Bad Boy: My YouTube Obsession

This blog is mostly focused on politics & film, but as we do a bit of spring-cleaning in terms of ideas I've had for the year, I occasionally remind myself (and you) that this is a personal blog, and sometimes I will write about things that I am obsessed with, even if they don't fall neatly into the category of the two things I am most obsessed with (don't worry-we'll have more film and politics next month, and if you haven't seen, we did just have the 1972 Oscar Viewing Project here if you want to catch up in advance of the 1972 My Ballot which will come in the next two weeks).  Today, we're going to therefore cover something that I watched repeatedly over the past three years, and is finishing its second season in the coming days: the YouTube comedy series Bad Boy.

You may be asking yourself: what is Bad Boy, and that's a fair question.  The show has gotten hundreds of thousands of views, but in today's internet (and the fact that it's been on for years), it's possible you aren't familiar.  Bad Boy is a comedy series on YouTube from the mind of Artie O'Daly, an actor you might recognize from guest spots on Gilmore Girls, Pushing Daisies, and Modern Family (all favorites of mine).  He plays Scott, frequently referred to on the show as "Daddy Scott" an exasperated LA screenwriter who is overrun by members of the Jomas family, all relatives of an offscreen (and dead) crime boss dad whose family is looking for a stable figure to share their problems with (and live off of his largesse).

The show started initially as a two-man comedy featuring O'Daly and Tony Harth (who played Mack Jomas), but has since expanded to essentially be a comic soap opera, with two seasons and (to date) 39 episodes focusing on a series of murders that at least one or more of the characters committed.  We learn in Season 1 who the killer of Paul Jomas, the head of the Jomas crime family is, and we are one episode away from learning who the killers are in the second season (to keep spoilers at a minimum, we'll wait until the end of this article before I discuss my theories).

The show is insanely watchable, and honestly rewatcable (I've seen every episode at least 4-5 times).  The slapstick humor, usually sexually-charged, is lightning fast, and you're aided by a really strong cast.  O'Daly is so much fun as Scott, the frequently tired but also horny but also confused straight man (a term not meant to be literal...like most of the characters, Scott is very much on the Kinsey Scale), but he honestly has scenes stolen from him repeatedly by a cast of almost ludicrously (seriously-everyone on this show is so hot) talented cast members.  There's Drew Canon as Jim, the himbo ex-adult film star who is infatuated with Scott.  There's Alex Dyon's James, the gorgeous ethereal beauty that might be a vampire who sardonically reminds Scott of his own mortality throughout.  There's Alina Bock's Calista Flockhart (no, not the Ally McBeal star, but instead the character's name), an FBI investigator who is obsessed with trying to figure out if Scott is involved in the many murders in the series.  Even O'Daly's former Gilmore Girls costar Vanessa Marano stars as herself, and yes, they address the controversial place that Marano's April plays in the Stars Hollow fandom.

Why am I bringing this up?  In part, because I want people to talk to about it (for a show that has a clear fandom, there's not enough places online to discuss theories), but also because you should watch it.  I'd start at the beginning, but give it a few episodes before you get into the series truly as it catches its groove a bit after the first few episodes (which are largely a will-they-or-won't-they vibe between Mack & Scott that shifts over to Jim & Scott as the series progresses).  My Top 5 favorite episodes would be:

1. "Bad Boy Murder Mystery" (1.26-27...it's a two-parter so I'm counting it together)

2. "Bad Boy's Bad Mom" (1.15)

3. "Bad Boy's Big Break" (1.17)

4. "Bad Boy's Daddy Experiment" (2.02)

5. "Bad Boy Pajama Party" (2.11)

This is a bit like picking a favorite Christmas ornament (they're all so pretty and shiny), but I tend to love the ones that lean into the mystery aspect of the show, as well as payoffs for longtime viewers (i.e. those who have watched the clear character arcs that O'Daly has snuck in for the main players), and a lot of sexy, fun comedies (I'm saying it because the show says it so often, but again-the guys on this show are SO hot, watch it at least in part for that).  Please seek it out, watch it at least until you get to some of the episodes I just listed (so you know you're rating it at its best as it's more fun once you're familiar with the 15 or so recurring characters), and report back.

And now, let's get to some of my theories headed into the finale (obligatory spoiler alert if you have not watched through Episode #2.11 Bad Boy Pajama Party.

