David Daut

Calling WILDWOOD a bomb feels premature. In a moment when non-franchise animation is struggling, an indie, PG-13 stop motion film distributed by Fathom coming in No. 3 for the weekend feels respectable. Given the intensely positive response, it feels poised to do well with word of mouth sales.

The national DSA bullying DSA-LA into disavowing Nithya on the eve of what’s likely to be a comfortable win is some real ContraPoints meme shit. DSA-LA should tell the National Political Committee to go jump in a lake.

For all the ways that the Biden administration didn’t do enough in the wake of Trump 1, Joe personally and specifically hated Robert Bork—the guy who effectively broke antitrust law—and appointing Lina Khan to lead the FTC was his act of revenge against Bork’s legacy.

This strikes me as being desperately embarrassing for all parties involved.

We saw this play out with the L.A. mayoral primaries as well. All these chuds who use these prediction markets initially bet on Spencer Pratt, but as soon as polling closed, his numbers cratered and Nithya quickly became favored to make the runoff.

This is why I'm not actually on board with the whole Save Mass Effect thing. I deeply love ME but saying "please Saudi backed EA, now that you've destroyed the studio that made these games, farm out the IP to some one else to limp on in some barely recognizable zombie version" ain't it. Let it die

Brazil’s results tonight are a big endorsement for the idea that every country should have a second “are you you sure about that” election a couple weeks after the first one for the important stuff

Just awful news.

I know there’s been an effort to reclaim THE BLACK CAULDRON, but the thing is it that it really does stink.

Packed Saturday. Went out canvassing for Nithya this morning, then caught a screening of WILDWOOD, now seated for THE BLACK CAULDRON on 35mm, and I have a ticket for CLAYFACE later.

I think maybe the best comparison for WILDWOOD is that is accomplishes for stop motion what Richard Williams tried (and ultimately failed) to do for hand drawn animation with THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER. An almost incomprehensible achievement, even if (like COBBLER), the story is a tad underbaked.

Airbnb hosts stripped of their ability to make the people paying them also do a bunch of chores

In the midst of so much awfulness, it’d be nice if LAIKA manages to have a second movie that actually turns a profit.

it's 2030, the new consoles are $1500, only six people own them, and the only games being made are Fortnite and Roblox. Nintendo has just released Kirby's Wonder Dream for the Switch 2 and it is game of the year by default

So you're great at rich narrative action games? Do open world! Also, use our weird custom engine! Make the next one a massive multiplayer subscription game instead!

Almost immediately after their acquisition, EA began the process of hollowing out BioWare, but it’s still a punch in the gut to see them actually shut down. It’s all just so bleak.

Well, shit.

A good gag would be if it took 20 years for The Odyssey to come to home video.

We’re deep in the heart of haunt season, and I have, like, half a dozen movies I need to catch up with, but I also kinda just want to see YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING three more times.

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING. Holy shit. Genuinely one of the most staggering pieces of filmmaking I’ve ever seen. I do have one note regarding casting, but I’ll wait to elaborate on what that might mean.

it turns out that “optimize for engagement” and “optimize for societal best outcomes” are opposing goals and if you look at the entire history of the tech industry you can see which of those two wins out

Did not actually intend to see DIGGER twice in three days, but somehow missed that The Grove of all theaters got an actual VistaVision print. It brings me no joy to say it, but I’m coming around to thinking this movie is good, actually. My brand will never recover from this.

i do not meaningfully care about this argument but my stance remains: i refuse to generate unpaid content for elon musk the child pornographer, and to model the behavior that lets elon's algorithm show me the optimal unpaid content he wants me to see. it's interesting that you want to do that though

Caught CARRIE at Hollywood Forever last night. First time I’ve done one of these screenings in years. Reminded that it’s a super cool place to see a movie in theory, but you end up with a bunch of people who are mostly there to get drunk and take pictures for Instagram rather than enjoy the movie.

I was once in a record store and asked the clerk if they get annoyed by Taylor Swift fans on Record Store Day and she said in the driest possible valley girl accent "yeah, we super hate it when big groups of people come in to spend a lot of money on music they like."

I’m generally pretty in the bag for Flanagan, but man, everything he’s saying about CARRIE sounds miserable.

What if the reason people aren’t seeing DIGGER is because there are trailers for two different Johnny Depp movies in front of it? I’m sorely tempted to walk out!

With Fox being gobbled up by the Disney franchise factory and both Paramount and Warners subsumed by Skydance, Universal does kind of feel like the last major movie studio standing that might realistically invest in big swings from interesting talent. Pretty bleak!

Well, here we are: Skydance, day 1. I know Bluesky is the world capital of the feel-good personal boycott, but monitoring these companies and making a lot of noise every time they screw up is going to mean more.