Borys Kyt at The Hollywood Reporter:
Blomkamp’s take is not a remake of the Verhoeven movie, and sources say the goal is to go back to the source material.
Not my favorite Heinlein. I guess I’ll see if if it looks good.
I’d love to see a movie or prestige miniseries of my favorite Heinlein: “Citizen of the Galaxy," “Starman Jones," “The Star Beast,” “Double Star” and “Methuselah’s Children.” “Orphans of the Sky” wasn’t a great book but it could be a great movie or series.
You want to bring back American ingenuity again? Make education and healthcare accessible to everyone. Make “right to repair” codified in the Constitution. Make Net Neutrality the law of the land. A person’s chance of surviving and having a roof over their head shouldn’t depend on “generational wealth”. Once those things happen, American ingenuity will return in full force again. It’s not Canada, Mexico, or Europe’s fault we’re here. It’s our own fault. But we can still do better.
— Scott Williams
@vwbusguy@mastodon.online
Lawmakers in red states are angling to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage (Associated Press / The Times of San Diego)
It Isn’t Just Trump. America’s Whole Reputation Is Shot (David Brooks / NYT) — The world now sees the US as a dangerous rogue superpower, Brooks notes. “I don’t care if Abraham Lincoln himself walked into the White House in 2029, no foreign leader can responsibly trust a nation that is perpetually four years away from electing another authoritarian nihilist,” he says. But Brooks ends his column on a hopeful note; when Trump and his movement inevitably self-destruct, that will be “an opportunity and rebirth.”
Helly vs. Helena, the Most Brutal Battle on ‘Severance’ (Maya Salam / NYT) — The Helly vs. Helena storyline is a metaphor for women’s self-loathing, Salam says. Great point — but men feel it too, in the real world outside the TV show.
You Are Not Free to Move About the Country (Lisa Schmeiser / So What? Who Cares?) — Southwest Airlines' announcement to start charging for luggage points to more significant issues in the U.S. Lisa quotes NYT reporter Nelson D. Schwartz, who coined the name “Velvet Rope Economy;” for everything from getting coffee to going to Disneyland, the top 10% get to pay to cut the line ahead of the rest of us.
Carr’s anti-DEI crusade is a ridiculous waste of FCC resources. By my colleague Diana Goovaerts on Fierce Network, who notes that 73% of the telecommunications workforce is white, and 70% are men.
In my lunchtime web wanderings, I stumbled across this 1900 historical image from the town square in Newton, New Jersey.
I know that area very well—I lived a two-minute walk from that very spot for four years in the late 1980s, and worked as a reporter at the New Jersey Herald, whose offices were behind the courthouse.
Nearly 90 years later, the view from that spot was the same as in this photo, and I’m told it looked the same six years ago, too.
I got a follow request from a woman on Mastodon who wants me to be her sugar baby. I’m up for that.
The missus and I watched another episode of “Columbo” last night. The guest stars were Eddie Albert as a heroic Marines general who murders a fellow officer to cover up embezzlement, and Suzanne Pleshette as the sad, ditzy woman who witnesses the crime. I was unable to suspend disbelief — every second they were onscreen I thought, “That’s the guy from Green Acres and Bob Newhart’s wife.”
Also, Suzanne Pleshette’s character seemed sexist in a low-key ambient 1971 sort of way. She lives alone with her mother; they are both sad and the mother is bitter. It seemed to be the assumption that two women over 30 living alone without men would lead of course lead empty and sad lives. I am possibly overthinking this.
We’re slowly watching a few 1970s crime shows that were massive hits in the day, including “Columbo,” “The Rockford FIles,” “McMillan & Wife” and “McCloud.” Of them, my favorite by far is Rockford. I want to be Jim Rockford when I grow up and live in a trailer on the beach and go fishing off the pier with my father, whom I call “Rocky.”
