March 11, 2026
Well, hello there.
Like every Harry Styles album, I like three songs and nothing else. All my colleagues have been reviewing this album as if it were milqtoast LCD Soundsystem. My more generous reading is that this is Temu Vampire Weekend. If he titled the album Sloppy Steaks, Pitchfork would have given it Best New Music. Styles is still quite good with the right melody.
I’m in a sour mood this week. The lame-duck president is continuing an unpopular war, I’m not yet won over by any defenders of what we’re doing overseas right now, and I had to get gas this week … and I’m still worried about the midterms. Because is there anything more vengeful than a slightly inconvenienced conservative?
The worst thing you can be as a journalist is not familiar, but predictable.
But if your business model is to flatter the quiet (or not so quiet) wealthy few who can sustain your publication more than the loud and very-online many who don’t have the extra cash for subscriptions, maybe that’s the point. Maybe “exclusive predictability” is exactly what subscribers pay for.
That’s not journalism—that’s blogging.
Credit to people like Bari Weiss and Tim Miller, who established new and (so far) sustainable publications by catering to a specific target audience: Rich people who like to be offended. I would only describe one of these two as not self-righteous.
This all would be less of a big deal if most people didn’t get all their news from blogs and podcasts. I’ve long vouched for establishing a healthy and intentional media diet, so there’s room for everything. That feels harder to do today than it ever has. It’s much easier to go with what already flatters you.
That’s the difference with journalism: I don’t have to “like” the news to still value the news.
Of course, journalism without good editing is a problem. A publication made up of only laid-off writers who were never trained as editors is a problem. That’s a whole separate newsletter discussion.
All the “Defend the rich” bloggers also make way more money from their newsletters than I do, so what do I know.
Again: Is there anything more vengeful than a slightly inconvenienced conservative?
The Oscars are on Sunday. Here are my Best Picture nominations rankings:
One Battle After Another - I’ve seen this six times and find something new with each rewatch.
Train Dreams - This movie sounds boring when I describe it to friends, but I’m 100% the mark for this kind of atmosphere and storytelling.
Hamnet - Most of it is actually slight and silly. For example, I still like Paul Mescal, but his first “To be or not to be” speech was laugh-out-loud horrible, which is more of a script issue. And yet, those handful of scenes (you know the ones) were the best things I saw last year. I still think about it.
Bugonia - I was so sick of Yorgos and Emma Stone being the “weird” duo for normies, so I was ready to hate it, but it has some of that Dogtooth meanness that I missed from Yorgos. Stone’s acting was praised in the moment, but I think she’s entered a new tier after this. My surprise of the year.
Sinners - A great Marvel movie is still a Marvel movie. Sinners is a great Marvel movie.
Sentimental Value - I should love this on paper, but it feels minor compared to The Worst Person in the World, which is one of my favorite movies of the decade. When you look up “heavy-handed metaphor” in the dictionary, you’ll get the part of the script where the narrator points out the crack in the house’s foundation.
F1 - Fun and weirdly better than expected. I will never turn down a rewatch, even if it is a glorified commercial.
Marty Supreme - Yelling for three hours is not acting.
Frankenstein - I only got through 10 minutes because it looked and sounded so fucking bad.
The Secret Agent - The one nomination I still haven’t seen, so I can’t rank it. I live in LA and still had a hard time finding a screening. I don’t care if the Academy has become more international—let us see the movie!
With love and all the good things,
-b