Theories

Okay, so the main questions I have right now headed into the finale are:

1. Who killed Brian?

2. Who killed Whitney's fiancee?

3. Who is the "Jim" that is not who they seem to be?

4. Who is the mysterious person in Paris that is trying to get Scott (and Jim) to come to France?

5. Is Scott finally willing to admit he's fallen for Jim?

In the last episode, Calvin admitted that he and his girlfriend killed Whitney's fiancee at the very end, confessing to Calista after she spent the whole episode trying to trick him into confessing.  Part of me thinks this is too easy (I wonder if Calvin thinks he killed him, but didn't actually), but Calvin has kind of been set up to be the shiftiest of the Jomas cousins, and so this would make sense.  I expect the next episode, if (as O'Daly has hinted in the comments on YouTube) is the season finale, and a finale that he has implied "changes the show" that we'll have two storylines, one actually in Paris (his Instagram has indicated they actually filmed in Paris, and you can see Kelly pictured with him so you know at least she's part of the shots in Paris) and then one in Los Angeles with Calista and the rest of the crew.  So it's possible Calista solves the murder of the fiancee, while in Paris it's revealed who Brian's killer is.

Which, I'm going to be honest, I wonder if it might be no one.  Brian's death is off-screen, and similar to how Mack "died" in the first season until he hadn't, I wonder if he might still be alive, and could be behind all of this.  It's been implied that Vanessa got off for her two murders in the first season despite her being arrested, and one wonders if they faked his death as part of a deal for them both to run her film production/poison company.  It's also worth noting that Brian is both the name of Doug Rogers' character (i.e. Scott's on-again/off-again boyfriend) and also the name of Whitney's son, who has never been revealed on the series, only named.  At some point they're going to have to reveal him, and it would make sense that Brian might actually have been a Jomas the whole time.

Which brings us to the third point.  This is the big mystery right now, and indicates that at least one of the characters isn't "who they seem to be" which Suzanne realized from her widdling.  She has said the person is named "Jim" but that doesn't necessarily mean our believed Jim Jomas is the one who is "not who they seem to be."  For starters, there's fake Jim (aka Ted aka the Hooded Figure aka Target's Sexy Santa) who had an epiphany last week that he needed to be himself, and given there's a hooded figure in Paris at the end of Pajama Party (which he was wearing the first episode he's seen), it could be hinted it's him.  There's also James (i.e. a spin on the name Jim), who has been hiding Jim all season (could that be for nefarious purposes?), though James is such a fan favorite I really hope it's not him.  There's BJ, who was suspiciously missing in the last episode (and has worn a hoodie in multiple episodes), and could have the middle initial Jim (we don't know what the J stands for).  And then there's "the Third One" (played by Blase Maffia) whose name hasn't been revealed yet, and who came out of nowhere, and could be more than he seems.  The biggest clues we've had other than "Jim" is Suzanne saying in the last episode that Jim was "somewhere in this house" (which at the time we know both James & the Third One were physically in the house, as was a cardboard cutout of Jim...again, Ted & BJ were both suspiciously missing) and then Mary Kate saying in "Bad Boy Comes Clean" to Calista that "people are going to keep dropping dead around him if he doesn't cut the head off the snake...all roads lead to Paris" and that "he's sleeping with the enemy."  Again, this is pretty vague, and could indicate any of these guys (Jim, BJ, James, the Third One, Calvin, and Ted are all in some way living in Scott's house, and Mary Kate could think that Brian was literally sleeping with Scott since they were dating), but these are the clues we have to run off of.

I do think one other clue is worth mentioning before we wrap up-in the episode Bad Bachelor Boy, Whitney's fiancee (shortly before his death) said that the "Third One's" name was "Troy," because it "sounded French," which given the implications of Paris, might be an overall clue to his identity...though I do feel like Ted or BJ make more sense because they weren't in the last episode.

So my final theories?

1. I think that BJ is probably the figure in Paris, not Ted (who is a ruse), but I do wonder if we're looking at two killers, where BJ killed either Brian and/or his dad, or if Calvin/Troy killed one but BJ killed the other.  I definitely think that BJ is one of the killers, though.

2. If it's not that, I think it's Brian who faked his death and the person who "isn't who they seem to be" is the Third One being another FBI agent.  I'm convinced that the Brian name thing, the Third One's lack of a name, and the French hooded figure's obsession with finding Jim (i.e. not Scott) all lead to BJ (he's the only character really connected to all three in that way), but how that makes a "Jim" not who they seem to be continues to be tricky.

3. The other theory I'm pondering is if Ted is actually Whitney's son Brian (and that Doug Rogers' character's name is just a coincidence), which would also kind of make sense, and imply Ted is a killer.

4. To answer question #5, since Artie has indicated the premise of the show will change in the final episode of the season, I have to assume that Scott & Jim are finally going to hook up or get together...we've waited years for it, and Scott finally admitted in the last episode that he missed Jim, so I think the close of the season is them saying they love each other.

5. I love all the characters so much, but if the killer is James, Jim, or Calista I'm going to be heartbroken because I love those characters the most.

6. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that Artie saved his most famous guest star (Vanessa Marano) for the finale given she's been hinted at all season, and likely is making at least one appearance given she's still a big part of the plot.

If you've watched the show, you will make my dad by sharing your own theories in the comments!

