In a statement, Sony cites the broader market’s move away from physical game discs. While it’s broadly true that the majority of the market for games and other media have shifted toward digital-only products, the last three years have seen a spike in physical media sales, as consumers have become acutely aware of the limitations of digital marketplaces where “buying” something really means purchasing a license to use it for as long as the platform wants.

Last month, Sony announced that they will be purging movies owned by StudioCanal from the libraries of its users. That means if you have purchased any of 551 movies including Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Pan’s Labyrinth from the Playstation Store, you will lose access on September 1 and will be given no refunds.

Today’s announcement also comes on the heels of Rockstar’s recent announcement that “physical copies” of the forthcoming Grand Theft Auto VI will not actually include physical discs, but a digital redemption code housed inside of a case you can put on the shelf.

In its statement, Sony says that “We’ll continue to prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choices as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that’s at retailers or PlayStation Store.” It’s hard to square that bit about retailers with reality, though. This feels like a potential killing blow for gaming-specialty retailers like GameStop, and it would not be surprising to see those companies significantly reducing their Sony products well in advance of 2028, both to punish Sony and to prepare themselves for what’s coming.

That Sony is at least paying lip service to caring about retailers suggests that more physical releases like GTA6 — empty boxes with download codes, sold via brick and mortar retailers — are likely coming. That said, it’s unlikely those kinds of products will sell especially well. They would presumably be more expensive than a standard download, since the overhead cost of manufacturing and distribution, as well as a share of the profits for the retailer, would be baked in.

The move away from physical media is partially consumer driven, in the sense that many people would rather stream their movies and games than have to go somewhere to buy a disc. It’s also extremely hostile to consumers, as it means the concept of ownership itself becomes a thing of the past. Increasingly, media from movies and TV shows to games and audiobooks are being released as platform exclusives which can only be accessed via a monthly subscription that the user has to pay for indefinitely.

This news is also likely to serve as an alarm bell for cinephiles, since Sony manufactures and distributes DVDs and Blu-rays for their own movies, as well as Disney. For years, Sony has seemed like a safe haven for physical media because they make money manufacturing DVD and Blu-ray hardware, and included disc drives in their gaming hardware. If Sony gives up making physical media of its own (and presumably Disney’s), it’s an open question whether they would contract that responsibility out to someone else or simply stop releasing movies on disc altogether.

BFDI as a series was nominated in two categories as a series – that’s the Social & Games – Weird and Social & Games – Family & Kids categories. On top of that, BFDI: TPOT 20 - “Alone,” a landmark episode of BFDI‘s “The Power of Two” subseries that screened in sold-out theaters nationwide, earned a third nomination for Social & Games - Best Use of Video.

BFDI co-creator Michael Huang said, “Not to count my eggs before they hatch, but this might be the first object show recognized by the Webby Awards! Thank you to the object show community and the writers of ‘Why Is BFDI Not on Wikipedia?’ on all sides. And thanks especially to our crew, writers, and directors Sam and Joseph.”

In addition to its three nominations, BFDI received Webby Honors in seven categories: Social & Games - Arts & Entertainment; Creators - Most Viral; Video & Film – Comedy; Battle for Dream Island: TPOT 20 - “Alone” in Video & Film - Events & Live streams and Social & Games - Events & Live Streams; Battle for Dream Island Mini in Creators - Best Community Engagement; and the Battle for Dream Island Again 23: “Shattered!” Trailer in Creators - Best Editing.

Object shows center on anthropomorphic versions of everyday objects, ranging from pies and staplers to black holes. In Battle for Dream Island, the objects compete in reality-style challenges, with characters being eliminated by fan votes each episode. That means BFDI viewers are used to getting directly involved in interactive, online votes – something that could help their chances in the Webby Awards.

The OSC is a fairly tight-knit community, meaning that a Webby nomination for BFDI is not just a point of pride for the community as a whole. BFDI, which started in 2010, was created by Huang along with his brother Michael. The pair still work on the series as producers, consult with the writers, and oversee projects like merchandise and even a recent tie-in comic book, Seven’s Secret Orb.

For each category, the Webby Awards honor two winners per category: one selected by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), referred to as the Webby Winner, and one chosen by the public vote, the People’s Voice Winner.

“Our family has roots in San Francisco, where some of the first Webby Awards were held, so I’m crossing my fingers that either the judges smile upon it or we lock in the People’s Voice Award,” Michael Huang said in a statement. “If there’s one thing the object show community can do, it’s vote — so we’re counting on you!”

Fans can vote to support BFDI at the 30^th Annual Webby Awards here.

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Patti LaBelle, performed her hit songs on the opening night of Norfolk’s annual Harborfest to a packed audience in Town Pointe Park. The performance was also on the night of Juneteenth.

LaBelle was stunning in a blue outfit still hitting all the notes and moves at 82 years old. She is a Grammy Hall of Famer and regularly on tv shows like The Masked Singer, American Idol and was a recurring cast member on the reboot of The Wonder Years.

The singer also is a gay icon, likely at least in part because when few people were speaking out about the AIDs crisis she became a spokesperson for the National Minority AIDS council in 1987.

She embraced that love and has spoken at many pride parades, even talling Page Six that, “I’m the original drag queen, I was wearing crazy hair, crazy makeup, crazy clothes [from the beginning].”

You’d probably recognize her most for her performance of Lady Marmalade, which his number one on US and Canadian charts going Gold.

A note to anyone interested in a paid subscription - we will be adding a lot more content that is exclusive to supporters. Right now anyone who subscribes at any level will get a paid subscription to my newsletter, Visu.News. So please sign up and help us produce more original content!

Subscribe now

Celebrating 10 years of the beloved horror video game Dead by Daylight, iconic slasher Jason Voorhees waded into The Fog with a new update that officially surpassed DbD’s previous highest concurrent player count across all platforms.

With over 250,000 players, Jason’s arrival is also Steam’s #1 selling game this week, making history for the long-running horror MMORPG. The thousands of new players marks the second year in a row that Dead by Daylight has gown its player count, suggesting that it’s still thriving after a decade online.

The groundbreaking horror multiplayer from Behaviour Interactive hosted a day-long fan event in Montreal’s Old Port on Sunday, filled with panels, meet-and-greets, art, photo ops, and more.

