Does anyone recognise where it’s from? A lacerating left wing essay on Britain. I disagree with much but it’s brilliantly written. Annoyingly, the tweet doesn’t offer a link. Anyone know?
Coffey entered Number 10 hours ago. Perhaps Rishi offered her a job she turned down and they've been negotiating since. If she was always going to be sacked it would have taken five minutes and it would not have needed a Downing Street meeting.
Sky saying she wasn't offered another job and left by the back door
That's a bit odd as the approach has been to promote or move people at Number 10, but sack them in Parliamentary offices, thus avoiding the walk of shame.
I strongly suspect Sky are wrong on this - or at least Number 10 are being a bit tricky and saying something like that she wasn't offered a specific named job, but was asked if she'd consider essentially a demotion and she said "no" to that.
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
Coffey entered Number 10 hours ago. Perhaps Rishi offered her a job she turned down and they've been negotiating since. If she was always going to be sacked it would have taken five minutes and it would not have needed a Downing Street meeting.
Sky saying she wasn't offered another job and left by the back door
Sunak finally woke up and smelled the Coffey.
A heady mixture of piss, Olde English cider and stale tobacco.
Coffey entered Number 10 hours ago. Perhaps Rishi offered her a job she turned down and they've been negotiating since. If she was always going to be sacked it would have taken five minutes and it would not have needed a Downing Street meeting.
Sky saying she wasn't offered another job and left by the back door
Coffey entered Number 10 hours ago. Perhaps Rishi offered her a job she turned down and they've been negotiating since. If she was always going to be sacked it would have taken five minutes and it would not have needed a Downing Street meeting.
Sky saying she wasn't offered another job and left by the back door
Sunak finally woke up and smelled the Coffey.
That has created a rather unpleasant mental image.
Coffey entered Number 10 hours ago. Perhaps Rishi offered her a job she turned down and they've been negotiating since. If she was always going to be sacked it would have taken five minutes and it would not have needed a Downing Street meeting.
Sky saying she wasn't offered another job and left by the back door
That's a bit odd as the approach has been to promote or move people at Number 10, but sack them in Parliamentary offices, thus avoiding the walk of shame.
I strongly suspect Sky are wrong on this - or at least Number 10 are being a bit tricky and saying something like that she wasn't offered a specific named job, but was asked if she'd consider essentially a demotion and she said "no" to that.
I Was Obama’s 2012 Campaign Manager. There’s No Need to Panic Over Biden. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/13/obama-2012-campaign-manager-advice-00126736 As you walk into my office, the first thing you see is a framed magazine cover. It’s not from the days of triumph — like in November 2012 when President Barack Obama won four more years, the campaign I ran. No, it’s from a dark day during that reelection campaign, back in 2011, when Nate Silver declared our campaign and President Obama “toast.”..
2012 and 2024 are different; Trump is not Romney, Biden is not Obama, and the USA and world are entirely different. Romney, for example, would have signed up for cutting social security and medicare and medicaid - things Trump will not touch because he knows they're broadly popular. Romney was the GOPs superego, Trump is their id.
Biden is also not the first black President, a man with amazing rhetorical skills or a photogenic manner. Biden's core policy, the IRA, whilst not as hated as Obamacare is not as clearly beneficial to the base of the party as Obamacare was. Biden also doesn't have the media operation Obama had - you can see that Biden's big slump started when the MSM turned against him due to his withdrawal from Afghanistan, he hasn't recovered since.
And yet the Democrats have done considerably better in the midterms than during either of Obama's terms of office - and the single most important thing, the economy, is performing much better than was the case in 2011.
I was listening to the most recent 538 pod episode about this - which should you believe, generic polling, Biden v Trump polling or midterm results. Their position was a bit fence sittery (which is good, the data does conflict here), but I think the thing is Trump seems to be a data wildcard; elections where he is on the ballot do not always turn out as polled and he seems to bring out a different electorate.
I think Biden is favourite against Trump, but Obama always outpolled Romney and always looked like he was going to win it; it was mainly the GOP "deskewwing" the polls that made them really believe it was possible for Romney to win. I remember by election night the only real toss up state was Florida - and it went Obama (I correctly called all states that year - best performer in my group of nerd friends). Biden does not, and if anything his favourability is sliding - even in his own party. He has seen major losses - on student debt, on abortion rights, on foreign policy - that his base do not feel he is fighting back on.
Does anyone recognise where it’s from? A lacerating left wing essay on Britain. I disagree with much but it’s brilliantly written. Annoyingly, the tweet doesn’t offer a link. Anyone know?
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
Noted elsewhere, none of the Marvels actors (sic) have been able to promote the film, what with being on strike and such...
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
That was a direct quote from BBC...but I believe drop off is very fast after opening weekend for films that flop. It goes to zero fast.
To cover cost of promotion, distribution, etc etc etc, I believe rough rule of thumb is they spend cost of movie again on advertising / promotion etc, and with all revenue deals, you basically need 3-4x the headline cost of production to get your money back on these mega blockbusters.
The economics of cinema are interesting. In the long-ish run, it's generally very hard to actually lose money on a film, for the major studios at least. The issue is more the opportunity cost of not releasing a more profitable one.
On Marvel, I wonder if we're over the audience fatigue curve now. I can't judge as I'm not a superhero film person so the whole thing has more or less passed me by (the couple of Marvel films that I have seen have struck me as slick, but bloated and confusing).
Hollywood may need to find a new cash cow before too long though.
Three of the top ten films of the year, by box office take, are Marvel films (2 MCU + Spiderverse). They’re not as reliably dominant as they were a few years ago, but I wouldn’t overstate their decline.
Cameron now down to 33/1 to be next Prime Minister.
That's a "sell" all day long. It's the Ruth Davidson and Andy Burnham problem with knobs on. He's not in the House of Commons and that's a major hurdle.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
The Marvels is a sequel to three different D+ shows, yet you don’t have to seen any of them to watch it. My flatmate enjoyed it and she hadn’t watched all those shows.