Quinn: The Ethical Piracy Boiling Point Has Been Reached

Like everyone over Christmas vacation, I got a lot done, and (like everyone over vacation) I didn't quite get EVERYTHING done that I wanted to do.  I love the last two weeks of the year partially because I check out from work and don't do anything related to my day job, and instead do a bunch of projects that I've put off, that I haven't had time for, and that I can finally make time for.  I have talked about this many times, but I'm very focused on resolutions and achieving goals, and I think part of that comes with momentum coming out of the last two weeks of the year, feeling the sense of achievement that you realize when you are doing things that for months you've thought of just in passing.  It means that you start January with a speed, and hopefully can maintain that for a long time until the to do list gets clogged up again.

One of the things that I wanted to do more of over break was watching television, which I am absurdly behind on right now for 2025 series, and a show that I intended to see (but didn't) was Heated Rivalry, which I will surely make time for in January.  The show is getting really solid reviews both from lusty fans and from critics alike, and it feels right up my alley.  I have, however, been watching the press tour featuring Hudson Williams & Connor Storrie, two absurdly good-looking newcomers who have been delightfully lascivious about their characters in interviews, and showing a maximum amount of chemistry offscreen that, if the reviews are any indication, they'll bring to their show, which was already renewed for another season.  It is not surprising, given the newness they both bring, that they would jointly cash in on another project (gotta strike while the lightning is hot), and so they were signed on as celebrity voice actors for the novel Ember & Ice on the erotica audiobook app Quinn.

Williams & Storrie are not the first celebrities to provide voice work for the app (Jamie Campbell Bower, Andrew Scott, and Tom Blyth have done work on the app as well), but given their celebrity is white hot right now, the two of them appearing on Quinn kind of broke the internet.  The Quinn app collapsed within the first 24 hours of the audiobook announcement, seeing record traffic on the site.  It also saw a number of people online talking about pirating and how to get to listen to the product for free, to the point that one of the employees of Quinn (which, she claims, only has 11 employees in total) went viral for chastising people for wanting to take this content without paying for it (you can seen this video here).

The response to this was fascinating to me, and why I'm writing about it before having either watched the show or listened to the audiobook (which, I'll own, I probably won't-I don't really like audiobooks which is a discussion for another day, and if I did listen, it would almost certainly be just to listen to these two actors specifically if I become properly enamored with Heated Rivalry).  Comments ranged from agreement with the employee (her username is Michaela Amanda) to people complaining about the economy & not being able to afford the product.

The latter is, honestly, something you see on virtually every video or commentary online right now.  Unemployments numbers are high, and with tariffs, a number of products ranging from electronics to food staples to home repair supplies are considerably more expensive than they were a year ago.  People are definitely in belt-tightening mode, and in some ways have been since the Covid-19 pandemic quarantine ended.  But this sort of bizarre obsession with chastising advertisements or new products with complaints about the cost is omnipresent online.  Every time there's a new product introduction from a company, or a new commercial for an upcoming sale, or talking about seeing a move or concert, or a cooking video that has ingredients that cost more than bread & milk, or literally anything that might cost some money, you will see dozens of comments in the social media posts complaining about the cost, and how this is completely unaffordable.

And it's gotten to the point where, quite frankly, it makes no sense, and feels like people just complaining to complain (and in the process just being wrong), with the Quinn app being perhaps the best example of this.  In the United States, in order to use the Quinn app for one month, it costs $8 (I'm aware this is slightly different in foreign markets, but it's not that much different in most of them).  $8 is not a lot of money-you would pay considerably more than that to buy a book or to legally watch the TV series Heated Rivalry on HBO...this is a pretty cheap investment if you are truly interested in listening to this story read by these two actors.  It should not require you to have to add in the proviso "I'm aware some people aren't financially in a position to buy this"...it's not a yacht or a trip to France or even a remodel on your house.  This is $8...it's not that expensive, and if people truly cannot afford to spare $8, they likely are not spending a large amount of time on Twitter & TikTok.  You should pay for it if you want it so that the writer, actors, and employees of Quinn can continue to make this available for their listeners.

Amanda pointed out (correctly) that this is not Netflix, but even if it was, I think we've lost the plot a little bit here about what the consumer is entitled to owning.  This is not healthcare or food or housing or clothing or education...it is not something that you must have to live.  It is an erotic novel read by two actors you hadn't heard of a few weeks ago, that costs less than a couple of gallons of gas.  I feel very strongly that we should give access to arts & culture to all citizens (I support free museum nights and public libraries for all), but come on here-pretending it is a hardship to be able to afford this is such a shift in the Overton Window on affordability that it makes arguments about things that are actually unaffordable (like healthcare & college education) feel disingenuous when you complain about them in the same breath.  You don't need this story to live, and this story is being provided at a very fair price.  Complaining about the cost to access or pirating it comes across as super lazy and insulting to the people who created it.  