During the event, the development team took to the stage to tease what’s coming next for the game. That’s where they announced the Jason Universe collaboration, as well as teasing original and licensed expansions coming soon.

Per a press release, the next new chapter will be Dead by Daylight: The Life Road, a survivor-focused chapter featuring original character Shane Wiigwaas, the game’s first Indigenous Survivor. That one releases on June 25.

This August, fans will get Dead By Daylight: Chorus of Sin, developed in collaboration with the game’s community, and then in November Dead by Daylight: Terrifier will bring Art the Clown along.

At the same event, Behaviour Interactive Executive Vice President Stephen Mulrooney updated fans on producer Jason Blum’s planned Dead by Daylight movie, with a screenplay by Alexandre Aja and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick already completed. Thordur Palsson will direct the film, which Blumhouse and Behaviour hope to get in front of cameras soon.

Commodore, hot off the celebrated revival of the classic Commodore 64 computer, today announced the company’s first-ever mobile phone. The Commodore Callback, a flip phone with some modern features, aims to “turn off ‘always on,’” according to the announcement from actor and new Commodore boss Perifractic.

The Callback offers video calls, an HD camera, music and messaging apps, but does not support social media or a web browser, according to the announcement. Commodore describes it as smarter than a dumb phone, but dumber than a smartphone. According to specs shared on the official website, its Commodore x Sailfish operating system will run most Android apps (although it is not an Android OS).

The retail cost of the phone is roughly in line with that description, landing squarely in between the ultra-cheap modern flip phones and the high-end smartphones that cost as much as a gaming PC. The phone retails for around $500, with a number of options for colors and features. That puts it roughly in line with the MSRP for other retro phones like the Clicks Communicator.

If you’re interested in getting a Callback, preorders open in two weeks and subscribers to the Commodore newsletter can get $100 off.

Roku, the consumer electronics and streaming brand, has been purchased by FOX for $22 billion. According to a Roku press release, the deal works out to be “$160.00 per share in a combination of cash and FOX Class A common stock.” The release goes on to confirm that Roku’s “Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Wood will have an ongoing role at the combined company and will join the FOX Board of Directors following the close of the transaction.”

As of August 2025, Roku had 38% of the US market for connected TVs; it’s closest competitor was Amazon Fire with 18%

FOX is getting not only the the electronics side of the Roku — which has TVs, streaming dongles and speakers — but also the streaming platforms Howdy and Frndly TV. The move gives Fox access to 100 million Roku users, and a stronger footing back in the streaming game after selling their stake in Hulu during the 20th Century Fox sale to Disney. Fox previously acquired Tubi back in 2020.

This is not the only story of media consolidation happening, as Antitrust Division of the Trump’s Justice Department has cleared the Paramount/Warner Bros deal, claiming it is “not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers.” The Ellisons, who own Paramount (which includes CBS), also own Skydance Media and a minority stake in TikTok. With the purchase of Warner, they will also acquire CNN and a myriad of other film production companies, streaming services and sports networks including TNT Sports.

This is an accelerated return to the studio system of the 1930s and ‘40s, when a handful of large film studios also owned the method of release — the movie theaters. Back then the Big Five — Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox and RKO — also owned their own distribution network. This meant that smaller production companies couldn’t get access to theaters without the approval of the Big Five. In 1948, the US Supreme Court broke that system up (for the most part) in United States v. Paramount Pictures, et al.

The new studios run by Amazon, Disney, The Ellisons, and Netflix have figured out a way around the 1948 US Supreme Court case by buying themselves a President and thus a friendly DOJ. Trump’s Justice Department ludicrously claims that they looked at the Paramount/WB merger and found… “The evidence reviewed and carefully analyzed by the Division indicates that, post-merger, competition in SVOD [Streaming Video on Demand] is not likely to be harmed. To the contrary, the combined firm is likely to increase competition by offering consumers a more robust competitive alternative to the larger SVOD offerings.”

There has never been a more vital time for movie lovers to start investing in physical media as once again our access to film and TV will be decided by a handful of men that don’t actually seem to like movies or the artists that create them that much.

The Booth brothers have a long history in music and film, going back to the 1970s, when Christopher replaced soon-to-be-superstar Bryan Adams as vocalist in the band Sweeney Todd. The Booths’ older brother John was already the drummer in the band, and Philip played guitar.

Philip and Christopher’s creative partnership would continue for another fifty years, doing pop music, motion picture scores, documentaries and even feature films. The pair have long been a regular presence at horror conventions, but their fandom took a strange turn in 2024, when a song they recorded in 1986 went viral on social media.

During their time as the pop duo Who’s Who — so called because Phil and Chris were twin brothers, so people used to ask them “who’s who?” — they recorded a number of songs that were ultimately used in adult films in the 1980s. One of those songs, “Ulterior Motives,” became a popular online mystery after a snippet of it was uploaded to the website WatZatSong. For years, the artists — an even real title — of the song fans called “Everyone Knows That” was a mystery. Then, in April 2024, two Reddit users found the song in the adult film Angels of Passion. In its credits were Philip Adrian Booth and Christopher Saint Booth, and within days, the brothers had tens of thousands of new fans.

By the 2020s, Who’s Who had disbanded, although the Booth brothers continued making music — mostly for the paranormal documentaries and low-budget horror movies they directed. After “Ulterior Motives” was discovered, the duo embraced their new fans and released a number of “lost album” CDs of music they recorded in the 1980s and ‘90s.

All that time, the original master tape of “Ulterior Motives” was partially lost. The single they released in 2024 featured newly-recorded vocals and some new guitar. It wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that the original master was fully found.

“Ulterior Motives” will see an official physical release in July, on CD along with a DVD documentary centering on the story of its rediscovery.

In addition to their music career, the Booths have worked on a number of films, often focusing on paranormal phenomena. Christopher released a memoir, Paranoia, which centered on his experiences with the supernatural. They also worked together on narrative films like Never Blink, Death Tunnel, The Exorcist File, and Wine Thief.

On a personal note, I interviewed the Booths after “Ulterior Motives” was dicovered and a couple of times after that. I found them to be incredibly kind and funny, and I was thrilled that they used one of my interviews in their Ulterior Motives Picture Book. Getting to know them has been one of the great thrills of the last few years, and I’m so glad that “Ulterior Motives” was discovered before we lost Philip, so that he could experience all the love that the internet had for them.

