is a phenomenon and it’ll win here. If it doesn’t then I assume that Zootopia 2 will win.

BEST INTERNATRIONAL FEATURE

It Was Just an Accident (France)

The Secret Agent (Brazil)

Sentimental Value (Norway)

Sirat (Spain)

The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

Will win: SENTIMENTAL VALUE

Should win: It Was Just an Accident

This may be the very best category of the night. It Was Just an Accident and The Secret Agent are the only two films I’ve seen and they are definitely deserving of the award…and word is that Sentimental Value and The Voice of Hind Rajab are as well. My pick is Sentimental Value only because director Joachim Trier is also nominated for Best Director and it got two acting nominations as well which would indicate the film has deep support. Another thing to keep in mind is that The Secret Agent is a Brazilian film and Brazil has a very powerful contingent in the Academy….so don’t be shocked if it wins.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

The Alabama Solution

Come See Me in the Good Light

Cutting Through Rocks

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

The Perfect Neighbor

Will win: THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR

Should win: I’ve not seen any of these

The Perfect Neighbor deals with race and that is usually a ticket to Oscar gold. Wouldn’t be a shock if Mr. Nobody Against Putin wins because anti-Russia stuff is always a big favorite.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

All Empty Rooms

Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud

Children No More: Were and Are Gone

The Devil is Busy

Perfectly a Strangeness

Will win: ALL THE EMPTY ROOMS

Should win: I’ve not seen any of these

All the Empty Rooms is about children and gun violence. Check!

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

Butcher’s Stain

A Friend of Dorothy

Jane Austen’s Period Drama

The Singers

Two People Exchanging Saliva

Will win: TWO PEOPLE EXCHANGING SALIVA

Should win: I have not seen any of these.

Two People Exchanging Saliva is the favorite but Butcher’s Stain has a shot to win…but it might on the “wrong” side of the Israel-Palestine divide to get Oscar gold.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

Butterfly

Forevergreen

The Girl Who Cried Pearls

Retirement Plan

The Three Sisters

Will win: BUTTERFLY

Should win: I’ve not seen these.

Your guess is as good as mine…but Butterfly looks good…and it’s a Holocaust movie – so it’s a shoe in.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Bugonia

Frankenstein

Hamnet

OBAA

Sinners

Will win: SINNERS

Should win: No one

Indicator win: If OBAA wins it’s a big deal and will portend a big night…if Sinners wins as expected – it will be part of a Sinners juggernaut

I think this is a very important category as it will indicate how the evening will go…if OBAA wins giving Johnny Greenwood a “make-up” Oscar then OBAA will dominate…if Sinners wins…big night for Sinners. I have Sinners winning.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

“Dear Me” – Relentless

“Golden” – KPOP Demon Hunters

“I Lied to You” – Sinners

“Sweet Dreams of Joy” – Viva Verdi!

“Train Dreams” – Train Dreams

Will win: K-POP DEMON HUNTERS

Should win: No idea.

I think that KPOP Demon Hunters wins but if Sinners wins this award – a distinct possibility, then the juggernaut is in full swing and the film will win a record number of awards.

BEST CASTING

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

OBAA

The Secret Agent

Sinners

Will win: SINNERS

Should win: The Secret Agent

Indicator win: If Sinners loses this it will be a big deal and portend a lesser night.

Sinners will win for some reason.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

F1

Jurassic World: Rebirth

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Sinners

The Lost Bus

Will win: AVATAR FIRE AND ASH

Should win: F1

Indicator win: If Sinners wins this award – look out!!

No one gives a shit about Avatar movies but they always seem to win technical Oscars like this one…and I think that trend continues. If Sinners wins this then the universe might collapse in on itself as it is going to win the most Oscars of any movie ever made…quite an accomplishment for a shitty movie!

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

Frankenstein

Sinners

The Smashing Machine

The Ugly Stepsister

Kokuho

Will win: FRANKENSTEIN

Should win: The Smashing Machine

Indicator win: Sinners.

I think The Smashing Machine, which is a terrible movie, should actually win…but it won’t. So, it comes down to Frankenstein and Sinners…just like in Production Design…and I think the outcome is the same…Frankenstein.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Sinners

Will win: SINNERS

Should win: Frankenstein

Indicator win: Frankenstein – if it wins a handful of awards, it will blunt Sinners’ momentum.

Once again it is Frankenstein vs Sinners and once again Sinners racks up the victory as the juggernaut continues…it should be noted that if Frankenstein wins this, Hair and Makeup and Production Design…my prediction of Sinners dominance is down the toilet and OBAA is the movie that will be the juggernaut.

FILM EDITING

F1

Marty Supreme

OBAA

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Will win: ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Should win: One Battle After Another

Indicator win: If Sinners wins then the night is over and we can all go home.

F1 is getting some buzz for this…but the real battle is between OBAA and Sinners…and this is a big one…but this time I think OBAA gets the win…but if Sinners wins this one…LOOK OUT!!

BEST SOUND

F1

Frankenstein

OBAA

Sinners

Sirat

Will win: F1

Should win: OBAA

Indicator win: This is a neat little category that if either Sinners or OBAA win will let us know which movie will have a big night.

I think F1 will win…cars make cool sounds…BUT…this is another category that might go to Sinners just because it is pandering time. My pick though is F1.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

OBAA

Sinners

Will win: FRANKENSTEIN

Should win: Not sure.

Indicator win: Sinners. If it wins here and in Hair and Makeup and in costume…a real possibility…then Sinners is an all-time juggernaut.

Frankenstein is the favorite and could very well win…but Sinners is the potential juggernaut…and this is the type of award a juggernaut might win.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Frankenstein

Sinners

OBAA

Train Dreams

Marty Supreme

Will win: SINNERS

Should win: Train Dreams

Indicator win: OBAA should win this as cinematographer Michael Bauman has won all the pre-cursors…so if Sinners wins it is an upset and means Sinners is having a huge night.

Sinners is winning this despite looking like shit. It will win because its cinematographer, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, is not only a woman but a woman of color and no woman of any color or any non-color has ever won this award. Signal of virtue achieved!!

BEST ACTOR

Timothee Chalamet – Marty Supreme

Leonardo DiCaprio – OBAA

Michael B. Jordan – Sinners

Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon

Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent

Will win: MICHAEL B. JORDAN - SINNERS

Should win: Ethan Hawke/Leonardo DiCaprio/Wagner Moura…even Little Timmee when measured against Michael B. Jordan.

This is a very tough category…little Timmee had momentum and that seems to have gone up in smoke. Leo never had any momentum at all for some reason…and Hawke and Moura, who both gave great performances, were never taken seriously it seems. So, it would seem that Michael B. Jordan – who has proven himself over the years and in Sinners in particular, to be a truly dreadful and awful actor, will win Best Actor…and we will have to pretend he is worthy. Michael B. Jordan is easily the very worst actor in this group and gives the worst performance. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

BEST ACTRESS

Jessie Buckley – Hamnet

Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue

Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value

Emma Stone – Bugonia

Will win: JESSIE BUCKLEY – HAMNET

Should win: Jessie Buckley/Rose Byrne/Emma Stone

Jessie Buckley is winning this thing and she definitely deserves it. I would also argue that Rose Byrne is most definitely deserving of the award as well…and I would be happy if either of them wins. One can only hope that Kate Hudson is happy to be there because she is not deserving of being there and should go away as quickly as possible.

BEST DIRECTOR

Chloe Zhao – Hamnet

PT Anderson – One Battle After Another*

Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme

Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value

Ryan Coogler – Sinners

Will win: PT ANDERSON – OBAA

Should win: No idea…not a fan of any of these films – but have not seen Sentimental Value

There’s a chance Coogler gets the victory here but I think this is a lifetime achievement Oscar for PT Anderson. The funniest part will be if PTA wins Best Director and Sinners wins Best Picture the usual suspects will still be crying racism because Coogler didn’t get Best Director…either way I will laugh heartily.

BEST PICTURE

Bugonia

F1

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Sinners

Train Dreams

Will win: SINNERS

Should win: Train Dreams/Bugonia

I know the odds-on favorite is One Battle After Another…but the vibes I’m getting are that Sinners is going to have an enormous Oscar night. I think the movie is a steaming pile of pedestrian horseshit…but I also think it will win Best Picture because it gives the Academy a chance to pander and virtue signal – their favorite thing to do! Maybe I’m wrong…and don’t get me wrong…I have no love for One Battle After Another either…but it could win…or we could get a reverse split and have Coogler win Best Director and OBAA win Best Picture…or Sinners could win both or OBAA could win both. It is going to a big fight between these two movies all night and from what I’m gathering it looks like Sinners will be the big winner. We can all rest assured though that no matter how many Oscars Sinners wins…and I think it will win a lot…it won’t be enough and people will be crying “racism!” in the wake of the Oscars…so at least we have that to look forward to.

Well…that wraps up the Oscar predictions for this year…but my predictions for next year are essentially the same…there will be a cornucopia of underwhelming movies everyone pretends is great and I will once again want to light myself on fire. YAY!!!

Alright everybody….I’ll see you at the after party!!

©2026

It Was Just an Accident: A Review - Profound Film for our Dark Times

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE. IT. NOW. - Unquestionably one of the very best films of the year.

It Was Just an Accident, written and directed by Jafar Panahi, tells the story of Vahid, a mechanic who struggles with a monumental decision about whether to confront his past or to move on from it.

The film, which is a French/Iranian production (in Farsi with English sub-titles) that is nominated for the Best International Feature Film award at this year’s Academy Awards, is currently streaming on Hulu, which is where I just watched it.

It Was Just an Accident was surreptitiously shot in Iran by acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi – who, besides being imprisoned for his outspoken criticism of the Iranian government, was also banned from making films. Panahi shot the film essentially guerrilla style without any permits or permission...a bold and daring choice to make in authoritarian Iran.

Considering the current state of the world…which includes a brutal war between Israel and the U.S. against Iran, Panahi’s fantastic film takes on a much greater power and meaning than its simple, poignant and profound story already tells.

The film, which I will not spoil in any way shape or form so as to keep its impact preserved for those that haven’t yet seen it, is a relentlessly compelling and captivating meditation on the struggle between revenge and forgiveness, and about how difficult it is to fight against tyranny without becoming a tyrant and losing one’s soul.

It Was Just an Accident is one of the very best films of the year. It is a mesmerizing mixture of a morality tale, comedy caper, road picture and a thriller wrapped in an indictment of the Iranian regime and a plea to the humanity of all.

The film, which won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, starts slow but then builds and builds and builds to a truly phenomenal ending, gaining dramatic momentum with every scene and every performance.

That this movie could be so simple and yet spotlight such a complex moral and ethical conundrum and its consequences speaks to the brilliance of the script and of Panahi’s direction. The film could have been a Manichean manifesto that gives viewers what they want – but instead it is one of those movies that reveals a confounding complexity through its storytelling simplicity.

It Was Just an Accident was the third film I watched this week, the first two being The Secret Agent – a Brazilian film also nominated for Best International Feature, and Nuremberg, a big studio movie about the Nuremberg trials. I will review The Secret Agent and Nuremberg later this week. The one thing all three of these films have in common is that they address fascism and its toxic and corrosive effect on individuals and on society.

The most notable thing about fascist societies (whether they know they are fascist or not is irrelevant) is that they are riddled with corruption…not just moral and ethical corruption but actual physical/financial corruption.

In all three films corruption is so prevalent as to be the air that people breathe. Cops are corrupt, businesses are corrupt, nurses are corrupt, bureaucrats are corrupt…bad guys are corrupt, good guys are corrupt, everyone is corrupt. Corruption is contagious until it just becomes normalized…just like it is here in the U.S.

I am always amused when I read an article or hear some talking head in the U.S. bemoaning the corruption in some far-off land like Russia or China or Brazil and they use some study that shows the amount of corruption in those countries as opposed to the pristine nature of the U.S. as proof of their thesis. The problem with studies and theories like these is that corruption in the U.S. has simply been codified into law…so it is no longer considered corruption….but it is still corruption. Look no further than the ungodly amounts of money thrown around in the American political system for proof of that. In other countries that would be considered corruption…here it is just considered business as usual.