I'd probably enjoy the Marvels. I enjoy most films I go to the cinema to see, because even stinkers can be a fun experience (in the way something that is truly terrible can be better than something that is just bad).
But the problem is why would I go to see it? It's a Marvel film, and I only go to the cinema occasionally. It's got no drawing power for me. It's JAMF (Just Another Marvel Film). It's not special.
I might be tempted to go to see Deadpool 3 and the new Spider Man films next year. But there are so many films, with so many potential tie-ins, I probably won't go to see them. Whereas if it was just those I might.
Spare a thought for Boris. A desperate nation beat a path to the door of his old rival Dave, begging him to return - an offer which Dave accepted with his customary modesty and grace. Who's interested in Boris's services in contrast? GB News. Boris must be wondering where it all went wrong.
Does anyone recognise where it’s from? A lacerating left wing essay on Britain. I disagree with much but it’s brilliantly written. Annoyingly, the tweet doesn’t offer a link. Anyone know?
Given Cameron's electoral record, that sounds right. Even after the GFC Cameron turned a clear poll lead into a hung parliament.
He won four out of five general elections and plebiscites.
Edit in 2010 he made the second most net gains by a LOTO since WWII.
Only just and he lost ground in every campaign, almost losing Scotland until saved by Gordon Brown and Ruth Davidson, losing Brexit against the polling, turning a clear lead into a hung parliament in 2010. Cameron's campaigning record is appalling; he goes 100% negative and it doesn't work. And GE2015 only looks good because the SNP swept Labour out of Scotland.
I think he gained ground in 2015? Though the polls were that far out it's hard to say.
But yes, Cameron was generally a much more effective campaigner in the period before the campaign proper started than during it - his strategic campaigning was generally on the mark; his tactical campaigning much less so.
This is absurd! He lost a Brexit referendum he didn’t have to call, and which should have been the easiest win
By his own terms, he was the most calamitous Prime Minister since Chamberlain. That is not “strategically on the mark”
It’s like saying Hitler was a pretty good German leader because of his pro-motorist agenda
The Brexit referendum was coming - there was no way of avoiding it sooner or later.
In fact, it became the full monty because for over 20 years various UK governments had been dodging them on the treaties.
Well yes, but it's still pretty remarkable that he lost it. Brexit was never really a majority position at any time between 1974 up until about two weeks before the date of the referendum. It would be like calling a referendum on the monarchy and losing that. He alienated people on his own side and convinced no-one on the other side. Waverers were turned into leavers.
As PM's go, I didn't mind him. But he wasn't great at convincing electorates.
No, Cameron was a nasty untrustwothy piece of work. If he had wanted us to remain in the EU, he should have run a better Remain campaign. And he should have done a far better job than he did in talking to other govrnment leaders in the EU.
"Effortless superiority" works only if other people think that you are superior. Otherwise you have to work at it.
Does anyone recognise where it’s from? A lacerating left wing essay on Britain. I disagree with much but it’s brilliantly written. Annoyingly, the tweet doesn’t offer a link. Anyone know?
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
I don't think it has anything to do with "woman-led superhero film" and just has to do with MCU fatigue. There is only so much you can milk from that herd - it's been a good time for Disney but maybe actually making media based on new IP would get people interested in their films again. (Or, buy the rights for Discworld films and make an actually popular DisCU - but good and animated)
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
Nah. Jodie Whittaker was just bloody awful writing and trying to make a mark by changing practially everything about the previous 57 years of Dr Who lore.
I was really looking forward to Whittaker as the Doctor as I think she is a cracking actress. But even she could do nothing with the dross they wrote for her, which to be fair had started back in the Capaldi era.
I was really, really annoyed that they so badly messed up what should have been a seminal moment in Science Fiction TV.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
The Marvels is a sequel to three different D+ shows, yet you don’t have to seen any of them to watch it. My flatmate enjoyed it and she hadn’t watched all those shows.
I'd probably enjoy the Marvels. I enjoy most films I go to the cinema to see, because even stinkers can be a fun experience (in the way something that is truly terrible can be better than something that is just bad).
But the problem is why would I go to see it? It's a Marvel film, and I only go to the cinema occasionally. It's got no drawing power for me. It's JAMF (Just Another Marvel Film). It's not special.
I might be tempted to go to see Deadpool 3 and the new Spider Man films next year. But there are so many films, with so many potential tie-ins, I probably won't go to see them. Whereas if it was just those I might.
Similarly I almost always enjoy going to the cinema even if the film is guff.
My only must-see next year is Dune part two though.
Coffey entered Number 10 hours ago. Perhaps Rishi offered her a job she turned down and they've been negotiating since. If she was always going to be sacked it would have taken five minutes and it would not have needed a Downing Street meeting.
Sky saying she wasn't offered another job and left by the back door
Sunak finally woke up and smelled the Coffey.
A heady mixture of piss, Olde English cider and stale tobacco.
Cameron now down to 33/1 to be next Prime Minister.
Scenario: 1. Sunak having Braverman removed turns out to be pulling the wrong block in Jenga. The whole thing starts coming down 2. Open warfare in the Commons. Factions at each other's throats. Political chaos 3. Sir Graham Brady can't wipe that cheeky grin off his face as he informs Sunak that his plane to America is leaving shortly 4. Warfare intensifies in the Commons. Sunak wants to resign immediately but cannot without a replacement PM 5. Party looks to the Lords. Cameron becomes PM. Challenges Tory MPs to shut the fuck up or there will a lost confidence vote and most will be out. Deputy PM Jeremy Hunt manages to pull together just enough votes to settle things down so that they can limp through until the spring
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
I don’t know how much that reflects The Marvels and how much that reflects broader audience views of Marvel after a mixed set of releases, and a reduced promo cycle because of the actors’ strikes.
I thought the film was so-so. Not the worst, but third quartile. That said, the kitten scene was tops.
There seems to be a lot of hatred of Brie Larson. I don’t really get it, except that I guess a lot of men like Marvel and she’s, well, quite a girlie girl. Which I personally like.
