BSR

I just finished binging the original Merlí and loved it, even more than Sapere Aude. First, some insight into the 2 series. The original Merlí was made by the Catalan branch of TV3, one of Spain's big broadcast networks. It was so popular in Catalunya that TV3 decided to dub it into Spanish (Spaniards hate subtitles) and release it nationally. It was so popular in Spain that Netflix bought the rights to release it internationally. Then it was so popular in South America (specifically Argentina, Chile, and Peru) that Netflix decided to make the sequel Sapere Aude. The writer & showrunner Hector Lozano always planned for the original to run 3 seasons (40 episodes) and Sapere Aude to run for 2 (16 episodes). I marvel that the original Merlí was so good despite its shoestring budget. The quality of the scripts and the level of the actors are impressive as hell. The high school students come off as real people, not TV characters like in some American teen-oriented series. The show is lucky to have 2 charismatic protagonists -- Merlí Bergeron, the unconventional philosophy teacher, and Pol Rubio, his best student -- who really hook you in. Pol's previously discussed sex appeal certainly helps as well. If you want to catch the original Merlí on RTVE, best hurry because it's only available until Dec 14. Fortunately, thanks to streaming, old TV shows never die. They just sit around waiting to get picked up by Netflix/Hulu/etc. If one of the streaming services does pick up the original Merlí, I highly recommend it. PS: I was probably the only one wondering, but the reason Pol's family is Spanish-speaking is to give some background for the family's dire financial straits. Of course not all Spanish-only speakers in Catalunya are poor, but if you lack education or an exceptional skill, like Pol's father, you might struggle anywhere but all the more so as a non-Catalan speaker in Barcelona. PPS: the recent death of Angela Lansbury made me think about Maria Pujalte's old show Los misterios de Laura because Jessica Fletcher and Laura Lebrel are 2 peas in a pod. The protagonist Laura is a police detective, not a writer, but the way she goes about solving whodunits will remind you a lot of Cabot Cove's most illustrious writer. Again, if one of the streaming services ever picks up Los misterios de Laura, I highly recommend it.

IMDb lists 112 acting credits for Angela Lansbury, every role under the sun, stretching from 1944 to a movie released this year. I didn't know she was in such great films as Gaslight, National Velvet, and Dorian Gray (1945). I admit that Murder She Wrote was a guilty pleasure of mine , but my favorite Angela Lansbury performances were in The Manchurian Candidate and Something for Everyone. A truly great lady, a legend, R.I.P.

If Pfizer never claimed that the vaccine would reduce transmission, then why did Anthony Fauci say that we need people to get vaccinated "to break the chain of transmission"?

The entire justification for the vaccine mandates was that the vaccine prevented or at least reduced transmission. Thousands of people were fired. Every person who lost their job for refusing the vaccine must be reinstated and compensated. Every politician, bureaucrat, and corporate executive who mandated vaccines must be held accountable. Let the lawsuits begin.

My first day as a pizza maker.

I dont know who this woman is or what exactly her position is at Pfizer, but a Pfizer executive testified to EU Parliament that no prelaunch testing was done to prove that the vaccine reduced transmission, even though many were forced/pressured to get the vaxx because it purportedly stopped transmission.

Here's one case where the guy didn't jump ...

I enjoyed the ducks as well during my one stay at the Peabody. The entertainment was not the duck procession itself but the reaction of kids to the ducks. Little kids giggle, scream, and jump up & down with delight while watching the ducks, and the whole scene is just adorable. I think the Peabody ducks live a pretty good life. The hotel staff does their best to take good care of them. Whatever downside to their hotel life, it sure beats getting eaten by a fox or coyote.

A number of other gay-themed movies have done stellar box office: Philadelphia, The Bird Cage, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman. American moviegoers accept gay protagonists and gay stories just fine. But a gay rom-com is a different beast. Straight women love rom-coms (and drag their husbands/boyfriends kicking & screaming) because they aspire to live the same romance as the female protagonist. These moviegoers simply don't identify with a gay male protagonist. I hesitate to talk about the big box office of Crazy Rich Asians because I haven't seen it, but I will say that regular comedy is far more universal than the romantic comedy genre. You don't have to identify with Asian (or black or Jewish) characters of a comedy to get a good laugh.

