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There was a thing going around on Bluesky the other day about what is the best anyone has ever looked on screen. And I didn’t even bother because the answer is obviously Grace Kelly in that first closeup in Rear Window and any other answer is just nonsense.

"Nostalgia is cheap, and plenty of films peddling it have died on the vine. No, what sets BACK TO THE FUTURE apart is not that it is nostalgic, but that it grasps nostalgia as a production, a site of labor. It doesn’t remember the past; it re-manufactures it, to spec, on a studio lot."

We need a better word than proshot for this kind of thing. Proshot used to just mean “not a bootleg,” and the production value on something like this is SO MUCH MORE than not a bootleg. This is like a concert film or a standup special (which is really a concert film).

Also: Ocean’s Eleven

The Wizard of Oz 302 comments, and unless I missed it, none of them mentions The Wizard of Oz, kind of easily the most obvious (and best) example of this. Like I’ve been saying for years: Because of its ubiquity, everybody sleeps on The Wizard of Oz.

The list of people born in 1946 is ridiculous. Spielberg. Cher. Dolly Parton. People like Diane Keaton, David Lynch, David Gilmour, Liza Minnelli, Reggie Jackson, Freddie Mercury and Patti Smith are relegated to the second tier of that crazy year. Relatedly: It’s the first year of the baby boom.

It might FEEL logical that a mostly shot-for-shot CGI-heavy live-action remake of a 10-year-old CG-animated movie flops, but you'd have made the same argument before the shot-for-shot live-action remake of a 15-year-old movie made $630m last year, so I'd say additional context is necessary.

Unacceptable

Altman surprised to see Richard Kimble entering the banquet hall in the middle of his presentation

They added showings earlier, the night of July 2. I went to one of those. And it was especially cool ’cause the first thing that happens in the movie is it tells you that it’s July 2.

Imagine having your wedding overshadowed by Cabo Verde

You’re saying you don’t know if the trial was supposed to be funny or not?

We once had Harris Yulin, who played the judge, in our studio (he was doing a new play with Will Eno at Yale), and I played one of his scenes from Ghostbusters 2 on the radio, and he wasn’t able to discern what was going on in it. I felt bad. He said he had a lot of fun with those guys, though.

Ghostbusters 2 isn’t perfect or anything, but one of its main storylines is that in the five years since Ghostbusters, basically everyone has decided that the Ghostbusters were some kind of hucksters, and the whole thing was a hoax. Fairly prescient, really.

"The Mayor in Jaws is STILL THE MAYOR IN JAWS 2" will never not be an accurate reflection of our electoral politics.

For a third of my life I've listened to the Culture Gabfest, a pioneering podcast with the perfect chemistry, wit, and insight. I'm so grateful to the hosts, Stephen Metcalf, Julia Turner & Dana Stevens, & hope their will be a reunion tour. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/a... @reggieugwu.bsky.social

feels like a huge loss for the journalism industry that nobody has dropped acid at the great american state fair and blogged about it yet

I think the prequels are better than people remember, and I acknowledge that TFA is, let’s say, derivative. But TFA is also VERY well made and full of super likable characters played by exceedingly charming/compelling actors. For me it’s at the other end of the Star Wars list from the prequels.

“Somebody pressed the wrong button — oops!” would’ve been SUCH a better explanation than this.

This is just totally wrong. It’s not the highest-grossing original live-action film of the 2020s at the worldwide box office (which is where it’s grossed $371 million). And it’s not the highest-grossing original live-action film of the 2020s domestically ($235 million) either.