There is more pathos, character development and interiority in any 15 minutes of The Sopranos than there is in the entire 3 hours or whatever of the Christopher Nolan film The Odyssey
Making a movie is hard.
Making a sequel is hard.
Making a sequel to a widely beloved film responsible for revitalizing the genre and setting a new standard for not just superhero movies but cinema at large?
It’s a challenge, and I’m glad Mr Reeves is taking his time to get it just right. Will be seated.
I am totally radicalized on the issue of criminal justice. We should increase executions by like a thousand percent. Bring back hard labor. Bring back corporal punishment. Bring back public lashings. Bring back public hangings. Our ancestors were right about all of that.
Michael Parenti (1933-2026) died today. He has, as his son Christian said, 'gone to the Great Lecture Hall in the Sky'. A socialist from early into his life till the very end, Michael Parenti wrote in a feisty way and spoke bluntly the truths that were not always easy to digest in a wretched capitalist system. He was a fierce critic of imperialist wars and suffered the consequences of this because he could keep and then hold academic jobs even in liberal states such as Vermont.
The toughest test for all of us came when the USSR collapsed, and it was in this period that Michael Parenti played an important role in the Battle of Ideas, fighting the reactionary Western media and the intellectual cowardice of his peers. His books on Yugoslavia's destruction earned him terrible attacks, which he brushed off as the necessary price you pay in this struggle. In the midst of it all, Michael wrote 'Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism' (1997), a rebuttal to the anti-Marxist and anti-Communist blather that had begun to infect the world. The book remains an essential tool to fight against the ridiculous anti-communist historiography that demeans the great achievements of the workers' movements.
He spent the last period of his life within himself, which was a loss to the rest of us, and now his departure leaves us without that anchor which he provided.
Michael Parenti. Comrade. Our Red Flag dips in your honour.
I have to add my voice to the chorus: there is nothing more insulting, disempowering, or a surer sign that you’re working with hacks (& there are many, wedged into middle management in AAA) than receiving an AI moodboard as a concept artist, and I need to talk about it
The accusation that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza — likely hundreds, maybe even thousands — has become all but undeniable. Even Israel’s supporters, those who defended or withstood this publicly broadcast nightmare for 19 months, have reached some semblance of a limit.
For our latest cover story, @suzyhans examines how the war in Gaza has upended decades of humanitarian law: https://t.co/kloetoKRb9