Sunday, June 30, 2024

Cory Doctorow Writes About Tech

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In the neoliberal era the conventional view has been to celebrate the "tech" sector as the absolute epitome of free-market "e...

The Myth of Silicon Valley--and the Very Different Reality

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If you are even slightly attentive to economic reality then you will have likely noticed how much more attention the "tech" sector...

Centrism and the Right: A Few Thoughts

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Looking at political centrism as more than "middle of the roadness" but as a distinct ideological tendency these past few years m...
Friday, June 28, 2024

Boxoffice Pro Publishes its First Forecast for Deadpool & Wolverine: Thoughts

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Two weeks ago there were reports that the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine was headed for a $200 million+ opening weekend . Extraordinary ...

The Taboo Against Artists Admitting They Want to be Rich and Famous

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In Money Writes! Upton Sinclair acknowledges the desire to "get rich and famous" as a deciding factor in the desire of many perso...
Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Review: Money Writes! by Upton Sinclair

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In Mammonart (1925) Upton Sinclair threw down a comprehensive challenge to the received wisdom about the creation, content and valuation of...

Cordell Gascoigne Reviews Amazon's Fallout

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The increasing fashionability of video game adaptations has been a factor not just on the big screen, where last year we got The Super Mario...
Friday, June 21, 2024

Can Twisters be a Hit?

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The movie Twisters is due out July 19. I have to admit that, in spite of seeing it listed as one of those movies that Hollywood insiders ...

Authors Anonymous: A Few Thoughts

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From the first I was all but certain that I would dislike Ellie Kanner's 2014 film Authors Anonymous , but watched anyway--mainly becaus...

On the Latest Crisis of the French Fifth Republic

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Last year, amid the protests against French President Emmanuel Macron's constitutionally dubious abuse of his emergency powers to force ...
Thursday, June 20, 2024

Just How Big Will Deadpool & Wolverine Open?

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Until just a couple of days ago I had no expectation of writing about Deadpool & Wolverine until after Boxoffice Pro came out with its...

On Inside Out 2's Surprisingly Strong Opening

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Just in case you think it unreasonable to consider Inside Out 2 's domestic opening to $62 million on Friday and "surprisingly st...

Hollywood's Great Contraction, and the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence

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Over the past few months Deadline has published a series of articles about "the Great Contraction" in Hollywood's television ...
Monday, June 10, 2024

The First Five Months of 2024 and the Prospects for the Year's Box Office

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Between the start of the year and the end of May the U.S. box office took in about $2.6 billion. By contrast 2023 had taken in almost $3.4...

Gabriel Kolko, Upton Sinclair and the Immigrant Experience at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

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Reading Gabriel Kolko's remarkable Main Currents in Modern American History (a book sadly out of print so far as I have been able to as...