What makes It Was Just an Accident so remarkable is that is transcends its national and cultural borders and places all of us in the same predicament as its Iranian protagonist Vahid. We know the monumental question he grapples with and the danger it poses. We also understand how not only his life but his soul is on the line. We don’t just see what he is struggling with…we struggle right along with him.

All of this is a credit to Jafar Panahi, his brilliant writing, his exquisite filmmaking, and his uncompromising attitude and artistry.

Panahi obviously made this film as an indictment against the Iranian regime that has persecuted him, but this story simply cannot be contained within those borders. The moral and ethical insights Panahi provides can be applied just as equally to Iran’s attackers – Israel and the U.S., as it can to the despotic Iranian regime itself. Which is why this filmmaker and this film are so brilliant.

It has not been easy writing a review of this movie without giving any of its plot to readers, but I think that is necessary in order to enjoy the film to its fullest.

I cannot recommend this film enough and urge people to go check it out on Hulu. If you don’t have Hulu…get a free week or something and then go watch It Was Just an Accident and also watch The Secret Agent – which is also streaming there.

My recommendation is to turn off the mindless, flag-waving, disinformation, propaganda news channels here in the U.S. (I assume you’re not watching the propaganda news channels in Iran), and instead go spend an hour and forty minutes and watch It Was Just an Accident right now…you will be very glad you did.

©2026

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 148 - Bugonia

On this barn-burner of an episode, Barry and I shave our heads and castrate ourselves as we fight over Yorgos Lanthimos' Academy Award nominated film Bugonia, starring Emma Stone. Topics discussed include the positives and negatives of Lanthimos' particular taste and style, challenging audience expectation, and Alex Jones, David Icke and the current conspiracy cultural moment.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 148 - Bugonia

Thanks for listening!

©2026

Marty Supreme: a Review - Supremely Over-Rated

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An overlong, annoying, grating and irritating movie devoid of drama, comedy, meaning, and purpose.

Marty Supreme, written and directed by Josh Safdie, is a dramedy that chronicles the travails of an arrogant, narcissistic, world-class ping pong player/con-man in the 1950’s.

The film, which stars Timothee Chalamet in the titular role, hit theatres on Christmas and has made over $100 million on a $70 million budget. It has also garnered nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Chalamet), Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography.

Director Josh Safdie, formerly of the directing duo the Safdie brothers, is the darling of the hipster set. His previous film (directed by the Safdie brothers) was Uncut Gems, which was adored by critics and despised by me.

That film featured Adam Sandler in the lead role playing a grotesquely repugnant gambling addict on an extended odyssey. Marty Supreme follows a similar roadmap, it tells the story of a grotesquely repugnant ping-pong player who is an arrogant asshole and compulsive bullshit artist on an extended odyssey.

I have heard in my life a lot of people complain about one movie or another by saying that ‘there was no one to root for’, or something along those lines. I understand that criticism but have never found it compelling. I don’t need to root for someone to enjoy a movie…at all.

But the problem with Marty Supreme…and with Uncut Gems…is that I found myself absolutely despising every single character on-screen for the duration of the film. I wasn’t rooting for them or against them…I was just wanting them to go away. I also was mystified by these lead characters and the actors playing them because they lacked charisma and magnetism and yet were supposed to be charismatic and magnetic. Shrug.

The problem with Uncut Gems and Marty Supreme is not unlikable characters, but rather unbelievable one-dimensional characters that are unlikeable.  

What bothered me about Marty Supreme is that it is much too sprawling and meandering a movie to hold one’s attention on such a fruitless ride with such a repulsive character as the lead.

The film never grabs you by the neck and demands your attention because it lacks focus and dramatic verve. Marty goes from one frying pan into the fire situation after another, and none of them are the least bit compelling…just repetitive and grating.

Marty’s odyssey takes him all over the world and puts him into conflict with rich and powerful men of varying degrees wherever he goes…and while the rich and powerful don’t come across very well at all, Marty comes across even worse. Marty is such a relentless, gigantic douchebag that this movie feels like a piece of anti-proletariat agit-prop.

I’ve heard the argument that Marty Supreme is about ‘the pursuit of greatness’ and I find that argument to be sorely lacking. Marty is not pursuing greatness – the truth is ping-pong is a distant second place in his hierarchy to his ego and his baser instincts. He isn’t pursuing greatness he is pursuing his own gratification and self-aggrandizement.

What I find fascinating is that Josh Safdie is Jewish (and obviously his brother is too) and yet in both Uncut Gems and Marty Supreme he has turned his Jewish protagonists into the most awful human beings imaginable animated by nothing more than Jewish stereotypes. They literally have zero redeeming qualities. I am not sure why he has done that, but he has definitely done it. It is so bad that if a non-Jewish filmmaker had made those two films, they would have been pilloried for being anti-Semitic…and rightfully so.

I have intentionally avoided delving too deeply into the morass that is the plot of Marty Supreme in order to avoid spoilers and because it is annoying to even try and recall. Just know that it is all over the place and none of it is worth paying attention to.

There are so many worthless and wandering scenes and sequences in this film it made my head hurt…for example there’s an entire chunk of the movie dedicated to Marty and a dog that is so relentlessly inane and absurd as to be infuriating.

Timothee Chalamet is the favorite to win Best Actor at this year’s Academy Awards, and I get why that is and it has nothing to do with this particular performance but rather with how he has masterfully positioned himself in the industry over the course of his career.

The reality is that Chalamet’s Marty is not a masterclass in acting. It is like a reality tv star performance crossed with a twitter troll come to life. Chalamet has one very good scene in the film and it is his final one…but beyond that he is less acting than he is play-acting…and badly at that.

Something that aggravated me throughout the film is that it is set in the 1950’s and yet Chalamet, and everyone else, speaks in a modern vernacular and acts in a modern way. I understand this is intentional on the part of Safdie – as he uses modern music throughout too, but I found it annoying as it took me out of the story – a story I was struggling to stay in to begin with.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Kay Stone, a former movie star now trophy wife, with whom Marty has an affair. She does the best she can with a rather thinly written character, and has one scene where she realistically gets frantic, but beyond that there’s not much to see here.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji does his usual supreme – pardon the pun, work on the film. It is well-shot and well-lit, but that doesn’t make its storytelling failures any more palatable.

The success of the Safdie brothers in general, and Marty Supreme in particular, is a mystery to me. I find this film, and all of the Safdie brother’s films, to be relentlessly vacuous, vapid and venal. That critics and hipsters adore them doesn’t make me question my feelings about these films, but reinforces my feelings about critics and hipsters instead.

Ultimately, I cannot think of anyone who I know who would enjoy Marty Supreme, or even appreciate it as a work of cinematic art…and that is because I do not think it is much a work of cinematic art at all.

If you’re a Safdie brothers fan and loved Uncut Gems, then you will no doubt enjoy the interminably long, rather irritating roller coaster ride that is Marty Supreme. For everyone else…there’s nothing to see here.

©2026

Bugonia: A Review - The Madness and Mastery of King Yorgos

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An arthouse gem of a film that speaks insightfully to the madness of our modern age.

Bugonia, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, tells the story of two conspiracy-obsessed cousins who kidnap a CEO of a nefarious company.

The film, which is a remake of the South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, hit theatres on October 24th and didn’t make much of a splash – despite mostly positive reviews it made $40 million on a $45 million budget. It is currently streaming on Peacock, which is where I just watched it.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos is definitely an acquired taste…but one which I am grateful to have acquired. I remember years ago loving Lanthimos’s film The Lobster (2015), which is an absurdist arthouse black comedy, and highly recommending it to a friend of mine. He then went and saw the movie with his parents and all three of them hated the movie with the fury of a thousand suns. What can you do?

Since The Lobster, Lanthimos has churned out a bevy of really fantastic and unique films. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2018) was a weird and woolly arthouse gem. The Favourite and Poor Things were phenomenal films that garnered Best Actress Academy Awards for their lead actresses Olivia Colman and Emma Stone respectively. Kinds of Kindness was an oddball anthology that was one of my favorite films of 2024.

Bugonia is right in Lanthimos’s wheelhouse as it is definitely an arthouse black comedy project but one that can appeal to more mainstream tastes if given the chance.

I won’t give much of the plot of the film away as I think it best to avoid any semblance of spoilers in order to appreciate the film to its fullest. But as stated in the opening paragraph, Bugonia follows the travails of Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aiden Delbis), two conspiracy theorist cousins, as they plot to kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a hard-charging CEO of a pharmaceutical company.

The magic of Bugonia is that it could be a stage play as it is rudimentary in its dramatic set-up, but it is also gorgeously photographed by Robbie Ryan with a stunning simplicity. In other words, it is an actor’s dream of a screenplay – which Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons devour with aplomb, that is glorious to look at due to Ryan’s deft, subtle and crisp cinematography.

The performances of Stone, Plemons and even newcomer Delbis, are remarkable.

Emma Stone has two Best Actress Academy Awards and if we lived in a just world, she would be receiving her third one this year for her work on Bugonia. Stone is at the point in her career where she is so good her greatness is taken for granted and overlooked.

As the CEO Michelle, Stone delivers a dexterous and complex performance that is sharp, savvy and nimble. Stone’s Michelle is always believable even when she isn’t.

Jesse Plemons is a terrific and often overlooked actor and he brings the full weight of his talents to bear as Teddy, the “brains” of the two-man conspiracy addled operation.

Plemons’ Teddy is a cauldron of suppressed emotions and wounds ready to burst at the seams. Thanks to Plemons’ mastery, Teddy’s eyes betray his twisted and tormented inner life.

One of the more incredible performances in the film comes from newcomer Aiden Delbis as Don. Delbis, who is autistic, was discovered in an open casting call to play the autistic Don…and he is amazing in the role.

What is most striking about Bugonia is that it is ideologically audacious and philosophically brazen. There is something in the zeitgeist in the last year or so, with films like Eddington and now Bugonia, both of which wear their conspiracy obsession on their sleeves and poke their thumbs into the eyes of their target audience while pretending to cozy up to them.

As someone who is often contemptuously labelled a conspiracy theorist by friend and foe alike, I was both unnerved and overjoyed when Plemons’ Teddy numerous times vociferously pontificated an unhinged conspiracy rant that was alarmingly similar to rants that I’ve shouted over the years…so much so that I thought to myself the old joke, ‘I resemble that remark!’

Of course, the joy of being a conspiracy theorist in our current corrupt and crazy age is that the time between being ridiculed for presenting a conspiracy theory and that conspiracy theory being proven correct is at an all-time low.

While discussing the film afterwards with my wife, we spoke about how Bugonia is a perfect double feature with Eddington, a conspiracy themed movie directed by Ari Aster - and one of the very best films of 2025, when her keen eye spotted that Ari Aster is one of the producers of Bugonia. This makes sense, as both Aster and Lanthimos are unique auteurs and artists who are keenly aware of the collective unconscious and the murmurings of madness just beneath the surface of our civilization…and have dramatized that in their films.

Bugonia and Eddington are films that have expansive artistic vision and enormous political and cultural insight to them, which is in stark contrast to the current film bro darling and Oscar front-runner One Battle After Another.

One Battle After Another is what comfortable neo-liberal activists imagine themselves to be, while Eddington and Bugonia are glimpses of the ugly and messy reality at contrast with that self-serving and delusional vision. In other words, One Battle After Another tells liberal coastal elites what they want to hear, and Eddington and Bugonia tell them the unvarnished and uncomfortable truth. Or even more bluntly…One Battle After Another is what “resistance” liberals want to be, and Eddington and Bugonia are what they really are.

My despondence over the state of the world is well-documented. The world is losing its mind faster and faster as every hour of every day passes…and we hurtle blindly toward a conflagration that will engulf us all and suffocate all the humanity out of us and the world. (As an aside…if you think Venezeula is a one-off and not a continuation, or is the end and not the beginning - God help you because you’re too thick for words.)

