I didn’t come to this film for Lanthimos though, or for Emma Stone, his frequent collaborator. Seeing her transform herself from the tiny everyday gal I saw in person into this very loud, dramatic being is really powerful.

But no, I came for Jesse Plemons, an actor I find endlessly compelling on camera and might I add, with hate mail from Kirsten Dunst surely to follow *JOKE, a sexiness in how he carries himself on screen pre-Bugonia. He has an “everyday” quality that somehow translates into something more magnetic once he’s in motion. It’s not about conventional attractiveness like a Chris Hemsworth or old 1950’s Hollywood look. No, it’s about presence. The way he moves, the way he listens, the way he speaks. He’s got whatever that star power is supposed to have. Austin Powers mojo.

And notably, his voice never slips into that upspeak pattern that’s become so common. There’s a realness to him that feels increasingly rare as men all imitate YouTubers selling skin cream in informercial question marks.

Here, even styled scruffily, this is one of his best performances. His acting is so natural it almost disappears, as you feel less like you’re watching a performance and more like you’ve run into him on the street and fallen into conversation.

Aidan Delbis is also a standout, especially in a first major role. There’s a quiet confidence there that holds its own in a film that could easily swallow a newcomer whole.

The film itself is… absurd. Intentionally so. It leans into that Lanthimos tone of controlled strangeness, where everything feels slightly off-centre. Visually, it’s presented in a square aspect ratio, which I have mixed feelings about. As someone who has made no-budget films in that format to evoke the rugged texture of old film strips, I understand the choice. But here, it feels more like a stylistic constraint than a necessity. I found myself wanting a wider frame—more room to see the full basement, more space for the actors’ faces to breathe.

That said, the editing is fabulous. Sharp, deliberate, and full of snappy snap good rhythm. Whatever alchemy brought this film together, the direction is confident and packed with detail. It held my attention completely. I didn’t get bored once, which, for a film this oh WEIRD, is no small achievement.

There is one moment I didn’t like, ugh, a brief scene involving suicide that feels inserted for shock, perhaps even a punchline. It doesn’t land. Suicide isn’t funny, it’s never going to be funny, it never was, get real, and it isn’t light material. Having known people in my youth who made that choice, and having seen the impact ripple through everyone around them, it’s a note that feels out of place in an otherwise carefully constructed film.

By the end, though, the film offers a kind of sideways redemption, like, you know, a wink rather than a resolution. If you’ve seen Emma Stone in TV’s The Curse, you’ll recognise the tone. It’s that particular flavour she gravitates toward: unsettling, self-aware, just a little bit playful in its discomfort all around.

What’s perhaps most surprising is that Bugonia found its way into the Academy conversation at all. This isn’t their usual language. It’s too odd, too slippery, too uninterested in neat conclusions. The Academy wants things like a Lincoln biopic. Bugonia serves up experimental hamburgers made from alien moon cheese at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

But that’s also what makes it worth watching. It’s weird. It’s intriguing. It doesn’t behave, like you and me are prone to. And sometimes, that’s exactly the point.

The drum was gift via a friend, purchased from 1 to 1 Music in Belfast. Not sponsored. Find them online: https://www.1to1music.co.uk

For anyone with allergies or eco friendly concerns, the elaborately designed drum is made of vegan goatskin. Beater included.

I am a celebratory vampire in Sinners now. 😉

To get to anything interesting, you sit through one entire hour of every movie you’ve ever seen thrown together. This isn’t the fault of the wonderful director known as Paul Feig, cast, or crew. The book.

When we do arrive at the twists and turns, you get annoyed with how simplistic the film was. When adapting the film, why couldn’t the director take creative energy into doing whatever he wanted?

A sequel is in the works. 🥶 Save us all. This movie cost $35 million. Think on that. For a $1-5 million film, I would probably be thrilled seeing that happen again. This movie doesn’t have anything that looks like it costs that much. Really polished sets and wonderful directing and visuals, fair, but $35 million of it?

What I liked: Amanda Seyfried’s acting, the valuable social messages on how difficult it is for the formerly incarcerated to rejoin the real world, the camp, the twists, the creepy almost horror plot that was very “I want to be Quentin Tarantino today, mom, please!” by the Willy Wonka blueberry girl giving us her unique prissy spin on Mr. Tarantino anything.

What I disliked: Sydney Sweeney boxed into playing the public interpretation of herself with wearing wardrobe you expect and another nude scene that adds nothing to the movie with that lead dude who won’t take off his clothes in equality, the first hour.

What’s real acting? That you reverse this. Make Amanda the temptress and Sydney the boss’ wife. Now that’s a movie I wish to see and never will.

Oh that guy, he’s sooooo plugged in to trends, extra current, sharp eyed on fads like the best of them. People assume these fellows have their fingertips on the latest of the latest of all that matters in their respective fields.

When girls and women say, “I don’t like this,” the reaction is different. Suddenly, it’s a problem. To everyone, and it hurts me most when it’s from women telling me to back down for saying I disliked the VFX in one particular scene, or I hated some part of a lecture but loved everything else.

I wish I were joking when I say in reality, I have been insulted for expressing the same views on good or bad VFX that established male directors do, but yeah, for things like saying I had a preference for one edible condiment over another on sandwiches. It’s all that is in this world.

I’m not allowed to state my views on anything. Because to know about anything makes me dangerous to someone’s ego. Control. Forcing me into the box of being a teenager forever because, I remember this so well, the year adults quit thinking I was capable of my own views was the summer I turned 18.

And for someone like me, whose ambitions live squarely inside film and music, that pressure isn’t small. My opinions aren’t a hobby. They’re part of the grand scheme of things. Men who want to be the top of the game in film and/or music get asked about it. They’re awesome. A “he’s so intellectual” think piece gets written up about them in The Atlantic. I used to try online. Silenced and told to provide apologies.

To silence that isn’t done to quiet my voice. It’s to strip away the very thing that builds it. Me. My ambition. A mannequin placed in the dressing room instead of a person designing the garment. I’m going to be 39 in about three months and dealing with the same nonsense I experienced from my teenage years. No, scratch that. Childhood. I was told by teachers and whoever else of the adult universe “not to say that.” As boys got away with rudeness or disrupting the class. The kid who hit me with a piece of wood once at recess was innocent. I got in trouble and not believed for hitting her back with the big wooden plank, and a very uncalled for insulting my elementary self could’ve won a lawsuit over if I had more legal knowledge. Here’s a hint: it infringed on some first amendment basic rights.

Because the expectation becomes clear: if you want to exist comfortably, say nothing at all remotely human. I don’t mean intelligent. Human. Say nothing negative or positive. Say nothing that might mean your brain is active.

I remember being in school, asking if a topic would be on the exam. Something specific about the constitution. I was told to “stop asking stupid questions.” A boy asked how long the test would be, and the teacher smiled, answered warmly, gave him lots of time. Joked around. Me, I was stupid.

Having agency over your own basic views one might think you should have about your chosen field is you picking out today’s breakfast. It’s foundational for the rest of your day. Your life. Your work.

I’m done feeling I look stupid so I can please people operating on 19th century sexism. And for whoever doesn’t relate to this, may you be born again a girl and have a chat by the time you’re my age in your next life.

