I know some people may not think it’s cool to say this, but I love the Frozen series. The characters, humor, atmosphere, visuals, and, of course, the music are all top-notch. I’m lucky to watch the original version with my kids because the few scenes I have seen from the French version really fall short. It’s a family favorite with a high rewatchability factor and we can’t wait for the 3rd episode. There, I said it. 🍿
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is visually striking and stunning, making it nearly overwhelming. It offers a unique experience filled with laughter and emotional moments driven by poignant, albeit excessive, teenage angst. A quick spoiler alert: the film concludes with a cliffhanger and a To be continued notice, which has not yet been released. Therefore, if you require a story resolution, there’s no rush to watch this movie. 🍿
Wromance, the S1E17 episode of Welcome to Wrexham got me. And I am not the only one. Sports are definitely something to share. What’s the point otherwise? ⚽️ × 🍿
A fun rom-com with a twist and two insanely attractive leads. The philosophical scenes shouldn’t be taken too seriously, as they risk becoming unsettling. However, the film leaves you with a thoughtful question to ponder before bed: "Am I truly the person I want to be?" 🍿
Dans Guy, Alex Lutz créait déjà un personnage qui en mélangeait pleins (Sardou, Claude François, Belmondo, etc.). Ici, on a un mélange de Richard Gasquet, Paul-Henri Mathieu, etc. ie un petit génie du tennis qui ne confirme pas, avec ici un potard lose bien plus accentué que ses modèles, car eux ont fait des belles carrières malgré tout. Roland-Garros fait presque partie des personnages. La dernière partie du film m’a rappelé le final de Bohemian Rhapsody, où on voit les personnages exercer leur art in extenso, en version cinéma. Chouette petit film. 🍿
Super vidéo : un mashup des lives du SNL, qui sert de teaser pour un documentaire intitulé 50 Years of SNL Music. On y retrouve Franz Ferdinand, Run DMC, Hanson, Queen, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, et bien d’autres encore (liste non exhaustive d’ordre d’apparition pendant que je tape ceci). Côté introductions et invités, il y a des acteurs, des sportifs…
Plusieurs tentatives ont été faites pour créer une version française du SNL — Les Nuls, l’émission, Samedi soir en direct —, mais aucune n’a duré plus de quelques saisons. À quoi cette vidéo ressemblerait-elle si nous avions eu un SNL à la française pendant 50 ans ?
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Hilarious sketch from Sheng Wang:
Guacamole is like the banana bread of avocado.
Tech note: the lack of video controls on Instagram is maddening.
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Finished watching Silo season 1. It was great. After many people from my feeds recommended it, I finally gave in, and it did not disappoint. The plot, characters, cast, acting, atmosphere, and decor are all amazing. The episodes are the perfect length (about 40 minutes). My only reservation is the music; while the main theme is pretty cool, the background music during scenes feels a bit too on the nose for my tastes. But I might be being overly critical. Now, onward to season 2! 🍿
How was I supposed to tell my kids that the Christmas movie season was over after watching Die Hard a couple of days ago? Written by Richard Curtis, who also directed Love Actually, this film humorously pokes fun at the genre. It is sweet and heartfelt, making me tear up about four or five times. I highly recommend it. 🍿
Everything pales in comparison to Die Hard. It’s like a freeze-dried version of a tasty traditional recipe. 🍿
Here is my Year in Review from Letterboxd for 2024.
I love Letterboxd and have been using it since 2012. It has improved continuously over time. I also appreciate their commitment to web standards. Just look at the RSS feed icon on any user’s diary! 🍿 × 💻
The trick that made Mickey Mouse famous: a fascinating video by Phil Edwards explains how optical sound technology contributed to the success of the first Mickey Mouse cartoon by achieving perfect sound synchronization. 🍿 × 💻
I just realized that The Ringer has removed their RSS feed with the latest redesign. What a shame. I guess this is goodbye until this is fixed then. 🍿 × 💻
My kids have watched this movie about five times this month, so I feel the need to log it again here. This is solid entertainment for kids, and some lines always get to me, with Luigi’s "You’d be surprised" ranking first. 🍿
Spirited is a great movie. It’s funny, has layers of complexity, and its purpose is very ambitious. I don’t understand why it isn’t more popular. Perhaps it’s too long or requires too much attention. Maybe musicals are deterring potential viewers. Nonetheless, this film is an amazing instant classic for Christmas, and this year’s rewatch confirmed that once again. 🍿
The screenplay is quite thin, but the real enjoyment comes from watching Ryan Gosling’s humor. He excels as a comedian. However, if you’re looking for more of his comedic brilliance, consider watching The Nice Guys (one of my all-time favorite movies) or his Papyrus (1 & 2) sketches from SNL. Ryan Gosling and Will Ferrell teamed up for the Knife Guys on Kimmel, but I hope Gosling can one day become the new Mark Wahlberg or Ryan Reynolds in a future Will Ferrell movie. Fingers crossed. 🍿
Alors évidemment, le “consulting”, c’est comme tout, ça dépend comment c’est fait. Mais comment ne pas sourire et se rappeler des souvenirs de début de carrière quand on entend :
De temps en temps, il y avait des consultants qui venaient et qui expliquaient pourquoi il fallait virer untel, faire des économies là. Un mec qui était à son poste depuis 25 ans, ils lui disaient “non, c’est pas comme ça qu’il faut travailler monsieur”. C’était quand même à la fois violent et universel comme phénomène, ils étaient partout. Et puis après j’ai travaillé dans des organismes publics, ils étaient toujours là. Et ils faisaient la même chose, il faut faire des économies, il faut faire des gains d’efficacité, la performance. Et puis alors ce langage, ce langage avec plein d’anglicismes et puis ce langage expert qui exerce un pouvoir. Et comme des millions de français, je l’ai subi. Et ça s’exerce comme une science, comme les économistes un peu, ils pensent que c’est une science. Et donc c’est un discours qui est sans réplique quand on y est, sauf qu’après on peut écrire des livres. Et là on peut se venger. Alors vous dites avec un certain amusement, mais aussi avec pas mal d’ironie et la volonté de ridiculiser ces pouvoirs faussement savants. La littérature, voilà, elle a toujours à faire avec la bêtise de son temps. Le consulting, il y en a de mille manières. Donc il y a des choses plus ou moins vertueuses, des choses plus ou moins bidons. Alors j’en ai quand même rencontré des consultants. J’ai lu des livres, des consultants repentis, certains qui travaillaient encore, etc. Et il y a des phrases… “Être consultant, c’est prendre sa montre à quelqu’un pour lui donner l’heure et partir avec la montre”. Voilà. Enfin voilà, il faut raconter tout ça quand même. C’est apprendre à ranger une sale vide aussi ? Ah oui, alors ça oui, un consultant qui m’a dit ça, bah oui c’était apprendre à ranger une sale vide.