In my despondence over the world, I turn to art to try and find some insight or solace or understanding…and what I usually find is artistically benign and politically malignant neo-liberal corporate capitalist garbage. But with Bugonia and Eddington I find hope amidst the hopelessness. If two great artists like Lanthimos and Aster are seeing and saying what I am seeing and saying…then at least there is a light that can be a beacon to others who have not lost their way in all of this darkness. Or maybe it isn’t as positive as all that…maybe I am just a cynical, self-serving prophet who is happy to see signs that I am right. Who knows?

All I know is that Bugonia is one of the best films of the year. Be forewarned…it is an arthouse film and it is not for everybody. But even mainstream audiences, if they go into the film with an open mind, can enjoy the madness and mastery of Bugonia.

So go to Peacock – and if you don’t have a subscription, you can get a free week trial – and watch Bugonia, it is well-worth your time, and it might even open your eyes and your mind.

©2026

Stand-up Comedy Review: The Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais New Netflix Specials

COMEDY ROUND UP

Dave Chappelle’s The Unstoppable – 2.5 out of 5 Chuckles

Ricky Gervais’ Mortality – 2.5 out of 5 Chuckles

This holiday season has seen two Netflix comedy specials from two of the more notable anti-woke stand-up comedians of our current age released to the masses. Dave Chappelle’s The Unstoppable hit Netflix on December 19th and Ricky Gervais’s Mortality hit the streaming service on December 30th.

Chappelle is widely considered to be the best stand-up comedian of his generation, and he has been on a real heater in the last decade, churning out seven very solid – to often spectacular, comedy specials dating back to 2015.

Deep in the Heart of Texas (filmed in 2015 but released in 2017), The Age of Spin (filmed in 2016 and released in 2017), The Bird Revelation (2017), Equanimity (2017), Sticks and Stones (2019), The Closer (2021), and The Dreamer (2023) is a murderer’s row of comedy specials that eclipses any of Chappelle’s contemporaries by miles.

Chappelle made some tsunami-sized waves with his iconic bits about transgenderism in Sticks and Stones, The Closer and The Dreamer, which put him front and center in the culture wars and in the crosshairs of the tiny Torquemadas of the woke brigade.

Those bits were extraordinarily funny, and effective, because they were so savagely incisive and insightful. Unfortunately, Chappelle’s new special, The Unstoppable, is neither incisive nor insightful. It is a rather meandering set that lacks vigor, comedic vitality and initiative, and is devoid of any particularly memorable bits.

Chappelle’s main focus of the show is him talking about his recent well-paid appearance at a Saudi Arabian comedy festival, which triggered his detractors, like Little Bill Maher, to call him a hypocrite. The argument being that Chappelle is outspoken about free speech and assaults on his right to it, but then would bend the knee to an oppressive regime like Saudi Arabia just for cash.

Chappelle’s response to the criticism, most notably from Maher, lays bare who pulls the strings of whom in the comedy business and Hollywood…and let’s be clear…the Middle Eastern country that controls Hollywood ain’t Saudi Arabia.

Chappelle’s self-defense is, all things considered, mild to say the least…he could’ve eviscerated Bill Maher – a target rich environment if there ever was one…but he doesn’t…he gives him a gentle but firm bitch slap. I personally would’ve loved it if he referenced Maher fellating his Israeli pay masters, as well as the U.S. intelligence and military industrial complex, at every chance he gets, but that’s just me (and that’s something I do on a regular basis).

Chappelle’s set runs just over an hour and it is rather listless and mostly lifeless. It is a disappointment to see Chappelle be less dynamic and vital as we’ve become accustomed.

To close the set Chappelle does talk about how a high-profile, controversial guy like him has a target on his back and maybe someone or some group of people would try and take him out…like they did to Charlie Kirk. Chappelle may be correct with that concern…but my guess is he’ll die of lung cancer before anyone attempts to murder him…or they’ll murder him by giving him lung cancer…because his chain smoking during the special is the most memorable thing about it.

Since 2018 Ricky Gervais has been consistently touring and releasing comedy specials, some of which have been very good.

His last three specials, Humanity (2018), SuperNature (2022), and Armageddon (2023), have all been top-notch, with Gervais slapping woke culture with verve and aplomb on all of them.

Gervais has never been considered a great stand-up comedian, but with those three specials he showed himself to be quite adept at the art form. Unfortunately, Gervais’s newest special, Mortality, is a divergence from recent history, as it’s a pretty flaccid affair.

Gervais throughout seems detached, and the special feels less like a real stand-up show captured on film than a choreographed comedy special masquerading as a real stand-up show.

Gone from Mortality is Gervais’s usual verve and vitality and in its steed is a rather rudimentary set that feels small and creatively and comedically withered. Gervais’s timing is off throughout and his energy is diluted and distracted.

The material in Mortality is, on the rarest of occasions, clever, but never insightful, and it all feels rather sub-par and unoriginal…so much so that the best parts are when Gervais recounts better jokes he told while masterfully hosting the Golden Globes in years past.

In contemplating Chappelle and Gervais’s sub-par comedy output on these new shows, the conclusion I came to is this…that the fever of wokeness – and its accompanying hysteria, has broken, at least for now, and so comedians who thrived pushing against that madness, now find themselves without a formidable foil and thus they lose some vitality and verve.

Chappelle and Gervais were so good at standing in the eye of the woke storm and sticking a thumb in it that now with the hurricane winds subsiding, they have lost some meaning and purpose in their work.

Another comedian who thrived in opposition to wokeness was Bill Burr, whose anger and rage found a perfect target in the silly and soul-sucking mania of the woke movement. Burr though has now lost his fastball…and the majority of his other pitches, not because wokeness seems to be receding, but because he has essentially acquiesced to the woke mob – instead of beating them…he joined them – and lost his edge in the process.

It seems incomprehensible to even consider Chappelle or Gervais doing such a thing…but in the current moment, where wokeness has loosened its manic grip on the culture, Chappelle and Gervais have in response lost their comedic fervor. They seem to be men wandering the new cultural landscape trying to find their way and identify some landmarks with which to orient themselves and their comedy.

All in all, The Unstoppable and Mortality are forgettable comedy specials that are entirely harmless…and essentially toothless. They are worth maybe three or four chuckles each, and frankly, that’s the bare minimum for an hour long special.

If you are looking for some transcendent, insightful stand-up comedy from Chappelle and Gervais, The Unstoppable and Mortality is not it. That said, you could do worse than watch these two specials if you’re looking for a laugh or two and to pass the time.

©2026

Emptying the Notebook - Four Film Reviews for the Price of One

END OF YEAR HOUSECLEANING

As the year is coming to a close, I went back through my notebook and discovered some films I watched but did not properly review. So I figured why not just empty everything out and share some brief thoughts on these movies in case you were looking for something to watch over the holidays.

THE APPRENTICE – Available to stream on Amazon Prime

The Apprentice is actually a 2024 film but I never got around to watching it…and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised as I had very low expectations for the film and they were easily exceeded.

I expected a sort of run of the mill anti-Trump diatribe in film form…a sentiment I understand but which I believe would make for a rather dull feature film. What I got instead was a really incredible performance from Sebastian Stan as The Donald, in a rather nuanced and, all things considered, restrained biography of the early adult years of our current President.

Directed by Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice chronicles Trump’s ascent in the New York real estate and social world from a nepo nobody to a socialite somebody. Trump’s relationship with uber-scumbag Roy Cohn – portrayed with aplomb by Jeremy Strong, gives the background to his cutthroat approach to both business and politics.

The film is shockingly good in the first half in presenting Trump as an actual human being trying to understand the world and his place in it. In the second half it loses some steam, some perspective and nuance, but Stan never loses his grasp of the character or his humanity (or inhumanity as the case may be).

Sebastian Stan’s portrayal of Trump in this film is jaw-droppingly good. He doesn’t imitate Trump, but he is subtle in recreating some of his mannerisms and speech, and he gives a truly seamless and sterling performance. Stan was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar and Strong for Best Supporting Actor…and both nominations are very well deserved.

If you are looking for a solid movie to watch, you could do much worse than watching The Apprentice. That said, if you are burned out on all things Trump…I get it.

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

WARFARE – Available to stream on HBO MAX

Warfare is a 2025 film directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza that sort of slid under the radar when it hit theatres in April.

The film chronicles a single military encounter of a Navy SEAL platoon in 2006 during the Battle of Ramadi. It is based on the real-life experience of director Mendoza and accounts from his team members.

Alex Garland is a filmmaker who showed great promise in his debut feature Ex Machina, but who has disappointed since then. His most recent film, 2024’s Civil War, showed great promise as well but never was quite as good as it should have been.

Warfare is, in my unhumble opinion, Garland’s best film since Ex Machina. It is a rather simple set up, a platoon of Navy SEALS is stuck doing surveillance in a house in Ramadi. Then the shit hits the fan and a battle erupts.

The film is well shot by cinematographer David J. Thompson, and well-choreographed by Mendoza. The battle is chaotic and feels entirely real. The best thing about Warfare is that it feels like you are plunged into a real setting and situation with real warriors. It doesn’t have the usual Hollywood film structure or pacing or anything like that. There are no grandiose speeches are dramatic movie star posturing, just a cast of regular looking dudes thrown into a hellish environment and trying to survive it.

The film is not overtly political, but it certainly does have something to say about the Iraq debacle if you have eyes to see it.

I found Warfare to be an effective and affecting piece of moviemaking. It isn’t a great film, but it is a good enough one to recommend people check it out and do so with an open mind.

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

28 YEARS LATER – Available to stream on Netflix

28 Years Later is the sequel to the 2002 film 28 Days Later, both of which were written by the aforementioned Alex Garland. It is the third film in the 28 Days Later franchise…and a fourth is on its way in 2026.

I greatly enjoyed 28 Days Later when I saw it in the theatre back in 2002, as it gave a real jolt of energy to the zombie genre – a genre I admittedly had little interest in or knowledge of.

Having revisited 28 Days Later recently, the shine has come off that film in many ways. It wasn’t quite as good as I remembered it (I hadn’t seen it since seeing it in the theatre).

That said, I went into 28 Years Later with an open mind. I found the film, which is directed by Danny Boyle – the director of the original, to be mostly underwhelming.

The movie features a top-notch cast of Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Jack O’Connell and Ralph Fiennes, so there is a great deal of potential there…but unfortunately it never coalesces into a compelling piece of cinema.

To be clear, it isn’t a bad film, but it also isn’t a great one…it just kind of exists. It is less a zombie movie than an existential and philosophical one…and that gives it some energy, but the plot and the execution of it all never quite comes together in a way that satisfies or satiates.

The biggest question I had at the end of the film was why was this necessary? I mean, I get that the first movie was compelling and the second – 28 Weeks Later (2007), was forgettable…but why make another movie in the franchise nearly twenty years later when there wasn’t exactly a rallying cry from the masses to get it done?

Ultimately, 28 Years Later is a pretty forgettable bit of moviemaking, something that has become all-too common in the last decade of Danny Boyle’s directing career.

I say skip 28 Years Later unless if you’re a gigantic zombie movie fanatic…but even then, you’ll be disappointed with the general lack of zombie mayhem captured on screen.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

THE SHROUDS – Available to stream on The Criterion Channel

The Shrouds, iconic filmmaker David Cronenberg’s latest film, hit theatres in 2025 and is now streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The film, which stars Vincent Cassel, Guy Pearce, Diane Kruger and Sandrine Holt, tells the story of a widower who has invented a new technology called “GraveTech”, that helps the grieving to monitor the decomposition of their loved one in the grave. Yes…this is some weird Cronenberg-ian shit.

The film is a sort of glorious concoction that mixes the usual Cronenberg body horror with a philosophical mediation on love, death, life and the modern world. Throw in some conspiracy theorizing and some big business corruption and you’ve got quite the arthouse phantasmagoria.

If you are a fan of David Cronenberg – and I consider myself one…not a super fan but a fan, then you will absolutely love The Shrouds as it is quintessential Cronenberg – most especially late-stage Cronenberg, as a man grappling with his own mortality and the death of his wife.