If I can’t say what I think about a film, a piece of music, a reptile’s beauty, or something small like how my sandwich was today, I’m not in control of anything. That’s what many want from me. Maybe from you. And that’s not a position I’m willing to be in anymore.

xoxo,

Nic

Everything I felt, researching this movie starring lovely Jennifer Love Hewitt dressed as her 2000’s Audrey Hepburn goals in a script beneath her, and-

Amazon gave me the gold mine. A reviewer said however I felt about this movie, in adult vocab. Hit it. Reviewer out.

When the movie tells you how her youth serum is made, my brain went there. “Oh, this is the direction Shell is taking. A-ha.”

Eye the lipstick in the poster, and tell me you don’t see the whole plot in one image.

Kaia Gerber is in this, playing Kaia Gerber, after a stint on American Horror Story’s spin-off series playing ghost Kaia Gerber. As Shell goes from juicy sci-fi glam to one dimensional monster attacks, Kaia Gerber plays monster Kaia Gerber. One might suppose from the marketing which monster she becomes. You kind of wonder what she’s doing in this movie. Surely, somewhere out there is a good role for her. With her present acting jobs, nothing sticks out to me for her being right for the parts physically or otherwise. But hey, when your mom is Cindy Crawford, and you’re pretty, I guess the world opens doors it doesn’t for those other actresses. Ms. Gerber to me seems better playing, oh, an influencer in a horror movie getting eaten by werewolves, because she may know that universe fairly enough and could base her performance on her true run ins of that crowd.

Here’s a hint. 🦞

The music is trendy and cool in that 1980’s inspiration. As a fellow working film composer who doesn’t want to undervalue someone’s work, I will say what I say, it’s quite catchy, crafted by talent, something out of possibly a 1980’s set murder mystery in Malibu, surrounded by Barbie blonde surfers, set in Spring Breakers neon visually, and no, it doesn’t go with this movie. I was sitting there watching this movie, trying to score this in my head, feeling the alignment being off. Because the right music makes a movie so much better. It’s about the shoe fitting. Are you putting a Louboutin heel on Bigfoot? No, Bigfoot needs possibly an eco friendly, giant sized, earthy brand moccasin with room for his toes. One size does not fit all.

Do I recommend it? Well, watch the first half straight on for a good viewing, skip around the latter scenes to get the idea.

There was that time everyone started hair extensions, so I had some weirdo types feeling my head because all women use them. Who cares if women do? Part two, I don’t. Don’t touch my head in line at the store. I don’t know you.

In the early 2010’s, everyone was getting eyelash drops from dermatologists and plastic surgeons for eyelash growth. In actuality, these drops were some form of glaucoma drops. I couldn’t go to the supermarket without strangers in any state asking me if I used Latisse or its imposter eyelash serums whenever I wore basic mascara. Things got “hairy” when a lady, that time a family member made me go to a nail salon in NYC, ran up screaming in Russian and touching my eyelashes without my consent. Her boss and I had a moment on the unsanitary issue and other problems. I’m not talking wearing fake eyelash strips here. My actual eyelashes, with basic mascara. My answer then was always, “I’m a 23 year old female specimen of the human race. Why should I look bald like Uncle Fester?”

Then there was the “all work ever made by anyone who isn’t a corporation or giant studio is AI” trend.

And now, it’s trickled down to innocent journalists.

Posting a screenshot of this Yahoo! slash People article comment makes me worry the poster is going to enjoy the attention from it. For authenticity, I am leaving it up.

No, Patch. What were you reading in mass media before AI apps?

When I was growing up in the Y2K times seeing grownup, “fancy” magazines all use the em dash — or en dash –, it was like you threw ice cold water at me. These little lines clarified points so well. They looked good. Sophisticated.

I began using them in my freelance journalism as teen and early 20’s me.

People who barely knew me, seeing my freelance writing’s basic style, started making fun of me for it in fake writing online. Whenever they impersonated my pen names online, they got hooked on em dashes. Folks, pen names aren’t real people. Scrubbed the web of those weird fake comments. The maturity level on some people frightens me. Seems the em dashes frightened them, in the times of MySpace.

Quite some years now since butterfly clips were on their first round of popularity today, using em dashes as I did frightens me because everyone insults you that it’s AI with passion they could use volunteering for soup kitchens or learning new skills. My plan is laying low until people accept that AI is fine when you use it for good things, and no, not all people loving the em dash and its dashy cousins are worshipping the Kardashians, who once had a store named Dash, or using AI. We’re almost fearing the VCR right now.

Or as the young people say, go touch grass. As someone who has, grass is itchy and dirt prone, potentially chock full of gnats. For your first time existing in the outside world away from a smartphone or tech device, be warned, you may get bitten by insects.

Hey, Merriam Webster knows how to use these dashes! 💡

“Like commas and parentheses, em dashes set off extra information, such as examples, explanatory or descriptive phrases, or supplemental facts. Like a colon, an em dash introduces a clause that explains or expands upon something that precedes it.An em dash can mark an abrupt change or break in the structure of a sentence… “Mabel the Cat was delighted with the assortment of pastries the new bakery featured, but Harry the Dog—he felt otherwise, for the bakery did not offer cheese Danishes at all.”

An em dash can indicate interrupted speech or a speaker’s confusion or hesitation… “Of course you have a point,” Mabel murmured. “That is—I suppose it is concerning.”

The en dash is the least loved of all… It is most often used between numbers, dates, or other notations to signify “(up) to and including ‘The bakery will be closed August 1–August 31.’”

– Merriam-Webster.com, click that link for more learning fun!

Rewatching films from around the year 2000 sometimes makes me realise how much I took the polished cinematic experience for granted as a teenage drama queen, ha, Lohan reference of course. Cast Away feels like one of the last films of that era where everything simply works: the camera angles, the editing, the script, the pacing, the dialogue, real FedEx’s involvement. It’s the kind of filmmaking that feels confident without announcing itself all flashly like, “We filmed this on digital and made it look hipster again with fake grain!”

There was a time when this level of craftsmanship was simply expected, friends. I’ve seen Cast Away more times than I can count, mostly because I once watched it on loop while bored in a hotel room with HBO or some movie channel. After that marathon of me trying to see what to do as my dad was at the conference as usual, I’ve caught it here and there over the years, including again last weekend on Netflix. What never changes is the strange shock of the ending. Every time I watch the final half hour, it somehow still feels different from what I remembered, and whenever I think of this movie, all I recall is how good the rain looks in matching his character’s heart.

Tom Hanks may have had many iconic roles, but this is arguably his best in script and the best he’s played. Normally, when I watch him perform, a small part of my brain still whispers, “Look at Tom Hanks on film, behold, the movie star.” Here, though, that thought disappears. His performance shifts so dramatically across each chapter of the story that the illusion holds up A-ok. The man we meet at the beginning is practically a different person from the one we see later. Hanks brings it.

Watching it now, though, there’s a slightly sad element that lingers. This is also the film where, truthfully, by his own admission and according to widely reported details, he dramatically altered his body for the role, gaining about 50 whole pounds before losing it again for the island sequences on purpose. That kind of transformation can’t be easy on anyone’s health, and it’s hard not to think that some of it could have been achieved with prosthetics instead.