We’re a little bit late this month rounding up last months news. Once again Ai ended up being the focus of what we chatted about this month. We really wish it wasn’t this way but some of the biggest changes in entertainment revolves around this cancer on culture.

Some of our favorite and most beloved directors and actors are pushing forward cashing in on the plague of plagiarism that is Ai. Ben Affleck, Darren Aronofsky, James Cameron, Daniel Kwan, Natasha Lyonne and Joseph Gordon-Levitt all on The Hollywood Reporter’s “AI 25: The Exclusive Group of People Shaping the Future of Hollywood.” The most disappointing name that it was just added to the ever growing list of Ai collaborators (derogatory) was Martin Scorsese.

The director of I LOVE BOOSTERS, said this on twitter:

I can’t imagine giving up one of the most fun part of filmmaking - the storyboarding to a computer. That’s where the fun starts. Boots isn’t alone in finding working with Ai disgusting. Kane Parsons, the director of the hit new indy film Backrooms told The Australian, “If I could snap my fingers and make generative AI disappear forever, I probably would. Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me.”

In non Ai news it looks like Disney is going to be killing Hulu to focus on the Disney+ app. As a long time Hulu subscriber, I’m not overjoyed about the idea of having to search through all the kid programming to watch American Dad! but it is what it is. Hulu’s cancellation as been talked about for years now.

IMAX might be putting itself up for sale in the coming months and Netflix could be among the bidders. Neither Russ or myself are overjoyed at the prospect of one of the streaming studios owning a theater chain/system(not really sure what to call it). The added issue is that a single company owning the IMAX camera system will cause further problems.

The final story that we talked was a fun one and it’s about buckets. KFC got the fast food rights for Supergirl and they’re having fun with it. They’re releasing a chicken bucket that features Krypto popping out of it and a series of dipping sauces that include “Lobo’s Wild Ranch at KFC”

Not to be left out of the creative bucket fun is IMAX who released and immediately sold out of a Odyssey connected popcorn bucket that shaped around the IMAX camera.

Almost forgot that that Russ mentioned the insane The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special and of course HAD to share the link.

Stories we didn’t talk about:

Spotify and Universal Music Announce Licensing Agreements for ‘Responsible’ AI-Generated Covers and Remixes

https://variety.com/2026/music/news/spotify-universal-music-licensing-agreements-fan-made-covers-1236755951/

Dark horse unionizes

What is Bayhem -

White, a native New Yorker, told Emerald City Video during a recent interview that he never understood celebrities who hid from their fans. Instead, he said, he took inspiration from Reeve, who gave generously of his time when he met White on the streets of New York.

“You know, I was before I was famous…” — he says famous with a bit of a scoff — “I was walking down the street on Columbus Avenue. It’s a beautiful day, and I saw Christopher Reeve walking towards me. In New York City, there’s this thing where you see a celebrity, they see, they know that you saw them. They see you, and you just silently acknowledge each other, you know what I mean?”

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Louis Rossmann, an electronics technician, YouTuber, and consumer-rights activist who co-founded the FULU Foundation, is targeting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in a new series of videos.

Section 1201 of the DMCA is the passage at issue. The section treats certain kinds of software alteration, such as DRM removal, as “breaking a digital lock” and violating the copyright of the software’s designer. The intent is to prevent digital piracy, but the section has been used by corporate giants like Apple, John Deer, and Sony to prevent users and third-party technicians from repairing or modifying items they bought and own.

Section 1201 has been embraced by tech companies who use it as a shield against things like generic-brand replacements for components; a notable example Rossmann cites is printer cartridges.

“I despise this law, and it is the law FULU Foundation is dedicated to reforming in the United States,” Rossmann said.

Section 1201 came up recently in regards to a conflict between an independent software developer and 3D printer company Bambu Lab. After Bambu modified their software and terms of service to limit how users could use third-party software, the developer uploaded a forked version of the software that restored the printers’ original functionality.

Bambu cited Section 1201, a part of the DMCA that carries the potential of up to 10 years in prison for repeat violations, in their notice to the developer. He took down the fork, and after reviewing the details of the case, Rossmann offered $10,000 toward the developer’s legal defense if he put it back up.

“I’m not interested in a protracted legal battle,” Rossmann quoted the developer as saying. “I simply wanted to make a point that Bambu Lab is violating AGPL.”

The GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3) is an open-source “copyleft” license. Copyleft licenses are open-source, and allow users to modify, share, and redistribute the underlying work on the condition that any modified or derivative work also has to be shared using the same type of license.

Bambu Lab reportedly used AGPL code to develop the software for their printers. If true, filing a DMCA claim against someone who posts a modified version of the software seemingly violates the terms of the original license.

That’s a lot of technical talk. In one of his videos on the topic, Rossmann broke it down in layman’s terms:

“The way that this software license works is, if I make a program using AGPL, that means that if anybody uses my code, they have to make my code available, they have to make their changes available for free, they have to allow anybody to redistribute it and modify it in any way,” Rossmann explained. “So if I make closed-source software, you don’t have the right to the code to that software. But if I make open-source software, and you decide to use my software to make your software, you have to make the changes available. If you don’t like it, you don’t use my code. Bambu Lab chose to use other people’s code when they were making their software, and the code that they were using was AGPL. What that means is that when Bambu Lab uses that code to make their own software, they have to make elements of their own software available for anybody to use, redistribute, or modify. That’s the law, that’s the way it works, that’s what they agreed to at the point when they used it.”

FULU has written up a detailed blog post on the situation here.

Rossmann’s activism started with right-to-repair laws, which tie directly into his main business (Rossmann Repair Group in Austin, TX). He has since expanded his scope of interest to include a number of related causes, making videos about (and lobbying against) corporate enshittification. Rossmann speaks out against consumer-hostile practices ranging from corporate surveillance to feature-blocking by internet-connected devices.

Per FULU’s website, “FULU Foundation exists to inform, mobilize, and equip consumers to take back control over their devices and content. We expose anti-consumer practices, challenge the legal frameworks that enable them, and work to build a culture that values true ownership. One where users, not corporations, decide how products are used and maintained. Through storytelling, advocacy, and public education, we aim to shift both policy and public perception.”

