Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When we show up, we win.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Everybody saw this coming.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / Sunday Night Open Thread, and the Oscars, Also too

Sunday Night Open Thread, and the Oscars, Also too

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This post is in: ,

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I have been really busy pulling together all the projects before I take off next Monday. Plus, last night we went to see a show at the Dirty Drummer, and this morning we had to drive to Scottsdale to have brunch with Topat and Buzz. Place was good- an Italian place named Osteria. It was no La Cucina, but it was good.

I’ll leave you alone to watch the Oscars. Which really means I want to go watch them.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  2. 2.

    JPL

    The Award Show has been quite entertaining so far.  There has been only one streaker and one semi political speech so far.   I say semi-political because when speaking of the deaths that occurred and are occurring in Israel and Gaza, all sides should be horrified.   BTW The gowns have been stunning.

  6. 6.

    Layer8Problem

    Ahhm, I’m “watching” them, with headphones on, reading non-Oscar stuff on the interwebs with my trusty laptop. With my partner next to me actively commenting on the proceedings, and with me saying “Uh huh”, “Really?”, and “Was that Christoph Waltz?” when it seems necessary. There’s purportedly humor in it, right?

    But 20 Days in Mariupol just won. That’s good.

  7. 7.

    Tinare

    For short documentary, I was really rooting for Nai Nai and Wai Po, it is streaming on Hulu and was recommended to me as “17 minutes of joy” and it was.

  10. 10.

    brendancalling

    Just got home from a fun gig here in PA, The No Good Crowd, some prodigy kid (early 20s at best) leading a keyboard trio, and a Grateful Dead cover band. I had a bite of some enhanced chocolate (THC and psylocybin) around 6 and I’m glad I didn’t have to drive home.

  13. 13.

    zhena gogolia

    @NotMax: The times I’ve turned on the TV to watch it, I immediately regret it. There was a time I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I guess those times involved Bob Hope.

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    SwiftOnSecurity
    @SwiftOnSecurity at infosec.exchange

    [BREAKING] British Royal Family loses visual effects Oscar to team behind Godzilla Minus One

    [ image ]

    Mar 10, 2024, 21:03

    Hehe.

    (Kensington Palace apparently caught trying to distribute Photoshopped picture of Kate and her spawn after her recent surgery. Kinda looks like it – one of the kid’s hands is far out of focus while everything else is sharp, etc.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Brachiator

    Ryan Gosling singing the Ken song from Barbie is a hoot.

    It’s a mammoth goddam production number.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    @geg6: I read an article about his seeking advice from his children on how to play Ken.   If you haven’t seen it, stream “Lars and the Real Girl”.   He is so good.

  22. 22.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    I haven’t followed the “Kate’s surgery” story closely, but it seems significant that she was in the hospital for 13 days after the operation. In these days of “ambulatory surgery” that is a long time.

  23. 23.

    Mousebumples

    @Brachiator: agreed! He’s Kenough.

    Barbie was my favorite film last year, but I don’t go to the theater much

    Variety (@Variety) posted at 8:37 PM on Sun, Mar 10, 2024:
    Ryan Gosling and the cast of “Barbie” perform “I’m Just Ken” at the #Oscars. https://t.co/UNgGySGz3r https://t.co/00hd0Jw8cy
    (https://x.com/Variety/status/1767001795316871516?s=03

    Eta, the full I’m Just Ken performance is there, but I can’t find a YouTube direct link yet.

  24. 24.

    brendancalling

     

     

    @Geminid: It’s pretty mellow and nice. I only ate a little. Two pieces of this would have me chasing rainbow-colored anime flying unicorns up the street!

  25. 25.

    geg6

    And Billie Eilish and Finian won for What Was I Made For!  Finally, Barbie, the best movie of the year IMHO, finally got recognized for something.  And yes, I’ve seen almost all the other Best Picture nominees.  Hated most, but I did enjoy American Fiction and The Leftovers.  You can keep the rest.  They were a boring slog to get through.  I also took in the winner for Best International Feature Zone of interest.  So disturbing but brilliantly done.

  29. 29.

