A big takeaway this year has to be that Sinners and One Battle After Another were big, artist driven, swings bankrolled by WB whose future is ultimately unclear. I like living in a world where people like PTA and Ryan Coogler get to make the films they want to make with those resources.
SINNERS stats:
• 4 Oscars
• 3 BAFTAs
• 2 Grammys
• 2 Actor Awards
• 2 Golden Globes
• A on CinemaScore
• $370M+ worldwide
• 4 Critics Choice Awards
• 97% on Rotten Tomatoes
• One of the best reviewed wide-release films of the decade
I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...
in case you've never seen it, this is Roger Ebert on The Mummy
I can't compete with this.
What a relaxing day visiting friends and looking at birds, better... *checks notes* log online and see which bits of the world collapsing I missed while I was out.
Thread
Who'd have thought we'd hear that highly apposite phrase of Louise's ("Moscow on the Torrens") once more, but alas... www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
this is extremely dangerous.
Love to see poetry this good get recognised - one of my favourite books from last year!
Important thread about dehumanization by and for the benefit of tech companies w/lots of good resources
If I had a penny for every time I was able to write about a Blakfulla winning the Golden Lion at a Venice Biennale I’d have two pennies. Which isn’t much but it’s weird that it’s happened twice
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...
I spoke to @gingerandhoney.bsky.social this week about the cuts to Victoria’s arts funding ecosystem.
The cuts, the uncertainty and lack of transparency have left a cloud over what was Australia’s creative heart.
The Melbourne Advantage is over. We’ll see if other cities pick up the pieces.
I just did the dumbest thing of my entire career to prove a much more serious point.
I tricked ChatGPT and Google, and made them tell other users I’m a competitive hot-dog-eating world champion
People are using this trick on a massive scale to make AI tell you lies. I’ll explain how I did it
Australian screen industry crushed as Universal shutters Matchbox Pictures, with 60 jobs lost
Peak screenwriting body says the closure is a reminder industry cannot rely on ‘whims of international studios to keep us afloat’ #AusPol
www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
On this week's show, we look at 'Loving: Photographs of Men in Love 1850s to 1950s', an exhibition on across the East Coast. And Jason Di Rosso gives his thoughts on Mr Nobody Against Putin and EPIC.
Very unexpected and welcome news!
QUT will become the new custodian of Meanjin, Australia's most eminent literary journal, bringing the publication back to Brisbane.
www.qut.edu.au/about/meanjin
“No matter how Ring and other surveillance tech companies may downplay it, there’s no world in which finding lost dogs is the final end-use for this technology.”
the bushes were people 😂
Shared with us from Sydney happening now. He had his hands up.
This is a really fascinating conversation about the influencer/alt-right world. Good introduction, but also dives into the underlying issues
Work around too much snow
'A Jewish community representative will preview and critique exhibitions from the Sydney Biennale before they open to the public to try to avoid an Adelaide Writers Week-type furore and counter claims many artists on the program hold anti-Zionist views.'
- Michael Bailey
www.afr.com/life-and-lux...
NEWS: The cuts were so severe that at least one department head asked to leave The Post rather than be included in the planning.
Peter Finn, The Post's international editor, requested that he be laid off once he learned about the scope of the cuts to his section.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...
Welcome Swallow