Online auction giant eBay has rejected a takeover bid from video game retailer GameStop, with the eBay Board of Directors calling the $56 billion unsolicited bid “neither credible nor attractive.”

Ryan Cohen, the CEO of GameStop and architect of the bid, previously stated that he would take his appeal directly to shareholders if eBay’s board rejected his overtures.

Cohen had pitched a partnership with eBay that he said would cut down on wait times and shipping costs for high-end collectables to be graded and authenticated before going to eBay’s marketplace. He said he wanted to transform eBay into a “legit competitor with Amazon.”

The deal would have left the combined entity heavily leveraged, since the cost to acquire eBay would be several times GameStop’s current market capitalization. That was reportedly one of the factors that contributed to eBay’s decision.

“We have concluded that your proposal is neither credible nor attractive,” eBay wrote in an open letter to Cohen. “We have taken into account such factors as 1) eBay's standalone prospects, 2) the uncertainty regarding your financing proposal, 3) the impact of your proposal on eBay's long-term growth and profitability, 4) the leverage, operational risks, and leadership structure of a combined entity, 5) the resulting implications of these factors on valuation, and 6) GameStop's governance and executive incentives.”

Cohen is an activist investor known for making aggressive plays. In 2022, attempted to acquire Bed, Bath & Beyond. His plan was reportedly to spin off Buy Buy Baby as a stand-alone eCommerce site, but instead he butted heads with the Bed Bath board and divested himself of his nearly 11% of company stock. The company declared bankruptcy in April 2023.

Cohen was part of the GameStop short squeeze in 2021, which briefly pushed the company’s share price as high as $483. It’s currently sitting at a little under $25, more in line with its historical value but still a fairly high valuation given the company’s assets.

A number of Cohen’s attempts to diversify GameStop’s operations have stalled out, including an NFT marketplace and a number of regional fulfillment centers. Currently, GameStop is in the process of closing nearly 500 of its retail locations.

Cohen’s vision of a massive online marketplace to rival Amazon is at the heart of some conspiracy theories tied to his play for Bed Bath & Beyond. You can see more on that in Dan Olson’s terrific documentary This is Financial Advice:

Long time listeners of the pod might remember when Russ and I would go see a movie usually at the big screen and then give five film recommendations that you might like if you like that one. This was something we ended up doing a lot with new releases at the video store. Say the new release was out of stock but you really wanted to see something that was a subversive comedy (Pecker), or a mafia film (Miller’s Crossing), or blockbuster shoot’em up (The Way of the Gun) - well we had alternative recommendations.

This is that, in podcast form. To reboot that premise we decided to go back to an old favorite, one that Russ wrote a book about, Josie and the Pussycats. You can of course buy BEST MOVIE EVER book at Amazon, B&N and if you’d like it signed, directly from the author himself at JosieBook.com.

Without further ado - here’s the show notes for our 5 for 5 on Josie and the Pussycats.

Saved!

When a girl attending a Christian high school becomes pregnant, all of her former friends turn on her and she is ostracized and demonized.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0332375/reference/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Directed by Brian Dannelly

Cast: Jenna Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, Patrick Fugit

Get the film: https://amzn.to/3PgsVTc

10 Things I Hate About You

A high-school boy, Cameron, cannot date Bianca until her anti-social older sister, Kat, has a boyfriend. So, Cameron pays a mysterious boy, Patrick, to charm Kat.

Directed by Gil Junger

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0147800/reference/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Directed by Michael Lehmann

Cast: Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union

Get the film: Amazon: https://amzn.to/4d28gvb,

That Thing You Do!

A local Pennsylvania band scores a one-hit wonder in 1964 and rides the star-making machinery as long as they can, with lots of help from their manager.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117887/reference/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Written/Directed by Tom Hanks

Cast: Liv Tyler, Tom Everett Scott, Johnathon Schaech, Charlize Theron, Giovanni Ribisi

Get the film: https://amzn.to/4u2kj1w

Hudson Hawk

A cat burglar is forced to steal Leonardo works of art for a world domination plot.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102070/reference/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Cast: Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowell. Richard E Grant, Sandra Bernhard

Get the film: https://amzn.to/4eE8SZ8

Bamboozled

A frustrated African-American TV writer proposes a blackface minstrel show in protest, but to his chagrin, it becomes a hit.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215545/reference/?ref_=fn_t_1

Directed by: Spike Lee

Cast: Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, Michael Rappaport, Jada Pinkett Smith

Get the film: Amazon: https://amzn.to/42L2Sa1, Criterion

And one extra we didn’t talk about:

Cecil B Demented

An insane independent film director and his renegade group of teenage filmmakers kidnap an A-list Hollywood actress and force her to star in their underground film.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0173716/reference/?ref_=fn_t_1

Written/Directed by John Waters

Cast: Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Michael Shannon, Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier

Get the film: Orbit, DiabolikDVD

GameStop, the video game retailer currently valued at somewhere around $11 billion, this week announced a bid to purchase eBay for $56 billion in cash and stock.

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen is an activist investor known for making aggressive plays. In 2022, he made a play to acquire Bed, Bath & Beyond before that company went bankrupt. His plan was reportedly to spin off Buy Buy Baby as a stand-alone eCommerce site, but instead he butted heads with the Bed Bath board and divested himself of his nearly 11% of the company stock. The company declared bankruptcy in April 2023.

Cohen was part of the GameStop short squeeze in 2021, which briefly pushed the share price as high as $483. It’s currently sitting at a little under $25, more in line with its historical value but still a fairly high valuation given the company’s assets.

YouTube financial analyst Patrick Boyle released a fairly thorough look at the GameStop offer, why it does and doesn’t make sense, and how likely it is to actually happen. You can see that below.

In short, he argues that part of the reason Cohen is so keen to put GameStop in a highly-leveraged position is that his compensation package allows for a huge bonus if he can take GameStop’s total market capitalization over $100 billion. Overpaying for eBay shares would get him more than halfway there, and while the company itself would be in debt, its valuation would still be high.

