Well that’s...... a take. The good news is it seems your sister doesn’t want to talk politics a bunch so it should be easier for you not to reduce her down to her unsavory political opinions than it would be if she talked about them a lot. Focus on the things you share rather than on the things you don’t and you’ll…

As a fellow lone liberal in a family of Republicans and center-right independents (who don’t like Trump but voted for him in ‘16 and may do it again), I empathize with this but strongly encourage you to focus on the values you know you do share instead of trying to needle the ones you don’t. This is not healthy…

I don’t think that applications/platforms themselves count as speech just because people use them to speak. It’s not as if the videos that are shared on TikTok are being banned by the government. They can (and many likely will) just move over to Instagram, YouTube or whatever app the kids use without any issue. …

The mosquitoes are ridiculous this year. I’ve been getting bitten just standing on the porch waiting for my dog to finish doing her business. That said, I think I may have accidentally stumbled upon a cure? I usually rub them down with ammonia if I get to it before I scratch them open ( this sometimes works, sometimes…

I agree with you about TikTok but am ultimately pretty ambivalent about it getting banned in the US. I had no issue with it getting banned by the military earlier this year as I think the security concerns are serious enough that I think keeping it off military personnel phones is a sound idea, and I would have…

Here’s the thing: your sister is not you. Different people process bad news/current events very differently, and judging other people’s reactions by what you would do if the shoe was on the other foot is never going to be a productive way to engage with them. Is your sister a secret Trump supporter? Quite possibly!…

Not to be a downer, but this is doubtful. The human mind’s ability to discard information they find uncomfortable or inconvenient is huge. The research on the success rate of different efforts in getting people to change their minds on something they have firm beliefs about is generally pretty depressing.

He’s no young Tim Kaine.

Three songs (Vacation, We Got The Beat and Our Lips Are Sealed), but yes agreed.

Honestly as much as I’d like to blame Trump, I I don’t actually think the rally was a significant spreader event. The city has had a spike in cases, but no more so than a lot of other red state cities that didn’t have Trump rallies. Tulsa and Oklahoma City (where I live) are almost dead even in terms of the number of…

Yeah but what if those rich Hamptonians (Hamptonicans? Hamptonites?) go on to infect the help?  You know people who pay $25k to go to a concert aren’t doing their own dishes and laundry.  Or minding their own kids.

Are you going to the old school stadium style theaters or one of the nicer converted ones? Because that might be the difference as I always pay the premium to go into the theaters with recliner seating unless the movie I want to see isn’t playing in one, and the rows are spaced in a way that it’s less obvious what…

Yup. Honestly, I’m not even sure if there will be an Oscars in 2021. Even with opening things up to streaming, so many movies are waiting until they can get their theatrical run or at least participate in one of the prestige film festivals.  If the theaters are open by October maybe there’a a chance, but if not I…

The press is not preventing him from getting help. If they stopped writing about him tomorrow, he’s unlikely to see the light and go talk to a qualified mental help professional. They’re amplifying the reach of his madness to be sure and that’s a reason to stop, but Kanye is refusing treatment for the same reasons…

It’s always interesting to me reading comments like this because I very rarely have issues with people being disruptive at the theater. I’m not sure if I’m less sensitive to it than others and just don’t notice or the people who visit the two theaters (both of which are attached to malls, so there’s plenty of…

I signed up to see Onward also, but it took 2-3 months of subscribing to match what I would have paid if I had seen it in the theaters. Plus, I only had to pay for one subscription for multiple people to watch it. The revenue difference between say a family of four going the theater to see Onward vs getting a Disney…

“ I think the Netflix/HBO streaming model for movies would probably push the industry towards lower budgets in general.”

From what I know of New Mutants, I have a hard time seeing it go up on Disney +. Content wise (it’s supposed to be a horror movie right?), it seems like a poor fit for the service as Disney has kept the less family friendly titles that it bought from Fox off of the service. Like I doubt that Deadpool not being on…

For sure. My point bringing up Onward wasn’t to suggest they regret releasing it on VOD so fast. They didn’t really have another choice.  I’m just saying that such a release likely didn’t produce anywhere close to the revenue of a regular theatrical release, because if it had been a money maker for them, we likely…

I don’t think there’s been a quantum leap, but I think it’d be wrong to pretend that there hasn’t been any movement forward. You said in your previous comment that Jimmy Carter couldn’t get elected today. That’s might be true. But we’ve still only 8 years past when Obama last won a national election, something he did…