What makes a film worth watching again?

There are so many potentially enjoyable films out there that it seems a waste of time to watch a film that one has already seen. And I rarely do. And yet recently I watched two films that I have seen not just once but a few times before. And it got me thinking about what makes a film so good. It is definitely not high production values, a stellar cast, dazzling special effects or frenetic action, the stuff that seems to power the blockbuster films. Instead it is good writing, direction, and strong character portrayals.

One film was The Castle a 1997 low-budget Australian film that I have praised highly before. ‘Low budget’ hardly does it justice. The cast is largely unknown outside Australia and it took less than two weeks to film at a cost A$750,000. To save costs, the name of the family (Kerrigan) was chosen so that the film makers could use trucks that belonged to an actual towing company with that name.
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Stephen Colbert in Only in Monroe

Before Stephen Colbert started his 11-year run on The Late Show, he guest-hosted a public access local TV program in Monroe, MI called Only in Monroe. On his last show on CBS on Thursday of last week, he hinted that he might go back to Monroe.

“Tonight is our final broadcast from the Ed Sullivan Theater,” he said, prompting boos from the audience.

“No, no, we were lucky enough to be here for the last 11 years, all right? Can’t take this for granted,” he added. “Though technically our first show in July of 2015 was from a public access station in Monroe, Michigan, for an audience of 12 people. Show business being what it is these days, that’s probably where you’ll see me next.” and guest-hosted again.

And sure enough, the very next day, there he was back in Monroe.

I started watching the one-hour program just to see what it was like, thinking I would get bored and switch off after a few minutes but I was gripped and watched until the end. It was hilarious. There was something extremely appealing about this extremely low-budget show and we are reminded how Colbert can extract humor from the mundane, probably because he got his start in performing in improv that requires one to be funny while unprepared or backed by an army of writers and support staff.

Initially CBS tried to suppress the airing of the show on YouTube (corporate behemoths being the humorless profiteers they are) but then backed off after an outcry.

AI is making spam moderation harder

Whenever a new person tries to comment on a post here, the WordPress platform that this blog uses has filters to check if they could be spam. A visit to the spam folder shows that each day tens, if not hundreds, of potential comments are summarily dispatched to the spam folder without my ever seeing them. If a comment passes those checks, then it is sent to me for moderation, to enable me to make sure that it is not spam. Once I approve the first comment from a new person, subsequent comments from that same person go through immediately, so spammers have to make the first comment plausible.

It used to be fairly easy to identify spam comments that make it past the filters and get to me. They were usually poorly written with typos and grammatical errors, they would have links to sites that had nothing to do with the post, they would often have effusive but generic compliments on the content of the post and my writing, and they would usually arrive a long time after the post originally appeared.

But in a recent post of mine about the blame game that has begun over the stagnation in the Iran war, I received the following comment for moderation.
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I hope this kills the WHCA dinner for good

As everyone will know, there was a shooting at the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. This is a loathsome affair where reporters schmooze with the very people they are supposed to be aggressively covering. Self-respecting reporters boycott the event, seeing it as compromising their ability to objectively cover politicians. But most reporters are not like that. They love to have the opportunity to hang out with politicians and celebrities.

Fortunately no one was hurt but I hope that it kills this event for good.

I was not at all surprised to hear about this since shootings are so common in the US. What surprises me is that the media are expressing such shock. Trump especially uses violent rhetoric all the time and gloats when people he dislikes dies. He dismisses the deaths of thousands of innocent people in his and Israel’s wars with Iran and Lebanon and Gaze. People are going to think that this is how one solves problems.

Can we please stop using this film cliche?

During the filming of a new action film, lead actors Jonathan Majors and JC Kilcoyne tumbled backwards through a glass window after one of them was ‘shot’.

The incident was captured on video obtained by Deadline, which is embedded below. Multiple sources confirm to Deadline that the accident occurred after the window was replaced with an unsecured sheet of tempered glass to be purposefully shattered in a later stunt that did not involve any actors.

Since the tempered glass was only sitting loosely in the window, both the actors and the sheet of glass fell about six feet to the ground. Kilcoyne required stitches “all over his hands” after the incident, sources with knowledge of the incident say.

This trope of someone getting shot and falling backwards and breaking through a glass window is a cliche beloved of action film directors. As I have written before, a bullet does not have enough momentum to do more that cause a human to move back more than an inch or so, let alone be flung back and break through a window. In this case, a single bullet did that to two people.
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What is the appeal of Cameo?

In the UK, Nigel Farage is under fire for having made Cameo videos that featured him making controversial statements.

