The Friday Article Roundup
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For Indiewire, David Erhlich lays into the new “Phones are mandatory” policy at Alamo Drafthouse:
Like an evil blight spreading across the land from the spires of Mordor, Alamo’s new phone-based service model began to roll out in February as part of a hilariously misguided effort to “reduce distractions and, in the long term, make the experience even better.” Or maybe I’m looking at it from the wrong POV, and the Drafthouse’s initiative is part of a ruthlessly calculated effort to reduce distractions and make the experience even better for them (by “distractions” they mean “employees,” and by “make the experience better” they mean “lol go fuck yourselves”).
At The Guardian, Zach Schonfeld fears the mockumentary as a genre is dying:
In some ways, the stagnation of the mockumentary mirrors the creative decline of the documentary itself, where celebrity-oriented projects now feel more like legacy-building exercises than anything else. Like so many puffy showbiz docs, Spinal Tap II and The Moment mistake high-profile celeb cameos for substance. With its handheld shots of Charli being shuttled between label meetings, tour rehearsals and meet-and-greets, The Moment superficially resembles those behind-the-scenes docs often produced by their subjects, but its satire feels meandering and toothless.
Rapper Cadence Weapon considers how astroturfing buzz for select artists hurts the larger music world:
As an independent artist currently promoting a new album on a shoestring budget, learning about the jet fuel that other acts have access to can be troubling. Many of these bands already had big labels, booking agents and PR at their disposal before they started using performance-enhancing droids to take them to the next level. But in my eyes, Chaotic Good is just another sad example of how the music industry is a shell game explicitly designed to redistribute wealth away from artists and back into the pockets of outside interlopers.
Nina Metz surveys the intense and intensely critical fans of The Pitt and their frustrations with an older mode of TV:
I think it’s happening because some viewers don’t know how to watch a show like this, because they have no real experience with it. I have to assume they grew up primarily watching streaming shows that were written as puzzles to be solved, with a narrative culminating in winners and losers. Has that warped expectations? Or how younger generations engage with storylines?
And in older modes of TV, Elisha Cuthbert talks to Phil Pirrello about making Happy Endings:
EC: Because we were in our first season, no one really knew the show well at that point. At one point, for the role of a popstar who comes into the store that Alex owns, I think we had calls out to Fergie. But everyone passed. Even in the pilot, there was supposed to be a small part for Hootie and the Blowfish. But they were like, “No.”
PP: You got turned down by Hootie?
EC: Yes, we got turned down by Hootie. Oh, well.
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More articles by Dave Shutton
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The Friday Article Roundup
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The Friday Article Roundup
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Conversation
Heh, the first time I heard of Cadence Weapon was because of some connection to those Dimes Square types. (Also, ever since learning that I’ve been calling him “Candace Tampon.”) I’d recommend the Wired article to anyone interested in the topic.
And we gotta get the Jane Krakowski profile in there:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/apr/14/jane-krakowski-ally-mcbeal-30-rock-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-here-we-are
Dismember the Alamo!
What did we watch?
Babylon 5, Season Four, Episode Thirteen, “Rumors, Bargains, And Lies”
God help me, I love Lennier. The Minbari plot was the worst aspect of this – I cannot bring myself to give a shit about intra-Minbari politics, although the final scene makes me waver over liking it – but then Lennier comes in, commits a daring piece of ownage, and then gets a cool-assed speech about it. His speech is amazing for being weirdly pragmatic idealism; he doesn’t believe in Delenn’s ideals, but he believes in Delenn, and he believes her perspective needs to be protected and spread (not too different from the Voice Of The Resistance) for the sake of making the world a better place.
Meanwhile, Sheridan gets a plot where he needs to be a Funny Asshole, and this is something that can be shaky, but I think the episode pulls it off; I don’t believe that none of his crew would figure out what he’s doing – though Richard Biggs plays Franklin as if he figured it out – but I absolutely buy that the plan would work, and is in fact the best way of doing what Sheridan wants to do.
Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials – went hunting for some new TV thing to check out and this three-part Agatha Christie Netflix adaptation caught my eye. It’s not one of her stories I’m familiar with, and it turns out not a character I’m familiar with either as this one is centred around an It Girl type called… “Bundle”. This is the most annoying character name ever devised. Also the opening scene of this has some truly godawful CGI, so the initial signs weren’t good. But the cast is solid (including Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham-Carter as well as a bunch of familiar-looking young people) and I’m somewhat intrigued by the mystery (and it’s only 3 parts) so I’ll probably stick with it.
In your face, Cloudflare errors!