Piracy conversations have entered a grey area in recent years with subscription services creating essentially an artificial iconoclasm, making TV series and movies completely unaccessible to the public by legal methods, and I think that the ethical implications of that conversation are worth having, but this is not that-this is accessible, affordable, and something you should have to pay to listen to if you want to hear it.  If you don't want to pay for it, that's certainly your right, and if you think $8 should be spent somewhere else, then do that (part of life is admitting you can't afford everything you want)-but pirating it doesn't make you the good guy.  It makes you the bad guy, and those artists you claim you love...you're making sure that THEY aren't getting the money they earned if you steal from them.

1972 Oscar Viewing Project

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JD Vance, Heritage Americans, and the GOP's Emerging 2028 Primary

Vice President JD Vance (R-OH)

Racism is always rearing its ugly head in the MAGA movement (its basically the source code for its political computations), and it has taken on an unusual form in the past few months in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death.  Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist figure in the MAGA movement, one who has gained an enormous online following, particularly of far-right, young white men, has used racial slurs to attack Second Lady Usha Vance publicly, and drawn rebukes from both Vice President Vance as well as Ohio gubernatorial frontrunner Vivek Ramasawamy.  Both Ms. Vance and Mr. Ramaswamy were both born in America, but were born to immigrants (in this case from India), a relatively common situation, but one that people like Fuentes have attacked, popularizing the term "Heritage American."  Despite his wife getting attacks from Fuentes and his supporters (nicknamed "groypers"), Vice President Vance has tacitly catered to this crowd, and hinted at his knowledge of the growing usage of the term.  In a speech at Claremont Institute in July, Vance used the line "this is our heritage as Americans," a pretty obvious acknowledgement of the phrase, and during a podcast interview with Theo Von in June, Vance promoted a website where Americans could look up to see how many people with their last names fought in the American Civil War.

There's a lot to unpack here, and part of me wouldn't normally be writing this article because I don't find it appropriate, and I think that promoting someone like Fuentes (whom, despite his fame, is getting his first ever mention on this blog with this article), even through a blog post talking about his growing power in the conservative movement, feels a bit icky.  I will state, categorically, that I find the concept of "Heritage Americans" having a special distinction in the United States to be the antithesis of the American experiment.  President Reagan has a famous quote that Ramaswamy recently paraphrased that I like, "you can go to France, but you cannot become a Frenchman.  You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot became a German, a Turk, or Japanese.  But anyone, from any corner of the earth, can come to live in America and become an American."  The idea of America is that it is an ideal, one of equality for all and freedom for all and success for all, no matter your background, and while it is not a country that has always lived up to that ideal, that it is is the ideal it strives for is the single greatest attribute about our political sphere.  Nick Fuentes is just plain wrong to think otherwise, and the Founding Fathers that he idolizes would agree with me, not him, in this regard.

It's worth noting, of course, that while I agree with Ramaswamy and Vance in their criticisms of Fuentes, Ramaswamy is doing this fight in a party that increasingly has no place for him.  It's been noted that he is severely underperforming in the Ohio gubernatorial race, and it's hard not to wonder if racism is playing a part in that.  Ramaswamy and his wife Apoorva have talked about how surprised they were by the focus on their race when he ran for president in Iowa last year, and his continued focus on this underlines a potentially ugly (but real) truth about his campaign: he will need Nick Fuentes' increasingly vocal component in his party to win a close race in Ohio, and it's not clear he knows how to do that.  His play here seems to be for moderate Republicans who voted for Trump in 2024, but are not appreciative of his second term, to back him as well...but that's a risky gambit when he also has his right flank so vulnerable.

But, speaking of Trump, I think the most interesting aspect of the popularizing of the frame Heritage American is whom it leaves out.  Despite his own administration using the phrase in so many words (there was a tweet by the DHS that said "a heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth defending" a clear hint at the term) by pretty much every definition of the phrase, a very key member of the administration would not be able to to be considered one: President Trump himself.

The phrase, like so many on the internet, is one without a clear definition, but generally it means someone whose ancestors were American citizens during at least the Civil War, and more commonly the Revolutionary War.  The phrase doesn't seem to acknowledge that Native Americans and many African-Americans would more than qualify under this definition of residing in America before 1865 (it's hard to think that someone like Fuentes would care that much about the specifics of how this would apply to Americans who are not white), but if you go with the idea that it was at least by the Civil War, Donald Trump doesn't even come close to qualifying.  Trump's mother emigrated to the United States in 1930 from Germany, so he is a first-generation child of an immigrant on his mother's side.  On his father's side, his grandparents emigrated here from Germany as well, but the earliest of these (his paternal grandfather Frederick Trump) came to the United States in 1885 (by pretty much every account he came here illegally by shirking his military duty, a good factoid maybe for a different story, but given Trump's politics of projection, one to keep in mind for a future cocktail party anecdote).  1885, for those not super familiar with American history, is two decades after the end of the Civil War and over 100 years after the end of the Revolutionary War.  Donald Trump, the MAGA leader, would not qualify for the movement's new favorite phrase.