At the time, the film also arrived during the cultural moment when the first season of Survivor had just exploded into popularity. Suddenly the idea of watching someone endure isolation and survival against nature had enormous appeal. My junior high self was absolutely part of that audience!!!! “OH YEAH,” my inner Kool-Aid man said, so excited when this movie came out. Later on, I smashed through a local showing’s cement wall with a smile.

The survival elements of the film also reminded me of the Gary Paulsen novels I devoured when I was younger—stories like Hatchet, where endurance and ingenuity become the entire narrative engine.

If the film has one real weakness, it’s the realism. No man survives a plane crash while dangling his flotation device like an evening purse clutch at the Oscars. The logistics of the crash itself feel a little too tidy for what follows, that crash scene being more roller coaster ride.

But realism isn’t really the point of Cast Away. It’s about endurance, time, and the strange way life continues after catastrophe.

And then there’s the final scene, where you feel lost. Somehow, every time I revisit the film, my brain forgets exactly how it ends like nothing. When it arrives again, I’m left with the same confusion I’ve always had: what exactly is it supposed to mean here in deeper meaning? The symbolism is really unclear, in fact, that there are almost millions of methods to read it. Or misread it. What’s the film snob in me to do?

Perhaps that ambiguity is intentional. Or perhaps it’s simply one of those endings that refuses to settle into a single interpretation, so we deal with it like the movie elitist wannabes we are!

Either way, Cast Away remains one of those films that reminds me how powerful straightforward cinema used to feel, before we realised we were living in its heyday.

Perhaps when you want an Academy Award, don’t have an entire scene where a man poos his pants and we see the slush in his underwear as he cleans it. 🤢 Sure, we needed that to move the story along.

This film was based on a 1992 musical, based on a 1976 novel. When it’s good, it’s really good. GLAAD knows a thing or two by awarding this recognition. The story was ahead of its time with its LGBTQ positive social commentary and historical nuance.

J.Lo plays some version of “tabloid perception of Jennifer Lopez” on camera again. The Wedding Planner J.Lo works because we aren’t expecting deep acting. You see how out of place she is in the musical number set in the jungle, were Josefina Scaglione’s Marta sings over with her and takes turns. J.Lo is a beautiful woman. In her youth with a whole lot more height on her, maybe she would’ve been a Victoria’s Secret Angel.

Kiss of the Spider Woman is not a Y2K Victoria’s Secret photoshoot. We see her pouting, dancing, looking at the camera, think music video of 2002 vibes. We don’t see her escaping into a character or singing away from her “Jenny From the Block” musicality. I am a firm believer that anyone can sing any genre when it’s coaxed out of them. For this to work, the actor/actress has to be willing to go for it.

My rule of thumb is in this journal, I won’t write anything I would avoid saying to someone’s face. I love Ms. Lopez in the right playful roles. I love NYC accents so much, in my early 20’s, learning them with help from others and eavesdropping on people in daily life to do so was part of my acting independent study DIY was my acting course I never had at a university. With that said, I don’t love J.Lo’s NYC boroughs accent singing and speaking in a role playing an Argentinean woman in a role that wasn’t made for her. Said as a J.Lo fan who remembers her as “Jenny From the Block.” Puerto Rican heritage and playing a role as if there is a shortage of talent actually from Argentina? Loving the people in charge of this who act like Puerto Rico is the same thing culturally and in heritage as Argentina, as if all people look and sound alike because of the same language.

Acting is called acting because you aren’t playing yourself. We really needed actually Argentinean leading lady and Tony winner Josefina Scaglione in the lead and someone else in Josefina’s here.

The sets are the love letter to my fave time period, the Golden Age of Hollywood. I love the tie ins to Latin America and styles. Gorgeous.

The prison scenes setup filming looks like a night soap. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s the pacing or the angles, it doesn’t look or feel like an Oscar movie for the hoopla of Oscar campaigning that went into this. A little rushed. Sad, because the scenes’ value is huge for how well acted it is, when good, with the passion and lesson learning.

On March 20, 2024, Lopez announced that production on the film had begun, with the intention to have a fast turnaround time so she can launch her This Is Me... Live tour on June 26, which was later cancelled on May 31… Her "elaborate" musical numbers were each filmed in one take.

— Wikipedia

Explains everything, doesn’t it? Her big Oscar campaign built on this movie, but she goes about rushing the film production for a stage tour?

Watch it, screen it, sing it, and forgive it for where this movie lets us down. And enjoy how authentic it is when as with all things in Latin America, Spanish speaking prisoners opt for English the whole way in. 😉 Now this movie, tightened up and en español would be a spectacle to see.

Fine by me. I’m willing to put up with the jokes running too long to be Dumb and Dumber as the BFFs and pet turtle find themselves accidentally involved in mobster business, as Jim Carrey and his sheepdog minivan were. True story, when I was younger, someone I didn’t know offered to sell me, someone who didn’t drive any kind of car ever, a used minivan, and I said, “Only if I can make it a sheepdog minivan like Dumb and Dumber.” The pop culture reference was lost on that fiftysomething woman in 2004, judging by her facial expression.

Having the jokes be punchier and more frequent, this movie might have been a cult classic.

I love Pamela Anderson, always feeling she was deserving of more and seeing what the world took decades to find in her. My computer is named after her. As a Pam fan, I know VIP and her deep cuts. Blonde and Blonder? Never heard of it. The marketing here sucked when I was 20.5 years old in January 2008 upon this movie’s release, if I didn’t know about it until February 2026, now.

You’re looking at this wondering if it were slowly released years later as some films are. The film grain went from arthouse film to very “Was this filmed on a potato?” as Daily Mail users write in the comments. This movie looks like it was filmed in 2001. Maybe it was. Movies get shelved and find eventual releases. I found that part of the charm. Nobody here promises Schindler’s List. They go in having a great time, and you can see it in the actors’ relaxed, happy performances.

The beginning is a little too wonky and slow, the rest of it not bad. I really wanted escapism from everything out now being about depressing subjects and got it, buried in the treasures of Disney+ streaming options.

Something about Blonde and Blonder is sweet and not disrespectful of the female leads. Very campy, almost like if VIP had a spin-off. Camp is a forgotten art in 2026. For me to find anything where people enjoy making it, I have to look back to the Y2K times, generally, things like But I’m a Cheerleader.

I really wish this movie had a slick Hollywood makeover and script for it to be a cult comedy classic. With a Canadian budget made of maple syrup and a spare $10 CAD, you can’t expect much from it. It’s there and does a nice job for what it is.

Throughout the moments when it gets a little "low budget” lingering storytelling, I didn’t mind so much because it was, despite it all, wholesome and about female friendship. Dumb and Dumber’s male friendship for life was what I loved about it, and the people who wrote this film when they made their own take really got that right.

Should you watch it? Sure, with a late night viewing when the world leaves you exhausted. You’re looking for a conclusive ending so no TV series to binge. Nothing about true crime or influencers taking selfies all day long as is the subject of many a 2026 made for TV movie. Something tame, teeny bopper for adults. This is your movie.

It’s not fast food, it’s not high brow, maybe this movie is Applebee’s done well. Sometimes, all we need is a round of Applebee’s French fries.

"You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap."