Slow Horses, “Footprints”
Actually thinking ahead of time to make a copy of the Footprint file before putting the original in his beloved grandfather’s hands was the single most genuinely spy-like thing River’s ever done in his life, and I’m honestly kind of surprised and impressed that the guy who impulsively rushes from attempted heroic deed to attempted heroic deed managed to be cynical enough to actually prepare for once. Good for you, buddy! Especially since you definitely have a concussion after going from beatdown to grenade explosion!
The Shirley-Marcus-Dogs fight, with Louisa coming in at the end for an assist with a giant chunk of concrete, was very fun, as was Lamb Home Alone-ing the house (the knife blade in the banister was especially good, as was Chieftain guy disparaging the danger they’re in and then immediately setting himself on fire). And Roddy crashes a party bus into a house far too late to be of any use, but you know what? Dude has presumably zero combat skills and was out there trying to figure out how to pitch in anyway, so despite his often detestable personality, points to him.
But the centerpiece here is the devastating confrontation between Lamb and Catherine, as he rescues her and then can’t stand to sit in the car listening to her burnishing Charles Partner’s reputation; he finally throws the truth–Partner was a sellout and a traitor who kept Catherine around not out of loyalty and appreciation but because her alcoholism let him frame her for his own crimes–and both Oldman and Reeves play it so well as this information sinks in. And if Catherine can’t handle Partner’s betrayal, she also can’t handle Lamb’s, so she quits–with a rare bit of profanity–and walks off, leaving Oldman to do some exquisite facial reacting to her absence. Their relationship is one of the show’s emotional cores, so this is fantastic material for both actors and for the episode as a whole.
Real Genius
Val Kilmer: what a snack. I hadn’t seen this before, but it was incredibly fun–I knew about the military/weapon development plotline but had never osmosed that so much of this would involve wacky campus life, and it was all funny and just the right amount of endearing. And that popcorn stunt at the end is a thing of beauty.
Kitty Foyle – Lauren as usual gets it right. Ignore that unnecessary opening. Ginger Rogers is stellar here, earning her Oscar and carrying the movie. And every so often there is a wonderful line of dialogue (by Trumbo or by Donald Ogden Stewart?). But wow, this is very much a check off the boxes melodrama. And while I get that we couldn’t have the abortion that happened in the book, the death of the baby kicks me in the wrong way and also just bends over backwards to pretend unwed mothers didn’t exist. Plus neither of her suitors is really interesting. It’s a pity the time was not right for a better proto-feminist movie.
Elementary, “You Do It to Yourself” – The title is actually spoiler as the corpse found under the Manhattan Bridge belonged to a piece of work who was dying of cancer AND wanted to frame the woman he lived with and abused so she would be deported while her lover was sent to prison. How we get from point A to point B is interesting enough if really convoluted – what else is new? – but more interesting is a B plot about Watson and an ex who is a drug addict. We get the back story of how Joan became a sober counselor and also have some very human moments from Holmes, feeling for a fellow addict.
Just going to quickly run off some “Lauren as usual gets it right” T-shirts ….
What did we read?
Politics, Aristotle
This is very, very good advice for rich people that has remained relevant two thousand years after its author’s death. At times, it was uncannily relevant; I read the sentence For the poor are generally content enough, even if they do not share in the honours, provided only that they are not liable to be ill-treated or deprived of any of their possessions. the very day the news broke about that guy who burned down his workplace. Indeed, there’s a section after that which effectively says “All you have to do is pay them enough to live”.
This ends up reconciling much that ages badly; the first like seventy pages are dedicated to the nature of slaves, which is all at once indefensible, a reflection of his times, a reflection of attitudes that infect Western civilisation to this day (how much of the attitude to the working class is effectively seeing them as slaves?) and an honest reflection of what it means to possess power. At a certain level, some people are effectively slaves.
Viewed through this lens, much of Aristotle’s advice is reasonable. His most canny insight is into the proles; in any society, they must be kept comfortable, and they have no reason to put up with shit they don’t have to. All things considered, he would probably admire both the 20th century American capitalists and the 2026 proles, tutting at the current rulers for not adequately caring for them.
(His misogyny is much less defensible)
8 Bit Theater, Strips 0890-0920, Brian Clevinger
There’s a subplot of Sara sneaking around her father to try and fix all his problems, which includes discovering the Dark Warriors are working as his accountants, in which we discover King Steve overcame the problem of the Piece Of String that usurped by snipping it in half.
“Okay, who gave him that? Drizz’l?”
“No, I’m the smart one.”