If you’re a normal human being you will probably find The Shrouds to be a completely alien, convoluted, and rather ghoulish cinematic experience. I understand that entirely and don’t judge anyone for feeling that way.

But if you are a Cronenberg fan, or a fan of somewhat eccentric arthouse cinema from a quality filmmaker who sometimes makes somewhat eccentric arthouse cinema…then I recommend you at least check out The Shrouds.

Ultimately The Shrouds might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it is undeniably an original idea…and that is pretty rare nowadays.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (3.5 out of 5 stars for Cronenberg fans)

If you want to check out some other Cronenberg films here is a brief rundown of movies to see.

Solid horror movies – The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers.

Very Solid Mainstream Movies – A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method.

Gloriously Bat-Shit Crazy Movies Worth Watching – Crash (1996)

Alright gang…that is all I have for now. I hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Year!!

©2025

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Story - A Review: Please Go Back to Sleep Dead Man

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. If you like the Knives Out formula of convoluted and absurd murder mystery mixed with bad writing and even worse performances, then this movie might be for you. It wasn’t for me.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Story, written and directed by Rian Johnson, is the new mystery in the Knives Out franchise that once again features master detective Benoit Blanc solving an impossible case.

Set in a small town in upstate New York, Wake Up Dead Man – which premiered on Netflix on December 12th, revolves around a tyrannical, dare I say it – Trumpian Catholic priest, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), who is surrounded by a tight-knit group of sycophantic parishioners.

Enter into this dynamic a young former boxer turned priest, Jud Duplenticity (Josh O’Connor), sent by a Bishop to try and bring some semblance of Christ and normalcy back into Msgr. Wicks’ parish.

Father Jud runs into lots of resistance from not only Msgr. Wicks but from his coven of adherents. There’s steely church lady Martha Delacroix (Glen Close), alcoholic town Doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), former best-selling author turned right-wing loon Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), tightly wound lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington) and her adult son Cy (Daryl McCormack) – an aspiring slimy politician, disabled former concert Cello player Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), and finally church groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church).

In order to avoid spoilers, I will refrain from going any deeper into the plot so that those that wish may watch the film with as little information about it as I did.

The first Knives Out film came out in 2019 and was a smash hit. People loved it. I loathed it. In fact, I wrote an article about the film shortly after its release that caused quite a kerfuffle.

That article, titled “Knives Out Sharpens the Blade of Anti-White Racism”, pointed out the fact that Knives Out was a not-so-thinly-veiled piece of anti-white racist propaganda. Despite a very angry response from many readers, time has been extraordinarily kind to that piece and to its main thesis.

The second Knives Out movie, Glass Onion – which came out in 2022, was riddled with much of the same sort of trite cultural politics and anti-white animus.

Wake Up Dead Man is not infused with as much anti-white animus as Knives Out or Glass Onion…which is a nice change of pace. It is also surprisingly more even-handed when it comes to Christianity than you would otherwise think.

That said, I still thought it was a bad movie. It was poorly constructed, abysmally executed, politically trite, culturally patronizing, and exceedingly dull…BUT it was the best of the Knives Out movies so far…sort of like being the tallest dwarf.

The best part about the movie is Josh O’Connor who gives a pretty good performance as Fr. Jud – a man trying to come to grips with himself, his God and his purpose and meaning here on earth.

O’Connor does not make for a believable former boxer…but he does make for a believable tormented priest struggling with his consistently frail humanity. So, hats off to Josh O’Connor.

The rest of the cast are…well…pretty atrocious…mostly because they are given a script that is so unforgivably poorly written.

Josh Brolin’s Msgr. Wicks is a pseudo-Trumpian figure and is a caricature’s caricature. Glen Close’s Church Lady is a one-note bore and snore. Andrew Scott’s frustrated writer is like the invisible man…you forget he’s even in the movie. Kerry Washington is, shock of shocks, all righteous indignation – yawn. And Jeremy Renner as the drunk doctor is like a tumbleweed rolling through the festivities unnoticed.

I didn’t even mention Daryl McCormack’s Cy or Thomas Haden Church’s Samson or Cailee Spaeny’s Simone because they are so shallow as characters they don’t even register.

The worst of all is Mila Kunis who plays local police chief Geraldine Scott. Kunis is so bad in this role and so uncomfortable on screen it felt like she was an amateur who won a raffle and the prize was getting cast in the movie.

Speaking of awful…now is when I must comment on Daniel Craig as the world’s greatest detective Benoit Blanc. I admit I greatly enjoyed Craig as James Bond…but I find his Benoit Blanc to be an unamusing, unfunny version of Foghorn Leghorn and Forrest Gump. He also looks like he has had some particularly unfortunate plastic surgery…which was about as well-done as his performance. Yikes. Every moment with Craig on-screen is a moment of cringe.

I must admit that the whodunnit is not really my cup of tea to begin with, and your mileage may vary in regards to that, but the problem with Wake Up Dead Man is not that it’s a mystery but rather that it is so clumsily written and executed.

As I watched the film I was never trying to figure out ‘who did it’ but rather ‘how much longer is this?’ Unfortunately, it has a run time of two hours and twenty-four minutes…and it feels longer.

Another issue with the film is that while it is set in a Catholic church it is more Catholic in aesthetic than in theology. The truth is the film is decidedly Protestant, if not outright Evangelical, and it feels like the Catholic setting is just to make it feel more profound…which amuses me – a Catholic, no end. I mean you really can’t set a murder mystery worth watching in a church in a strip mall, right?

Writer/director Rian Johnson may or may not be a Catholic, I have no idea, but he certainly seems pretty obtuse when it comes to Catholicism.

One thing Johnson does believe in with great faith is making unnecessarily convoluted and absurd murder mysteries saturated in Boomer shit-liberalism that is the left-wing mirror of the mental midgetry of MAGA mindlessness. Good for him?

Ultimately, I did not care about any single person in this film, didn’t care who was killed and who killed them, and why. I just wanted it to end.

Wake Up Dead Man is yet another frivolous and inconsequential piece of pop culture garbage that the mindless masses who confuse mediocrity with mastery and vacuity with verisimilitude will find to be phenomenal.

God help us all.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 144 - Eddington

On this scintillating episode, Barry and I don our tinfoil hats and go down the rabbit hole to debate the merits of Ari Aster's neo-Western Covid comedy/thriller Eddington. Topics discussed include the Covid/#MeToo/BLM hysteria, Joaquin Phoenix's brilliance, Barry's lust for Austin Butler, and the bizarre and mesmerizing wonders of this peculiar, yet terrific, movie. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 144 - Eddington

Thanks for listening!

©2025

Age of Disclosure: a Documentary Review - The Truth is Out There...Somewhere

AGE OF DISCLOSURE - Currently Available to Rent or Buy on VOD

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. This is a good documentary for those new to the UFO subject to watch as it features a lot of credible people, but for those looking for new info, look elsewhere.

Age of Disclosure, directed by Dan Farah, is a new documentary which makes the claim that the U.S. and other governments have been gathering evidence – including alien craft and bodies, over the last 80 years of extraterrestrial intelligence visiting earth.

I have been immersed in amateur “UFO studies” since the 1980s…back when they were called UFOs and not UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). UFOs were for the majority of that time a fringe topic, spoken about either in jest or in sincere and sometimes frantic whispers.

But ever since the esteemed New York Times published an article in 2017 that reported that the U.S. Navy had a multitude of encounters with very strange and advanced technology right off the coast of the United States – and had videos of those encounters, then the UFO topic has become much more acceptable to discuss in serious company.

Once the press gave UFOs legitimacy, Senators and Congressman have been drawn to the subject and have given it even more credence by holding hearings and things of that nature.

Since 2017 there have also been a plethora of whistleblowers who have told stories of first-hand UFO encounters, government programs, crash retrievals, body retrievals, reverse engineering and the like.

The most front facing person in the UFO story since 2017 is undoubtedly Lue Elizondo, a former Special Operator in US military intelligence who claims he was put in charge of a government program called AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) – which investigated UAPs and if they were a threat to national security. The answer to that question is a resounding “YES!”

Elizondo has been on all of the TV networks, lots of podcasts and been the focus of many documentaries since 2017. In Age of Disclosure, he is essentially the star, guiding viewers through the dark corridors where UFO information and government power collide. Elizondo tells a stark tale, one filled with intrigue, corruption, and even murder. Quite the story.

As someone who is in many discussion groups regarding UFOs I can attest that Elizondo is a polarizing figure. His military and intelligence background give him a certain stature and credibility, but that same experience also makes him untrustworthy in the eyes of some. Why is that? Well, as an intelligence agent he was…or is…a professional liar trained in the art of deception and propaganda.

Is Elizondo lying and deceiving the public now regarding UFOs and plots and conspiracies and murder? Your guess is as good as mine…but mine says, “yes, he is lying”. I say that as someone who believes that UFOs do exist, that “alien” intelligence has come to earth and is still here now and that government knows it.

So, if I believe, in general, the story that Elizondo tells, then why do I think he is up to no good? I do not know the exact reason Elizondo is doing the things he’s doing, but I get the sense he is a nefarious player in this game, meant to, at a minimum, muddy the waters, if not be an out and out distraction.

What is odd about Elizondo is that he constantly says that he knows so much secret and powerful information about this topic but he’s not allowed to say what it is because that information is “classified”. Essentially, what he is saying is, “trust me, bro!” No thanks.

In Age of Disclosure Elizondo makes the claim that a secret government cabal runs things and even presidents don’t know the truth. I think that is probably accurate not just regarding UFOs but a lot of other things. The problem though is that Elizondo also claims that there was a meeting of the 27 people who run things, and they seriously debated murdering Elizondo – as they have done to other people, because he is a threat to their power. Quite a claim.

I have no problem with a claim like that as governments kill people…routinely….without due process or anything like it. The problem I have is that Elizondo says in the documentary he won’t reveal the code names of those 27 people. Hmmm. Why not? These people are plotting to kill you and you are protecting them? Strange. Elizondo then says that if he is found floating in the Potomac that he “didn’t kill himself.” Okay…so these people are real and they still might kill you but you won’t even tell us their codenames – which is a good thing to know if Elizondo does end up floating in the Potomac? Elizondo also just says that this shadowy group has killed other people, but he doesn’t say who they killed – which is kind of an important detail don’t you think?

This sort of tortured logic from Elizondo is always unchallenged by UFO afficionados and, more importantly, by the mainstream media, which is why I find it all so…curious.

Beyond the information that Elizondo shares, the other issue I have is that he just seems like a bullshit artist and con-man as he uses all the same old tricks to sell his bullshit without ever actually telling us anything.

This documentary has some very, very serious people in it, and they all act seriously and dress seriously and speak seriously. But Elizondo, unlike all of his fellow compatriots who wear suits, wears jeans and v-neck black t-shirt that emphasizes his tattooed body and his fat/muscled arms. It all screams unprofessionalism, and reeks of a desperate narcissism and “look at me!” mindset.

Besides Elizondo there really are some major league people in this film that lend a great deal of credence to the topic.

First off is Marco Rubio of all people. Rubio, the former senator from Florida and current Secretary of State, is someone I loathe with the fury of a thousand suns, but in Age of Disclosure he acquits himself extraordinarily well and comes across as not just reasonable but very thoughtful and serious – things I never thought I’d say about him. And the fact that a poll-cat politician like Rubio would get out in front of this topic and spend some of his credibility on it says something.

Other very serious people spotlighted in the film include Stanford University Medical School professor Garry Nolan, who is one of the more compelling voices in the entire UFO discussion in general, as well as quantum physicist Hal Puthoff and astrophysicists Eric Davis – both beacons of knowledge, wisdom, reason and experience.

Also featured are the Navy pilots who interacted with the alleged UFOs, Commander David Fravor and Ryan Graves as well as US Navy Chief Oceanographer Tim Gallaudet, all of whom are extremely credible.