The Guardian’s unearthing of Farage’s videos has raised questions about his relationship with the far right and who he is willing to take money from. Farage charged £155 for one video he made in 2025 for a man he was told had received a 16-month sentence for his involvement in a far-right riot. Despite knowing that the man had been convicted over his role in the disorder, the Reform leader recorded a supportive message for him, telling the man “I’m with you”.
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Farage was paid £141 for another video in which he promoted an event by a Canadian neo-Nazi group, which used the clip in propaganda alongside fascist salutes and antisemitic imagery. Farage called the event “the best thing that ever happened”. The video was removed from Cameo’s website after the Guardian’s story.

As a result of the revelations, his account says that he no longer is accepting any offers.

Cameo is a site that enables you to pay for celebrities to make personalized videos where they say things that you want them to say, if they are willing to do so. The usual requests are as gifts to friends to wish them on their birthdays or anniversaries or similar things. But clearly some are pushing other agendas.

I can understand why minor celebrities might sign up to do them, since it provides some easy money as a side hustle. If there are suckers out there willing to pay for people to utter some words, there will be those who are willing to oblige. What I can’t understand is the appeal for the buyer of the message and the intended recipient. Would the person you are seeking to impress really be flattered by getting a personalized message from some has-been B or C lister who was paid to give it and has absolutely no idea who you are and does not give a damn about you?

I can sort of understand if you knew the celebrity personally and they recorded the video as a favor to you. Then the recipient may be impressed that you knew them well-enough that they would do this for you. So this would be of benefit to you,

But otherwise it seems really tacky to me.

I guess I just don’t understand the thrill that some people feel when a sort-of celebrity mentions their name, even if they had to be paid to do so.

Film review: Inside the Manosphere (2026)

Netflix has released a new documentary by Louis Theroux where he goes inside the so-called ‘manosphere’, the world of young men who are followers of a small group of ‘influencers’. The whole set up is quite simple to understand. The influencers have become wealthy by acquiring followers from the pool of marginalized young men by telling them that their precarious lives with no proper jobs or financial security or female companions is not their fault but because ‘the ‘system’ controlled by a secretive cabal (read ‘Jews’) is keeping them down. References to the film The Matrix abound and these influencers say that they offer the ‘red-pill’ that reveals the world as it really is so that the men can defeat the system and become rich too.

It is a seductive message aimed at alienated and aggrieved young men that is wrapped in a package where the influencers show their followers lavish lifestyles in fancy homes and cars surrounded by young women in the skimpiest of attire and say that all this could be theirs as well if they follow the leaders and send in money for products, courses, and financial services.
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The problem of finding ways to combat bad speech

At a time when we are flooded with vile rhetoric from all over, especially on social media, it becomes difficult to know how to respond. The easy availability of AI engines to create realistic but fake text, audio, and video content has enabled the scope of such hate speech to explode. There have been calls for the social media platforms to more closely monitor the content of their sites and prevent such abuses but since the sites want people to spend time there, they are reluctant to take more than the mildest of steps.

The platforms Meta and X/Twitter are the worst offenders but even relatively staid ones like Substack have been roiled by controversy.

In January 2022, the Center for Countering Digital Hate accused Substack of allowing content that could be dangerous to public health. The Center estimated that the company earned $2.5 million per year from the top five anti-vaccine authors alone. The three founders responded via blog post affirming their commitment to minimal censorship.

Substack faced further criticism in November 2023 for allowing its platform to be used by white nationalists, Nazis, and antisemites. In an open letter, more than 100 Substack creators threatened to leave the platform and implored Substack’s leadership to stop providing a platform for political views with which they disagree. In response, Substack CEO Hamish McKenzie said the company would continue to allow the publication of extremist views because attempting to censor them would make the problem worse. Creators like Casey Newton, Molly White, and Ryan Broderick left the platform as a result.

The argument of free speech absolutists who oppose any attempts to censor content is frequently stated as “The best response to bad speech is more speech”. In other words, the way to combat speech that one abhors is to speak up against it and, in the free marketplace of ideas, the better speech should ultimately win.
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Bruce Springsteen’s powerful new song Streets of Minneapolis

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.Stay free

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— Bruce Springsteen (@brucespringsteen.net) January 28, 2026 at 9:02 AM

You can also listen to it here.

Music has played an integral part in protest movements, galvanizing and energizing people as we saw most memorably during the civil rights and Vietnam turbulence. I hope this becomes a protest anthem that is blasted through speakers whenever Trump and his thugs including ICE appear in public, and that it inspires other artists to do the same.

Here are the lyrics.

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots

King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes

Against smoke and rubber bullets
In the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night

And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

chorus

Oh Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst

Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead

Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones and these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

chorus

Oh Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight

In our chants of “ICE out now”
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis

chorus

Oh Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26

We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis