Michael Cook

Strategic comms consultant, film critic for KLRT-TV, & KARK-TV. AR’s sole member of @CriticsChoice. Tomatometer-Approved Critic

[sean illing @seanilling]

This generation has produced the most uniquely boring men in human history

[The Angry Czeck @angryczeck]

Cut bait on Platner. Get behind Janet Mills. This is a disaster.

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

Lost amid the Graham Platner frenzy and angst over Maine is an equally significant development about the future of both the Democratic party and the Senate.

Read about it in latest edition of The Opposition from @lauren_v_egan:
https://t.co/mmBI09Z7kX

[Michael Cook @mcookAR]

Vote for the bearded young white guy who’s in the Iowa state legislature!

[Talking Points Memo @TPM]

Two young state lawmakers are vying Tuesday night for the chance to be Iowa’s next and long-awaited Democratic senator in a year where they might just have a chance. https://t.co/e4gBz4rK3H

[Michael Cook @mcookAR]

@mattyglesias Janet Mills (78) is too old to run for Senate, but Sen. Ed Markey (80 in July) is not?

[Michael Cook @mcookAR]

Janet Mills (78) is too old to run for Senate, but Ed Markey (80 in July) is not? #MASen

[David Weigel @daveweigel]

Seth Moulton makes the #MASen primary ballot with 27% of the delegate vote, and will challenge Ed Markey in September. He needed 15% to get there.

(No 2020 vote to compare this to; that year's convention was canceled due to COVID.)

[All Things Movies @ThatMoviePage]

Sure did

[silly goose magoo 🧸 @ShowinmadLov]

The Fabelmans sprinkled breadcrumbs to Spielberg’s psyche in fascinating ways.

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

The White House lawn is about to smell like cigarettes and unpaid child support.

[Megan O'Matz @MegsNewz]

Raised Baptist in a Republican family, an Arkansas mother feared her hospital would let her die as she experienced a miscarriage, rather than provide her care under the state's strict abortion ban. She came to learn the law applies to anyone losing a baby. https://t.co/vfmqTMBg5G

[Michael Cook @mcookAR]

@MariyaAlexander Improv is the gateway drug to podcasting.

[1976 Live @50YearsAgoLive]

Lifelong Libertarian activist Ayn Rand enrolls in Social Security and Medicare, as she has gotten lung cancer after years of heavy smoking.

[Brian Fauteux @brianfauteux]

A Face/Off 2 would be phenomenal

[Richard Roeper @RichardERoeper]

Anyone else remember the "Mockbuster" era of the 1990s, when we'd get straight-to-video releases of action films starring the relatives of famous stars --and they'd put their last names in ALL CAPS on the covers? Don SWAYZE, Joe ESTEVEZ, Mike NORRIS, Chad MCQUEEN...

[Michael Cook @mcookAR]

@TolbertARPX @RobyBrock Ah! That explains these massive residual checks I often receive.

[Michael Cook @mcookAR]

@reedgalen How about raising the total number of House seats? Has been at 435 seats since 1929, and the US population has increased by about 220 million since then. Would take Democrats controlling all 3 branches obviously.

[David Weigel @daveweigel]

The RBG cult is too psychologically interesting, I waste three minutes thinking about it whenever the topic comes up.

What’s the most popular message on RBG merch? Typically it’s “I dissent.” The stans aren’t venerating her opinion in United States vs. Virginia or Evenwel v. Abbott. She’s the icon of being smart and right while losing. This has transferred over to KBJ fandom; she never wins, but look at her epic roast in this dissent.

It’s a cult of never holding power but being smug that the people holding power are wrong and maybe the biopic in 20 years will say so.

[Michael Cook @mcookAR]

There were no Southern actors available to play Southern characters?!?!?

[Variety @Variety]

Jessie Buckley is reuniting with her “Hamnet” co-star Paul Mescal for “Hold On To Your Angels,” a new movie written and directed by Oscar nominee Benh Zeitlin, heading to the Cannes market.

Set on the edge of South Louisiana, the story follows a hell-bound outlaw (Mescal) and a ferocious shepherd of lost souls (Buckley) who fall in catastrophic love as their crumbling bayou paradise drags them under.

https://t.co/scsHoKIiEq

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

This is how the Influencer Industrial Complex works.

[Variety @Variety]

Michael Jackson’s estate is facing a new wave of molestation allegations from four siblings who say they were groomed and abused for years, and that many handlers in Jackson’s entourage willingly enabled it all.

“Michael Jackson was a serial child predator who, over the course of more than a decade, drugged, raped and sexually assaulted each of the Plaintiffs, beginning when some of them were as young as seven or eight. Jackson’s attacks on these siblings went on for extended periods, including in locations around the world and when Jackson and his children were guests in Plaintiffs’ family home,” the complaint states.

https://t.co/R7ieuwKcxg