Less credible is Christopher Mellon, a former Undersecretary of Defense who has years of experience in the Pentagon and intelligence. Mellon comes across as a very smart, well-informed, very reasonable person, but his professional background in intelligence, and his family – the famed Mellon banking family, scuttle his credibility in my eyes despite his serious presentation.

As for the documentary itself…it is well put together, it looks professional – with the notable exception of Elizondo, and it puts forth credible people and credible looking people to make the case that UFOs are real, the government knows about them and is hiding what it knows, and a vast conspiracy is operating behind the scenes to keep us all in the dark and under their thumb.

But with that said, if you’ve been following this topic as long as I have, or even in just recent years, then you will come to find that no new information is shared or revealed in this documentary. It is more of the same of – “I know all of this amazing stuff but I just can’t tell you - sorry!!”

If you are new to the topic or if you are a grizzled vet like me but want to bring a newbie into the discussion, this could be a good place to start as it has lots of serious people in suits with loads of credibility that normies will find compelling. U.S. Senators and congressman and military leaders talking about UFOs being real is powerful stuff to John and Jane Q. Public who have been conditioned for nearly a century to laugh at this stuff – so Age of Disclosure could help break that conditioning.

If you really wanted to put together a starter pack for a newbie to get into and understand the UFO issue, I would say start with Out of the Blue – James Fox’s masterful 2002 documentary that is the Citizen Kane of UFO documentaries. I’d follow that up with Fox’s 2009 film I Know What I Saw. I’d also throw in Jeremy Corbell’s intriguing 2018 documentary Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers.

I would conclude the UFO education of a newbie by having them watch the 2024 four-part documentary series from JJ Abrams’ production company, Beyond: UFOs and the Unknown. This series is as good as it gets, especially for those who are well versed on the subject.

As for Age of Disclosure, this film came with a lot of hype and a lot of speculation that it would, in fact, lead to actual disclosure from the government regarding aliens. I’d like for that to be true, and even cynical and skeptical old me perks up my ears when I hear people saying Trump is soon going to make a statement declaring that we are not alone. But the truth is…I doubt it.

The way these things have gone in recent years is that some person will come forward, like whistleblower David Grusch, or some documentary will come out, or some earth-shattering interview will occur, or a major government hearing will take place, and there will be a lot of sound and fury and ultimately it all signifies nothing.

The standard practice is that things get heightened, the fever rises…and then it subsides and absolutely nothing changes in any way, shape, or form. Whistleblowers come forward but don’t actually blow the whistle, insiders speak out but don’t actually reveal inside information…and the saga on and on.

I’d like for a wildcard president like Trump to spill the beans but the truth is he is a charlatan and just like with the JFK assassination, and the Epstein files, and all the rest, Trump will huff and puff and blow nothing but his marginal mandate – or if you believe the internet rumors – Bill Clinton.

So once again we reach a heightened moment in regards to UFO disclosure and once again that moment passes with everyone left in the dark and the powers that be left in charge. Sigh.

My recommendation regarding Age of Disclosure is it is somewhat worth seeing but to wait until you can watch it for free when it hits a streaming service and don’t do what I did which was buy it on VOD – the bottom line is that while it has some usefulness, especially for those new to the subject, but it ultimately it really isn’t worth paying for.

©2025

After the Hunt: A Review - Philosophical Phonies in a Woke Soap Opera

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An incoherent and inconsequential dramatization of the madness of #MeToo and woke campus politics.

After the Hunt, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Julia Roberts, is a #MeToo/campus politics drama set at the Yale University Philosophy Department.

After the Hunt, which runs two-hours and twenty-minutes, landed at theatres on October 10th of this year with a pronounced thud. The film, despite being helmed by critically adored Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino, and starring Oscar winning movie star Julia Roberts, was a box office bomb and critical failure.

I am usually not in synch with audience or even critical opinion, and so it was that I went into watching After the Hunt – which is now available to stream on Amazon Prime, curious to see what all the negative fuss was about.

I have never been a fan of Luca Guadagnino – and find his films, like Challengers and Call Me by Your Name, to be egregiously overrated, or of Julia Roberts, who in my terribly unhumble opinion is a suffocatingly limited talent.

That said, the subject matter of After the Hunt, which deals with the woke hysteria that has infected nearly every part of our culture over the last decade, is something that I think deserves true artistic examination…and I thought maybe, just maybe, Guadagnino might have stumbled on to making a decent movie about a crucial topic.

And then I watched the movie.

After the Hunt truly earned its box office and critical failing. The film, which was scripted by Nora Garrett, is atrociously written. The plotlines of the film are much like the characters, poorly thought out and insipidly vapid.

There is so much superfluous nonsense in this movie, surrounded by philosophical posing and preening, that it feels like you’ve got lost wandering around in a poorly designed liberal haunted house in the MSNBC green room. It is also inhabited by some of the most loathsome and unlikable characters in recent memory and it is relentlessly pedantic, pretentious and petty in its personal politics.

The woke topics tackled in the film are just as dull and dim-witted as the woke issues of our time, but they are so clumsily dramatized they end up feeling like something a freshman philosophy major would write if they were trying to create a daytime soap opera for an ill-conceived Ivy League television network.  

There are some plot devices in this movie that are so ham-handed it actually left me shaking my head. For example, there is a crucial plot point in the first act (I won’t give it away to avoid spoilers) that is so amateurish in design and execution it felt like something from teen dramedy on Nickelodeon or something. The same is true for the deep, dark secret Julia Roberts’ character is hiding. And don’t get me started on the epilogue of the film which is jaw-droppingly inane…Yikes!

Speaking of Julia Roberts…here is a weird thing about this movie…Julia Roberts is very good in it as Alma, a respected Philosophy professor hungry to get tenure. Now as previously stated I have never thought much of her as an actress, but considering the slop she was given to work with in this film, she does a remarkable job of putting it together.  What was particularly affecting was her physical performance and her ability to convey physical pain.

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast are nowhere near as successful as Ms. Roberts.

Andrew Garfield plays Hank, a cool dude philosophy professor who may or may not have crossed the line with one of his students. Garfield turns his performance up to eleven and turns down his believability to about a two. Garfield is so performative in the role it feels like he’s doing an SNL skit.

The same is true of Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays Frederick, Alma’s cuckolded, sad sack psychotherapist husband. Stuhlbarg’s Frederick is so incoherent and odd it feels like he is doing a Coen Brothers comedy and not a #MeToo drama. Good for him.

The worst acting in this film…and the worst acting I’ve seen in quite some time, comes from Ayo Edebiri, who plays Maggie, a lesbian philosophy student who is Alma’s protégé and the daughter of extravagantly wealthy parents.

I have never watched The Bear, so I’ve never seen Edebiri act before…but she is an absolutely abysmal actress in After the Hunt. She is so devoid of any acting skill or charisma it is actually shocking.

Guadagnino cast his art dealer David Leiber in this film to play a dean at Yale, and he is as awful as you’d expect a rank amateur to be in that performance…but here’s the thing…as terrible as he is…he is better than Ayo Edebiri.

Edebiri may be great in The Bear and is totally miscast here, I don’t know, but what I do know is that she is unbearably awful in this movie and it is truly embarrassing. She is so bad I wonder if she’ll ever work in film again.

Now, maybe Luca Guadagnino is playing 69-dimensional chess and he cast the talent deficient woman of color Edebiri, and used the shitty script from millennial white woman Nora Garrett, as some sort of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion performance art to show how insidious wokeness is in the arts. If so, good for him, then his god-awful movie is actually a worthwhile piece of meta-art.

Of course, the truth is Guadagnino didn’t do any of that with the intention of exposing DEI for the cancer that it is on the arts, instead he did it because he is infected by that same cancer.

One thing that I do think is true is that Guadagnino, who is a Generation X-er, used his film to take Gen Z and millennials to task for their absurd and ridiculous fragilities, tortured philosophies and performative politics, something that two other Generation X directors did this year as well – PT Anderson with One Battle After Another, and Ari Aster with Eddington. Both Anderson and Aster certainly took on the generation gap in much smarter and more successful ways than Guadagnino.

Ultimately, After the Hunt could have been a very interesting and even useful film. But unfortunately, Guadagnino isn’t skilled enough to overcome a truly amateurish script and so this film flounders from start to finish – devoid of drama, comedy, humanity and insight.

The topics raised in After the Hunt are definitely worthy of serious examination and dramatization, but this movie does those issues, and its audience, a disservice, as it never truly brings an adequate level of artistry to this fiery philosophical debate.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 140: One Battle After Another

After a long hiatus, the boys are back!! On this episode, Barry and I shout "viva la revolution!" as we talk all things One Battle After Another, the new PT Anderson film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Topics discussed include the film's many failings, politics in film, and the current state of cinema, culture and the movie industry. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 140: One Battle After Another

Thanks for listening!

©2025

Eddington: A Review - The Madness of Covid...and a Lot of Other Things

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT NOW.

Eddington, written and directed by Ari Aster and starring Joaquin Phoenix, hit theatres way back in July…but I only just saw it this past weekend…and I have a lot of thoughts.

The film, which bills itself as a “neo-Western dark comedy thriller”, tells the story of the fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico and the personal and political trials and tribulations it faces during the Covid pandemic.

Ari Aster is a filmmaker of whom I think highly – so why didn’t I see Eddington until this past weekend? Well, Aster’s first two films, Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), were really top-notch elevated horror movies that I loved, but his third feature, Beau is Afraid (2023), was a film that was so affecting that I literally could not watch it all the way through. In fact, I tried multiple times to stream Beau is Afraid and each time I made it roughly 30 minutes in and bailed.

To be clear, I am not saying Beau is Afraid is a bad movie (it might be but I can’t judge after watching only 30 minutes of it - twice), what I am saying though is that it was so affecting that I had a terribly uncomfortable visceral reaction to it – the reasons for which even I am not completely clear on (paging Dr. Freud!!) – so much so that I had to stop watching. This is something that has never happened to me before (or since).

So, when Eddington came out this past Summer, I thought that seeing it in the theatre was not a priority because I might want to bail on this one too. And so…all these months later when it is now available on VOD, I rented it for $4 and watched it. And oh boy…am I ever glad I did!

Eddington is the very best film I have seen this year, and it isn’t even remotely close. It is incredibly smart, insightful, bold, brave and brilliant.

This film is once again very affecting…even uncomfortably so…but it is such a compelling and dynamic film that it is impossible to turn away from it…even when you want to.

One of the reasons you may want to turn away from Eddington, is because it so expertly recreates the Covid experience – both socially, personally and medically, in such visceral and palpable ways that watching it literally feels like having a Covid fever dream.

Ari Aster masterfully captures the disorientation of the Covid era, which felt like an assault on our senses, psyches and souls. This disorientation from Covid (both the disease and the cultural reaction to it) created rampant hysteria and mania that spread like wildfire during the insanity of the Covid era. Ultimately, that hysteria is the true pandemic that thrives to this day having lived long after the disease of Covid has faded into distant memory.

Eddington is a comedy, a thriller, a horror movie and a political satire, but above all else it is an indictment. The indictment of how foolish and gullible and easily manipulated we all are. How even now we suffer from such aggressive cognitive dissonance that the excesses of the Covid era, and the worst offenders of Covid hysteria (and the accompanying BLM mania) have never been forced to acknowledge their egregious and calamitous errors, never mind pay for them.

As time passes and we gain more distance from the lunacy and imbecility of our current age, Eddington, with its sharp and incisive criticisms, will age like the finest of wines. The film’s insights will become more profound over time for those with eyes, and the intellectual courage, to see them.  

As you may have noticed I have intentionally avoided any and all plot points for Eddington, and that is because I think it is best watched with as little information known about it as possible. That said, I will try and convey my appreciation for the film despite my strict spoiler limitations.

First of all, Joaquin Phoenix, who plays protagonist Sheriff Joe Cross, gives a stellar performance. Phoenix is brilliant, his Sheriff Joe is a stew of subdued defiance and fury mixed with smoldering self-righteousness that often curdles into hubris.

Phoenix is the great actors of our time and he creates a deliciously complex character in Sheriff Joe, that is so captivating and subtly magnetic that it is a marvel. And Phoenix’s ability to convey physical ailments is truly stunning – and I will say no more about that.

