I’m done watching politicians sell us out for a while. There’s still some hope that the House will restore the HPA and SHORT act and kick it back to the Senate, but that’s unlikely and I’m not holding my breath. At this point, in it’s watered down form, I wish it wasn’t in the bill at all – all this will do is make it easier to infringe down the line and doesn’t remove the main reasons I cared about delisting these items from the NFA. Never forget, the politicians don’t really care about you.
I had some free time yesterday evening and watched the “new” Beverly Hills Cop movie on Netflix. I had enjoyed the first couple and thought I’d give it a try, while also not expecting the best.
I was pleasantly surprised.
They used songs from the original, obviously playing to nostalgia, but that was the point, right? The old characters were there and it was a continuation of the story rather than a remake. It felt… comfortably nostalgic. In the past I’d have scoffed at a reboot of an older franchise, but the way this was approached was different – they didn’t replace everyone with new actors and cram in a bunch of culture war bullshit, they just continued the story of an old cop getting into shenanigans with his other old cop buddies and daughter to take down a bad guy.
Other movies have been successful with this strategy as well; take the new Ghostbusters movies for example, and I don’t mean the crappy remake, I mean the ones done by Ivan Reitman’s son. They took the original story and continued it for the next generation, with original characters essentially passing the torch to the kids. It preserved the legacy that that so many of us enjoyed and treated it with respect, while also setting the foundation for the franchise to continue.
This is the way they should be doing things, and I think that Hollywood is finally learning that lesson. Well probably not Disney, but how they shit on beloved franchises isn’t the point of this. The point is that other studios are waking up and realizing that you can’t take a beloved franchise, make all the characters “diverse” (or all female), and still expect the original fans of said franchise to support them shitting all over what they previously loved.
There is another sequel in the works, Goonies 2, and thankfully it seems to be following this new path as well. It is supposed to be a true sequel rather than a remake, and if they do it right, it could be an amazing bridge between generations – not that the original doesn’t still hold it’s own for younger viewers today. I could see the old crew getting together back at they ol’ “Goon Docks” for some sort of reunion, with their own families and kids, and taking off on a wild adventure like before. I got goosebumps just thinking about it.
So if Hollywood is truly out of ideas, at least they now have a path forward without shitting on everything we loved growing up.
Interesting Tidbits
Chuck E. Cheese is opening arcades for adults – “Similar to the kiddie version, Chuck’s Arcade has a mix of nostalgic arcade games, like Donkey Kong and Mortal Kombat; and newer titles such as Halo and Connect Four Hoops. Plus, each arcade is “overseen” by one of the chain’s iconic animatronic characters, including Chuck E. Cheese himself or other characters from his Munch’s Make Believe Band.” Nostalgia is powerful, I wish them the best up luck in this endeavor.
I was scammed out of hundreds of pounds by an AI deepfake Jennifer Aniston who told me she loved me – “The scam is part of a growing online menace, where advanced AI technology is used to create terrifyingly convincing fake videos of celebrities – all designed to con unsuspecting victims into handing over cash or personal details.” I know someone who was scammed in a similar fashion, though in that case it may have been more about money laundering.
Real-life Atlantis ‘FOUND’ after ‘mythical city’ discovered beneath waves – “The legendary city of Atlantis, often dismissed as a mere myth, may have been discovered just two miles off the coast of Cádiz, Spain, according to an explosive new claim”
Photographer shows the secretive, colorful world of Ghanaian funerals – “Tschumi’s book contains photographs from 2004 to 2024, taken mostly of the Ga people of Greater Accra, but also the Fante, Ewe and Asante peoples of the neighboring Central, Eastern and Volta Regions. She collates them into sections covering Christian and traditional funerals, the rise of coffin dancers in Ghana, the tradition of ‘laying out,’ and an index of bespoke figurative coffins made by local artisans.”
Penn To Apologize For Allowing Lia Thomas To Compete On Women’s Team – “The Department of Education announced that the University of Pennsylvania has agreed to resolve Title IX violations related to allowing transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete on the women’s team during the 2021-22 season. As part of the resolution deal, Penn will adopt definitions for male and female consistent with biological sex; restore stolen records and titles to female athletes; and, issue personal apologies to each impacted female swimmer.”
The Downfall Of DOGE: Why Elon’s Efforts To Cut The Debt Failed – “America’s budget crisis isn’t just about waste—it’s about scale. While headlines fixate on symbolic cuts and political theater, the real drivers of the deficit lie deeper, buried in the structural commitments of federal spending. Musk’s DOGE initiative promised big savings but ran into a hard truth: real spending lies in mandatory programs, not discretionary ones. Cuts to USAID and DEI made headlines but barely moved the needle.”
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