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Monthly Archives: January 2026
Sinners
Plot: Twin brothers (Michael B. Jordan) return home to 1932 Mississippi and run into an unexpected obstacle when they open a juke joint: vampires.
Pros: The movie is well-produced and well-shot. There is a fantasy dance sequence incorporating music through the ages that’s a thing to behold. The cinematography and acting are top-notch.
Sinners, at least in its first hour, is often a thought-provoking drama. Writer-director Ryan Coogler had lofty ambitions. His story isn’t just horror; he tackles race and temptation in the 1930s South.
Cons: For a movie promoted as a vampire flick, it’s not scary. Vampires with red eyes and who dance an Irish jig don’t exactly tingle the spine.
Crucially, Coogler’s metaphors and political themes don’t mesh well with vampire shenanigans.
The elephant in the room: Sinners garnered a record 16 Oscar nominations. This is a movie that wants to be taken seriously but winds up a peculiar mix of To Kill a Mockingbird and From Dusk till Dawn. It’s good, but not 16-Oscars good. Release: 2025 Grade: B
Would I watch it again? Possibly. But I forgot to mention one more con: Like so many Hollywood movies these days, at 138 minutes this one is too damn long.
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“They are weaponizing that ‘Minnesota nice.’” — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, pictured above, calling out the liberals who are fighting deportations in Minnesota. Oh, yeah, and also enabling massive fraud.
Progressives, led by Tim Walz, Jacob Frey, Ilhan Omar, and Keith Ellison — none of the four are native-born Minnesotans — created this mess and now are complaining about Trump’s attempts to clean it up.
It’s all so predictable, and all so depressing.
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WTF Stories
“Hidden clues”? Aren’t footprints the most obvious — not to mention the oldest — clues in murder-mystery lore?
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What am I missing here? A “record” two games pitched and four games started?
I should have been a ballplayer.
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It’s 12 degrees and snowing outside, and a few miles from where I sit, protestors/insurgents/malcontents are battling with ICE. Again.
The news is relentlessly depressing here in Minnesota.
So, please forgive me if I prefer to look at Sydney Sweeney’s ass in the trailer (above) for a new season of Euphoria.
I don’t watch the show, but I certainly watch the trailer.
By the way … that shooting water in the above GIF: Is it some sort of subliminal comment on what male viewers might be up to while gawking at Sydney’s jiggling ass? They wouldn’t do that, would they?
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Speaking of gratuitous nudity (or near-nudity), I wondered who the guest might be on Tim Pool’s podcast. I scrolled the YouTube menu and saw the thumbnail below:
Apparently guest Arynne Wexler is more than just a pair of tits, as I discovered when I saw the rest of her on the show (below):
I feel much better now — don’t you?
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“We’re Not in Fargo Anymore”
I live ten miles (a 15-minute drive) from the shooting of Renee Good, from the epicenter of Somali daycare fraud, and from the scene of George Floyd’s death.
In other words, I don’t live in Salina, Kansas, and so my perspective might be a bit skewed. But from where I sit, it certainly feels as though “civil war” is not something to fear on the horizon; it’s already here.
What’s it like living in Minnesota? This is purely personal, but yesterday I had a performance review at my day job and, for the second year in a row, I was financially penalized because my “values don’t align” with those of the company. A manager told me this to my face. Translation: I am not a card-carrying Democrat. Also, I was terminated from a previous job because I refused to get the COVID shot. Again, I did not toe the leftist line.
Granted, none of my woes are anywhere near the level of the tragedies occurring with Floyd, Good, et al. But it does give an idea of life in the land of so-called Minnesota Nice.
It’s only nice if you lean left.
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Brits discussing recent events in Minnesota on The Podcast of the Lotus:
Host 1: “Minnesota’s reputation is in the absolute gutter.”
Host 2: “Being British I don’t have to think about Minnesota that often … the last time I did was when I watched the film Fargo. The next time I have to think about it, they’ve got Somalians everywhere. How am I not living in a simulation, if that follows from that?”
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Like most Americans, I have a Monday-Friday day job. I have hobbies (like this site), chores, and obligations. I also watch and read a lot of news.
But man, in the past ten years or so … it’s impossible to keep up with everything. To be “well-informed” citizens, we are expected to know about Ukraine, Israel, Russia, Palestine, China, inflation, economics, transgender issues, feminism, states’ rights, the legal system, and politics — local, national, and international. And now Venezuela. And don’t forget the looming threat of artificial intelligence. Good lord.
We are supposed to keep informed with the help of our media, which is supposed to provide objective news.
What is my point? I have no idea if what Trump is doing, nationally and internationally, oversteps the bounds of legality. But what I do know is that, in recent years (decades?) what the Democrats have been doing seems to routinely overstep the bounds of legality.
I’m not a lawyer. About all I can do is envision the kind of America I’d like to see and then hope that at least one side can get us there.
Have a happy new year. If you can.
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