Try to imagine a “step-back and ease up” essay like this one, written and spoken by CBS’s Tony Dokoupil, being shared on CNN or MSNOW…

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Sensible centrists are occasionally allowed to quote from a National Review article. Like this one: “Mamdani’s Commie Housing Official Is a Lunatic,” posted on 1.7.25.

“If Cea Weaver did not exist, one would be hard-pressed to invent her. Weaver seems to have been designed in a laboratory to work in the Ideological Compliance Department of the East German Kommunale Wohnungsverwaltung, but, as the result of an unfortunate accident with a time machine, ended up overseeing housing policy in the most important city in the United States.

“Weaver believes that ‘rent control is a perfect solution to everything’ — not least because it is an ‘effective way to shrink the value of real estate.’ She considers that ‘private property is a weapon of white supremacy,’ she believes that ‘home ownership is racist,’ and she holds that the highest aim of government ought to be to ‘impoverish the *white* middle class.’

“And they say that ambition is dead in America!”

“In Weaver’s estimation, the United States ‘built wealth for white people through genocide, slavery, stolen land & labor,’ ‘white supremacy built the north and the south,’ and the most reasonable response to these presuppositions is to ‘endorse a no–more–white–men in office platform.’

I’m sorry but the NR‘s closing paragraph is very well-phrased:

“Unwilling to limit her racism to the temporal realm, Weaver also enjoys fantasizing about her enemies roasting in the afterlife. ‘I wish I believed in God,’ she declared in 2019, ‘so I could believe that all men who take credit for women’s work and all white men who take credit for the work of women of color would one day burn.’

“Perhaps this was what Mayor Mamdani was referring to when, in his inaugural address, he promised ‘the warmth of collectivism‘?”

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..,.were to bellow threats while pointing handguns in my direction and telling me to “open the fucking door” and so on, you know what I’d do? I’ll tell you what I’d fucking do. I’d raise my hands, palms open, and say “damn right!” And then I’d throw the keys onto the pavement and say “nooooo, don’t shoot!” in my best little Minnie Mouse voice.

Much to its chagrin and general discomfort, Greenwich Entertainment will release Michel Franco‘s Dreams on Friday, 2.27.26. Dreams opened nearly a full year ago at the 2025 Berlinale, and since that auspicious debut Greenwich has labored mightily to stifle film festival screenings and generally suppress word-of-mouth. They’re just starting to send links to New York City press.

Actual quote from NYC journo who sees everything: “Does this film even have a release date?”

24 hours after receiving a VRBO confirmation, HE’s Boulevard Jean Hibert rental has gone south.

This is the second “oops, the owner wants more money!” situation within the last 72 hours.

Likeliest scenario: A greed virus is apparently flying through the Cannes ecosystem right now. In an exact repeat of the two-day-old rue Etats Unis blowoff, the Jean Hibert owner has upped the rental fee by over 1000 euros — 1200 euros to be precise.

It doesn’t make sense for VRBO to deliberately run a criminal fraud operation. They have at least a semblance of legitimacy so why would they offer these Cannes places for rental without proper authorization? Owner greed spasms are the most likely explanation.

I’ve visited Paris at least ten or twelve times (probably closer to 15, maybe even 20), but I’ve never been there during a snowfall. If I was there now I’d spend the entire day and most of the night just roaming around. Aaahh, the joy of taking a nice cappuccino break in a warm, amber-lighted cafe you might impulsively drop into. Life is short, y’know?

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The entire deep-souled, high-rent cast of Joachim Trier‘s Sentimental Value (Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) has been blown off by SAG members in their balloting for the 2026 Actor Awards (previously the SAG Awards).

Reinsve is easily among the top two or three contenders for the Best Actress Oscar; ditto Skarsgard for Best Supporting Actor.

Not a single foreign-language performer was nominated this morning….huge, across-the-board snub.

SAG started to become an increasingly low-rent organization in 2012, when it merged with AFTRA. That’s when the mongrel factor suddenly began to permeate everything.

The bottom line is that the tastes and preferences of SAG-AFTRA members have devolved to the level of the People’s Choice Awards, and they just don’t get it. To paraphrase Hal Holbrook‘s Deep Throat, “The truth is that the typical SAG-AFTRA member these days isn’t all that hip and certainly not very sophisticated, and things have just gotten out of hand.”

Other SAG-AFTRA blow-offs include Wicked: For Good‘s Cynthia Erivo (yes!), The Secret Agent‘s Wagner Moura and Jay Kelly‘s Adam Sandler.

If you were in charge of the late Rob Reiner‘s estate (presumably Reiner’s non-wacko kids, Jake and Romy), would you be enthused about paying a hefty fee to attorney Alan Jackson to legally defend the 32 year-old Nick Reiner, who knifed his father and mother to death on 12.14.25?

I wouldn’t be. I would figure “what’s the point?” Nick did it and one way or another he’s going to be confined for the rest of his life, I would say, so the hell with him. He’s not only earned his Satan Incarnate credentials, but deserves every miserable day that awaits him for the rest of his life. Oh, and if Nick wants to hang himself down the road, fine.

Jackson announced earlier today that he’s resigned from defending Nick, probably because the family feels as I do — i.e., money down the drain, not worth the candle. Or whacked-out Nick has convinced Jackson that he’s too much of a loose cannon to be trusted to sit quietly in court and let Jackson handle the insanity defense.

N.Y. Times excerpt: “[Jackson’s] departure was announced during a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court, where Mr. Reiner, wearing a brown jumpsuit, was set to be arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder. It may suggest that the Reiner family — Nick has two siblings — has distanced itself from Mr. Reiner and his legal case, at least financially.”

The latest one–bedroom rental (fairly priced, around $2300 for 12 nights) is on Boulevard Jean Hibert, just around the corner from the marina and a 10-minute walk to the Palais. It’s due south of rue Georges Clemenceau (where I bunked for two years with Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday) and Le Suquet (hilly old town). Now, let’s just see if the VRBO agent cancels because the owner has suddenly gotten greedy and wants $3K instead.

Haters will sometimes post unflattering photos of this or that nemesis (two or three grotesque pics of yours truly have appeared here and there) but self-posted Facebook profile photos are almost always movie–star glamorous.

Except, obviously, in the case of Nantucket Film Festival honcho Mystelle Brabbee. Exquisite teeth but that’s not a smile — it’s the fiendish cackle of a forest witch. And Brabbee’s name sounds like it was created by Washington Irving for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

But these things aren’t the stand out factors — the photo is noteworthy because Brabbee (who’s actually rather nice-looking in other photos) posted it herself.

Sydney Sweeney isn’t the only top-tier actress who’s indicated a certain standoffish skepticism about adhering to woke kneejerk femmebot cancel-culture militancy (Jennifer Lawrence and Cate Blanchett also come to mind), but she’s arguably the leading standard-bearer in this regard.