This is, of course, not the first time recently that a company has attempted to take on a massive debt load to merge with a larger competitor. When Discovery acquired Warner Bros., they had to be about 500% leveraged to do so. There was also a massive size disparity between Skydance and Paramount — but a lot of that was covered by Skydance’s David Ellison going to his dad for a handout. That gave Skydance a much bigger pile of cash to work with.

eBay has not yet responded to Cohen’s offer. Unlike Paramount and Warner Bros., eBay is not desperate to be acquired, which could certainly make the situation more like Bed Bath & Beyond.

That said, for years now GameStop’s valuation has been artificially inflated due to interest from retail stockholders who will never, under any circumstances, sell their stock. You can see more on that in Dan Olson’s terrific documentary This is Financial Advice:

There’s certainly a pretty sizable overlap between GameStop’s customer base and product offerings, and eBay’s. It’s certainly a better fit than Bed Bath & Beyond for a potential sister company, and Cohen himself has laid out some legitimate reasons for the marriage — chief among them being that collectibles could be authenticated without being put in the mail first.

So, while the eBay acquisition feels like an unlikely one, it does have a real use case for both eBay and GameStop shareholders, at least in theory. We’ll see if that’s enough to get a deal done.

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ECV and Zach’s VisuNews are heading toward a more symbiotic merger in a name/brand yet to be decided (if you have any ideas, post comments) but we do not yet have the backing of the Saudi’s to purchase Warner Brothers. Zach’s long record of calling the Saudi regime “a journalist charnel house” is hurting the deal - but if Joe Rogan can keep getting hundreds of millions of dollars from your Spotify membership fees after being an open bigot and supporting Trump - anything is on the table.

In all seriousness we’re starting a new, monthly podcast that has us wrapping up the months on entertainment news. This won’t be the only one that we’ll be announcing soon so please subscribe! Some of our new features will be behind the paid subscription, so please consider joining and supporting our work. Anyone who subscribe to ECV also gets a complimentary subscription for that same length of time at Visu.News.

Here’s the show notes:

Newsarama Dead

Newsarama was one of the preeminent voices where people could talk (and talk@) comics in North America for almost 30 years - but now, that voice has become silent. After a storied 28-year career breaking news mega events from Marvel and DC, the dissolution of the Comics Code Authority, the fracturing of the comics market during the COVID-19 era, and the pivotal acquisition of Jim Lee's WildStorm (and Jim Lee as an exclusive creator) by DC, Newsarama as we knew it is no more.

ThePopverse.com

Netflix will use AI to make ad breaks look less like ad breaks

If you’re on Netflix’s ad-supported plan, that means you might see an ad that blends in with the show you’re watching, whether it’s Bridgerton or Wednesday. Netflix says advertisers can insert this new ad format in the middle of what you’re watching, or put them on the screen when you hit pause. They could contain an overlay or call to action when they roll out by the end of this year.

The Verge

Story behind Zaslav’s killing Coyote V Acme.

-Reminder that Zaslav “axing Batgirl took “courage” — willingness to throw his creative partners under the bus”

-if Coyote v. Acme becomes a hit, fans may find themselves reminded that their voices really do have some power to shake up how the entertainment industry does business.

The Verge

Letterboxd selling itself

The controlling investor in Letterboxd, the social platform for movie lovers that’s one of the few success stories in 2020s digital media, is looking to sell its stake in a company that plays a powerful and growing role in the global film business.

Semafor

Coming next week, Zach has an interview and review of the new documentary American Agitators. A film about the life of Delores Huerta and many others mentor, Fred Ross.

The Booth brothers have had a decades-long career that includes writing and recording pop music, scoring films (both traditional and adult), and directing feature-length narrative and documentary films. They’re blending some of those worlds with Ulterior Motives: The Story Behind the Song.

You can see their announcement video below.

Something worth mentioning: while the Booth brothers asked me, back in 2025, to contribute to their documentary, it didn’t happen due to scheduling. By the time they were in active development, I was working two jobs and couldn’t carve out the time.

Affectionately known by millions of fans as “Everyone Knows That” or “EKT — the title assigned to it by a user on an old Canadian music forum — the song became one of the internet’s most enduring lost media mysteries. In 2024, the Booth brothers were identified, and they recorded and released a new version of the song which garnered over 9 million streams.

While the re-recorded version satisfied demand for a clean recording, the true “Holy Grail” for the lost media collectors — a pristine analog master recorded in the mid-1980s — was long feared lost or irreparably degraded.

“To hold the tape in our hands is like stepping into a time machine,” said the Booth Brothers in a statement. “We knew the song lived in the hearts of fans, but we believed the actual master of that 1985 session was gone. Hearing it again in crystal-clear quality was an emotional experience bringing back the essence of the ‘80s. We just can’t wait to share.”

Who’s Who? has released six albums of archival material since “Ulterior Motives” was identified in April of 2024. The next, teased above, will be included with the documentary film. The band famously provided music for a number of adult films, but also featured one of their singles in a Disney Channel Original Movie.

The Booth brothers have found a whole new generation of fans as a result of the “Ulterior Motives” search, which saw thousands of music fans on Reddit and tens of thousands on TikTok exposed to the song before the Booths were even properly identified. Their music and films have all seen a spike in interest over the last two years.

Those more universal truths tie into some things that I have thought about a lot over the years.

You’ll do better if you watch the video first. I try to touch on the key points throughout, but here’s Michaela if you want to hear it for yourself:

Something to start with: the issue of ARCs as “status symbols” might be exaggerated in the book community, but influencers, journalists, and critics flexing their freebies is a time-honored tradition in and around the entertainment press.

My take has always been that it’s nice to get swag, but it exists primarily as a way publishers, studios, or whoever try to urge reporters to give them coverage. As Folding Ideas’ Dan Olson recently discussed in his video essay Why Was I Invited to Beast Studios?, even a bad review or unfavorable coverage provides at least some value to somebody who has a product to promote.

I value my relationships with publicists, creators, and others who provide me with advance readers, advance screeners, press kits, and all the rest. Does that mean I am an unreliable narrator? Well, I certainly try not to be. Certainly, I don’t ascribe much in the way of real status to receiving DVDs and t-shirts (always the wrong size) in the mail.

My review behavior tends to be shaped somewhat by my response to a work. If I don’t like it, but I don’t feel like I have much of an interesting reaction, I’m a lot less likely to review an indie film/comic/publisher, than if I have a similar reaction to something from a bigger company.

