Well, well, well. Let’s see what we have here:
Ask your doctor if sex with demons is right for you: By now we’ve all heard that those “American Frontline Doctors” and their video touting hydroxychloroquine and no masks were such a level of bullshit that even Facebook felt compelled to pull the video, but I have to admit that even by those standards a doctor that says dream sex with demons causes endometriosis is a little out there. And of our president is out there giving this person a big thumbs up, so that’s great.
I dislike being confronted over and over again that our current president is literally the least intelligent president we’ve had by a significant margin, and that a significant percentage of the American electorate thinks he’s some sort of mastermind. I would ask them whether they think demon sex causes uterine disorders. If they answer anything other that “fuck no, that’s ridiculous,” then I’m fine with not trusting them with anything more complicated than a Fisher-Price toddler toy.
Trump removing troops from Germany: Because apparently Putin wants it, is my guess, and our President, when he’s not plumping physicians detailing demon diddling, is delighted to be a fawning lickspittle for the man paying out bounties on our troops. Yes, I know: tell you how I really feel about Trump, right? Anyway, my understanding is that this removal and transfer will actually take years, which (knowing nothing else about the details at this point) suggests to me that there’s a very excellent chance that come January 2021, this little plan will be tossed into the garbage, or at least altered in a way that doesn’t actually cater to Russia’s interests in Europe. That’s just a guess.
The theatrical window now down to 17 days — that is, if Universal and AMC Theaters have their way; it appears the other major theatrical chains in the US are deeply opposed to it. There is irony here, in that Universal tried to shift the theatrical window earlier this year and AMC responded by saying it wouldn’t carry its films anymore; the new deal apparently cuts AMC into the video-on-demand take so the theater chain figures they’ll make money out of it anyway. At the moment it’s a moot point because hardly anything is being shown theatrically and the idea of sitting in a movie theater should give anyone not convinced of actual demonic coitus the heebie-jeebies, but one day it might matter.
I suspect what’s actually going to happen after the dust settles is that the current theatrical window, currently at 90 days, is going to get cut to something like 45 or even 30 days. The vast majority of films don’t stay in theaters for more than a month these days anyway (part of the reasoning for the 17-day window is that most films make pretty much all their domestic box office in three weeks), and those who want the theatrical experience will be motivated to get to the theater. Where I live the local multiplex gets the big titles in and out the door in four weekends, and the smaller indie/art films don’t show up at all (and those tend to get VoD releases much sooner anyway), so it would be all the same to me. So: 17 days? I’d guess that’s probably not gonna stick. 30 to 45 days? Realistically that’s where we are anyway.
100-million-year-old microbes revived: Seriously, have these people never watched horror movies? But I guess we’re already in the clutches of a massive biological pandemic, so what’s one more possible vector of infection, right? More seriously, though, the fact that scientists were able to revive bacteria from the age of dinosaurs at all is fascinating and certainly has implications for the folks who tout the “panspermia” idea that life on earth might have been seeded by asteroids or other detritus from space. Like that doctor in the first item! Who thinks scientists are fiddling around with DNA from space! Seriously, that person is loooooopy. Do not listen to her.
Spongebob, anime style: To really enjoy this you must, a) have a basic understanding of anime tropes, b) either have grown up with Spongebob Squarepants or have had a child who did, c) probably be stoned out of your goddamned mind. But if you are some combination of the three, this is pretty great. Enjoy.