You might be asking yourself if this is uncommon, given America is a country of immigrants.  But for recent political figures in the White House-yeah, it's actually less common than you'd think to have such a recent American history.  Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and both Bush's can trace their direct ancestry in this country to before the Revolutionary War, as can Vice President Vance.  A common trope in America is bragging about being descended from someone who came over in the Mayflower (over 10 million Americans are estimated to be descended from people who came over on the Mayflower), and by some estimates over 180 million Americans have some ancestry that predates the Revolutionary War.  Even looking at my own family history, my great-great-great-great grandfather took part in the Boston Tea Party and he & his sons and grandsons fought in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War (for the North), respectively.  

None of this makes any of these people "more American" than anyone else-there is no such thing as being "more American"-we are a country where everyone is equal.  But it is fascinating to me that JD Vance, who has rarely done much to step out of the shadow of the powerful men who serve as his benefactor to power (which right now is Trump) is making a point of highlighting a conservative conversation that not just discriminates against his wife, but also decidedly excludes his boss...but not him.  That Vance is bringing this conversation forward in one hand while disparaging Nick Fuentes in another is a telling sign from a man who seems to already be running a shadow campaign for the 2028 Republican nomination for the presidency, and who understands he'll need Fuentes' supporters to get there.

Saturday with the Stars: Lights, Camera, ACTION!

They're back!  Yes, my friends, after much debate (and after taking much of the past year off), I have decided to officially bring back another season of Saturdays with the Stars, our seventh, in 2026.  For those who don't know, we have for much of the past 7 years had a monthly actor we devote time to on this blog, someone whose career we profile, talking about films I have not seen of theirs, and feeding into a larger theme.  In past seasons we have looked at Hollywood Sex Symbols, Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies, Major Western Stars, and for the past two years looked at America's Sweethearts.  I took a few months earlier this year to devote more time to myself, but I feel like I can commit to another season, both because I love this series and because I miss talking about movies consistently on this blog.  And so for the 7th season, we're going to come in with a blast...literally.

More than any other genre, action films have been ones I've had a complicated relationship with.  Growing up, while other boys my age were playing cops-and-robbers and being blown away by the latest flick of a Jean-Claude van Damne or Arnold Schwarzenegger, I was falling in love with classic movie romances, mystery pictures, and musicals (I was gay).  Action films didn't really enter my consciousness as a genre to fall for until my thirties, and required me doing quite a bit of catchup.  This is partially because most action films were not really a thing until New Hollywood.  As we'll find out, action films existed in Classical Hollywood, but by-and-large they came into more common prominence in the 1960's & 70's, hitting their peak in the 1980's as big muscles equaled huge box office, and most of the leading men most associated with that decade had stints in action pictures.

This means this season that we'll break a couple of norms for Saturdays with the Stars.  While we have gotten into the latter half of the 20th (and even, during America's Sweethearts, the 21st) Century, we've never had a season that focuses on that time frame.  But this year we will.  While we'll hit at least a couple of stars in the first few months of 2026 that were staples of the Classical Hollywood era, we will move into New Hollywood, and for the back-half of the year, give up on our comfort-zone on this blog entirely, talking about the Blockbuster Era (even discussing a couple of actors who have been featured in *gasp* some superhero movies, the current goldmine for the action genre).  Our focus will primarily be on men, only the second time we've done that (but we will sneak a woman in as well), and we'll discuss major action franchises, some of whom I'll be watching for the first time (and some, keeping with the theme of only profiling unseen movies, we'll be filling in the gaps on).  So starting in January, I invite you to bring the popcorn and sit at the edge of your seats, because the Many Ranting of John is bringing the Lights, Camera, and ACTION!

Kate Hudson and Oscar's Changing Tastes

I have been following the Oscars relatively religiously since 1995.  That was the first year I actually read, in real time, magazines like TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly trying to predict who would win, and even did my own predictions with my family.  If the old Malcolm Gladwell adage is correct, I hit 10,000 hours of expertise toward the Oscars before I could drive a car, and know a thing or two about the ceremony and its tastes.

I was struck by that while thinking about this year's Best Actress race.  I have bemoaned on this blog many times the near uniformity in the Academy's nominations compared to precursors in recent years (it's why we ended up with, for the first time since 2006, not a single person who qualified for our annual "No Globe, No SAG, No Problem!" article last year).  However, we'll get to that problem in a few weeks once the SAG nominations have been announced.  For today, I want to talk about something that Oscar has developed in this uniformity: good taste...and how it's costing us what would've been a certain Oscar nomination (and likely win) 15 years ago.

Starting in the mid-to-late 2000's, we began to see acting lineups that would always go to the same films.  The Globes, SAG, and BAFTA were at one point a pretty strong indicator of what might be in the conversation, but they didn't end the conversation-new names showed up and Oscar would pick titles and stars that didn't win previously.  But when the awards bodies began to sync, they also started to emulate other people, namely critics prizes and influential online predictors who became a circle of self-fulfilling prophecy.  In the process, acting prizes that would've been long-shots a few years ago became real threats for nominations.

