PicoBlog

September 29, 2023 Washington— U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a centrist Democrat and champion of liberal causes who was elected to the Senate in 1992 and broke gender barriers throughout her long career in local and national politics, has died. She was 90. Feinstein died on Thursday night at her home in Washington, D.C., her office said on Friday. Tributes poured in all day. Opening the Senate floor, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that “we lost a giant in the Senate.

Hello, Spring is in the air, I’ve been gorging on fruits like pitaris and oranges that are keeping my palate full of delight, and my plants are thriving. I just returned home to Bangalore after a week with my family, totally nurtured. Life has shown me time and time again that the good times don’t last. As my therapist says, “Life is about falling down and picking yourself up, and having enough energy to stay consistent with that process.

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.” —Anne Lamott If you’ve ever taken a writing class, you’ve probably read Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts,” from her book Bird by Bird. If you haven’t come across it yet, the gist is that terrible first drafts are absolutely nothing to be ashamed of; in fact, they’re a necessary part of the writing process, because it is through them that you “end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.

According to Gay Twitter™, 2023 might just be the year of the male armpit. In photo shoots and on social media, men’s armpits seem to be everywhere, providing legions of adoring fans with something to drool and salivate over. And, unsurprisingly, gay men are leading the charge. In an extensive Twitter thread, one user drew attention to a veritable host of alluring pit pics from many of today’s biggest stars, ranging from Cheyenne Jackson to Kieran Culkin.

Blue Beetle Dir. Ángel Manuel Soto 127 min. Zack Snyder only made three movies featuring DC Comics characters but his shadow has stretched across the entirety of the soon-to-shutter film universe kicked off by his Man of Steel a decade ago. Darkness (literal and figurative) and a habit of relying on grim humor when there’s any humor at all have defined the project. That doesn’t mean it’s lacked highlights, like the first Wonder Woman or incoming architect James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.

Ferrari Dir. Michael Mann 124 min. The importance of the first few minutes of Ferrari only becomes clear in retrospect. Michael Mann opens his biopic with black-and-white scenes of a long-ago race that integrates shots of a young Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) into vintage race footage. Depicting a moment from Enzo’s racing career, the short scene ends with him crossing the finish line in first place and breaking into a smile.

Joy Ride Dir. Adele Lim 95 min. Joy Ride reaches a climax about halfway through its running time. More accurately, it reaches several climaxes at once via a raucous, frantically edited montage of its protagonists’ various sexual adventures while staying at a Chinese hotel— one involving exercise equipment, another involving a spirited threesome, and a third featuring retired NBA star Baron Davis. It’s a fun sequence, but not a particularly shocking one, since by that point moviegoers watching Adele Lim’s directorial debut will have witnessed scenes featuring projectile vomiting, panicked drug consumption, and graphic talk about how best to remove objects lodged into body cavities.

The Adam Project Dir. Shawn Levy 106 min. Back to the Future meets Star Wars meets Top Gun meets Guardians of the Galaxy meets The Last Starfighter meets Somewhere In Time—and that’s just for starters—in the abysmal Netflix movie The Adam Project, which is what happens when you wish on a cursed monkey’s paw that Hollywood would make more original movies. Last year, director Shawn Levy and his star, Ryan Reynolds, collaborated on Free Guy, the only Top 10-grossing movie of 2021 that wasn’t a sequel, reboot, franchise extension, or anything else drawn from pre-existing I.

Hot Pie? Are they serving a hot slice of pie, perhaps a la mode? Are they offering dessert as an entree? What goes on? No, I discovered, Hot Pie is pizza. Only, it isn’t. Or it’s what people in the greater Binghamton ares—which includes Johnson City and Endicott—call pizza. Anyway, it’s complicated. And, as with most things where regional pizza interpretations are concerned, there’s a lot of debate and disagreement, as well as numerous distinctions without a difference.