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October 26, 2023 Reading Time: 7 minutes

We want the movie where a giant shark eats a helicopter. We want the rom-com where the third-act breakup happens over a misunderstanding that could be solved with a single text message. We want the unhinged Nic Cage performance.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Die Hard 2 is on cable. And I hear it’s a Christmas movie.

The dialogue is flat. The lighting is overlit to the point of sterility. The actors are beautiful people delivering lines with the emotional cadence of a GPS system. Why? Because the algorithm doesn't like silence. The algorithm doesn't like moral ambiguity. The algorithm likes "viral moments" and "second screen content"—shows you can half-watch while doomscrolling Twitter. Met-Art.13.05.01.Grace.C.Amaran.XXX.IMAGESET-FuGLi

The only rebellion left is to be a curator rather than a consumer . Turn off the autoplay. Watch the credits. Watch the bad movie and enjoy it ironically, then un-ironically, then sincerely.

There is a specific exhaustion that comes from "Prestige Fatigue." It is the feeling of being assigned homework by the culture. You don't watch Oppenheimer for fun; you watch it to participate in the discourse. We have turned leisure into labor.

For a decade, the mid-budget movie died. It was either a $200 million superhero epic or a $5 million indie about a divorce. There was no middle ground. But the audience is fighting back. We are tired of the IP. We are tired of the multiverse. We want original garbage. October 26, 2023 Reading Time: 7 minutes We

What is the worst (best) Garbage Fire movie you’ve defended this year? Drop it in the comments. I will die on the hill of The Lost City .

You cannot remember a single character's name from the show you binged last week. Not one. Part II: The Prestige Fatigue (The Flowchart Problem) On the opposite end of the spectrum lies the "Elevated Horror" or the "10-Episode Movie." You know the ones. They star Florence Pugh or Adam Driver. The trailer features a haunting piano cover of a Radiohead song. The runtime is 2 hours and 40 minutes. The plot involves a metaphor for grief, but the metaphor is also a space whale.

Escaping the Slop: Why We’re Nostalgic for Mediocrity in the Age of the Algorithm Now, if you’ll excuse me, Die Hard 2 is on cable

Welcome to the state of entertainment in 2024.

Because in a world of algorithmic slop, the most radical thing you can do is actually feel something about what you just watched—even if that feeling is "That was so stupid, I can't believe I paid for that."