The Oscars do have a history of nominating acting performances from character actors and unknowns that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, at least since the 1970's.  Some that come to mind include Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves), Isabelle Adjani (The Story of Adele H), and Massimo Troisi (Il Postino).  But looking at the Best Actress field in 2025, this seems to be almost completely a list of performances that would've all been longshots years ago.  Renate Reinsve is acting largely in Swedish, Jessie Buckley is in an introspective period drama, Rose Byrne plays in an uncomfortable black comedy, Amanda Seyfried in an unusual dramatic musical, and Tessa Thompson in a retelling of an Ibsen play.  Even established stars like Jennifer Lawrence & Emma Stone are in complicated, sometimes hard-to-watch films from prickly auteur directors that would be a stretch ten years ago.  The Best Actress field at the Oscars has historically been for crowdpleasers, for biopics and romances and uplifting dramas.  It's also been historically for nominating either sturdy dramatic movie stars (like Bette Davis or Susan Sarandon), comeback vehicles for former glory, or for honoring Hollywood's newest "princess" (or reigning America's Sweetheart).  I'm not bemoaning the change (because a good chunk of what I just said is sexist even if it's reality for the Academy), and some of these performances are really good (I've seen almost all of them).  But in an era where the Oscars have lost their identity to precursors (and in the process kind of blended into an increasingly predictable pattern), it's weird that there's one performance this year that, 15-20 years ago, Oscar would've not just nominated, but would've been the frontrunner for the win: Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue.

Hudson has every hallmark of an Oscar winner, and in some ways matches some of the recent trends even for the modern Oscars.  She's playing a real-life person in a musical drama, and is getting a late-in-the-year release that won her a Golden Globe nomination.  She is a former America's Sweetheart, something that at one point would win women like Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, & Reese Witherspoon their own statues and given how that phrase has largely gone out of style, she (along with Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston) is one of the last actresses who may ever really carry that title (in a Hollywood desperate for nostalgia & turning back the clock, this can't be discounted).  Which gets us to something that has been a trend in recent years: she's another movie star from the 1990's & early 2000's who is still acting, and who hasn't won an Oscar yet.  In recent years we've seen the Academy fall for people of this era without a statue (Will Smith, Brendan Fraser, Robert Downey, Jr., & Demi Moore all fall into this bucket), and she'd be a solid bet as a result.  The fact that her mother and stepfather are also iconic movie stars (her mom already has an Oscar), would just add another dimension to the prize.

So why does Hudson feel like an afterthought?  Part of this is box office.  In a different era, Song Sung Blue would be the kind of movie that would be a guaranteed crowdpleaser (83% on Rotten Tomatoes, a Christmas release, two movie star leads...something that would drive people to the theaters), but in this era where anything that isn't horror feels like a risky bet at the box office, there's no guarantee that the film's gross will be there.  Box office, as ever, still matters with Oscar (if it wasn't a sleeper hit, The Substance would've had no chance last year...same with Sinners & Weapons this year), but the kinds of films that Oscar would normally gain permission to like (like, say, The Blind Side) because audiences demanded it aren't really a thing anymore, and that's impacted not just the Oscars, but other awards bodies as well.  Anyone But You, for example is a terrible film...but given it's a romantic-comedy and made $220 million in an era where movies like it never make that kind of money, in the HFPA days Sydney Sweeney & Glen Powell both would've gotten Globe nominations.  Hudson has a Globe nomination, but if you look at predictions sites, they seem to think she's an asterisk on this race rather than a more serious race for the win (or, quite frankly, even a nomination).

And they might be right.  I could be Paul Muni in The Last Angry Man being furious about the loss of the ancient texts, ones that would've pointed to Hudson being a nominee, but do those texts still matter in an era where critics seem to inform Oscars more than genre or what is populist?  It's entirely possible that me trying to look at this race from an historical angle (which would definitely say to include Hudson in your guesses) is foolish and I should focus on the nominees most likely to get stacks of precursor citations and buzz online...that might be the only correct way to predict the Oscars now.  And I haven't seen Hudson in this film (it's not out yet in Minnesota, but I will over Christmas), but her missing might be a good thing-I really like Kate Hudson (she's gotten two My Ballot nominations on this site for a reason), but I don't know that this looks like my thing.  So don't confuse this for me wishing she was in, but instead noting the passage of time and how the Oscars of my youth are very different than those of today, an era marked by far more consistency in good taste...and quite a bit more boredom in seeing who is included.