The rest of the cast, which features Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Deirdre O’Connell, and Austin Butler, all have smaller roles but do exceptionally noteworthy work. Pascal, in particular, is an actor who can often grate, but his unlikability is used to great effect in the film. Stone’s role is small but she is completely bought into it and does exceptional work despite minimal screen time.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji does his very best work on Eddington, using the high desert landscape and the small-town setting to great effect. He also deftly paints with a deft palette and masterfully frames his shots throughout – heightening the drama.

The real star of Eddington though is writer/director Ari Aster. It took balls the size of watermelons to make this movie and Aster has them. He has been pilloried by many critics for Eddington, but I think that has more to do with the perceived politics of Eddington rather than the filmmaking skills on display from Aster. I also think many critics are among those who so wholeheartedly embraced the Covid and BLM hysteria and are so ravaged by cognitive dissonance that they aggressively resist any notions of coming to grips with how foolish they look in hindsight.

The reality is, is that the “conspiracy theorists” were right all along…and still are…or at least they’re more right than the buffoons who think “conspiracy theorist” is a derogatory term. The most amusing thing that has happened in the last five or six years has been that tinfoil hats have been transformed from objects of ridicule into crowns of knowledge and wisdom – worn proudly.

To be fair, the “conspiracy theorists” are closer to the truth than the normies…but they still are a far way off from the truth. The conspiracy theorist’s real enlightenment comes from the fact that they understand the one undeniable fact that “normies” are loathe to admit…that the “official” story is, always and every time, a lie. And Eddington is one of those rare movies that not only acknowledges that fact…but aggressively embraces it.

The unacknowledged mantra of the dystopian digital age is – “The map is not the territory” – as our culture is so detached from the territory of reality because they have their noses buried in the map…their phones. Because of this fact we as a people are easily manipulated – emotionally, mentally, politically, and Eddington is a film that slaps us across the face in an attempt to wake us from our technologically induced stupor – and it does so with cinematic and dramatic aplomb.

You may not want to see Eddington, but trust me when I tell you…you NEED to see Eddington, you NEED to absorb Eddington, and you NEED to eventually accept what Eddington is teaching you.

Make no mistake, Eddington is thus far the very best film of the year…and is also the most important film of the year, if not the decade.

©2025

TWIB Notes: Kirk, Kimmel and the Kommissars of Speech

This Week in Bullshit - TWIB NOTES

TWIB Notes this week is chock full of hot topics, but the main theme is freedom of speech. So…let’s get to it.

CHARLIE KIRK

Charlie Kirk, the Republican firebrand made famous for his on-site debates with college liberals, was assassinated on September 10, 2025 on the campus of Utah Valley University.

At the time of his killing Kirk was doing his thing…debating in public with less-than-intellectually-stellar liberals enraged by his political philosophy and their inability to navigate his debating style.

As someone who tries to spend as little time on social media as possible Charlie Kirk was not exactly someone I spent much time thinking about prior to his death.

I had seen a bunch of videos of him and he struck me as a talented political matador who would get coddled liberal fools into a frenzy by waving a red cape in front of them and then effortlessly dance around them as they furiously charged at him.

Watching Charlie Kirk get shot in the neck on video was a deeply unsettling thing. Watching many seemingly normal, regular liberal people react to Kirk’s death with unabashed glee was even more unsettling.

Look, I get that people were offended by the things Charlie Kirk said and believed…despite the fact that what he said and believed did not offend me…but what I don’t get is why people would cheer some dude who is not even in power, is not a politician, and controls next to nothing, getting killed in public.

The reaction to Kirk’s death, from lots of regular people and from the media, was disgusting. People cheering his slaughter are not just vile – but deeply sick. Why can’t we just disagree with someone politically and let that be enough? Do we really need to hurt them? To kill them? To spill blood? Good Lord.

The media response was even more ridiculous. I never watch cable news…the last time I did was when Trump was shot in the ear during the campaign, but watching CNN after Kirk’s assassination was a jaw-dropping experience.

The entirety of the coverage I watched on CNN was concern not over political violence and the killing of Kirk, but of the danger of how right-wingers responded. You would’ve thought that right-wingers being pissed that one of their own got gunned down were a major threat to civilization. When you contrast this with the “mostly peaceful protests” coverage of the George Floyd riots then you see how absurd and inane and totally tone-deaf it all is.

As for the actual assassination of Kirk I have a few thoughts…first off…I don’t know what happened…who shot what and from where and for what reason…but I do know this…the official story is, without question, absolute horseshit.

They’ve already come up with a new “magic bullet” theory and have exalted Charlie Kirk into a super-Saint with bones of steel that cannot let bullets pass through them and allowed him to save others while being killed himself…just absurd. The big question is - how does a guy get shot with a high-powered rifle and not have an exit wound? What the fuck is that all about?

Then there’s the indictment, which if you read it is riddled with inaccuracies and fallacies. And then there’s the unbelievable bullshit that is the text exchange from the alleged shooter to his alleged trans lover/roommate that feels like a fabrication from start to finish. And then there’s the “video coverage” where we see the alleged gunman but never with a gun and never in the place he was said to have done the shooting.

The bottom line regarding this assassination is that conspiracy theories will flourish around it (they already have) but they will only obfuscate the truth – which is most likely a very nasty conspiracy all its own.

Whatever comes out of this fucking pathetic and ridiculous FBI in the coming weeks and months, do yourself a favor and don’t believe a word of it.

JIMMY KIMMEL

Back in July I wrote a TWIB Notes column that touched upon the cancellation of the Stephen Colbert Late Night show at CBS and finished my discussion of that topic with the prediction “Colbert is not the last to get the boot…in fact, he’s only the first. Fallon, Meyers and Kimmel are dead men walking…and I have to say that unlike their comedy, that is something that makes me laugh.”

Well, well, well.

Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC after saying that right-wingers were doing everything they can to make it seem like Charlie Kirk’s killer wasn’t one of them….or something to that effect.

Kimmel has always been a mystery to me. I never once saw The Man Show, and have never once during its entire 22-year run watched a single episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The few times I’ve seen Kimmel, liked when he hosts an awards show, I have found him to be aggressively unfunny. He is not only devoid of comic ability but he’s also blessed with the charisma of a fly on week old shit.

The left has been more horrified by the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel than they were by the killing of Charlie Kirk…which to be honest is the funniest Jimmy Kimmel related thing to ever happen.

Right-wingers, ever true to their values (wink-wink), are ecstatic over Kimmel’s suspension and hope it is a permanent firing.

The reality is that Kimmel is not, and never has been, a free speech warrior. He, like many liberals, is only interested in his speech being free, and those that disagree with him being silenced.

Right-wingers who were so outraged by woke cancel culture during the Biden years, have spent their first year back in power going full on right-wing woke and cancelling anyone and anything that is even remotely anti-Zionist. By the way…Democrats have not done a single thing to stop the Republican jihad against anti-Zionists, they have in fact, encouraged it.

Kimmel, of course, would never say a bad word about his paymasters so Israel is not a topic he would ever discuss…so there’s a good chance he gets his gig back after a hiatus (his suspension was lifted a few hours after this article was originally published).

But the truth is this…regardless of politics or anything like that, late night talk shows are going away. None of them make money and none of them are worth the cost. All of their ratings are in the toilet and none of them hold any cultural cache anymore.

The other day I happened to watch an old clip of Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal having a half hour long cat fight on The Dick Cavett show some fifty-odd years ago.

The level of intellect, eloquence and the depth of that discussion was staggering compared to the toxically empty calories currently being fed to the public on cable news and late-night talk shows. Seeing American intellectuals like Vidal and Mailer go at each other was invigorating and depressing…invigorating because they were such sharp minds, and depressing because not only do we not have those types of debates anymore – we don’t even have intellectuals anymore.

Ultimately, whether Kimmel stays or goes is utterly irrelevant….which brings us to…

THE KOMMISSARS OF SPEECH

What makes the Kimmel case so interesting is that the allegation is that the government, at the behest of Trump himself, pressured ABC to suspend/cancel Kimmel. That action is, obviously, in direct violation of the First Amendment which guarantees the right to freedom of speech – and is remarkably similar to what the Biden administration did with social media companies in trying to silence dissent and debate over Covid policies and vaccines. Hmmmm.

But here’s the rub in the free speech debate…the debate over free speech is long over and free speech has most certainly lost.

For years we have been reduced to free speech debates in this country amounting to little more than “free speech for me but not for thee!”. So we get liberals wanting to cancel people who say things they don’t like, or in the case of Covid – people who don’t get vaccinated, and then we get right-wingers (notice I don’t call them conservatives because they conserve nothing but their own hypocrisy) doing the exact same thing – trying to ban flag burning, anti-Zionism, protests etc.

The truth is that freedom of speech was killed long ago. This past year we had a big furor because Trump was pissed at 60 Minutes and Paramount caved to the pressure in order to get a merger approved. But since we are so historically illiterate in this country no one seemed to remember this drama played out before with very similar results…back in the 1990’s when 60 Minutes refused to air a story that was highly critical of Big Tobacco for fear of lawsuits and loss of ad revenue. They made an excellent movie about that incident called The Insider…you should go watch it if you’ve never seen it – Michael Mann directed it and it stars Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

60 Minutes has, for the last quarter century at least, but nothing but an intel community and military industrial complex mouthpiece that spews the most vacant and vapid of propaganda imaginable…it has been co-opted and is now a nefarious and insidious media machine that routinely deceives and divides.

Remember when the liberal New York Times were used as a propaganda weapon by the Bush administration in deceiving the populace regarding the threat from Iraq? I do.

I also remember when the liberal New York Times held a story about the Bush administration’s illegal surveillance of Americans for over a year until after Bush’s re-election. I also remember when the liberal New York Times refused to use the word torture and instead used the word “enhanced interrogation” at the behest of the Bush administration. I remember those things…but I am apparently in the minority.

Back in my day liberals dedicated to the value of free speech were rightly horrified when Big Tobacco silenced 60 Minutes, and when the Bush administration set-up “free speech zones” for protestors…the name of which more than implies that there are places in America where free speech is not allowed, and used Judith Miller as a pro-war propagandist.

But many of these same liberals were as silent as the grave while Saint Obama used the Espionage Act more times than every other president combined to prosecute whistleblowers and reporters.

These same liberals stayed silent when, under Obama, Edward Snowden was forced from his country after revealing the illegal surveillance state we all lived under. And were just as silent when, under Obama and Biden, Julian Assange was imprisoned for the crime of revealing the war crimes of the American government.

Freedom of speech was long a lynchpin of the liberal movement, but because many liberals who love freedom of speech stayed silent when Obama gutted our right to it, they then were conditioned to more easily sell out their values and ideals regarding speech in favor of genuflecting to the woke mob when it rose to prominence. Quickly over the span of less than a decade - freedom of speech was gone and in its place was the banner of being against “hate speech” – literally and figuratively. Liberal disdain for freedom of speech disintegrated so quickly and thoroughly that even the ACLU has disavowed it in purpose and practice.  

“Hate speech” (which is ironic considering it can be interpreted as meaning to hate – speech) became the favorite talking point of liberals everywhere…and I warned that labelling things hate speech, and wanting to ban hate speech, would lead to the destruction of free speech – but liberals didn’t care that they, as I told them, would eventually be hoisted on their own petard…or as I called it – foisted on their own retard!

Right-wingers have long made no bones about their desire to curb freedom of speech, but then freaked out when woke liberals wanted to curb right-wing speech.

And so, the cycle will continue on and on forever until some douchebag centrist (maybe Pete Buttigieg!!) comes along and Obama-style makes a compromise that in order to clamp down on hate speech and political violence we will do away with freedom of speech altogether. It’ll be just like the healthcare debate where a public option is never discussed and the big business republican option is the only option – thanks Obama!

To tie this up in a very messy bow, woke liberals have made the argument that hate speech is violence, and when speech is violence then it is logical to use actual physical violence to silence it…and thus we get Charlie Kirk not just being murdered, but his killing being celebrated.