I think all of the female-led MCU projects have hit some resistance from male fans who don’t like seeing women in these roles, either because they’re just misogynists or because they claim it’s all “woke” nonsense. There’s been a fair amount of review bombing. Whether that impacts on the actual box office take more broadly is unclear.
Nearly all the reviews for The Marvels rightly praise Vellani (Ms Marvel). I think all three leads are good. The acting was good. The script/direction less so.
The Marvels does lean into cosmic silliness, which I enjoyed, but some people haven’t.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
The Marvels is a sequel to three different D+ shows, yet you don’t have to seen any of them to watch it. My flatmate enjoyed it and she hadn’t watched all those shows.
I'd probably enjoy the Marvels. I enjoy most films I go to the cinema to see, because even stinkers can be a fun experience (in the way something that is truly terrible can be better than something that is just bad).
But the problem is why would I go to see it? It's a Marvel film, and I only go to the cinema occasionally. It's got no drawing power for me. It's JAMF (Just Another Marvel Film). It's not special.
I might be tempted to go to see Deadpool 3 and the new Spider Man films next year. But there are so many films, with so many potential tie-ins, I probably won't go to see them. Whereas if it was just those I might.
Similarly I almost always enjoy going to the cinema even if the film is guff.
My only must-see next year is Dune part two though.
I was impressed, and pleasantly surprised, by Dune, which is so introspective that it's very hard to put on the screen.
Cameron now down to 33/1 to be next Prime Minister.
Scenario: 1. Sunak having Braverman removed turns out to be pulling the wrong block in Jenga. The whole thing starts coming down 2. Open warfare in the Commons. Factions at each other's throats. Political chaos 3. Sir Graham Brady can't wipe that cheeky grin off his face as he informs Sunak that his plane to America is leaving shortly 4. Warfare intensifies in the Commons. Sunak wants to resign immediately but cannot without a replacement PM 5. Party looks to the Lords. Cameron becomes PM. Challenges Tory MPs to shut the fuck up or there will a lost confidence vote and most will be out. Deputy PM Jeremy Hunt manages to pull together just enough votes to settle things down so that they can limp through until the spring
That's a scenario that isn't even 33,333-1 let alone 33-1.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
Cameron now down to 33/1 to be next Prime Minister.
Scenario: 1. Sunak having Braverman removed turns out to be pulling the wrong block in Jenga. The whole thing starts coming down 2. Open warfare in the Commons. Factions at each other's throats. Political chaos 3. Sir Graham Brady can't wipe that cheeky grin off his face as he informs Sunak that his plane to America is leaving shortly 4. Warfare intensifies in the Commons. Sunak wants to resign immediately but cannot without a replacement PM 5. Party looks to the Lords. Cameron becomes PM. Challenges Tory MPs to shut the fuck up or there will a lost confidence vote and most will be out. Deputy PM Jeremy Hunt manages to pull together just enough votes to settle things down so that they can limp through until the spring
No. Not happening (that way at least).
Even in 1963 the Tories realised they had to get Hume into the Commons before he could take over from Macmillan as PM.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Exactly. The last lot of movies, Guardians aside, have been pretty bad (mostly just bland) , but it's the content overload that's killed them - even big fans have not watched it all and it ruins enthusiasm.
But it was a very good run at dominating the Box Office for over 10 years, so well done even if they seem to have forgotten how to write or plan movies all of a sudden.
I would like it on the record that I *have* watched it all! Just finished a rewatch of Hawkeye and then into Loki season 2 + the colour version of Werewolf by Night, before seeing The Marvels at the weekend.
Does anyone recognise where it’s from? A lacerating left wing essay on Britain. I disagree with much but it’s brilliantly written. Annoyingly, the tweet doesn’t offer a link. Anyone know?
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
You need new (local party) mates.
Nevertheless, interesting to be reminded that loathing of Sunak /love for Braverman remains widespread in the grassroots.
It’s why the Tories won’t be electable for two terms after 2024.
What will be interesting about today is whether, by the end of it, we are any clearer on whether Sunak has put in place a clear policy-making structure in Cabinet/No.10.
His tenure so far has been characterised by desperate shifts in policy and direction as he tries wildly to come up with something that might play well.
Whether today is yet another one of those, or the start of something a bit more professional, will be interesting. He could really do with an inner “war cabinet” to formulate policy. If Cameron is not just window dressing then this is something he can lend his experience to.
But - this could just be another knee-jerk response to events, and his government might come out of today even more adrift and unclear of its direction. Will be interesting to see.
I wasn’t even aware that the Marvels opened this weekend. Not surprised that it had bombed. The audience for this guff is mostly teenage boys and they don’t want to see a woman-led superhero film, unless the woman is foxily bad-ass.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
Nah. Jodie Whittaker was just bloody awful writing and trying to make a mark by changing practially everything about the previous 57 years of Dr Who lore.
I was really looking forward to Whittaker as the Doctor as I think she is a cracking actress. But even she could do nothing with the dross they wrote for her, which to be fair had started back in the Capaldi era.
I was really, really annoyed that they so badly messed up what should have been a seminal moment in Science Fiction TV.
I got annoyed with the Whittaker era DW because it seemed clearly targeted at an American audience, to the point it looked like it came out of the American BBC production team. First few episodes revolved around guns and American civil rights era and a Trumpy figure - and they were all dealt with in a very American fashion; none of the themes were typical DW themes (not that it must always hold on to that kind of model). I was also hoping to like that series - I wasn't a big fan of the Capaldi era but I always liked Jodie Whittaker.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Does anyone recognise where it’s from? A lacerating left wing essay on Britain. I disagree with much but it’s brilliantly written. Annoyingly, the tweet doesn’t offer a link. Anyone know?
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
The Uncanny Valley Problem is real....close gets worse reaction than terrible VFX.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
I think people care about visuals (obviously, it is cinema) but so much cinema looks the same, and looks like shit. I remember trying to watch the second Black Panther film and I just couldn't see what was on the screen half the time, because the lighting was so shocking. Compared to something like "Into the Spiderverse" which has interesting and vibrant visuals, there's no contest.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
This x100. So much of the stuff on Netflix, for instance, is just so badly written. Is it really that hard to find good writers? Or is the more depressing explanation that it simply doesn't matter to the production's bottom line?