The Democrats Find Their Tea Party Movement

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)

This week, Rep. Jasmine Crockett announced she was running for the Senate race in Texas.  We've talked about Crockett before, but she starts out as the prohibitive frontrunner for the nomination.  She's a sitting congresswoman, one with a national profile, and likely will have both heavy fundraising and she'll have access to tons of free media.  She'll also, if she's the nominee, lose in spectacular fashion.  There have been a lot of bad faith actors on social media who have been saying criticism of Crockett isn't fair, saying that "we don't know what the Democrat who finally breaks our losing streak in Texas will look like" and while that's not entirely untrue (the entire gamut from Wendy Davis to Beto O'Rourke to MJ Hegar, all different ends of the political spectrum, have run statewide in Texas & still never won), if the Democrats who ended longstanding Senate losing streaks in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, & Colorado this century are any indication, it will have been with someone who ran as a moderate (all four of these states that's what happened).  Leftists and hard-core left wing voters dismiss this idea out-of-hand, but we run their types of candidates all the time in red/pink states...they just never win.

Democrats do have a better candidate.  While State Rep. James Talarico isn't as moderate as Rep. Colin Allred (who dropped out to make room for Crockett), he cuts a more moderate profile, speaking about trying to win over Republicans & disaffected voters (Crockett foolishly said that she won't need Trump supporters to win, something that is factually untrue given even in the best of circumstances at least 10% of a winning coalition will have voted for Trump in 2024), and he also has experience running in tough elections (he flipped a red seat in 2018 when he won in the State Legislature).  I don't know if Talarico can win, but he's the better of the two candidates, and unlike Crockett, I could see him winning in the right circumstance.

Crockett's entry, though, alongside Graham Platner in Maine, is yet another look at what might be emerging as a Democratic Tea Party.  The Tea Party is frequently talked about in terms of the conservative movement that it brought about, ultimately morphing in some capacity into MAGA.  But in 2010 & 2012, it was more well-known for something far different: costing Republicans winnable Senate seats.  During this time frame, 5 Senate races came up where a moderate ran against a Tea Party conservative, and in all five races two things happened: the Tea Party conservative won, and (despite polling that showed otherwise) the Democrat ended up winning the seat.  Across the two cycles you had three in 2010 (Delaware, Colorado, Nevada) and two in 2012 (Missouri, Indiana).  While these seats vary in terms of the course of their race (with one featuring an incumbent as the moderate, others having everyone from gadflies to members of the House as the Tea Party challengers), all of them had some clear distinctions.  

First, in all five cases Republican voters knew what they were getting into.  None of these races had someone running as an extremist only after he or she won the primary.  All five of the Tea Party challengers (Christine O'Donnell, Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, Todd Akin, & Richard Mourdock) ran to the right of more palatable general election candidates on the backbone of being a Tea Party conservative.  While some (like O'Donnell & Akin) would have opposition research leak about them in the weeks that followed the primary win, any Republican voter who complained had to know what they were getting into-they were making a risky bet.

Second, polling underlined this fact.  One of the only general election polls to test both Moudock and Richard Lugar (the moderate) in Indiana showed Mourdock tied against Rep. Joe Donnelly, while Lugar led him by 21-points.  Research 2000 had Chris Coons up 16-points on Christine O'Donnell, while Rep. Mike Castle (the moderate) was ahead by 12-points.  In all five of these races, it was framed how the moderate was the path to victory, and giving this seat up was putting the seat needlessly at risk.

And third, and most importantly-these losses proved consequential.  Had either Akin or Mourdock won, the Affordable Care Act would've been repealed during the first Trump administration (that was decided by one vote, let's not forget).  The Senate majority would've been on a knife's edge for 2010 & 2012 (it would've been tied both times) had they cleared all of these seats (which, I'm going to be honest, they likely would have), and much of President Obama's second term agenda would've been a pipe dream.  These losses mattered, not just in the election that was in front of them, but for years that followed.  Republicans have not won a Senate seat in Delaware since, and incumbent Michael Bennet is still a US Senator in Colorado.

Polling in this race is limited, but the legitimate polling that has leaked shows Talarico in a better position than Crockett.  But even if you dismiss polling as premature, the types of campaigns they're running are critically different.  Talarico is running the kind of campaign that Castle & Lugar ran-inclusive, open to ideas from both parties, and willing to welcome Republicans into the fold for a "one-time" exception to vote for a Democrat (generally how you win in a situation like this), while Crockett is running against Donald Trump (who won the state overwhelmingly last year), and has made the campaign about herself, not extending a hand to Trump voters who might be willing to look the other way this one time & vote for a Democrat due to frustration about the economy.  Putting it bluntly: Crockett is the Tea Party, cathartic but ultimately more interested in her own self-aggrandizement than actually winning a seat, her eyes feeling less focused on a Senate seat and more on the cushy job of an MSNBC contributor, while Talarico has spent years trying to get to this exact moment, ready to be the moderate that might eventually paint Texas blue.  The assumption is that Crockett will win, and that in the process the Democrats will have had a true-blue Tea Party moment, giving up a potential Senate win just to make a point...but my hope is that our party is smarter than the Republicans, and unwilling to be so idiotic.  In the coming months we'll see if I'm right. 