    Kayla Rudbek

    I just posted up a one-star review of a diet cookbook on Amazon, ThriftBooks, and Facebook. Cookbooks should NOT be authored or made by AI.  Put me down in the camp with the US Copyright Office as requiring human authorship (and human editing) if all y’all want to register a copyright.

  30. 30.

    Argiope

    @brendancalling: Rainbow colored unicorns? Does this product have a standardized dose and branding, or was it homemade by actual festival hippies? Asking for a friend with both a designated driver and a trip sitter.

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    I am very happy 20 Days in Mariupol won, but I haven’t watched it and don’t think I will be able to.

  37. 37.

    Layer8Problem

    Third time through for the Rolex commercial. Imma gonna run out to the Rolex store and buy a bunch. Anybody need one?

  40. 40.

    Kristine

    I was happy that Robert Downey Jr won Best Supporting Actor. I liked so many of the nominees, but I’m happy for him.

    Cillian Murphy’s cheekbones deserve their own award.

  48. 48.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    This makes TWO Oscars for Emma Stone.

    They like her! They really, really like her!

  49. 49.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Kristine:

    This makes up for the time he was robbed of an Oscar for his work in “Back to School”

  55. 55.

    Mike in NC

    @Layer8Problem: In 1984 I spent six months deployed to the godawful Persian Gulf. When we finally left I treated myself to a low end Rolex when we stopped to refuel in Spain. Still my favorite possession.

  58. 58.

    Layer8Problem

    @Mike in NC:  They certainly do look nice.  Solid and dependable, I’d expect.  But NotMax is right, a novelty watch face would just add that extra touch of individual flair.

  60. 60.

    Steeplejack

    @geg6:

    Did you see Poor Things? I thought that was dreadful. Can’t believe it got so many nominations (except for the technical ones).

  61. 61.

    Steeplejack

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Inorite. At first I thought it might just be royal cosseting, but the fact that they put out an apparently doctored photo makes me suspect someting worse—and triggers the Streisand effect.

  62. 62.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Unfortunately, I started watching Poor Things last night too late and got around 2/3 in before lights out…blame DST too! But it’s excellent so far and I can highly recommend the book (which I did finish, swear!)

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    @JPL:

    See me at #60. I don’t think “hot babe fucks her way to personal freedom” is the groundbreaking theme it might once have been (if ever). And there was a creepy pedo aspect to it, as she starts out with a child’s mind in a hot adult body. And I have a host of other complaints.

    The “technical” nominations (effects, costumes,  etc.) were fine.

  65. 65.

    MC

    Is anyone feeling hopeful about November? I’ve been feeling totally crushed about the odds lately.

  67. 67.

    Layer8Problem

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: They had the materials right there. Cillian Murphy and Matt Damon as the mismatched partners, playing by their own rules in a world gone mad.

    Lewis Strauss, waving ‘The Book’: “Oppenheimer, in this department we do things by the book!”

    Oppenheimer blasts book out of Strauss’ hand with a .44 Magnum, and in a Tommy Shelby voice says: “Bye book.”

    (Shamelessly stolen from The Simpsons)

  70. 70.

    Steeplejack

    @MC:

    I am definitely feeling hopeful about November—maybe even a little confident. In the real world, where stuff actually happens, Biden is overperforming the polls in the primaries and Trump is underperforming. Biden and the Democrats are raising more money than the Republicans, and what the GOP is raising is likely to be funneled to Trump’s legal fees and fines. Trump is getting more incoherent and glitchy by the day, and he could be building up to a disastrous acceptance speech at the GOP convention.

    So, yeah, I like our odds. We still have to do the work, but all is not lost. Not even close.

  71. 71.

    piratedan

    @gwangung: considering the complaints about the casting at the time, that really speaks to that trait of sincerity, it’s not as if there aren’t capable actors of Asian decent, but granted, she didn’t demand the role, all she saw was a complex character that she would enjoy performing and tried out for it.

  72. 72.

    hueyplong

    @MC: Be confident. If it all goes to hell there will be plenty of time and opportunity to be miserable.