I have long written on this subject (and will link some of those articles below), most notably about the argument from liberals in the wake of Trump’s first election about the efficacy of “punching Nazis”. Of course, the problems with punching Nazis are numerous…like who gets to decide who is a Nazi? And what if someone decides you’re a Nazi? And are Nazi’s allowed to defend themselves…and more so…can Nazi’s – like liberals punching – proactively defend themselves? And finally…punching people you label Nazis will only escalate into ultimately shooting people you label Nazis – people like Charlie Kirk.

Speech is not and never will be violence…violence is violence…and the only people who claim speech is violence are the ones who haven’t been punched in the face.

The bottom line is this, current free speech debate is a farce because both the left and the right have long ago sold out their ideals regarding speech and instead have used their power to silence their enemies.

The war for freedom of speech, and frankly the war for any of our “freedoms” is long over…and we all lost. The aristocratic oligarchy and intelligence and military industrial complex and globalist corporatocracy have won and now keep us as slaves in what is essentially an open-air surveillance state prison.

So fuck Jimmy Kimmel, and fuck 60 Minutes, and fuck the mainstream media and fuck social media and fuck our politicians and fuck the myopic fools who bought into the two-party system and all of its homicidal lies.

And fuck all of us while we’re at it…because we are just as much to blame for this disaster as anybody.

Charlie Kirk is dead and Jimmy Kimmel is out of a job…and the cold hard reality is that there are going to be many more who face a similar fate….and don’t kid yourself…there’s nothing we can do about it.

Links-

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

Caesar Americanus

The Tragedy of Charlottesville

Punching Nazis

©2025

R.I.P. Robert Redford: The Sundance Kid Once Saved Cinema

Robert Redford, the iconic movie star, filmmaker and Sundance Institute founder, died yesterday at the age of 89.

As gigantic a movie star as Robert Redford was…and he was a monumental movie star, particularly in the 1970’s, the most important thing about him is what he did for, or to, the film industry with his creation of the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival – which he took over in the mid 1980’s.

It is impossible to imagine the depths to which filmmaking would have fallen if Redford had not built Sundance, the place where “independent” filmmakers could develop and then show their films.

Without Sundance, the renaissance of cinema in the 1990’s, which includes the emergence of such filmmaking luminaries as Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, would never have occurred.

Did Sundance quickly go from being sanctified and deified to becoming corporatized and commodified? Yes, it did. And is it now little more than a movie business version of the red-light district in Amsterdam? Yes, it is. But that doesn’t diminish its original importance or the good it did for cinema back in the early days…and it is crucial that we do not forget that when remembering Robert Redford.

As for Redford the actor, he was an impossibly handsome leading man who was gifted with a tendency toward stillness (a skill few actors possess) and the ability to share the screen with other actors with a charming effortlessness.

Redford was a good movie star, good enough that he could unflinchingly share a screen with Paul Newman, one of the biggest movie stars of all-time, for two memorable movies – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting.

He was also a good and often underrated actor, who could comfortably share the screen with acting luminaries like Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

Redford, with his all-American good looks and stoic demeanor, resembled an old school movie star from the studio system but who hit his heights during the glorious age of the New American Cinema in the free-wheeling 1970s.

Redford catapulted to enormous fame in 1969 when he starred with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – what some have called the perfect movie.

Butch and Sundance – with their snarky bromance, are essentially the template for every action comedy and Marvel movie of the last 50 years. You don’t get the Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and Marvel franchises without Butch and Sundance and their witty quips to one another under fire.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid really is a remarkable movie in that it is pure movie star popcorn entertainment but its shot with a glorious aplomb by Conrad Hall – and directed with verve by George Roy Hill.

Redford and Newman’s chemistry is legendary, and while many have tried to replicate it – like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, none have succeeded. The problem with Clooney and Pitt trying to be Newman and Redford is that Pitt is not Redford - despite Hollywood’s determination to make it so, and Clooney sure as shit ain’t Newman, no matter how much Clooney tries to pretend otherwise.

Redford’s filmography is, not surprisingly considering the length of his career, a mixed bag.

His best/most popular films are most certainly Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men and The Natural.

I can say without hesitation that I unabashedly love all of those movies, and love him in all of those movies.

As previously stated, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is popcorn perfection. Three Days of the Condor is a truly spectacular film and a glorious piece of 70’s paranoid cinema that I adore. All the President’s Men is a movie with undeniable momentum to it that compulsively compels. And finally, The Natural is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the greatest baseball movie ever made and also a phenomenal American myth that Redford perfectly embodies.

As much as I love those Redford films, the Redford movies that I find most intriguing are Downhill Racer, Jeremiah Johnson and The Candidate. These three films, all from the 70’s, show Redford giving his most complex performances, and are all really fantastic films that are often-overlooked.

The final movie I’d recommend is the lone late-period Redford movie that I think works well. The film is 2013’s All Is Lost directed by J.C. Chandor, which is about a man lost at sea by himself. Redford barely speaks at all in this movie, and it was a ballsy performance for him to undertake. I loved the film but others hated it. I think it’s worth watching now as it will take on particular profundity in the wake of Redford’s death.

Another movie some have mentioned is 2018’s The Old Man & the Gun, directed by David Lowery. I thought this film was a misfire, but I could see how it could be nice to indulge in its nostalgia now that Redford has passed away.

As for Redford as a filmmaker, I never really thought very much of his directorial skills. Redford was undoubtedly interested in independence and freedom for other filmmakers but as a filmmaker himself he was extraordinarily restrictive in his artistry.

The films Redford directed, Ordinary People (for which he won a best Director Academy Award), The Milagro Beanfield War, A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, The Horse Whisperer, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Lions for Lambs, The Conspirator, and The Company You Keep, are all suffocatingly staid and cinematically conventional.

The lone Redford directed film that I would recommend is Quiz Show, and even that is a rather middlebrow piece of mainstream cinema that never quite rises to the heights you feel like it should.

Regardless of the merits or imperfections in Robert Redford’s acting and directing career, the truth is that anyone who enjoys movies, be they cinephiles or cineplex-goers, owe a huge debt of gratitude to Robert Redford. Without Robert Redford and his Sundance Film Festival and Institute, both the movie business and the art of cinema would be in much worse shape than they are today – and it;s important to remember that the Sundance Film Festival never happens if Robert Redford doesn’t become the Sundance Kid.

So, a big tip of the cowboy hat to the Sundance Kid on a job well done and a life well lived. Thanks for saving cinema…let’s hope that one day that it can rise from the ashes and once again be worthy of all you’ve done for it.

By the way…here is a 2013 article I wrote about Redford’s acting that you might find of interest.

Stillness: Lessons from Redford, DeNiro and Penn

©2025

Weapons: A Review - Big Creepiness in Small-Town America

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT.  A solid piece of elevated horror moviemaking that is worth watching when it hits streaming.

Weapons, written and directed by Zach Cregger, is a horror movie that tells the mysterious story of seventeen children in a small town who one night all run out of their homes into the darkness never to be seen again.  

Zach Cregger’s first feature film, Barbarian (2022), was two-thirds of a great horror movie that lost its way a bit in its final act. Despite its flawed final act, Barbarian showed Cregger to be a serious talent as it was a taut, smart, well-shot, well-acted and until its final act, very effective piece of horror filmmaking.

Weapons once again reveals Cregger to be a filmmaker to watch despite being somewhat similar to Barbarian in that as good as it is it still has some flaws that keep it from being great.

Weapons, like Barbarian with its commentary on Reagan and the destruction of the American working class, has some insightful social commentary artfully ingrained into its narrative core – the most obvious of which is the predation of children.

In an age where the Epstein files are forgotten before they’re ever released, and sex trafficking and exploitation of children runs rampant, a movie which opens by telling us it is a true story that powerful people have covered up, where seventeen kids disappear without a trace…is making a point for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Weapons is, in many ways but not all, Pizzagate, The Franklin Affair, Johnny Gosch, the Epstein story, and all the rest of the horrific child exploitation stories in recent times, subtly made manifest in narrative fashion…and that in and of itself makes the film unnerving – particularly if you have kids.

Cregger structures Weapons in an interesting way as the story is broken into chapters that feature the different perspectives of each main character – Justine – the kid’s teacher, Archer – parent to one of the kids, Paul – a cop in the town, James – a homeless drug addict, Marcus – the school principal, and Alex – the lone kid in the class who doesn’t disappear.

These perspectives are structurally staggered and non-linear and then intersect and converge to form the story as a whole. This approach really heightens the film and elevates what could have been rather mundane material in lesser storytelling hands.

Cregger’s greatest accomplishment with Weapons though is that he, along with cinematographer Larkin Sieple, create some very memorable and distinct visuals that stick with you.

For example, the poster for Weapons shows the silhouette of kids running in a very distinctive arms-out style, and that is used to very creepy effect in the film.

I won’t get into any of the details of the film to avoid spoilers – but I will say that there is a character in the movie that is so well-designed, well-acted, well-shot and visually unnerving that it makes you wince whenever it arrives.

There’s also a recurring motif of a certain door opening where it is so dark you strain to see what is in it, that is simple yet very effective. As is the scene where someone walks out of the door – a sequence that is chilling.

Cregger as a filmmaker is sort of a cross between Jordan Peele and Ari Aster. Cregger’s ability to create notable visuals is right up there with Peele – a noted visual stylist (although a filmmaker who struggles to tell a story), and his type of horror is reminiscent of Aster’s early work – most notably Hereditary and Midsommar.

Cregger’s skill, talent and style places him among the premiere “elevated horror” filmmakers of this era, namely Peele, Aster, and Robert Eggers.

What elevates Weapons besides Cregger’s storytelling and visual style, is a top-notch cast doing terrific work.

Julia Garner as Justine is a startlingly compelling character that is both sympathetic and abrasive. Garner, who was terribly misused in Fantastic Four earlier this summer, gives a very deft performance here.

Josh Brolin is really good as Archer, the devastated father determined to find out what happened to his son. Brolin has developed over the years to be such a reliably good actor that when he arrives on-screen you feel assured that the film is in strong acting hands.

Both Alden Ehrenreich and Benedict Wong, as Paul the cop and Marcus the principal respectively, really make the most of somewhat smaller parts that in lesser hands would have been thrown away, but in theirs are fleshed out to be really captivating pieces of work.

And finally, Cary Cristopher as the young boy Alex, is perfect as a creepy, lonely, sad and slightly scary little kid. Christopher looks like he could be the cousin to Damien from the Omen movies, and gives a really solid performance.

As much as I like Cregger, I do think Weapons has some issue that keep it from being a great film, but I will withhold the specifics of why so as not to spoil the film for those who want to see it – except to say that part of the conclusion to the mystery feels a bit unsatisfying…which is similar to how I felt about Barbarian. I’d also say that the film is better at being creepy than it is at being “horrifying”…but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

So, Weapons isn’t a great film but it is a good horror film…and in this day and age that is definitely good enough.

I think Weapons, just like Barbarian, is a perfect Halloween watch if you want to creep yourself out – particularly once it hits streaming. I also think it would make a wonderful companion piece to Ari Aster’s Hereditary.

In conclusion, writer/director Zach Cregger continues to show glimpses of brilliance in his second feature film and is quickly establishing himself as one of the premiere talents in the horror genre.

Weapons isn’t a perfect film, and it isn’t quite a great film, but it is a top-notch horror film that delivers copious amounts of creepiness, enough to have you squirming in your seat…but for less horror inclined individuals that seat can be in your home, and not necessarily in the theatre.

©2025

TWIB NOTES – Colbert, Trump, Epstein and Israel

THIS WEEK IN BULLSHIT

As longtime readers will have noticed, I have over the last bunch of years restricted my writing to the sole topic of movies, television and pop culture and have assiduously avoided writing about politics and the like.

My reason for avoiding politics is because I find the whole charade of our current world to be so transparently propagandized and absurd as to be ridiculous…and so ridiculous as to be noxious…and I don’t want to play along in the cesspit just for the fun of it. Or, for the sake of brevity, I would rephrase all that to say – it’s all a bunch of bullshit.