The reasons for that are twofold: first, indie creators take these things a lot more personally and, in general, would rather get no write-up than a negative one. So if my material isn’t going to be especially interesting on its own, why pick that fight?

Second, indie comics/film/whatever simply do not drive much in the way of traffic to news and review websites. That means my negative write-up, unless it’s wildly, hilariously negative, is unlikely to attract enough attention to justify its own existence to my own employer.

Yes, I’ll sometimes do favors for people. An example I can think of is the film India Sweets and Spices. The film came out in 2021, and I reviewed it for ComicBook. Obviously, a romantic comedy with an Indian spin is outside of ComicBook’s normal niche, but my own tastes are much broader than the site’s.

A publicist I like very much reached out to me and said, essentially, that they had received mostly positive reviews, but didn’t have enough to be fully “counted” on Rotten Tomatoes. They needed a final review — good, bad, indifferent, they didn’t care — in order for the movie to get a score. I agreed to watch it, and review it, during its opening weekend. I received nothing in exchange except temporary access to a screener file. But I adored the movie, so I wrote a very good review. Its current critics score is 83%, so I wasn’t outside of the mainstream. I bought the movie at full retail on release, and have it in my digital collection now.

A couple of years later, I found out people were being bribed to write positive reviews in order to get indie films on Rotten Tomatoes. I double-checked, and my friend the publicist was not one of the people implicated in that scandal. Did I do him a favor? Sure. But outside of getting a score — any score! — I promised him nothing at all. I don’t feel guilty about it at all.

In general, I do not feel obliged to disclose when I get access to a screener, ARC, or review copy. This is because the primary financial value of those items is the compensation I get from my employer for doing my job. If I get a fancy special edition, a pricey piece of hardware, or swag, I will disclose that. Just access to the actual creative work I’m discussing? Not so much.

When companies (other than my own) send me to an event, I disclose it. This doesn’t happen anymore, but when I was at ComicBook, I used to be flown out to Vancouver, Atlanta, Toronto, or other filming locations. There, I would get to see a movie or TV series in production, speak in person with the cast, take photos, and the like. Since the studio (almost always Warner Bros.) would pay for my flight and hotel, and the productions would provide me with food on set, I always made sure to mention in the resulting coverage something to the effect of “Warner Bros. flew ComicBook out to Vancouver to visit with the cast of The Flash,” or whatever.

On the other hand, when I would go to a red carpet — like, say, the Batman v Superman premiere or the CW Upfronts, I usually didn’t make it a point to say “I was invited to…” because in those cases, I paid for my own transportation (or my camera guy did), and either was or was not compensated by my own employer in keeping with their corporate policies. Again, like the ARCs/screeners…if all I get is “access,” that isn’t a gift in my view. It’s the bare minimum I need to do that job I’m asked to do.

Yes, some people get very weird about this stuff. In Michaela’s video, she addresses some snarky comments made by a “big” bookish account — one about the same size as hers. In it, the influencer complained about not getting access to an in-demand advance reader copy. And…yeah. That happens.

I got snippy with my employers in 2016 or 2017 about something like this. ComicBook started to more clearly delineate “beats,” and asked me if I was going to keep doing movies or TV. I said that I was going to move to TV, but requested that I be allowed to do press for Justice League, since I had done the premieres and other events for Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I thought Justice League would be a perfect epilogue to my film coverage. My employer promised me that would be done, but one day I got a text message from a coworker who said, essentially, “Hey, I’m on the Justice League set right now and was told to ask if you have any good questions.”

Absolutely no shade to that coworker. I was pissed at our bosses, though — both for reneging on their promise, and for the lack of communication.

On the other hand, some reporters — including people I very much like and respect — get angry or otherwise emotional about missed opportunities, and that can be frustrating and awkward. When I went on a particularly cool set visit, a friend of mine got very angry that he had not been invited. The result was that every time the show came up for months afterwards, it was awkward.

I have tried very hard never to get like that, and certainly I don’t get that way about physical swag. Sometimes, I’ll be disappointed that I missed an opportunity or a press kit, and sometimes I will be so bummed out that I go looking for it on eBay (hello, my dear Starro the Conqueror sunglasses from The Suicide Squad…!).

But whenever I feel myself feeling jealous or upset that I didn’t “get” something — an item or an opportunity — I feel gross about that. It feels “wrong” to me to feel like I’m entitled to something more than what every other reporter is already getting.

After that episode aired, Clapton had a surge of popularity among younger listeners, and as a result, a number of his earlier hits gained new traction with teens. His 1977 song “Wonderful Tonight” was played at every high school dance I ever attended — and after I graduated, I dated a girl younger than me, so I even had a few extra dances to sample.

With this lovely girl (we’re still friends but I won’t name her on the internet for all the obvious reasons), “Wonderful Tonight” kind of became “our song.” It has plenty of very nice memories attached to it. I own (maybe still own?) Eric Clapton Unplugged on CD and Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs on LP. I was never a huge Clapton fan, but certainly I enjoyed his work.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned about the drunken, racist rant Clapton had gone on years before I was born, and the toll it took on his career. He has since apologized for it, but it wasn’t the last time he would get himself wrapped up in reactionary politics. Clapton threw a fit about masking and vaccinations in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and threw his support behind Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s presidential campaign in 2024.

So — Clapton is at minimum a crank and quite possibly a bigot. While he has apologized for his racist past, it’s not a stretch to imagine his thoughts on trans people would be pretty gross. He does the whole “I think there’s problems with the whole system” thing, but posed for pictures with virulently transphobic and generally monstrous Greg Abbott.

I have a knee-jerk negative reaction when Clapton comes up in conversation these days, and I don’t remember the last time I intentionally put on one of his songs. I haven’t gone as far as a full boycott, but it’s largely irrelevant. The last time I actually paid money for anything of his was his 2001 B.B. King collaboration Riding With the King. My lack of support means less than nothing to Clapton or his bottom line.

And, yes, there are a lot of people who would argue I’m taking it all way too seriously, particularly since Clapton has apologized repeatedly for the most egregious of his documented offenses. On the other hand, I find Clapton’s case interesting for that reason. He hasn’t dedicated himself to being a piece of shit in the way people like J.K. Rowling or Adam Baldwin have.