  74. 74.

    prostratedragon

    @Jackie, @hueyplong: They did laugh, but I think many had to do the same multi-step processing I did:

    Why is Kimmel reading a comment from some jerk?

    Oh. That guy must have really written that, since Kimmel would hardly invite trouble.

    And how does he find the time?

  75. 75.

    different-church-lady

    So I’m guessing everyone is so freaked out by the fact that AI can’t draw hands correctly that they’re going to yank a photo just because a kid is holding his hand in a weird position.

  77. 77.

    CaseyL

    I know Lily Gladstone was a favorite to win Best Actress, and I have not seen Killers of the Flower Moon so I can’t say anything about her performance.

    But I did see Poor Things, and Emma Stone’s performance struck me as the most fearless acting I had ever seen. She had to do a lot of things, combine subtlety with its utter opposite, often in the same scene. I loved watching her “grow up” in carefully calibrated changes in how she moved and spoke. Just amazing.

  78. 78.

    Barbara

    @Gin & Tonic: She could have had a post-surgical infection. I also don’t think other countries prioritize fast discharges the way we do (partly because of cost).

  79. 79.

    Lyrebird

    @different-church-lady: Well in their Christmas photo, one of his fingers vanished, but in this more recent one, no, it’s the daughter’s sleeve becoming invisible between the cuff and the rest…  I am no photo expert, and I do know how hard it is to get a great smile on all kids in the same shot.  If they manipulated the photo, I would guess it was for that reason.

  80. 80.

    StringOnAStick

    @JPL: Yes, I’ve seen it.  Probably the most interesting and upsetting yet visually stunning and also horrifying movie I’ve ever seen.  I still think about and try to puzzle out various aspects of it.  I can’t even begin to tell the story, it’s so complex and needs to unfold at the movie ‘s pace.  Mark Ruffalo deserves an Oscar for sure and so does Emma Stone.  That a movie with so much soft core porn is ultimately a very feminist movie is the cherry on top.

  81. 81.

    TS

    @Barbara:

     I also don’t think other countries prioritize fast discharges the way we do

    I would think the opposite – but Kate would be in a private hospital with a private Doc and probably doesn’t have to fight an insurance company or the national health for an additional day in the hospital.

  83. 83.

    Jackie

    @prostratedragon: He finds the time to always make it about HIM. TIFG can’t handle it when anyone else is in the spotlight EVER.

    That’s what’s so amusing about it. He just couldn’t resist.

  85. 85.

    CaseyL

    @StringOnAStick:

    The set design was fascinating, particularly the exteriors.  I want to compare them to Wes Anderson – that hyper-reality mixed with a sort of alt-universe retro – but I don’t want to take away from the glorious originality of it.

  86. 86.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I am very happy 20 Days in Mariupol won, but I haven’t watched it and don’t think I will be able to.

    It is extremely difficult to watch, yet I would hope everyone in America sees it.

    It is available for streaming on PBS. It was a Frontline episode.

  87. 87.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Citizen Alan: I think that they did also bring the case in the US courts as well, and were shot down because you need to be a human photographer in order to hold a copyright. One of Oscar Wilde’s photos was also the subject of a copyright lawsuit back in the 1880s or so, and the Supreme Court ruled that the photographer was the copyright owner.

    And the current copyright disputes are over AI scraping copyrighted material to use as source data to train/generate AI, and someone at Univ. Chicago has come up with a way to poison image data/pixels so that the AI doesn’t generate the desired images from the poisoned data. So cat pictures produce images of dogs, for example. I think he called it Nightshade?

  90. 90.

    cain

    Emma looked a bit shocked she got an Oscar.

    I have not watched it .. I did see a funny clip with Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger and a Batman thing. The reaction by Michael Keaton was AWESOME 😎

  91. 91.

    HumboldtBlue

    Holy shit! I understand this is well-trod ground at this point, but the victim in the Katie Britt lie, Karla Jacinto, has her own thoughts on Britt’s bullshit.

    WATCH: Karla Jacinto, the sex trafficking victim at the center of Katie Britt’s debunked #SOTU anecdote, strongly criticizes the Alabama senator and says Britt got many facts about her story wrong.

