I recently read the Oscars eligibility rules and tried to understand them. I was surprised any film is eligible to be voted for at all. Released outside LA first? Not eligible. Less then three screenings in a theater per day for the first week? Not eligible. Released on streaming? Not eligible. All kinds of exceptions for festivals and covid-related streaming versions of those, but still.

E.g. The Fallout won SXSW 2021, lot of Oscars chatter around it, but it is not on the list of eligible films of this year. It came out on HBO Max in 2022, which probably means it is not eligible next year either. I may have tried to understand the rules, I didn't say I succeeded.
#Oscars #AcademyAwards

Giving myself a treat and watching Jenna Ortega in The Babysitter: Killer Queen. I really liked that film and Jenna is so good in it (as always).

imdb.com/title/tt11024272/medi…

The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)

Jenna Ortega in The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)

^IMDb

Rewatching UnREAL with the seasons a bit out of order, but I can still see that Shiri Appleby is amazing. And she directs some of the episodes as well!

Most people watch her in UnREAL because they liked her in Life Unexpected or Roswell, but I saw and liked her even earlier as the rather lively character Tara in Xena.

Shiri Appleby - IMDb

Shiri Appleby, Actress: The Thirteenth Floor. Shiri Appleby was born in Los Angeles, California, on December 7, 1978, to Dina (Bouader), a Hebrew School teacher, and Jerry Appleby, a telecommunications executive. She has a brother, Evan.

^{Shiri Appleby (IMDb)}

Jenna Ortega being in the top ten films only twice is because she only has two films out at the moment.
#JennaOrtega #Scream #ScreamMovie #TheFallout

Letterboxd

2022-02-04 14:19:00

The Top 10 Most Popular Films on Letterboxd This Week

🔟9⃣8⃣7⃣6⃣5⃣4⃣3⃣2⃣1⃣💥

Have at it, little blue dudes

-- Paige
#Charmed

It's not so hard when you realise British is merely saying what you don't mean to avoid talking about your feelings

-- Virginia
#TheCantervilleGhost

"the Met has asked for minimal reference to be made in the Cabinet Office report to the relevant events."

Given that the report is about those very events, that's going to be difficult.

Each time it was mentioned that covid was becoming endemic I didn't understand why this was supposed to be a good thing. Accepting that the virus kept circulating surely meant accepting that people kept dying? Turns out I'm not the one who was misunderstanding it. A quote from nature:

"There is a widespread, rosy misconception that viruses evolve over time to become more benign. This is not the case: there is no predestined evolutionary outcome for a virus to become more benign, especially ones, such as SARS-CoV-2, in which most transmission happens before the virus causes severe disease."
-- Aris Katzourakis

h/t Alice Roberts

COVID-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmless

[share author='Prof Alice Roberts💙' profile='https://twitter.com/theAliceRoberts' avatar='https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1387050254281842694/8qPMR2UZ.jpg' link='https://twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1487833210579038212' posted='2022-01-30 17:00:54']“Thinking that endemicity is both mild and inevitable is more than wrong, it is dangerous: it sets humanity up for many more years of disease, including unpredictable waves of outbreaks.”
Writes @ArisKatzourakis in @Nature

twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/st…

Years ago I travelled by train across the country to get to the nearest cinema that showed a film I wanted to see. In that cinema I was the only one there, it felt like it would have been easier to bring the reels to my city instead.

Today I went by train to the cinema again, but this time it was only a few minutes ride and there were other people there.

Tomorrow is the day that you can watch #TheFallout on @hbomax. I heard many good things about it.

Tomorrow is also the day that I'll start being jealous of people in the US, Canada and New Zealand, since they get to see this film, but on @hbomaxnl I can't. 😢

Jenna Ortega

2022-01-26 18:32:54

The Fallout begins exclusively streaming on @hbomax tomorrow.

Learning new stuff about myself every day. I already knew that I somehow in my formative years missed out on learning to interact normally with friends and I'm slowly getting to terms with the fact that that side of being human, i.e. being a social being with close friends and relationships, is closed off to me. But what I don't like about myself is how jealous I get seeing videos of other people having fun interacting with friends. Why can't I just be happy for them that they have a group where they belong? Why am I like this?

Anyway, sorry to be so heavy. I'm ok, don't worry.

Mobilizon is some groups server marketed as an events server (you can create events as yourself or as a group) which is built with Pleroma as starting point and looks very very good. I tried to use the demo instance, but failed in a few things, Like following a group from Friendica, becoming a member from Friendica and deleting a group.

The self hosting instructions seem very clear and are basically the same as Pleroma. It allows having multiple identities (profiles) to separate your professional and friends interactions, like Friendica used to have.

I'll look into it again another time.
joinmobilizon.org/en/

#JoinMobilizon - Let’s take back control of our events

A user-friendly, emancipatory and ethical tool for gathering, organising, and mobilizing.

^{joinmobilizon.org}

Often heard complaints and their workarounds:

• "Twitter doesn't give you posts in chronological order and inserts 'posts you may also like' based on their algorithm." Not if you select the 'newest posts first' timeline, use the website on a mobile device and hold the device in portrait position rather than landscape. Also when you use lists, it is always chronological and doesn't have adverts.
• "iTunes uses DRM." If you use iTunes on Windows and download the mp3 files you bought, the files are DRM-free.
• "Instagram no longer allows you to see a post if you're not logged in." If you remove the user name from the url, you get a publicly visible page again.

I have similar experiences. But to request $5m to cover the price of two DVDs seems a bit much.

Hollywood does however need to wake up to the fact that many people watch films for the actresses (and I guess actors) that appear in them and not because of the producers or directors. Marketing often seems to assume that the cast is not important.

BBC News - Fans sue Universal Pictures over film without Ana de Armas
bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada…

Fans sue Universal Pictures over film without Ana de Armas

The comedy Yesterday has the actress in the trailer, but not the movie itself - to the anger of fans.

^{BBC News}