— Nicolas Mathieu, lors d’une interview dans la librairie Dialogues, à Brest
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The idea of treating Christmas as a challenging logistical operation is quite amusing. The subsequent adventures, although a bit lengthy, are heartwarming and funny. I recommend it for young children. 🍿
The Strava-art drawings showcased on strav.art are incredible. Some of the drawings are so intricate that I wonder if some artists are cheating, and if so, how? 🍿
YouTube tends to transcribe “ChatGPT” as “Chachi BT”. Funny.
When you search for “Chachi BT” on Google, there are so many results and pretty much all of them are indeed about ChatGPT. Meaning that no human edited the posts before publication to fix this typo even in titles, meta tags, etc. Scary.
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I just finished watching Modern Family.
For about five years, it’s been a constant part of our routine when my wife and I have lunch together at home. The last time we watched the show, Season 11—the final season—wasn’t available in France, so we rewatched the entire series. Now, we’ve finally completed Season 11. It was an emotional moment, both on screen and in our living room.
I’m not sure why it’s not more popular among our friends, but for me, it’s definitely in my hall of fame. 🍿
Many people of my RSS feeds recommended Panic’s Cabel Sasser talk at XOXO 2024:
Watching it did not disappoint. 💻 × 🍿
I just finished watching Bad Monkey on Apple TV+. It was really good and I highly recommend it.
Some notes:
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Big thanks to Manton Reece for pointing me to this hilarious bit by John Mulaney about captchas.
It’s now up there with Michael McIntyre’s sketch on passwords in the hall of fame of tech-related comedy. 💻 × 🍿
I am a little late to start watching Malcom in the Middle in 2024, but I have spent the last couple of days by how good this show is. The last occurrence was the scenes where we see the world through Dewey’s eyes. 🍿
Reading about how Matthew Perry was addicted to ketamine before he died. Really sad. 🍿
Pierre Niney est assez épatant dans son passage à Hot Ones. 🍿
I love rewatching movies and TV shows. Some pass the re-watchability bar, many others fail. On the agenda lately, Barbie painfully failed. I had enjoyed the movie when I first saw it though. Ted Lasso passed with flying colors. I am in the middle of season 2, and it might even be better than the first time since you can see that narrative arcs are all instilled very early on. 🍿
This evening, i was forced to watch The Idea of You. At the beginning of the movie, before Solène enters Hayes' trailer, I wrote this:
She’s gonna date a Moon. Then the age difference is going to be a problem. So they split up. But then they’re getting back together because love is the most important.
Bingo.
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L’étape, l’étape, oui mais c’est Pantani.
Vincent Delerm raconte que son père, Philippe, avait appelé L’Équipe pour proposer ce titre lors d’une victoire d’étape de Marco Pantani au Tour de France. 🍿
I had insomnia last night and I killed time imagining a new movie adaptation of The Bonfire of the Vanities. My cast would be Matthew Macfadyen for Sherman McCoy (because of the obvious similarities between the characters of Sherman McCoy and Tom Wambsgans, from Succession), Margot Robbie for Maria Ruskin, and Daniel Craig for Peter Fallow. 🍿
Excellente interview de Nicolas Mathieu par Mouloud Achour, coutumier du fait : l’évocation du son de cloche de Top Gun, les Goonies, son non-verbal, tout fait mouche. Hâte de lire Le ciel ouvert. 🍿
Mon opinion sur le débat Édith vs Aya ? Aucune ! Mais j’ai une opinion sur le fait de pas avoir d’opinion 🍿
In spite of my efforts, I could not figure out the ties in the McCallister family tree, but Internet had the response: Uncle Frank is Pete McCallister’s older brother. And yes, there are part of the top 1%. Problem solved. 🍿
Let’s consider holiday movie season started.
And we might reconsider 2 new items for this list:
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🍿 I just finished watching the first three seasons of Schitt’s Creek and, while it took me while to get into it — hello xkcd — I am now on board to complete the three remaining seasons. From what I heard from the show, I was expecting many lough-out-loud moments, it turns out it is a much warmer show with great characters that you grow attached to.
🍿 I am inspired by the ability of young children to watch the same movie over and over again during a short period of time. These days, it’s Robin Hood and Beauty and the Beast. I now tend to watch movies that I have watched already. I like how a movie you watched 2 or 3 times can become familiar, the same way you can get very familiar with a music album.