Very pleasurable bonking by Saint HIMARS of a 11-unit 👹 ammo-carrying supply column in Hladkivka, 25 km south of the 🇺🇦 Dnipro bridgehead 📌Recon drones are essential for such pinpoint accuracy 🚁Without them, Ukraine would need 3-4 more shells https://twitter.com/ArmedMaidan/status/1723112275442082089
Cameron now down to 33/1 to be next Prime Minister.
Scenario: 1. Sunak having Braverman removed turns out to be pulling the wrong block in Jenga. The whole thing starts coming down 2. Open warfare in the Commons. Factions at each other's throats. Political chaos 3. Sir Graham Brady can't wipe that cheeky grin off his face as he informs Sunak that his plane to America is leaving shortly 4. Warfare intensifies in the Commons. Sunak wants to resign immediately but cannot without a replacement PM 5. Party looks to the Lords. Cameron becomes PM. Challenges Tory MPs to shut the fuck up or there will a lost confidence vote and most will be out. Deputy PM Jeremy Hunt manages to pull together just enough votes to settle things down so that they can limp through until the spring
No. Not happening (that way at least).
Even in 1963 the Tories realised they had to get Hume into the Commons before he could take over from Macmillan as PM.
Incorrect. ADH was Prime Minister in the Lords for a week, then renounced his peerage to run for parliament and as such was PM whilst a member of neither house until the byelection.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
This x100. So much of the stuff on Netflix, for instance, is just so badly written. Is it really that hard to find good writers? Or is the more depressing explanation that it simply doesn't matter to the production's bottom line?
Netflix just wanted content and they wanted it fast to fill their catalogue and keep subscribers.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
The Marvels is a sequel to three different D+ shows, yet you don’t have to seen any of them to watch it. My flatmate enjoyed it and she hadn’t watched all those shows.
I'd probably enjoy the Marvels. I enjoy most films I go to the cinema to see, because even stinkers can be a fun experience (in the way something that is truly terrible can be better than something that is just bad).
But the problem is why would I go to see it? It's a Marvel film, and I only go to the cinema occasionally. It's got no drawing power for me. It's JAMF (Just Another Marvel Film). It's not special.
I might be tempted to go to see Deadpool 3 and the new Spider Man films next year. But there are so many films, with so many potential tie-ins, I probably won't go to see them. Whereas if it was just those I might.
There’s only 1 MCU film in cinemas planned for 2024, the lowest number since it all began. The other 2024 entries are D+ shows, with “What If...?”, “X-Men '97” and “Spider-Man: Freshman Year” being animated shows outside of the main continuity. In terms of MCU proper content, there’s just “Deadpool 3” in cinemas and “Echo” and “Agatha” on TV.
What will be interesting about today is whether, by the end of it, we are any clearer on whether Sunak has put in place a clear policy-making structure in Cabinet/No.10.
His tenure so far has been characterised by desperate shifts in policy and direction as he tries wildly to come up with something that might play well.
Whether today is yet another one of those, or the start of something a bit more professional, will be interesting. He could really do with an inner “war cabinet” to formulate policy. If Cameron is not just window dressing then this is something he can lend his experience to.
But - this could just be another knee-jerk response to events, and his government might come out of today even more adrift and unclear of its direction. Will be interesting to see.
This is a good insight.
But what we know of Cameron is that he doesn’t do detail, and nor is he much of a policy thinker, so he’s unlikely to provide that kind of input (contrast with Mandy).
I think Cameron mostly will be window-dressing, but it helps present a picture of seeming moderation.
An unelected Etonian holding one of the great offices of state, and a (near) billionaire in number 10. In the middle of a cost of living crisis.
The optics, as they say, are not good.
A Wykehamist as PM, an Etonian as Foreign Secretary and a Carthusian as Chancellor, all educated at Oxford for university (only Cleverly not major public school, only minor private school and non Oxbridge).
Looks like the highest concentration of top public/private school and Oxford alumni in the great offices of state since Macmillan's cabinet, with some new money too from Sunak's wife's family
Yeah, the Tories can fuck off, after this. The more I think about it the angrier I get
I wasn’t gonna vote for them anyway, but now I’m not going to vote for them with real venom. Tossers
What will be interesting about today is whether, by the end of it, we are any clearer on whether Sunak has put in place a clear policy-making structure in Cabinet/No.10.
His tenure so far has been characterised by desperate shifts in policy and direction as he tries wildly to come up with something that might play well.
Whether today is yet another one of those, or the start of something a bit more professional, will be interesting. He could really do with an inner “war cabinet” to formulate policy. If Cameron is not just window dressing then this is something he can lend his experience to.
But - this could just be another knee-jerk response to events, and his government might come out of today even more adrift and unclear of its direction. Will be interesting to see.
It’s a catastrophe. Apart from a few Remainer wets on here, the reaction is terrible. Read TwiX
The right is absolutely furious - seething - and the Left is positively gloating: “you couldn’t find an MP good enough, now we have this unelected Etonian loser as Foreign Secretary”
It is unravelling already. Its a fucking idiotic mistake
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
The Marvels is a sequel to three different D+ shows, yet you don’t have to seen any of them to watch it. My flatmate enjoyed it and she hadn’t watched all those shows.
I'd probably enjoy the Marvels. I enjoy most films I go to the cinema to see, because even stinkers can be a fun experience (in the way something that is truly terrible can be better than something that is just bad).
But the problem is why would I go to see it? It's a Marvel film, and I only go to the cinema occasionally. It's got no drawing power for me. It's JAMF (Just Another Marvel Film). It's not special.
I might be tempted to go to see Deadpool 3 and the new Spider Man films next year. But there are so many films, with so many potential tie-ins, I probably won't go to see them. Whereas if it was just those I might.
There’s only 1 MCU film in cinemas planned for 2024, the lowest number since it all began. The other 2024 entries are D+ shows, with “What If...?”, “X-Men '97” and “Spider-Man: Freshman Year” being animated shows outside of the main continuity. In terms of MCU proper content, there’s just “Deadpool 3” in cinemas and “Echo” and “Agatha” on TV.