If those 2 hotties are selling kisses for just a buck, they're selling themselves awfully short.

Aberrations aside, as a general rule, yes, moviegoers do need to identify with the protagonist. Straight women go to rom-coms with female protagonists to feel the thrill of falling in love; men see action/adventure movies with male leads to fantasize about feats of derring-do. Exceptions of course, but the exceptions have to be particularly well done to hook in an audience. By the way, I heard the marketing for Bros was $30 million, not $40m. Still, an eye-popping marketing budget for a movie that cost only $22 million to make. $30 million to make just $4.8 million in its opening weekend? Oy. I don't think America is a homophobic country. Yes, some people here are homophobic, but as a general rule, no. Of course, the Cult of Victimhood disagrees.

How does he switch hands yet still maintain perfect balance? That doesn't seem humanly possible, but he makes it look effortless.

Yikes, the studio spent $40 million on marketing! No wonder Billy Eichner is so upset by the opening weekend bomb. I agree that the movie has limited appeal beyond gay men. Straight women are the biggest audience for romantic comedies because they want to identify with the protagonist and enjoy the romance fantasy. Since few will identify with a gay male lead, they won't bother to see Bros no matter how big the marketing budget. It's not that the movie-going public is homophobic; it's that the studio execs simply lacked common sense.

Back in 2005, Brokeback Mountain took in $83 million in the US and $178 million worldwide. I'm not buying Billy Eichner's charge of homophobia for the movie's flop at the box office.

Hopefully I have better luck with this one:

Sorry, I can't recover the tweet. It was a hamster running furiously on his exercise wheel for ~10 seconds, then lying down in the corner for a nap.

While not a bottom, I still think a nick cock is sine qua non. Mind you, "nice" does not necessarily mean large, although decent girth is a must. The nicest cock I've ever played with was ~5", decent girth, but what mattered most and made things so much fun was he stayed rock hard the whole damn time. So my favorite cockhound experience was not with the biggest or longest, but the hardest.

Three balks in one at-bat?! Most pitchers don't rack up three balks in a whole career.

Monday at 8 a.m. Monday at noon.

Have you watched it? I admit I am morbidly fascinated yet repulsed at the same time.

Good news for Élite fans: Season 6 will launch November 18! The just-released promo could pass for softcore porn ...

RTVE (Spain's public TV network) just recently added Spanish captioning to the original Merli. If you can read Spanish half-decently (and have a VPN), it's definitely worth watching. I've never been one for twinks, but both Pol and Bruno were so damn cute as youngsters. Don't worry, it's OK to lust after them since the actors were both (barely) legal at the time of shooting. Maria Pujalte starred in a very popular series, Los misterios de Laura, the first Spanish series that Hollywood picked up and re-made into a series for American TV (starring Debra Messing and Josh Lucas). Note that her daughter in Sapere Aude is named Laura, in a nod to her old show.

Yes, obviously, but note the fan support in the 2015 US Open and 2019 Wimbledon finals. The Arthur Ashe and Centre Court crowds are rooting for Roger as passionately as they would any American/Brit. I agree with @Charlie. Had Roger also made the 2022 USO his farewell tournament, the commentators would have been so preoccupied with tributes and homages to the two retiring legends that the tennis public might have forgotten there was a Slam going on.

I do not work for T-Mobile nor am I paid to promote them (ha! if only), but I switched to T-Mobile because of their special 55+ rate. I was able to share a plan with my mother even though we don't live in the same residence. Unlimited data for 2 lines was $121 (including taxes & fees) with Verizon but just $63 with T-Mobile. Despite all Verizon's boasting about their superior network & coverage, T-Mobile's has so far (8 months) been just as good. But if you're under 55 *EmilyLitellavoice* never mind.