I never particularly liked Harry Potter, so it’s easy to boycott that one. Chuck? It took Zachary Levi’s turn to the dark side for me to fully tune out of that one, even though Baldwin’s character stopped being funny once I realized he probably really does have a portrait of Reagan in his bedroom.

It’s easy to make a strong stand when it’s somebody who is obviously and gleefully terrible. The ethics are a little murkier when the artist isn’t straight-up evil.

I’ve been digitizing my music collection and playing it on “random” using Plexamp (which I highly recommend for those of you hoping to get away from Spotify). What happens when “Wonderful Tonight” comes on? Will I still crack a smile thinking about my high school/college sweetheart and how much her friendship still means to me? Or will I be grossed out that an anti-vax loon is activating something in the back of my brain? Honestly, I don’t know.

Wow, what an unsatisfying ending.

“Your flag flyin’ over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone.
Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t”

The above is a quote from Bruce Springsteen’s “Long Walk Home.” Appearing on Magic, The Boss’s 2007 album which spoke to the malaise of the latter days of George W. Bush’s presidency, the song resisted looking back at the mistakes made and instead looked toward the future — the long walk back to a more recognizable America.

That walk was fraught; it’s debatable whether the country every truly recovered from the Bush era before Trump came along. In any case, Springsteen is now seen as more political than ever before, speaking out openly and loudly against the lawless regime in Washington.

Doing so has drawn the 76-year-old rocker into the public spotlight even more than usual, and has reawakened conversations about Springsteen’s politics that have recurred since at least the mid-’80s, when Ronald Reagan famously misinterpreted the lyrics to “Born in the U.S.A.,” and was corrected by the musician himself.

In taking on Trump directly, Springsteen has become the center of attention on social media. Trump has been posting petulant rants about Springsteen, urging his supporters to boycott the musician’s sold-out concerts and accusing the musician of having plastic surgery.

“I absolutely couldn’t care less what he thinks about me,” Springsteen told Time in 2025. “He’s the living personification of what the 25th Amendment and impeachment were for. If Congress had any guts, he’d be consigned to the trash heap of history.”

While Trump floods Truth Social with his venom, Springsteen’s concerts (and his comments about Trump) go over a lot better on other platforms. Over on Threads, each new Springsteen concert floods the algorithm with cell phone footage and fans gush over his high-energy, three-hour shows.

So — what is it about Bruce Springsteen in particular that has created all this buzz? Yes, “Streets of Minneapolis” was a huge hit, but numerous other major artists, from Dave Matthews to U2, have released anti-ICE and anti-Trump songs in the recent past. Springsteen’s own first anti-Trump anthem, 2020’s “Rainmaker,” also didn’t make that much of a dent.

A lot of it comes down to Springsteen’s public identity —or his brand, if you’re feeling spicy. He’s an everyman type whose songs tell the story of lovable losers, desperate people living on the fringes, and people facing challenges well outside of their control. They’re relatable in a way that more obviously political artists are generally not.

“I spent most of my life as a musician measuring the distance between the American dream and American reality,” Springsteen said back in 2008, when he was campaigning alongside Barack Obama.*

It’s a line Springsteen has revisited periodically ever since, and with the rise of authoritarianism and the normalizing of profoundly racist and xenophobic policies and attitudes, one could argue there has never been a more urgent time to chart that distance.

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Springsteen, in his flannels and leather jackets, embodies white, middle-class cool in a way that Republicans desperately want to own. He got most of his drinking, drugs, long hair, and other outward indicators of social nonconformity out of his way before he was famous, and is the godfather of the kind of heartland rock/dad rock that bridges the gap between country and classic rock.

For years, people lacking in media literacy have been trapped in a Groundhog Day-style loop of being surprised by Springsteen’s left-leaning politics…

• The U.S. version of Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams Tour isn’t the first time Trump has lashed out after Springsteen criticized him onstage. That comment in the Time interview was responding directly to the President’s vitriol after Springsteen made nearly identical remarks at European tour dates late last year.

• Of course, Springsteen also played some fundraisers for Kamala Harris. He toured quite a bit with Obama (who came out to Springsteen’s “The Rising” after being elected) — and after Obama’s presidency, the pair would host Renegades: Born in the U.S.A., a podcast that explored their mutual admiration for one another and their attitudes about the American experiment.

• When Springsteen joined the Vote For Change tour in 2004, Republicans balked at the working-class hero who made “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Glory Days” supporting a — gasp! — liberal. A few years later, a quote from 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would serve as the backbone for Springsteen’s song “Last to Die.”

• Before that, conservatives got big mad when Springsteen spoke out against the police killing of Amidou Diallo, an unarmed Black man shot 41 times by off-duty police officers who claimed they mistook Diallo’s wallet for a gun. NYPD officers refused to provide concert security when Springsteen wouldn’t back down from performing the song at Madison Square Garden, just miles from the site of Diallo’s killing.

• There was the time anti-immigration activists and other right-wing racists got angry that Springsteen did a whole album — 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad — that centered on issues that impacted migrant workers and the poor whites who exist in their orbit. The title track, a reference to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Woody Guthrie’s song “Tom Joad,” was covered by Rage Against the Machine — another band that the right periodically rediscovers aren’t actually on their side and can’t understand why.

• Speaking of Guthrie, Woody’s beloved anthem “This Land is Your Land,” along with Edwin Starr’s “War,” both appeared on Springsteen’s record-breaking 1986 live album, in case anybody was wondering where Springsteen stood back then. Of course, they might have been confused. After all, the whole kerfuffle with Reagan had just happened over Born in the U.S.A.

• One can understand why there was confusion over “Born in the U.S.A.” After all, it had only been about a decade since Springsteen’s “Lost in the Flood,” which spoke to the same themes of a soldier returning home after Vietnam to feel alienated by an America he didn’t recognize.

• That was 1973, though — barely a year after Springsteen, even before he had a record deal, had performed at a fundraiser for Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern in 1972.

Springsteen, as seen above, preaches unity over division. He has met socially with politicians from both parties, most notably former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a Trump sycophant who is (or at least was in the past) a huge Springsteen fan.

It isn’t just Springsteen’s anti-Trump message — or even the way his long history in politics creates a perfect engagement-bait storm — that makes those concert clips so compelling, though.