But like Michael Corleone in the ill-fated Godfather III – just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.

The reason I don’t want to write about politics or international affairs is because it feels like I am yelling into an abyss and no one will hear it and no one will care and nothing will ever change. Like some brutish, burly, bearded and bizarre Cassandra I shout the Truth from the top of my lungs but I cannot rouse the masses…or even the few…from their not-so-blissful slumber in their familiar bed of lies.

Usually all I get in return for my prophetic efforts and insights are flaccid accusations, empty allegations and impotent intimidations, none of which bother me in the slightest except to make me shake my head and laugh in astonishment at how blind and imbecilic many, if not most, people are.

But as the world, and this country, accelerates its spiral downward into the black hole of demonic darkness…I feel as if I need to say…something…anything. Maybe my lone light will be a beacon for others more capable, to do something to save civilization from its self-imposed suicide pact.

Or maybe, I am just pissing in the wind in the hopes of the fleeting feeling of my leg getting warm.

Who knows?

Anyway…here is a new edition of TWIB Notes (This Week In Bullshit), which in my youth used to be accompanied by the mellifluous tones of the great Mel Allen talking over baseball highlights on This Week in Baseball, but here is nothing but me silently ranting about the bullshit that so thoroughly encompasses modern life.

STEPHEN COLBERT

Let’s start with the most banal of bullshit, namely the furor over CBS cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Like the vast majority of people in this country, I have never watched Colbert’s late night CBS venture. But…I have on occasion seen clips of it on social media and such…and in my entirely not humble opinion…the show is awful.

Colbert himself has been funny in his life…for example he was much better suited for his previous show The Colbert Report where he played a flag-waving, O’Reilly-esque buffoon. That show, while heavy-handed and trite, was at least in its meta-state clever.

Colbert as himself is strikingly unfunny. His desperation to appease some imaginary, brain-dead neo-liberal centrist viewing block is as pathetic as it was misguided.

The apex of Colbert’s anti-comedy came when he did a propagandistic musical number where he sang glowingly about the Covid vaccine and danced with men dressed as syringes. Yikes.

The uproar over Colbert’s show being cancelled is the funniest thing Colbert-related in well over a decade.

Colbert fans…both of them…are arguing that CBS is cancelling the show because Colbert was too hard on Trump and the company is trying to salvage a relationship with Trump in the wake of his lawsuit against them and an attempted merger/recapitalization deal which will need FCC approval.

Do I think the Trump admin would pressure a network to cancel a show because it hurt Trump’s feelings? Yes. But Colbert’s show is such a nothing burger that his nightly attacks on Trump (or so I’ve been told) amount to nothing. It’s like the idea of if a tree repeatedly falls in the same exact spot in the forest every night but no one is there to hear it…did it really happen. The answer of course is…who gives a shit?

Colbert supporters make the argument that The Late Show is the highest rated late night tv show on the air…but that is like being the tallest midget in the freak show.

Colbert’s ratings, audience and ad revenue have declined rapidly, as have all the late-night shows.

The biggest miracle of all is that these late-night shows have lasted this long, as no one I know…and I really mean no one…watches this shit. Late night tv is over….and Colbert is not the last to get the boot…in fact, he’s only the first. Fallon, Meyers and Kimmel are dead men walking…and I have to say that unlike their comedy, that is something that makes me laugh.

TRUMP AND EPSTEIN

I saw a video clip on Twitter of right-wing talking head Glenn Beck giving one of his famous blackboard dissertations the other day. This dissertation was about Trump and the Epstein files.

Beck had written down a numbered list of reasons why Trump might have flipped so hard and decided that we must all ignore the Epstein stuff after running for election on releasing the Epstein files (and JFK files and UFO files etc.)…the list took up at least two full blackboards.

The first item on Beck’s list was something along the lines of “Trump had sex with underage Epstein girls”. Beck took his chalk and immediately put a big “X” through that one because as he informed us, there was no way in the world Trump had sex with fifteen-or-sixteen-year-old girls. Absolutely impossible. Beck then said that if the claim was Trump had sex with a 25-year-old supermodel, then yeah…it’s believable, but a teen girl? NO WAY!

That Beck clip made me laugh out loud because I literally couldn’t think of anyone else in public life who would be more likely to have sex with a fifteen-or-sixteen-year-old girl if given the chance than Donald Trump. Trump isn’t the only person in public life who’d have sex with a teen girl if available, not by a long shot, but he’s definitely atop the list of candidates…with Bill Clinton coming in at a close #1B.

So here is my very cursory break down on the Trump-Epstein thing.

Is it possible Trump is on the Epstein list? Yes.

Is it probable Trump is on the Epstein list? Yes.

Is it a metaphysical certainty that Trump fucked underage girls procured by Epstein? YES.

There is no other way to understand Trump’s behavior than to realize that he is now, and always has been, entirely compromised by the Epstein Mossad/CIA honeypot.

Yes…Trump is compromised by Israel through sex and money…I know…SHOCKING. Just kidding, it’s not shocking at all.

Trump is so obviously and blatantly compromised that he is willing to humiliate himself, his administration, his family and this country by fellating Israel every chance he gets. As do almost every other member of Congress.

What will happen going forward in this Epstein mess is that a series of superficial maneuvers that will all pretend to release information – be it a special prosecutor, or a Ghislaine Maxwell interview, or something along those lines, will occur, yet those maneuvers will only be done in order to further obfuscate the truth rather than reveal it.

The reality is that the true Epstein story cannot be revealed because once you pull that thread and follow it to its obvious and logical conclusion, the entire façade of American political life will crumble into dust….namely that the United States is an occupied country ruled over by Israeli overlords.

Epstein and his intelligence, political, financial and organized crime connections leads to very dark, dark places like JFK, RFK, USS Liberty, Watergate, Iran-Contra, The Franklin Affair/Johnny Gosch, 9-11 and on and on and on.

The Epstein thing is not just the Epstein thing…it is simply a postule that came to the skin as a symptom of a much, much deeper and deadlier disease, and that disease has infected every aspect of American life and is slowly but surely suffocating this country and will be the death of it.

ISRAEL

In today’s New York Times Bret “Bed Bug” Stephens wrote an op-ed titled “No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza”, which was, not surprisingly considering the writer, less an argument that Israel is not committing genocide than it was an apologia for the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza.

Essentially Stephen’s argument is that Hamas is to blame for everything bad that happens in Gaza, most especially the bad things Israel does in Gaza.

Of course, Stephens ignores the fact that, as the Times of Israel reported, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu propped up Hamas and gave them oodles of money to keep them going. There is also compelling evidence that Israel not only supported Hamas, but created them in the first place. They did all of this in order to destabilize Palestine and to have an excuse to never have a true two-state solution.

Bret Stephens also writes about the Hamas attack of October 7th – where Hamas murdered and raped Israelis. But Bret plays fast and loose with the facts and repeats the same old Zionist propaganda that is shoved down American’s throats every day.

First off – there is no credible evidence that any Israelis were raped by Hamas on October 7th (or that babies were put in ovens). The truth is that in regards to Israel – every accusation is a confession – as there is incontrovertible proof that Israel rapes its Palestinian prisoners…and this fact is not hidden by Israelis – it is celebrated.

The biggest point to make about October 7th is that it seems quite extraordinary that the world’s most secured and surveilled border was breached so easily and for so long by a rag tag bunch of terrorists. There are reports, again from the Times of Israel, that the Israeli government knew of the plans of the attack up to a year before it happened…and yet somehow it still happened. And it happened right before Netanyahu was set to go to trial for corruption that could end his political career and put him in prison – but this national security issue put all of that legal jeopardy on hold.

It is also an incontrovertible fact, reported by Haarertz, that a great number of the Israelis slain on that horrible day were killed by Israeli Defense Forces implementing the “Hannibal Directive” – which directs the IDF to kills Israeli’s in order to avoid them being taken hostage.

Here is the unvarnished and ugly truth, Israel is a state founded by terrorism and terrorists. If you study your history, you’ll learn that it was Zionists terrorists who invented the car bomb. These same terrorists blew up the King David Hotel and later became Israeli prime ministers (Menachem Begin).

Here are some more uncomfortable truths…Israel is an apartheid, rogue, terrorist state that has been attempting to ethnically cleanse Palestinians for nearly 80 years and is currently committing a genocide.

The irony that a Jewish state built upon the Holocaust of Jews in WWII by Nazis is now committing a holocaust itself is beyond irony and firmly entrenched in tragedy.

Israel is not just a vile state, it is an evil one. This becomes both self-evident and undeniable while watching Israel slaughter innocent women and children with a savage zeal unseen since the slaughter of Jews in WWII.

Then there is the grotesque starvation of the surviving population in Gaza, and the daily Israeli sport of killing the hungry as they queue for food…and the almost as grotesque defense of Israel by Zionists – like Bret Stephens and the rest of the mainstream media who lie as easily as the rest of us breath.

Now, there are lots of atrocities committed by lots of bad people all across the globe every day – none quite so morally and ethically grotesque as what Israel is doing right now, but still…the issue for Americans is that we are paying for this holocaust, we are aiding and abetting it…we are complicit.

Another nugget of uncomfortable truth is that Israel controls our government. How they do it is an open secret…they do it by controlling the media, controlling the financial industry, and by bribing politicians with AIPAC money or bullying them through “kompromat” – the Epstein scenario where politicians are caught up on honeytraps, or moneytraps, and Israel keeps them dancing on the end of the string doing what they are told like good little puppets.

For proof of this look no further than our politicians and government who contort themselves like spineless acrobats and fellate the Israeli state like cheap tarts at a red-light street whenever they can and whenever they’re told to.

One final uncomfortable truth is that the dispensationalist dipshit Evangelicals (like Senor Stool Sample - Ted Cruz) and the dual-citizen Israeli citizens in our country (and disproportionally in our government) are a fifth column of traitors who are committed (consciously or unconsciously) only to Israel and are willing to sacrifice America (and Americans) on the altar of Israel.

The best-case scenario for fifth-column Zionists like Bret “Bed Bug” Stephens and his ilk are that they are vermin infesting our country and spreading a rabid immoral, unethical social and political pestilence…the worst case is that they’re demons who have possessed the American soul and are committed to using us to do the Devil’s work.

No doubt I’ll be called an anti-Semite for thinking and writing these things, but spare me your contrived and manufactured disdain, I truly do not give a flying fuck what modern-day holocaust deniers call me. The truth is the term anti-Semite has lost all meaning and power because it is so obviously nothing but a rhetorical ploy used to silence dissent, obfuscate truth and avoid responsibility.

The very clear reality is that some of the most vociferous, insightful and righteous voices in opposition to Israel’s modern-day holocaust of the Palestinians are, in fact, Jews. You’d be hard pressed to find a more eloquent and ferocious anti-Zionists than Norman Finklestein, who routinely destroys Zionists and their arguments with a surgical precision and glorious aplomb. I’ll put Gabor Mate, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald and Max Blumenthal among many others in that same category.

The truth is that conflating Zionism with Judaism is an unspeakably diabolical act as it makes all Jews complicit in the 21st century holocaust, despite many of them risking everything in fighting to oppose it.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, nothing will ever change.

Israel will keep slaughtering children and will never be held accountable. The U.S. will continue to defend Israel both diplomatically, legally, financially and militarily.

The Esptein evidence will never come to light and the powerful people that raped teen girls and committed criminal financial acts and acts of treason, will never face justice…at least not in this world.

And finally, the darkness that grows exponentially every day will not subside but will only expand.

I, for one, will go on living my life despite the darkness, finding love and light when and where I can…because the darkness is too far afield to stop. The die is cast. The beast isn’t slouching towards Bethlehem…it is already there, sitting atop a throne of skulls…most of them from Palestinian women and children. Rest assured though, the beast will devour us all soon enough…it’s just a matter of time.

Well…on that cheerful note thus ends this version of TWIB Notes….I sure could use some mellifluous Mel Allen musings right about now.

©2025