Dissecting the Globes' Box Office Prize

The Golden Globes have always been a tad ridiculous, and honestly, that's been a good chunk of their charm through the years.  This year, and we'll be visiting this in two articles this week, they largely proved that they weren't, in fact, ridiculous.  For example, the Best Musical/Comedy category, which in the 1990's cited films as indisputably comedic (and otherwise outside of what would ever be considered for a Best Picture award at the Oscars) as Honeymoon in Vegas, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Home Alone has now graduated into only black comedies and "this is actually really funny" pictures like Bugonia, One Battle After Another, and Blue Moon.

So in a way, it's kind of refreshing that the Globes now have a category like "Cinematic and Box Office Achievement" because it's such an absurd throwback to the days when the awards were decided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (and their frequently eyebrow-raising acceptance of bribes from actors & studios).  The category is supposed to be about recognizing "the year's most acclaimed, highest-earning and/or most viewed films" and in order to be nominated, it must have raised at least $100 million (and at least an additional $50 million internationally) and/or have "commensurate digital streaming viewership."  This year, the nominees are Avatar: Fire and Ash, F1, KPop Demon Hunters, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Sinners, Weapons, Wicked; For Good, and Zootopia 2.

This list is mildly ridiculous for multiple reasons.  For starters, one film 100% does not qualify based on the criteria set forth.  There is no doubt that Avatar 3 will hit the financial markers (only an idiot would think otherwise), and is likely to be one of, if not the highest-grossing films at the US domestic box office...but it technically hasn't opened yet.  How on earth are we to know whether or not it deserves a box office prize when we haven't seen its box office yet?  KPop Demon Hunters was surely a global phenomenon, and almost certainly qualifies under the streaming numbers, but given that there isn't an objective body like there is for the box office for streaming numbers, it's worth noting that it didn't achieve these box office numbers-its global box office was a paltry $24 million, hardly a "box office champ."

Looking deeper, all of the other films that premiered hit the touchpoints, but not all of them are considered to be financial successes.  Wicked: For Good, despite a strong debut and limitless buzz, will make $150-200 million less that its predecessor despite a built-in audience, and while it turned a profit, it definitely didn't hit its overall expectations.  Mission Impossible 8 likely didn't even make a profit, as even if its lowest estimated cost (it was made for $3-400 million) barely covers costs against a $600 million gross.  So if you want to get technical, four of these eight films barely cross the line into being considered an undisputed box office champ.

So I was thinking-if you're going to do this, who should have been nominated?  I'll keep the four that feel qualified as I agree-the box office on F1, Weapons, Sinners, and Zootopia 2 by all measures belong on this list (for the record, I suspect Avatar 3 will be universally-considered success, but it's too early to know that for certain).  For the last four remaining ones, I'm going to break the rules a little bit-I think, regardless of gross, the film needs to have been a true, unexpected outperformer at the box office.  A film that, say, made $80 million against a $10 million budget is far more impressive than Wicked 2.

I would add in A Minecraft Movie, a stupid film that made almost $1 billion against a budget of $150 million despite a critical drubbing and in the process surely started a franchise off of just a computer game (a steep hill in today's Hollywood).  I'd also find room for The Conjuring: Late Rites, another movie that critics didn't like but the box office on it was mammoth-it made nearly $500 million on a $55 million budget, and made $100 million more than the most successful film in the franchise (and more than double the last Conjuring movie).

Both of these two films fit the Globes rules (Minecraft, in particular, feels like a pretty foolish skip for the awards body).  For the final two, I'll bend them, but with good reason.  The first film I'd nominate is Dog Man, an extension of the Captain Underpants franchise, and a movie that did surprisingly well despite a January release date (usually a bad time to open a children's film), making $145 million on a $40 million budget, outearning the first Captain Underpants movie, and launching another franchise.  This feels worthy-it's likely that it can make a ton from merchandising on top of a sizable gross, and if they can keep their future budgets in check (the most famous voice actor in the movie is Pete Davidson, who is hardly in a position to, say, demand Chris Pratt in Mario-sized paychecks), it's a good source of income for Universal going forward.  Certainly they're excited-it should be a movie they nominate.

The last nomination is maybe the year's single most impressive achievement at the box office (aside from Sinners): Materialists.  A romantic drama without any source material (i.e. this doesn't come with a Colleen Hoover name attached) to boost its box office and despite solid reviews, not an award campaign in sight, Materialists made a gargantuan $108 million on a $20 million budget.  Coming off of a string of high-profile flops, this was a godsend for Dakota Johnson (and quite frankly Chris Evans) in terms of keeping them in leading roles, and is the type of film that doesn't make $100 million anymore-can you think of another film this year that so unexpectedly crossed the line into $100 million?  And not that it matters, but Materialists is very good-it having "Golden Globe-nominated" wouldn't be the worst thing...particularly since its box office more than deserved it.