Apols. I thought Spiderman was a film. That means I probably won't get to see any MCU output next year. Except perhaps Deadpool 3 if I can find a babysitter. It's probably not suitable for a nine year-old ....
What will be interesting about today is whether, by the end of it, we are any clearer on whether Sunak has put in place a clear policy-making structure in Cabinet/No.10.
His tenure so far has been characterised by desperate shifts in policy and direction as he tries wildly to come up with something that might play well.
Whether today is yet another one of those, or the start of something a bit more professional, will be interesting. He could really do with an inner “war cabinet” to formulate policy. If Cameron is not just window dressing then this is something he can lend his experience to.
But - this could just be another knee-jerk response to events, and his government might come out of today even more adrift and unclear of its direction. Will be interesting to see.
It’s a catastrophe. Apart from a few Remainer wets on here, the reaction is terrible. Read TwiX
The right is absolutely furious - seething - and the Left is positively gloating: “you couldn’t find an MP good enough, now we have this unelected Etonian loser as Foreign Secretary”
It is unravelling already. Its a fucking idiotic mistake
“Read TwiX”
What is it that a certain D. Cameron said about too many tweets?
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
You have to look at least six months ahead. Can Sunak hold this shift to the centre? Will the Tories be going in to a GE in open civil war? Or potentially yo-yo-ing back to the right again?
The only person who could hold the Tory coalitions together was Boris, and he did it by openly lying to each group who suspended their disbelief by the force of his personality. Of course, that wasn't sustainable once he had power.
Hearing Number 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister
Several people, including Jeremy Quin, are said to have turned it down
Comes after Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove appeared to express unhappiness over removal of Rachel Maclean from role
George Osborne waits by the phone...
I doubt Bad Enoch will survive the shuffle in any case. She has been woeful – indeed near invisible – as business secretary. Bizarre to think many on here were boosterising her as a potential leader.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
This x100. So much of the stuff on Netflix, for instance, is just so badly written. Is it really that hard to find good writers? Or is the more depressing explanation that it simply doesn't matter to the production's bottom line?
I've read much better fanfiction than much of the stuff that gets produced on Netflix. I'm puzzled how supposed professionals can't actually write a script that's interesting and gripping.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
You have to look at least six months ahead. Can Sunak hold this shift to the centre? Will the Tories be going in to a GE in open civil war? Or potentially yo-yo-ing back to the right again?
The only person who could hold the Tory coalitions together was Boris, and he did it by openly lying to each group who suspended their disbelief by the force of his personality. Of course, that wasn't sustainable once he had power.
The civil war question is what will determine this I think. If Sunak manages to keep a lid on it then he's got a fighting chance in the blue wall. The right wing lack a convincing alternative leader at the moment. If it's Suella then they're destined to fail any attempted regicide.
I think there is going to be a concerted attempt by significant numbers of Tory MPs to get Rishi Sunak out straight after Christmas and then bounce into a general election as early as April under a new Tory PM.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
The Uncanny Valley Problem is real....close gets worse reaction than terrible VFX.
Which is why people need not aim for "realism" - CGI and other methods of visual enhancements make for great animated films - it's just that requires paying your animators a decent wage and studios don't want to do that.
We could be in an amazing era of computer enhanced animated media - with real stylistic diversity. Instead we have similar looking grey slop that the studios think will sell - despite the studio heads always being wrong about what will be a hit and what would sink (Lion king was considered the downgrade from Pocahontas, and Prince of Egypt was considered the great gig to have when Shrek was the bargain bin film to work on)
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
I do think it is good that former prime ministers come back into politics. We tend to put too much faith in opinion polls and whilst ex PMs are normally pretty unpopular, it is (sometimes) a waste of talent if they are cast aside in exile.
I think there is going to be a concerted attempt by significant numbers of Tory MPs to get Rishi Sunak out straight after Christmas and then bounce into a general election as early as April under a new Tory PM.
Well at least then it will keep costs down as the remaining Tory MPs will be able all share a taxi.
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
The Marvels is a sequel to three different D+ shows, yet you don’t have to seen any of them to watch it. My flatmate enjoyed it and she hadn’t watched all those shows.
I'd probably enjoy the Marvels. I enjoy most films I go to the cinema to see, because even stinkers can be a fun experience (in the way something that is truly terrible can be better than something that is just bad).
But the problem is why would I go to see it? It's a Marvel film, and I only go to the cinema occasionally. It's got no drawing power for me. It's JAMF (Just Another Marvel Film). It's not special.
I might be tempted to go to see Deadpool 3 and the new Spider Man films next year. But there are so many films, with so many potential tie-ins, I probably won't go to see them. Whereas if it was just those I might.
There’s only 1 MCU film in cinemas planned for 2024, the lowest number since it all began. The other 2024 entries are D+ shows, with “What If...?”, “X-Men '97” and “Spider-Man: Freshman Year” being animated shows outside of the main continuity. In terms of MCU proper content, there’s just “Deadpool 3” in cinemas and “Echo” and “Agatha” on TV.
Apols. I thought Spiderman was a film. That means I probably won't get to see any MCU output next year. Except perhaps Deadpool 3 if I can find a babysitter. It's probably not suitable for a nine year-old ....
No need to apologise!
Deadpool 3 is set to have an R rating in the US, so, no, not for 9 year olds.
We might get (the non-MCU) Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse in 2024.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
You have to look at least six months ahead. Can Sunak hold this shift to the centre? Will the Tories be going in to a GE in open civil war? Or potentially yo-yo-ing back to the right again?
The only person who could hold the Tory coalitions together was Boris, and he did it by openly lying to each group who suspended their disbelief by the force of his personality. Of course, that wasn't sustainable once he had power.
The civil war question is what will determine this I think. If Sunak manages to keep a lid on it then he's got a fighting chance in the blue wall. The right wing lack a convincing alternative leader at the moment. If it's Suella then they're destined to fail any attempted regicide.
They could always put forward Michael Fabricant as a leadership contender.