“Shouldn’t you invent a reason for me to jump away so I can’t hear what you’re saying?”
“I like it better when the people we meet are dumber than we are.”
“Yeah, that’s… I prefer that.”
“Good, good. Everything is falling apart so completely. That’s good.”
“Black Mage would have laughed at that if he was still alive.”
“Hey! How’d you live?”
“Spite!”
“The trouble with your lightning spells may be that we are indoors.”
“That’s much too logical to matter.”
This section has a parody of tragic backstories as Red Mage reveals his, to the indifference of everyone. Admittedly, this is the point in the strip where Clevinger seems to run low on inspiration; the plot slows way down to the point of tedium rather than amusement, because in this case it actually slows down – it’s not an absurd drama veering away from genre signifiers, it’s just people not doing anything.
“Thief, I can’t take this. Kick someone for me.”
[Thief kicks BM]
“Y’know, I thought I’d be madder, but it’s my own fault for not being specific enough.”
“The point is good deeds were done and we were nearby.”
Box Office Poison, Tim Robey – a Christmas present. A solidly well-written summary of some of the biggest flops of the last century and what led them to spiral out of control. I like that Robey made the effort to pick on some less-discussed disasters and avoid a few that have already been fully picked over, but for the most part this was just a solidly enjoyable read without too many thrilling revelations.
The Rare Coin Score, by Richard Stark
Stark changes publishers here, and there’s a sense of series retooling to go with it: we even lose the distinctive “When [x], Parker [y]”-style opening. Not all of that retooling completely works for me, and that’s true from the jump: I like that “white sandy beach”/”white sandy bitch” pun, but it feels like it belongs in one of the harder-edged Westlakes, not a full-on Stark novel. And while I don’t mind Parker finally picking up another long-term companion in the form of Claire, she feels too obviously narratively intended for the role from the start, narratively speaking, and it doesn’t give them a chance to have some of the weirder and more naturalistic chemistry he had with Grofield’s now-wife Mary or even with the dead Ellie from The Handle.
Nothing Parker does with her is as far from his usual characterization than him waiting to see if Lempke will turn it around, though–that’s far softer than the relatively pragmatic trip to Sheer back in The Jugger. I don’t entirely buy him having such a spot-on dissection of where pity comes from, either.
The plot here is strong, though, and French coming back in genuinely surprised me–I was hoping to see him turn up in a future book, because his early calm and weighing of the odds impressed me as much as it did Parker, but obviously that won’t be happening now. Having a heist where you have to consider, in detail, how to pack the goods is a cool move.
I’m partway into the next book now, and Parker still feels a little off to me–simultaneously more showily hard than he should be and softer at odder times–so I’m curious if this will be a pattern with the Gold Medal books and change after their run or if Stark was more self-motivated in switching things up here.
Claire comes into her own eventually, but then sort of vanishes. I suspect Westlake wanted to set up someone to be Parker’s release valve and having done that, didn’t really see any reason to do more with her. He can write women well, but you have to look elsewhere for that.
I’m in the camp that believes the opening line is purposefully verging on bad, it’s a reflection of Parker’s weird mental state – he lost his wife and his cover and his cash, he’s getting the last back but he is far more unmoored than he has ever been and his purposeless actions reflect that. The opportunity for a job is a relief. And if Claire is obvious in her role for the reader I think Stark does a very good job making her role less obvious to both her and Parker, they sound each other out quite a bit (and her and Parker in the truck is one of my favorite bits in the series, a rare glimpse into how Parker works and what that work looks like – the parallels to writing are pretty clear). The Gold Medal books adjust Parker but I think the beginning shows that he knows a readjustment is necessary, he can’t go on without a certain stability to fall back on.
I can see that argument with the opening, especially since it’s also an uncharacteristically rambling sentence: it does capture the slightly impatient, out-of-sorts feel he has at the moment, with all the restless, jagged tension. And I did like the truck scene you mentioned, as well as their mutually guarded commitment at the end.
Stalled out on the Le Carre bio. After a certain point, “wrote a book, sold the rights, commented on world affairs, made friends, made enemies” gets kind of repetitive. Perhaps it’s good we don’t have an authorized Stephen King bio.
Marc Morris’s history of the Anglo-Saxons is interesting enough, but lacks a certain energy, mainly because there are not that many sources.
Started a bio of Cool Papa Bell, one of the legends of the Negro Leagues. The writing style is a bit florid at times, but Bell deserves a bio and this came very late.
“This lays to rest the fairytale of making it big solely on the merits of one’s music.”
“As ever thus” – any professional musician