  92. 92.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @different-church-lady:

    If you look closely at her daughter’s left hand it is clear that it is not aligned with the sleeve. Some are asking where the wedding ring is but the hand alignment looks to me like a doctored photo, not AI.

    Either way it is interesting to see the press call fake on this.

  96. 96.

    Tony Jay

    @Another Scott:

    @JPL:

    Hooves you can hide. Tentacles require surgery. It’s the Cthonic rituals to appease the inhabitants of the Lower Realms that take all the time.

    That and replacing an entire surgical staff after they’re all driven withershins by the sight of their Monarchy’s true ‘face’.

  98. 98.

    AlaskaReader

    @Anoniminous:

    They got lies so big
    They don’t make a noise
    They tell ’em so well
    Like a secret disease
    That makes you go numb

    With a big ol’ lie
    And a flag and a pie
    And a mom and a bible
    Most folks are just liable
    To buy any line
    Any place, any time

  99. 99.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    The Oscars try, but they’ll never be as exciting as the AVN awards

  101. 101.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MC: ​
     

    Is anyone feeling hopeful about November? I’ve been feeling totally crushed about the odds lately.

    I have absolutely no idea what the odds are, and I’m not sure anyone really knows.

    Do what you can, and don’t give up hope.

  102. 102.

    Tony Jay

    @NotMax:

    “Start with the pancake houses. If we do the Coffee Houses first the munchies will render us uncontrollable!”

  103. 103.

    geg6

    @Steeplejack:

    Agreed.  Just terrible.  And I haven’t suffered through such a BORING AS HELL AND RIDICULOUSLY LONG film as Oppenheimer since 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I’ll never understand why either of these films are so revered.

  104. 104.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @MC:

    Is anyone feeling hopeful about November?

    Very.  Polls have been increasingly inaccurate and wildly over represent Republicans after Dobbs.  The ones showing Trump ahead are so obviously manipulated it’s just sad, but they’re the ones you hear about, so you get a false image of polling.  Every sign shows Democrats are actually highly motivated, and Republicans are going through the motions with Trump.  Even the signs supposedly bad for Biden (looking at you, Michigan) are just fine if you have context rather than raw numbers.  Biden and Trump are becoming increasingly visible rather than people relying on pundit filters.  Trump is doing his damnedest to sink the whole Republican election machine.  Essential states are getting more Democrat friendly.  With Biden in charge overturning the election is not happening.

    We’re going to fucking crush them.

  105. 105.

    lowtechcyclist

    @geg6: ​
     

    I haven’t seen Oppenheimer. I’ve seen 2001 twice – once when it first came out (1968?), and again in 1983. I was bowled over by it the first time, but seeing it again ~15 years later (and 15 years older, obviously, I was 14 the first time) I found it to be boring as shit.

  106. 106.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Yeah, the means of attempting an overturn of the election results mostly aren’t in their hands this time.  Not only is DOJ in Dem hands, but so are the governorships of PA, MI, WI, AZ, and NC, and I don’t think the GOP govs of either GA or NV would be inclined to ‘find’ enough votes for TFG to put him over the top in their states.  That leaves state legislatures, but even there we’re in better shape than we were four years ago.

    So it comes down to simply getting enough of the votes in enough of those states.

  107. 107.

    evodevo

    @piratedan: or, if it was a hysterectomy, bleeding.  They used to keep you for days after one of those, even after the “send ’em home regardless” standards of HMO care kicked in.

  109. 109.

    Another Scott

    @Lyrebird: I’m sure it’s innocent as well, and wanting them all smiling (and in focus), makes sense.

    But they know that people have been screaming “Where’s Kate??” for weeks.  They should know that anything released would be scrutinized.

    They should have released a short (5-10s) clean video instead of ‘shopping it.  It would have been more “hep” and would have given the rumor mongers less to rumor about.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  112. 112.

    Paul in KY

    @geg6: 2001 had some (for the time) excellent special effects. Was a hopeful look at mankind’s technology 32 years in the future. Movie actually needed to be a bit longer to flesh out the plot a bit (IMO).

    Best watched when really stoned.

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