First, there’s the obvious: the man makes some really fucking catchy music. He’s a great songwriter and widely regarded as one of the best live acts in rock history.

But maybe the more important thing is in his stage presence. Springsteen is a master storyteller, both in his music and onstage. Springsteen, who earned a special Tony Award in 2018 for his residency on Broadway, has always been fascinated with using the structure of an album to tell a larger story made up of smaller stories. In recent years, he has taken to doing the same with concerts.

“I knew right there that my gut reaction to that footage was the film gods pointing me in a direction of the importance of the setlist — the importance of Bruce the storyteller — and then looking at the songs, and what they carry,” filmmaker Thom Zimny told me in 2024, when we spoke about his Springsteen documentary Road Diary. “There are themes there: themes of friendship, redemption, an understanding of your present day, the past.”

During that tour, Springsteen had a setlist that rarely changed very much, and he used it to explore those themes in a very specific way, using prepared remarks about the losses of friends and loved ones and anecdotes about his life and that of the band. It’s an approach that mirrors what you can see both in Springsteen on Broadway — available on CD, or to stream on Netflix — and in Springsteen’s earlier appearance on VH1 Storytellers.

This time around, Springsteen’s story is one of despair, hope, and action. Before closing out each show in the Land of Hope and Dreams tour with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom,” Springsteen introduces it with a monologue that quotes civil rights leader John Lewis and urges fans to “say something, do something, help.”

Springsteen, no stranger to writing songs that wring hope out of hopeless situations, is the perfect artist to help steer Americans through dark waters right now. He isn’t just singing about ICE and Trump and police violence and Tom Joad. He’s also taking breaks in between to sing songs of hope, joy, triumph, and love.

“It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive,” from “Badlands,” is one of Springsteen’s greatest lyrics, but in the context of this year’s politically-charged setlist, it hits harder than usual.

In between the songs of pain and protest, Bruce’s straightforward rockers serve a purpose: they are a reminder of better days — a reminder of what we fight for.

“It ain’t no sin go be glad you’re alive” can also serve as a reminder that the scolds who will try to guilt you for self-care are missing the forest for the trees.

Springsteen, of course, is full of these turns of phrase. “Born to Run,” the song that made him famous, sees its heroes “sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream.” In “Thunder Road,” it’s “a town full of losers, and we’re pulling out of here to win.” In “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Springsteen’s narrator says he’ll “pay the cost for wanting things that can only be found in the darkness on the edge of town.”

For over 50 years, Bruce Springsteen has been singing about people who face impossible odds. They don’t always win, and sometimes their stories are downright tragic, but they persist. That’s a huge part of why seeing him rail against Trump before launching into “My City of Ruins” works so effectively.

In 2026, Springsteen isn’t really charting the distance between the American dream and the American reality anymore. He’s charting the distance between the America most of us believe in, and the one into which Trump and his cronies are trying their best to transform it. Bruce is compelling, in part, because he refuses to let hopelessness win — and, unlike our spineless representatives in Congress, he refuses to be deterred or intimidated by Trump’s ravings.

A new box set of John Lennon recordings has unearthed an official version of one of folk music’s most famous bootlegs: a brief jam session between Lennon and folk singer Phil Ochs.

Ochs, who passed away in 1976, takes lead on the four songs, playing some of his best-loved tracks while Lennon joins in on steel guitar. Unofficial recordings of the session have been in circulation for years, but the quality was very poor. Now, for the first time, fans can hear the songs in near-studio quality…but there’s a catch.

If you want to actually own the songs, you’ll have to pay big. The Ochs/Lennon collaboration tracks are part of a nine-disc mega-set of John Lennon’s live and rare recordings, titled Power to the People. The set will run you around $200 for a physical copy, or $79.99 for a digital copy, on Amazon — and that pricing is roughly in line with what you would pay at an indie store or on iTunes.

Ochs fans who have no interest in the larger Lennon box set can snag MP3 copies of the four tracks — “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” “Joe Hill,” “Chords of Fame,” and “Ringing of Revolution” — for $1.29 each on Amazon and iTunes.

Sadly, the official record excises the chatting that Ochs and Lennon engaged in between songs — a defining characteristic of the unofficial versions of these songs. Supposedly, legendary activist Jerry Rubin joined in on drums for part of the jam session. Lennon, Ochs, and Rubin were all in Ann Arbor, Michigan in December 1971 for the Free John Sinclair Concert. Sinclair, who was released shortly after the concert, had been sentenced to 10 years for possession of a small amount of marijuana.

Lennon’s songs from the concert are also available on the Power to the People set. The other artists — including Ochs, Bob Seger, and Stevie Wonder — do not appear on the album.

Ochs’s love for the Beatles is well-established; he even covered their song “I Should Have Known Better,” a track available on The Broadside Tapes.

Originally published at ECVblog.

Like most movie podcasts and news sites, we’re focusing on his incredible life. Rob Reiner was one of the few people left in the movie world that had no bad stories. Trump might disagree of course, but he’s a piece of shit, so we’re not caring about his opinion.

Russ and I both loved Rob, from All in the Family, to Spinal Tap to his incredible run of instant classics Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, Misery, and A Few Good Men. I even love North, no matter what Roger Ebert said (remember how wrong he was about Josie and the Pussycats?).

Beyond his work as a producer, one of the greatest cameo stars ever, and just a guy that encourages other directors/actors to do their work - there was his activism. Not only was he an outspoken critic of Trump’s fascism but he was a consistent liberal/left voice for 50 years. One of his last films was on criticizing George W Bush.

It’s an understatement to say that he will be missed.

From Russ’ obituary:

Reiner’s first feature film was 1984’s This is Spinal Tap, and earlier this year, he released Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. In between those installments, Reiner directed, produced, and/or starred in a number of the most beloved movies of the 1980s and ’90s, including Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, Misery, and A Few Good Men. He also continued to work as an actor (albeit often “as himself”), appearing in projects like The Jerk, Mixed Nuts, The Simpsons, and The Bear.

During his lifetime, Reiner co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which helped drive the push to legalize gay marriage in California and the United States. He was an outspoken critic of the Trump administration and worked passionately on issues that impacted children, families, the environment, and more.