I think there is going to be a concerted attempt by significant numbers of Tory MPs to get Rishi Sunak out straight after Christmas and then bounce into a general election as early as April under a new Tory PM.
Why wait until Christmas? get him out now, get Braverman in before she defects to Reclaim
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service agents protecting Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter, opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle in the nation’s capital
Superhero film The Marvels made just $47m (£38m) in its first weekend, in the US, making it the Marvel Cinematic Universe's lowest opening. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame made box office history in 2019 by taking a record-breaking $1.2bn (£980m) in global ticket sales in its opening run.
Ouch....
Whilst I am well aware of The Marvels' AAARGH! numbers, you are not comparing like-to-like
Domestic (US&Canada) gross for first weekend
The Marvels: $47,000,000
Avengers:Endgame: $357,115,007
At a guess, given the international numbers and a slightly better decay curve than you'd expect, it'll probably make its net budget back so they'll be able to claim a nominal success. But that ignores the cost of promotion etc so it'll probably end up losing what, 100-200million? In pre-Covid times they'd have made up the loss with another film, but still-low post-Covid attendance and superhero fatigue in general and MCU fatigue in particular makes it bad news for Marvel. Everything has been postponed to 2015 (except for Deadpool 3) while they work out what, if anything, they can do to fix this.
My problem with the MCU is that there's too much of it. I didn't mind going to the cinema a couple of times a year to watch a film set in the universe. I quite liked it when Agents of Shield came on the TV, and Agent Carter was cool.
But then the last series of AoS was not shown on Channel 4 (I think because they wanted it on Disney+), so I never watched it. And they produced many other series as well, and worse; the "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" was needed to understand some of the minor stuff that was going on in GoG3.
They want to do this to make me get Disney+. The problem for them is it just pushes me away from watching anything Marvel, including at the cinema.
Its a huge problem across Disney, this carpet bombing of movies / shows from the IP they own. How many Star Wars shows have been made and are in the pipeline. Nobody cares now. Its not special. The quality isn't there, its all filler.
In fact the best one was Andor, and they kept that in the can for 2 years as they didn't think it fitted with the brand.
Its the opposite of the golden age of telly when HBO were making the classics.
I can't remember who said it, but Star Wars needs a Star Trek (story of the week) type series to see what type of stories could work in that Universe.
People are bored with superheroes, bored with Star Wars, bored with Disney live action remakes of cartoons, and bored with endless sequels and reboots. Brilliant CGI can't make up for bad plots, wooden characterisation, and left wing preaching.
One additional point, we are so spoiled by CGI now that it isn't the spectacle it once was and if it is off at all, even in tv shows, its gets a terrible reception. In fact the best VFX work is the stuff you never even realised was VFX e.g a load of scenes in the last James Bond, never existed, but you can't tell which ones those are...in fact the one you probably think was VFX (the motorbike jump) was 100% real.
In my view, almost everything turns on the quality of the script, and the plotting.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
This x100. So much of the stuff on Netflix, for instance, is just so badly written. Is it really that hard to find good writers? Or is the more depressing explanation that it simply doesn't matter to the production's bottom line?
I've read much better fanfiction than much of the stuff that gets produced on Netflix. I'm puzzled how supposed professionals can't actually write a script that's interesting and gripping.
Modern screenplays really do suffer from the fanfiction-esque problem.
The quality is generally much better in older productions, because they took a less-is-more approach - I.e just because it might be popular with the fanbase doesn’t make it the correct direction for the production to go in.
An unelected Etonian holding one of the great offices of state, and a (near) billionaire in number 10. In the middle of a cost of living crisis.
The optics, as they say, are not good.
A Wykehamist as PM, an Etonian as Foreign Secretary and a Carthusian as Chancellor, all educated at Oxford for university (only Cleverly not major public school, only minor private school and non Oxbridge).
Looks like the highest concentration of top public/private school and Oxford alumni in the great offices of state since Macmillan's cabinet, with some new money too from Sunak's wife's family
Yeah, the Tories can fuck off, after this. The more I think about it the angrier I get
I wasn’t gonna vote for them anyway, but now I’m not going to vote for them with real venom. Tossers
I love it when the oiks get upset.
And yet all the poshos who write for the snobby so-called “Spectator” magazine ALSO seem really angry
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service agents protecting Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter, opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle in the nation’s capital
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Winning back a few centrist voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
What will be interesting about today is whether, by the end of it, we are any clearer on whether Sunak has put in place a clear policy-making structure in Cabinet/No.10.
His tenure so far has been characterised by desperate shifts in policy and direction as he tries wildly to come up with something that might play well.
Whether today is yet another one of those, or the start of something a bit more professional, will be interesting. He could really do with an inner “war cabinet” to formulate policy. If Cameron is not just window dressing then this is something he can lend his experience to.
But - this could just be another knee-jerk response to events, and his government might come out of today even more adrift and unclear of its direction. Will be interesting to see.
Time has essentially already run out for this Government in terms of policy. There's a manifesto to write, of course, and an impression of coherence to salvage. But no substantive new policy will make it from formulation to implementation in the time remaining in this Parliament.
I think there is going to be a concerted attempt by significant numbers of Tory MPs to get Rishi Sunak out straight after Christmas and then bounce into a general election as early as April under a new Tory PM.
You can see why the turkeys would wait until after Christmas.
But that is the only logic in that position. They are still going to get slaughtered.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Moving a few voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
With due respect you’re not in the UK. You don’t sense the mood
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is another cretinous decision from a flailing and rubbish politician who doesn’t know what to do
An unelected Etonian holding one of the great offices of state, and a (near) billionaire in number 10. In the middle of a cost of living crisis.
The optics, as they say, are not good.
A Wykehamist as PM, an Etonian as Foreign Secretary and a Carthusian as Chancellor, all educated at Oxford for university (only Cleverly not major public school, only minor private school and non Oxbridge).
Looks like the highest concentration of top public/private school and Oxford alumni in the great offices of state since Macmillan's cabinet, with some new money too from Sunak's wife's family
Yeah, the Tories can fuck off, after this. The more I think about it the angrier I get
I wasn’t gonna vote for them anyway, but now I’m not going to vote for them with real venom. Tossers
I love it when the oiks get upset.
And yet all the poshos who write for the snobby so-called “Spectator” magazine ALSO seem really angry
They are a bunch of wankers.
I mean you've got the convicted pregnant girlfriend beater Rod Liddle there, clearly he has rubbed off on the poshos.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Yes, let us take Tommy Robinson and co as the pulse of the nation. Street thugs and football fash - the only real "volk"... sorry "real Brits"
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Suella seems to be a far greater politician now she's been sacked than she ever was when actually in post.
An unelected Etonian holding one of the great offices of state, and a (near) billionaire in number 10. In the middle of a cost of living crisis.
The optics, as they say, are not good.
A Wykehamist as PM, an Etonian as Foreign Secretary and a Carthusian as Chancellor, all educated at Oxford for university (only Cleverly not major public school, only minor private school and non Oxbridge).
Looks like the highest concentration of top public/private school and Oxford alumni in the great offices of state since Macmillan's cabinet, with some new money too from Sunak's wife's family
Yeah, the Tories can fuck off, after this. The more I think about it the angrier I get
I wasn’t gonna vote for them anyway, but now I’m not going to vote for them with real venom. Tossers
I love it when the oiks get upset.
And yet all the poshos who write for the snobby so-called “Spectator” magazine ALSO seem really angry
Oiks don't need to explain themselves, but it would be helpful to have an insight into what is the underlying political philosophy and worldview of the Spectator, in its current extraordinary and muddled manifestation.
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Exactly.
Sunak is the Tory PM of choice for people who don't actually want a Conservative government, characterised by low taxes, more personal responsibility, and a smaller state, in my experience.
He doesn't motivate the base of the Tory party. Volunteer numbers are already through the floor. They'll be even lower after a disastrous Local Election round in May....
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
TSE and a few £1 million+ home owning Remainers in Surrey and Henley and Kensington and Chelsea may well be tempted back to the Tories having drifted over to Starmer and the LDs, the question is are there more of them than working class Leavers who have stuck with the Tories until now but may now go Reform
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Polling has shown that chasing the nutter vote doesn’t deliver for Sunak. Moving a few voters in the blue wall might be a better strategy.
With due respect you’re not in the UK. You don’t sense the mood
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is
It's an interesting gambit, this pivot towards the old school centre-right. The more I think about it the more I think the impact on polling and electoral chances is going to be very mixed by region. I do think there is a problem brewing for the Lib Dems in the home counties here. Especially if Hunt unveils tax cuts for the higher paid this month or in spring. Look at TSE's reaction, and Topping's, and (though I appreciate not from the home counties) BigG's. The disaffected Cameroons have been looking around for some excuse to come home, and here it is.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My local party mates are all appalled.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Yeah. I’ve gone from thinking “this is amusing” to “this will have mixed results” to “this will be a disaster”
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Why?
Daily Mail:
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches. Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life. Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Labour isn't way ahead in the polls because the Tories are insufficiently populist and right wing.
No, but Labour are seen as relatively united, under a leader who - however boring - has a firm grip on his party
Sunak has just exploded his own party, and made it look so weak he can’t find a decent MP who is good enough to be Foreign Secretary
Comments
If he doesn't change Domestic policy then the reaction would be irrational, but why do this if he isn't changing it?
He is Braverman without the charisma and compassion (and yes that was sarcasm for anyone that missed it).
Does anyone recognise where it’s from? A lacerating left wing essay on Britain. I disagree with much but it’s brilliantly written. Annoyingly, the tweet doesn’t offer a link. Anyone know?
https://x.com/michaelje67/status/1724030066537935227?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
I strongly suspect Sky are wrong on this - or at least Number 10 are being a bit tricky and saying something like that she wasn't offered a specific named job, but was asked if she'd consider essentially a demotion and she said "no" to that.
The ill-fated Jodie Whittaker-as-Doctor moment is another example.
Killers of the Flower Moon was PACKED on Friday night, and the trailer for Ferrari looks sensational.
I think Biden is favourite against Trump, but Obama always outpolled Romney and always looked like he was going to win it; it was mainly the GOP "deskewwing" the polls that made them really believe it was possible for Romney to win. I remember by election night the only real toss up state was Florida - and it went Obama (I correctly called all states that year - best performer in my group of nerd friends). Biden does not, and if anything his favourability is sliding - even in his own party. He has seen major losses - on student debt, on abortion rights, on foreign policy - that his base do not feel he is fighting back on.
But the problem is why would I go to see it? It's a Marvel film, and I only go to the cinema occasionally. It's got no drawing power for me. It's JAMF (Just Another Marvel Film). It's not special.
These are all the films and TV shows coming up.
https://www.ign.com/articles/upcoming-new-next-marvel-movies-2023-tv-shows-release-dates
I might be tempted to go to see Deadpool 3 and the new Spider Man films next year. But there are so many films, with so many potential tie-ins, I probably won't go to see them. Whereas if it was just those I might.
Perhaps written by Peter Oborne?
"Effortless superiority" works only if other people think that you are superior. Otherwise you have to work at it.
https://www.patreon.com/thesecrettory
https://fullfact.org/online/papua-new-guinea-courier-satire/
I was really looking forward to Whittaker as the Doctor as I think she is a cracking actress. But even she could do nothing with the dross they wrote for her, which to be fair had started back in the Capaldi era.
I was really, really annoyed that they so badly messed up what should have been a seminal moment in Science Fiction TV.
Whereas for Labour in the North and Midlands this return to the old crew that brought austerity, stagnation and plummy accents to cabinet this must be a gift.
It's interesting to see Sunak doing precisely the opposite of what PB Tories have been advising him in recent days. He's going after the Lib Dems and the centre, and saying yah boo to the Refuk-curious. Let's see what happens to Lib Dem VI in the coming weeks as that may tell us if the blue wall gambit has succeeded.
My only must-see next year is Dune part two though.
Not all hearts and roses for Dave.
1. Sunak having Braverman removed turns out to be pulling the wrong block in Jenga. The whole thing starts coming down
2. Open warfare in the Commons. Factions at each other's throats. Political chaos
3. Sir Graham Brady can't wipe that cheeky grin off his face as he informs Sunak that his plane to America is leaving shortly
4. Warfare intensifies in the Commons. Sunak wants to resign immediately but cannot without a replacement PM
5. Party looks to the Lords. Cameron becomes PM. Challenges Tory MPs to shut the fuck up or there will a lost confidence vote and most will be out. Deputy PM Jeremy Hunt manages to pull together just enough votes to settle things down so that they can limp through until the spring
Nearly all the reviews for The Marvels rightly praise Vellani (Ms Marvel). I think all three leads are good. The acting was good. The script/direction less so.
The Marvels does lean into cosmic silliness, which I enjoyed, but some people haven’t.
Much sympathy with Braverman, none with Sunak....
Even in 1963 the Tories realised they had to get Hume into the Commons before he could take over from Macmillan as PM.
England is a “former fishery”. Cruel but funny
https://twitter.com/johnsweeneyroar/status/1724001890722074780
".... oh, and Vladimir Putin, do fuck off."
Nevertheless, interesting to be reminded that loathing of Sunak /love for Braverman remains widespread in the grassroots.
It’s why the Tories won’t be electable for two terms after 2024.
His tenure so far has been characterised by desperate shifts in policy and direction as he tries wildly to come up with something that might play well.
Whether today is yet another one of those, or the start of something a bit more professional, will be interesting. He could really do with an inner “war cabinet” to formulate policy. If Cameron is not just window dressing then this is something he can lend his experience to.
But - this could just be another knee-jerk response to events, and his government might come out of today even more adrift and unclear of its direction. Will be interesting to see.
Any number of old films and TV shows with rudimentary special effects are still immense fun to watch. A good script will carry a film. A bad script will sink it.
Sunak has just annoyed far more people than he’s pleased
Shades of Marina Hyde in that. Not saying it's her but a good impersonator of her style.
📌Recon drones are essential for such pinpoint accuracy
🚁Without them, Ukraine would need 3-4 more shells
https://twitter.com/ArmedMaidan/status/1723112275442082089
But what we know of Cameron is that he doesn’t do detail, and nor is he much of a policy thinker, so he’s unlikely to provide that kind of input (contrast with Mandy).
I think Cameron mostly will be window-dressing, but it helps present a picture of seeming moderation.
The right is absolutely furious - seething - and the Left is positively gloating: “you couldn’t find an MP good enough, now we have this unelected Etonian loser as Foreign Secretary”
It is unravelling already. Its a fucking idiotic mistake
Hearing Number 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister
Several people, including Jeremy Quin, are said to have turned it down
Comes after Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove appeared to express unhappiness over removal of Rachel Maclean from role
George Osborne waits by the phone...
What is it that a certain D. Cameron said about too many tweets?
The only person who could hold the Tory coalitions together was Boris, and he did it by openly lying to each group who suspended their disbelief by the force of his personality. Of course, that wasn't sustainable once he had power.
I think there is going to be a concerted attempt by significant numbers of Tory MPs to get Rishi Sunak out straight after Christmas and then bounce into a general election as early as April under a new Tory PM.
We could be in an amazing era of computer enhanced animated media - with real stylistic diversity. Instead we have similar looking grey slop that the studios think will sell - despite the studio heads always being wrong about what will be a hit and what would sink (Lion king was considered the downgrade from Pocahontas, and Prince of Egypt was considered the great gig to have when Shrek was the bargain bin film to work on)
“Gutless Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman and signs the end of the Tory party in government.
She was right about hate marches.
Sacking Suella is an own goal for the Tories.
Keir Starmer must be rejoicing.”
https://x.com/amandajplatell/status/1723991879929286965?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Daily Telegraph:
“At the Cenotaph on Saturday, there was huge support for Suella among people from all walks of life.
Rishi Sunak should resign. He is utterly useless.”
https://x.com/allisonpearson/status/1724019215433191523?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Sunak has ENRAGED the right. Alienating swathes of voters. Meanwhile, who is really gonna shift their vote TO the Tories because Old Etonian Dave “Brexit loser” Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary, as an unelected Lord?
Really, who? About 3 people on here. That’s it
Deadpool 3 is set to have an R rating in the US, so, no, not for 9 year olds.
We might get (the non-MCU) Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse in 2024.
BREAKING
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Service agents protecting Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter, opened fire after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle in the nation’s capital
The quality is generally much better in older productions, because they took a less-is-more approach - I.e just because it might be popular with the fanbase doesn’t make it the correct direction for the production to go in.
The car was parked and empty, and three people tried to break into it at night. Could be nothing more than thieves who didn’t know whose car it was.
But that is the only logic in that position. They are still going to get slaughtered.
Shows where housing sits on the government priority list.
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is another cretinous decision from a flailing and rubbish politician who doesn’t know what to do
I mean you've got the convicted pregnant girlfriend beater Rod Liddle there, clearly he has rubbed off on the poshos.
Keep oiks away from poshos.
There's a new series of 6 programmes Mon-Fri lunchtime and Fri evening updating this on Radio 4 by Nick Wallis.
First one is on now.
All 6 are available at the podcast page:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j/broadcasts/upcoming
Sunak is the Tory PM of choice for people who don't actually want a Conservative government, characterised by low taxes, more personal responsibility, and a smaller state, in my experience.
He doesn't motivate the base of the Tory party. Volunteer numbers are already through the floor. They'll be even lower after a disastrous Local Election round in May....
Sunak was going to lose the election anyway. All he’s done is bring forward the inevitable Tory civil war so that the defeat might be even worse than anticipated. Genius, not
Maybe that was his intention in some honourable masochistic good-for-the-party way? I doubt it. I think this is No, but Labour are seen as relatively united, under a leader who - however boring - has a firm grip on his party
Sunak has just exploded his own party, and made it look so weak he can’t find a decent MP who is good enough to be Foreign Secretary