— Dolly Parton

I critique films by budget. This movie spent lots of money to look super indie. The acting salaries’ themselves could probably finance who knows how many better indie films, and the Stephen King money could probably finance the budget of a mid sized American town’s fiscal year.

I’m not the biggest Stephen King fan, and I’m not a hater either. I tend to land somewhere in the middle on this man, who gave us the iconic The Shining and these days is famous for, however you feel about his views, writing opinions on social media. Almost like how an entire generation of people thinks Jessica Simpson is the woman with the clothes, never knowing her as a performer.

So when I watched The Life of Chuck and later learned it was based on one of his novellas, my reaction made immediate sense to me. It’s there. It’s hanging on. Not much more. What’s the thing young people used to say? “I’m not impressed.”

This isn’t a bad film, terrible film, no. It isn’t poorly made or acted. It means well. It’s gentle, polite, and clearly earnest. But it also isn’t a great film or something I would watch again. There is no fun casual viewing of it, and there isn’t anything intellectual to it where I watch it in slow motion. It isn’t film as art. And there’s a lot missing where something substantial should be.

To its credit, the movie doesn’t rely on vulgarity or cheap storytelling, a relief to me. It doesn’t shout, doesn’t chase shock value, and doesn’t insult the audience. In fact, there’s a quiet relief in watching something that feels like a real movie again after enduring years of all that with the actors acting, scenes breathing, those ideas attempting to exist.

But then the obvious question arises to you as you sit there, like, “Huh?” Where is the plot? THIS MOVIE HAS NO PLOT. Assuming since it is based on a novella, King’s novella does not either.

The film unfolds in long scenes that seem to promise meaning but rarely deliver it and could really use serious editing. The adaptation of this would have been a great time to redo the storytelling because hey, folks, it’s a movie, not a book. Ah, the cult of Stephen King, or insert writer here, means you can’t do that, can you? Moments stretch on without revelations. As an audience member, you keep waiting for something to click, for a thread to emerge that ties one scene to the next, but it never quite happens. Nothing in this movie is connected to the other bits, and do not tell me the universe falling apart is a big deal at the beginning because it plays such a small role in the entire plot, it could be edited out and have the same movie.

There’s dancing. If this were a musical, I could happily settle in for extended movements that never get the cutting room floor. Bring it on. But here, the dancing doesn’t connect to anything else in the film. In fact, very little connects to anything else. The storytelling feels disjointed, like fragments of broken glass from different funhouse mirrors placed side by side and poorly glued back.

The acting, to be fair, is lovely. Everyone involved is clearly doing what they were hired for. But it’s hard not to notice that many of these actors come from the Marvel ecosystem, and it’s equally hard not to wonder whether this film would exist in its current form if the script weren’t attached to the name Stephen King. Would the same script, from an unknown writer, have drawn this casting and marketing push? Never. Funny how people overlook everything when it comes from an established “brand.” Stephen King now is a brand. Insert any writer, possibly a pre-trans discussion J.K. Rowling, and their brands are untouchable. They could turn in Mother Goose, and someone would adapt it to film with a huge push. To be fair, a horror mystery thriller take on a cinema Mother Goose tale might be a draw for me, so let’s say, they could turn in disjointed Mother Goose rhymes with uncut scenes of nothingness and talking about jibberish, and people would watch it.

To which I’m sure someone will say, “Nicole is jealous.” No, I’m not. I am viewing this from a business side that you get to a point where a person’s career goes full blown Emperor’s New Clothes on us. You become a brand. All of us hope our careers reach the point of our work speaking to lots of people without that losing perception end of it. I am happy when people excel.

Throughout the film, you’re given the sense that something here is going to matter. A detail. A moment. A gesture. But nothing ever quite does. Nothing important happens, and very little interesting happens either outside of some charming dancing.

By the end, you’re left wondering what the point was meant to be. It doesn’t seem interested in being funny like a 90’s guilty pleasure film, joyful, a little Love Actually dreamy, or mysterious. It isn’t sexy or stuffy romantic. What is this? It gestures toward meaning without committing to ANYTHING.

Then comes a strange supernatural element near the end, an event that feels as though it should reframe everything that came before it, like whoa. It adds no real value. The film can’t decide whether it wants to be a meditation on the quiet dignity of an ordinary life or a fully supernatural tale. It chooses neither, and as a result, you’re like, “Only Stephen King could get away with this unscathed.”

The result is something like flat soda, oh, not offensive, not undrinkable, mildly disappointing but it’s there.

I still remember seeing Mrs. Winterbourne in Kansas City with my parents. My mum didn’t think it was very good. Looking around the theatre, it was clear others felt the same way with their grumblings and commentary. The general consensus at the time seemed to be this movie was sloppy, silly, forgettable drivel.

Rewatching it in 2026, though? Perspective is a funny thing.

What people once saw as a bad 90’s movie now reads as something far more competent than we give it credit for. This is a professional and super slick film shot on literal film like the good old days, with real sets that look like people actually live in them, and anchored by an actual legend in Shirley MacLaine. Brendan Fraser is in peak form too, long before his Oscar-era renaissance and power returning to him post assault story. From today’s vantage point, it’s almost surreal to remember that Ricki Lake was considered the star draw over him. Weird, right? One look at this movie, you wonder what was up with that.

The premise is completely implausible. Any woman impersonating a dead man’s pregnant wife, then with her child as his grandchild, would have been hauled straight into a courtroom on fraud charges. That’s not a spoiler, friends, no, it’s the entire plot. And by the time things get especially tangled at the end, the idea that everyone would simply agree to a neat, happy resolution stretches my 90’s loving hunger for fun disbelief well past its breaking point.

Still, there’s something undeniably charming about the film’s excellent, and well missing these days, 90’s cheese. At one point the butler declares, “You’re just as much a Winterbourne as I am!” like we’re on The Brady Bunch. The pacing is neither slow nor fast. It simply exists, moving along to tell the story as movies used to be before everything went hyper.

That said, one of the weakest elements hasn’t aged well. The stereotypical Cuban butler feels like a relic of an era when characters from other countries existed almost exclusively as voiceless domestic staff, written as screenwriters’ vague ideas of what those people might be like and probably having met someone at a Cuban food truck once who said like, oh, “Have a good day sir!” As the guy rehearsed his order with “chicken and, I know a Spanish word, queso,” and the guy answered politely, “Si, señor.” I’m honestly surprised there wasn’t also a stereotypical maid. This is very much the downside of 90’s Hollywood, and it’s hard to ignore.

Then there’s the makeover. Ah yes, the 90’s makeover turning all young women severely into Golden Girls vibes, where a young woman is given thick, ageing makeup and a Medieval serf cereal bowl bob haircut to signal “sophistication.” Lindsay Lohan couldn’t escape this in The Parent Trap, and neither can Ricki Lake here, but at least Lindsay’s bob was cuter, and she skipped the thick, brown-red lipstick. As someone who has personally endured the “senior citizen cereal bowl haircut” and layers of dry, mustard-yellow foundation as a “makeover!” while still extremely young once, I can confidently say: no woman would be, was, and ever is thrilled with this transformation. Ricki Lake’s fake Mrs. Winterbourne is dressed and styled for early retirement and the bingo club, not elegance. Not bringing out her best self. Hollywood and media, quit doing this to younger ladies.

Romantically, things move at the speed of light. She falls in love with the dead man’s brother. Um, sure. He falls in love with her. OK. Good? Nobody questions the inappropriateness of this. Odd is the kindest word.

The film seems convinced that wealthy people wear sunbonnets with flowers attached. Ricki Lake herself is eventually given the hat treatment to help her “fit in.” I promise you, the elite of Boston are not wandering around dressed like Mother Goose nursery rhyme characters.

Critically, the film is savaged hard by today’s viewers: a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is overdoing it to me. Financially, it earned around $10 million on a $25 million budget which is not great, but perhaps not helped by a trailer that gave away the entire plot. Ricki Lake, while right for some roles, may not have been the most compelling choice here. She’s pretty one dimensional and doing her best “awwww, I’m just a simple girl from Jersey!” Jersey, New Jersey, not the European one, but that would be a fun film for a mixup, wouldn’t it? The film might have benefited from someone like Elizabeth Berkley, an actress a little sharper, a little more convincing in the deception.

There’s also an identical twin brother, lifted straight from soap opera parody territory, because of course there is. Hi, Brendan Fraser.

All that said: Mrs. Winterbourne isn’t bad. Not at all. It’s perfectly fine and silly. It passes the time. And maybe my fondness for viewing it again says more about me than the movie. After all, I’m probably now the exact age at which the filmmakers would assume I need a floral hat, horrible six inch thick makeup, and that cereal bowl haircut. Unsophisticated me would have hair too long and look too young for setting foot in that manor.

Watch it, why not, if you’re bored?

This poster doesn’t show the damage of how bad that heavy makeup is, and I suppose when you start noticing things like that when you need to be watching the movie, that explains the net losses for the production!

February 14, 2026 update: For clarification, some of my background actually is Spanish as in from Spain. Before you go, “Hate on Nicole for speaking about a Cuban character poorly portrayed in Mrs. Winterbourne!” I can talk about Spanish language issues of bad stereotypes in cinema. Remember, Spain is in Europe! 🙄 Looking at you, guy who told me you “got lost in a ‘Spanish' area.” I promise you, the USA has no such “Spanish area.” Spaniards are not Latin Americans. American pals out there, please quit calling everyone “Spanish” who knows Spanish or is of a background from Central or South America. You can be Spanish and be from places in Latin America; not everyone hailing from those origins is, or likes people erasing their indigenous and/or Afro cultures. Spaniards from Spain come in every shade of white, brown, and black. Calling all people “Hispanic” is weird because that’s like calling the Maori people of New Zealand “English” because their land and language fell under the control and eventual erasure of British rule. End history lesson in 10 seconds of reading for the day. ❤️

I’m curious what the filming budget was for Vicious. Most of the film is set in the same house, with brief exiting for the exterior similar homes nearby. Fictional blood for imagery, I can take. This film goes hard on the blood to fill the middle’s running time.

All popular music is a copy of something, or a response. In the olden days, you wrote a song setting someone straight, or a rap song starting beef. I’m fine that Vicious directly borrows, to say it lightly, from The Box. I might call it, “Look, I’m doing it better, haha!” boldness. Famous directors do it all the time. Ryan Murphy’s Beauty on TV debuting last week is an “I can make The Substance bigger and better. Watch me.” Very sassy. The press is loving his in your face, larger than life FX on the body horror.

My issue with this movie is, why wasn’t it a bigger, better telling of a same old creepy box dropped off at someone’s house by a weird stranger? Why take everything good out of the movie that was and leave it flat on its face? Why not have more creativity? Can’t Miss Fanning leave her film set? Why isn’t anyone here interesting? Why not resolve the unanswered questions in the original The Box? I as a viewer spent time wondering where in Canada this movie was filmed, and no, not once was I absorbed in it.

Films without interactions from anyone else on screen can work. See Tom Hanks in Castaway. It’s how you pull it off, or don’t.

Set in the old age of theatre, the story treads some familiar ground at first, but your patience in the audience is rewarded. The slow burn is deliberate, and when it finally pays off, it sizzles. McKellen’s character is deliciously dangerous, a man who wields the written word like a weapon and manipulation like an art form. The evil lurking beneath the civility is subtle, precise, and utterly compelling. Gandalf the Grey goes Gandalf the Bada**.

What struck me most was how alive the film feels in its restraint. There’s confidence in the filmmakers letting silence breathe, in trusting the audience to stay present rather than constantly stimulated by oh, hey there’s a tree, here’s an undressed lady, look a CGI explosion! A passionate love triangle without any Euphoria scenes. It’s a reminder of what cinema can be when it doesn’t rush to explain itself or compete with TikTok as a plot, sigh.

And then there’s the quiet joy of something else: ageism, for once, feels absent. McKellen isn’t sidelined as someone’s sweet old gramps. He’s given a truly juicy lead, complex and powerful, allowed to be sharp, seductive, sexual, and morally corrupt. Watching an older actor command the screen with this much authority and danger, you don’t see a whole lot of it nowadays in any characters.

The Critic doesn’t act like it owns the place. It shows you, unveiling the world it inhabits. Check it out with a good bowl of popcorn and your best fedora.

Robbie, who has had to contend with stalkers and death threats, is now forced to spend a great deal of time and resources on personal security. “There’s just all this stuff you learn along the way, like, when you get those death threats, it’s [smart] to have a security team do a background check on whoever sent them to see if there is any past history of violence because you’ll need to know whether you need security to go to certain events,” she explains. “And every time you do a background check, it’s going to cost $2,000, so take that into consideration when you’re getting yourself into this.”

— Margot Robbie

The screenplay you’re writing does not need a sex scene. Come on, call it what it is: a lazy way out.

I’m not saying every movie, or sex scenes are wrong. For most, yes. Half or more of cinematic and television releases could benefit from skipping the gritty aspects of sex scenes.

When your plot runs thin, write in something for your stars to wind up on anonymous Reddit-posted nudity without context, so it goes in 2026.

“My film needs it.”

Sure, it does. 🙄 The excuses.

“But it makes it more realistic.”

If you’re old enough to get the plot, you can fill in the blanks. Actors act. Adult actors, adult act. We shouldn’t cruelly disrespect the latter, but let’s not blur the division there.

“But it’s art.”

Tell that to anyone harassed online and offline after taking nude scenes, because their fan bases don’t see them as art.

“But it’s empowering.”

Sure feels fun being the billionth empowered actress paid very little and seeing no career advancements for that critically acclaimed, going nowhere indie film role with nudity.

Being fully nude as the male co-star is clothed and/or framed differently is equality, right?

Don’t you love being nude in a room full of clothed strangers watching you?

“You’re being prudish.”

No. Notice I didn’t say all movies. I said most.

“But I need to work.”

Have you seen some of the degrading pay for all the nude roles around? You make more money with fast food.

“But I need IMDb credits, and they all require nudity.”

No, they don’t. I’ve gotten an IMDb credit for voicing my actress pal’s audio drama series. Go find your nearest pals. It can be done.

Nude scenes exist because people keep saying yes to them. Maybe it’s time to collectively say no, unless the scenes benefit the story.

Writing your own scripts for stage, TV, and film, you can edit them out.

More people saying no makes them art again.

Think of old Hollywood classic cinema. Did The Wizard of Oz need Dorothy watching adult movies in a hot tub to move the plot along? Did she get together with The Tin Man? Make out with the Wicked Witch of the West? Have a solo scene filming uhhhh—No.

David Beckham in undies sells a product: the underwear. Victoria’s Secret pushes panties and swimwear. Who really is the product in the nude scene nobody needed? You. The filmmaker doesn’t get naked. The screenwriter didn’t. The producers don’t. You do. You’re the one pinned up in online message boards out of context. You are for sale in the window.

What is a good example of nudity telling a point in a story? Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow.

What didn’t need it? Probably everything you saw last year.

A publicly traded stock often goes down in value when a product is ubiquitous. Nudity as stale shock value is that overexposed product.

The new shock value is keeping your clothes on.

When very liberal, performing arts and Hollywood adjacent, extremely heterosexual men are now commenting to me how they’re sick of seeing sex everywhere, the world is in disarray. The time is now for movies and shows to have plots again. Dignity for our characters and the human beings playing them. Respect for our written words.

My goal of not having nudity as a prerequisite for my acting talent, and myself in roles I play, is giving cinema a little kick of old Hollywood again, when glamour, girl next door beauty, strong writing, wardrobe, sets, cinematography, and reality meeting script told the tale.

People who want to see nudity know where to find it online. You want a real show, come see my work as it happens.

Sensuality ≠ constantly nudity. Period.

Make it big.

If you saw my post about the statistics of the top agencies’ representation alone summing up to the size of a small town, that is what your friend is up against. Or you. You reading this post.

The performing arts never pay well until you have made it really big. Lead actress on a sitcom, renegotiating that contract big.

You can be an Oscar winner with endless debt. You lost your day job to take the movie because your restaurant wouldn’t let you go work on it.

A working actress living beyond her means from pressure to have all those amenities barely scraping by. Legal, management, agent taking fees. The acting classes, fitness, personal assistant, security from stalkers thinking they want children with her from a few guest spots on a soap.

You can be, a very real example I’ve come across enough to shout it here, someone deep in the studio system making your apartment or house into a short term rental, or renting rooms, to make ends meet. Because the same jobs in music and acting keep going to the same people of the moment.

After a few years of this, your friend, you out there, might think you can make it. You have the passion of a teenager, or a young twentysomething.

“Millions of people compete against me for the same jobs. I can outsmart the system by talent and networking.”

Age 18-29, lots of jobs involve objectification and unnecessary nudity. Men are not immune to this, but women get more of it. Some of these projects can ruin your life, because the plots are quite thin, and the nudity so rampant, it shouldn’t qualify as a theatrical production. Are you taking this job for next to no money?

People demand headshots, websites, and all of these business expenses. If you’re a musician of some kind, your bills are through the roof with music products and tools.

You’re 20-24 now? Get used to people talking to you if you happen to female, regardless of your financial setup back home, how you should get married to “a rich man” they can introduce you to. You never said you wanted to date anyone or that you needed help, wondering what it’s in it for them. You remind them of this. They tell you how you’ll be used goods by 25 and need to marry the nearest person like it’s 1802. Or you’ll be “invisible by 40.” Because in this age of better health care and skincare awareness, you’re going to age like it’s the 19th century, apparently. Which is only OK when men do it. Men can look like ogres. You as a young man or woman have to be with an older, richer man and/or woman. You complain about this repeated harassment. Nothing happens. Now, repeat all of that. A lot.

People always try to do worse forms of harassment or abuse not part of the job description. You complain. You might talk to the right people to help. If you’re like men I’ve met, they get laughed at. Men never get abused, do they? Sissies. Only women get abused. Your case doesn’t go anywhere as a young man. Or you’re a handsome fellow. You asked for it by expecting to be an actor or model and not having this happen. You should’ve gone into finance.

You’re going to get offers to do really bad stuff off the table. Some of it highly illegal adult work. Are you going to agree?

By “poor decisions” in this title, I’m referring to how career frustrations are frequently when people get mixed up with bad company and make decisions that get them in trouble with the law.

You said no to that? Continue on.

You get hit on all of the time by people old enough to be your grandparents or great grandparents. You say no. These people often presume that you’re an underpaid creative talent, so you probably want to say yes. You don’t.

You go out and tell people you’re an actor/actress, musician, makeup artist, theatrical talent of some kind. People out in the “real world” think you are really rich and hate you. They don’t reason that most jobs hardly pay. That music streams bring in trinkets. Some act like “actress” is another word for “adult worker” and look down on you, something that hasn’t quit on us since the middle ages. Read Dorian Gray sometime and see what that book says of actresses in mass culture. Nothing has changed.

Age 30. You see people dropping out because they can’t pay their bills who used to be your friends. Many of them are turning to becoming influencers or selling intimate photos/videos because they need money, fast. They don’t have real world skills from never pursued “proper educations.” Or, they did. Their degrees aren’t in anything relevant, because a science lab does not care about your passion for chemistry if your degree is made for the stage. The doctor’s office looking for a billing manager is not impressed with your $50,000 per year or worse, per semester, private acting education. A master’s from Harvard or Yale is not going to cut it for an executive position you can do. Or that workplace doesn’t want to hire entertainment professionals. It’s a “bad look” for the company.

Age 35. More dropping like flies. Some people join the many realtors trying to sell homes who are all coming from similar paths across trades. The only thing with possibly more humans fighting for scraps than entertainment is real estate. You keep telling yourself that this time will be different, as you see the actresses who used to be mean to in their flashy leading babe acting roles now playing soccer moms with no plotlines. If they’re aging out, what hope do you have? Even the “hot man” leads are aging out.

Oh yes, people discriminate against hiring qualified applicants whose second life is in the performing arts. You get punished for chasing what you love and frequently told things like how “inappropriate” your ad posing in modest clothing for a hair product was. You get shamed in magazines for wearing modest retro swimwear by female writers who themselves wear skimpier clothing to the pool and heavily promote sexuality as feminist power unless it comes from the performing arts’ everyday women who aren’t A-listers yet.

Age 40. Are you still around? Maybe you’re getting a toothpaste ad between gigs. You’re a touring guitarist who somehow makes enough money to keep your apartment. You scored a film, but it barely paid. You sang as a cartoon character in a flop movie. Or you acted in that big studio animated film, no one hiring you since. You used to be in an iconic film, but you haven’t gotten a job once since the movie that isn’t, “Would you like fries with that?” to George Clooney. As an example, Mr. Clooney’s newest film, Jay Kelly, has one liner characters playing fans on the train ride. None of those people are going to make rent money from that job.

Some people between 35-45 want children. As a man, you won’t support yourself with this hustle. As a woman, you’re past the ideal window of getting pregnant. If you adopt, a noble choice, you need stable income. Congrats, you don’t qualify. How are you going to support your child again? Can you have an in shape body and audition, pregnant? Probably not. On this list, I thank the stars at least children were never on my to do. They are for many others.

Age 50. Well, you could get a job waiting tables for life and keep on auditioning for those pharmaceutical ads requiring you to play older than you are. Maybe you’re a little sick of all of the roles playing up to negative stereotypes, or you’re sick of only being offered poorly paid maid roles.

The harassment doesn’t end. Some people in “real world” jobs and entertainment alike think because you want to be a stage actress, you’re easy. You get harassed by everyone when you look for a job or audition. When you tell people how you’re on the receiving end of sexual harassment and/or abuse, people say you’re lying. Nobody would harass a human being like your age, and not a woman over 40. Nobody would ever harass a woman older than him/her/them. You could complain to someone’s corporation or the production itself, but what good would it do? Do any of those groups supporting advocacy for men and women, and non-binary and trans people as well, forgotten often in #metoo, ever mean what they say?

You keep hoping someone will hire you. Your work experience isn’t in anything relevant for a “normal” job to be taken seriously because of real job discrimination against people in the performing arts. You don’t know anyone but retired Hollywood people or Oscar winners if you do, but they’re not hiring you because they already have full staffs and casts, so good riddance, and they aren’t going to be good help at getting real world corporate jobs. They only know people who work in Hollywood. They don’t care about your financial situation.

You think about things not mentioned on this list.

And you tell yourself that maybe tomorrow will be it. Tomorrow is another day.

Someone might be saying this as they shifted focus to something else like influencer gigs or selling photos. Just this once, age 28. This once becomes three times a month. Three times a month becomes daily. Soon, there is no acting, music, or arts career. You’re a full time something else. But you won’t leave LA/NYC. No, that would be admitting failure.

Or you never did that, and it never paid off anyway. You die. You leave behind some “important” IMDb credits. You’re like a dying man I spoke to on the day he died, who had acted in supporting roles but never became a star. You hoped, and there was only one life, so you tried while you were on this planet. And it never paid off, did it?

But you tried. The only thing worse is admitting you failed. Or you had nothing else to live for, which nobody understands, they who shout at you what a “loser” you are, loser being one of the nicer words.

Your university education in a liberal arts degree won’t cut it to be a librarian. You need a master’s in the right degree.

Can you work in research? No, you need a psych degree, or marine biology. A degree in English or anything else won’t do.

You try to work in what you studied. Your university was awesome and pro-women. The real world of your degree isn’t. You get told degrading things regularly. Or asked to do things you shouldn’t. The casting couch. People shame you about the casting couch being part of the world of entertainment. But the “normal job” world has far more casting couch setups, and everyone seems OK with that. When you complain, you’re told that’s just how the world is. Didn’t you grow up? Or someone in your family shames you how a company must have “found” your voice work in an animated film online, as if voicing a cute character online is posing nude. You cut ties with an already semi-estranged family member who says that you and all the young people and middle aged people of every gender talking about harassment are crying wolf. You all must have made it up because you all are probably bipolar or mentally ill, crying out for attention. You realise that so many in life are just enablers of victim blaming. But you are the bad one. Remember that. It’s all on you because you’re the weird one who decided not to work a “normal” job with the “normal” life of that suburban dream and children running around.

You don’t do drugs. You might not, like me, drink alcohol or have vices. You’re not flaky at all. But you’ll be seen as some “weird” creative stereotype. You’re an unreliable Bohemian person who couldn’t possibly be “normal.” If female, you fight out of in “normal job” land and within your own industry how you’re reliable and qualified for everything. People talk to you like you’re a dabbler. Men who have no skills or life direction are geniuses. A woman who knows what she wants and works on it with passion is delusional. A life wanderer. Not serious. Probably every stereotype there is about women in the arts.

And if you can, as I am today, right now, feel that you’d rather try and give it up all for nothing at least knowing you tried? Than have a “conventional” career path leading to depression or always wondering what if?

I guess you and I are in the right place then. Wishing you much love, because you and I need it. May God bless you that you succeed, because you deserve it.

xoxo,

Nic

So do you need a top 5 agent?

How much does it matter?

Why don’t we begin with the numbers?

As of today, January 1, 2026, here is how many clients are represented by each across the board of film, music, and all spaces of creative employment, excluding brands like Coca-Cola, public speakers, and more folks, which are via their other divisions.

Creative Artists Agency (CAA): 7,516 clients

William Morris Endeavor (WME): 6,011 clients

United Talent Agency (UTA): 7,018 clients

Gersh Agency: 3,712 clients

Paradigm: 2,287 clients

TOTAL: 26,544 clients between them

“What about examples of other agencies’ numbers?”

All right, nosy human. Interrupting me before I can get to the good stuff as you ladies often do when I’m applying makeup.

A sample respectable talent agency client number outside of the top five:

Independent Artist Group (IAG): 3,004 clients

Counting all of the agency represented clients in LA and New York, you probably have at least 300,000 people, and that is a very conservative estimate.

With talent manager only setups, no manger, self represented, newbies, and people dropped by representation, you’re talking about millions of people in America’s two largest cities, excluding markets like Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, and others of relevance.

You’re one more French fry at McDonald’s here unless you have something extra for the talent agency to work with.

As seen, the top agencies alone represent 26,000+ human beings. 26,000+ people is the population of some American small towns. There aren’t enough jobs for all of those people to be working once a year minimum. Counting the non-agency folks, no way will all of these people be regularly working actors in any productions, including student films.

Individual attention on your career is not happening with that many people at an agency.

This is without going into the numbers from every C-list, D-list, and Z as in Zebra-list talent agency in the major USA entertainment hubs. Jumping from previous C-list agencies, I was interviewed at a C-list one a long time ago who had probably 3,000 names on their books and rejected it because they couldn’t begin to tell me what they wanted me to audition for or anything relevant about my career direction. I was one more French fry in the fast food deep fryer. A bad feeling.

Tried another C-lister tier. The agent blurted out how he didn’t think he would get me much work because I turning 23 in a few months was “too old” for what he was looking for. He was going to have me there and charge me to make some money getting income for new photos taken. Of course, taken by him. I can’t make that up. Washed up at almost 23.

Lots of people walk into this thinking because they’re talented and/or good looking, that is enough to excel. Guess what? Have a look around you. Everyone else is talented and/or attractive. What makes you special in an already fickle market with short attention spanned people?

“Aren’t some jobs exclusive to the top agencies?”

Yes, they are. With that many people, there aren’t enough jobs to go around. Big TV stars like Christina Hendricks shift from other agencies to outside of the top 5 because they need people focusing on where they are now. Getting them work. I believe she was with a top five. She is currently with Independent Talent Group based in London as an agent and LA-based Link Entertainment as a manager.

You could have the “right” guy working for you doing nothing because he doesn’t think you have the right fit anymore, or a momager booking you gigs.

You can be an off camera creative sitting with the “right” talent manager. Nothing comes your way, because it’s going to the same few people all over again. Are you going to stick with that or find an agent who believes in you?

That’s why right now is your focus. Do you want to work as whatever you do on and/or off camera, or do you want to look fancy and never work? If you get taken at all?

You could argue a bad agent at any agency outside of the top five doing little to nothing for you is worse than the alternative.

So much of this really is about luck and making wise decisions.

A very famous director worked for decades without having an agent.

Jennifer Lawrence right now has a talent manager and no agent.

All of my work in composing or anything I’m getting, a music distribution deal, ANYYYYYYTHING, has largely been after ditching talent agents who weren’t good for me.

Getting a talent agent is no guarantee of anything but looking fancy.

xoxo,

Nic

“Does My IMDb Starmeter Ranking Matter in 2026?”

A very popular question I get asked when I meet up with performing arts talent is the value of your IMDb Starmeter.

Some agents swear by it. Let’s examine the truth.

So does it matter? That depends on who you ask, and your goals.

Is your goal to be a serious actor or an influencer? IMDb with podcasts credits counting non-journalism/performing arts podcasts and all this new media is now loaded with influencers. Some actors and actresses who used to be real acting talent now feel like their lives have changed. They’d rather take care of the household and earn easier money. That’s OK. No judging you goes on here in my journal pages.

IMDb Starmeters rank, from what I was always told:

• How many people are clicking directly on your IMDb profile. Some people falsely inflate this with outside hits. I never have. Most people don’t think it’s worth it.

• How popular this week in IMDb clicks only, not box office, not rentals, not media, creative projects you are a part of were.

• The varying number based on an ever changing number itself. This can change weekly because IMDb.com itself doesn’t have the same number of visitors on a consistent basis.

• The unknown. Everyone person says this.

What kind of talent agent loves IMDb Starmeter rankings? Someone who:

• Wants to peddle your career more Carl’s Jr. babe eating a burger in slow mo than serious actress.

• Sells sensuality as a method of casting you for on camera or voice acting work.

• Pushes you for reality television, where scandal makes a reality star.

• Thinks your career thrives on tabloid showmances.

Anyone caring about those things is not turning you into a Meryl Streep here. Or a brilliant below the line creative.

Case Study: 2026 Sydney Sweeney vs. Actual Hollywood Legends

Sydney Sweeney, beautiful as she may be, and I loved her on Euphoria as Cassie the few times I’ve caught that show before I knew anything about her life off camera, is being Googled at this moment for:

• Unfair objectification.

• With her consent, more objectification, being in on the joke. Wearing a sheer dress and pushup outfits with all the Home Depot industrial tape in the store. Ouch, imagining those burns from the sticky dress tape.

• Registering as a Republican Party voter.

• Silence on controversies of the moment involving her denim ad.

• How she isn’t nominated for a Golden Globe for her recent boxing biopic, Christy, which her male fans apparently did not go out to see.

• Selling her bath water and if the double standard of men vs. women doing it matters. A fair argument, I’ll add.

• Creepy doxxing of her Florida home. I don’t care about your political beliefs, don’t do that to people.

However you feel about her as a human being, we can all agree that none of those things get you booked work or make you go from tabloid star to movie star.

Sydney’s ranking right now? #8.

Tom Cruise is currently ranked #47. He is a great example of how an IMDb Starmeter is not always an indicator of reality. A movie star doing his own stunt work, producing his own films, having real planes flown in a movie.

Steven Spielberg: #105. He changed the business methods of Hollywood forever. Invented the summer blockbuster. His films earned trillions if not more collectively. Merchandise around the movies is its own franchise.

Emma Stone: #120. Nominated for a Golden Globe. Oscar winner. Lead actress of many years.

Taylor Swift: #875. This, with multiple Disney+ films out within the last month and the bestselling concert tour of all time. Swifties who can’t breathe without her. Grammy awards, record setting. Billionaire status. Taylor is ranked not handfuls, hundreds, of IMDb spots lower than Sydney Sweeney.

George Lucas: #3,599. Star Wars, anyone? Indiana Jones? He has a career to wish for on your next birthday cake candles, but he ranks lower than Sydney Sweeney and many years between jobs working actresses coming off 2000’s and 2010’s TV hits.

Paul N. J. Ottosson, Oscar-winning sound designer: #38,200. Ranked beneath people with one line TV roles as Waitress #4 and some influencers.

Guillaume Rocheron, two time Oscar-winning visual effects designer. #241,200. Your former classmate dabbling in local acting may have a higher Starmeter from Instagram followers.

You could go further arguing that net worth and power are irrelevant of Starmeter rankings. George Lucas. He cries on his golden multi-billion dollar pillow every night thinking how his Starmeter ranking isn’t in the top 100 right now. Wishful thinking I look back on my youth like, “Yeah, I have a few Lucas-worthy film franchises myself!” 💰

A while back, The New York Times in the sexist heyday of Megan Fox wrote, “Fox, who is 23, understood instinctively that noise plus naked equals celebrity.” 2009 was a bad year for young women, wasn’t it?

My choice of a case study in Miss Sweeney was not to make fun of her or have a presumed political identity put upon me. I wrote a children’s book ages ago called The Pollution Monster Attacks Hawaii! and eat veggie daily. MAGA don’t want near me. 🤣

And it’s not beginning down the Lewis Carroll-ian rabbit hole of why are so many men in corporate and Hollywood power circles secret Trump fans but pretending not to be, and men like Jerry Bruckheimer permitted to openly give piles of money to Trump without career repercussions as Miss Sweeney deals with everything negative raining on her? Clint Eastwood was a Republican elected official. Do you have to be a man for it to be OK?

It’s that when you are a woman in the press for something, and people picking on your looks or everything about you unrelated to your career moves and talent or lack thereof, and again, so many untalented men exist like nothing–

Your IMDb Starmeter goes up.

My own Starmeter goes up and down with this method.

When I had social media, more people clicked. Voila. Higher Starmeter. Coasted along between #50,000-150,000.

Did a PR stunt with a website. Shot up to about #35,000, I recall.

Get my name in the media. Bump.

Slow news week, or month? No social media? I’m around #300,000-500,000 with more going on professionally now. With higher numbers and being on social media, I had the Sydney Sweeney light special at The Billie Eilish “Diner:” men lurking around who don’t want to support my work or hire me, people networking with me hoping I get them hired somehow through connections of some sort, the hate watchers hoping I slip up, and people writing mean “fan” mail. Or the doxxers and harassers.

An IMDb Starmeter ranking is not all it’s cracked up to be. Egg belongs on your face if you honestly believe anyone who says it’s all that matters in life.

Someone can be clicking on your personal website or diary. It won’t log interest.

Are you someone’s mistress in the tabloids with one IMDb credit? You might find yourself in the glory of the top 100 on IMDb for a week.

People had careers before IMDbPro and will afterwards. Yours is no different.

Good luck on making it in film and TV, friends! Don’t give up. This world is brutal to many. You win by sticking it out longer. Be like the joke about the end of the world with cockroaches and Cher.

xoxo,

Nic

Let’s put this hairy gossip to rest. I am not:

• sitting in a hair salon

• paying $10,000 for hair care and extensions every season

• having people take my credit card to not do what I want; has happened enough times: “You wanted your sun kissed hair more enhanced into Barbie reddish blonde, but I thought this single process hideous shade of dog poo brown wiping out any of your sun highlights would go more with your complexion.”

• “I’m just cutting a snip!:” lady who proceeds to give me Twiggy bangs I never asked for and hacking off half of my hair

• sitting in foils for skunky highlights; my hair is not a Thanksgiving turkey

Garnier Color Reviver in copper is sort of a mild toner with orange meets conditioner. How strong it is on your hair at home, I have no idea. I use mine on faded out hair so I blend my roots with it.

Sorry, I didn’t brush my fancy hair I allegedly spend so much money on to show you what it looks like freshly applied after a shower. You apply it with heat in the shower for a while, like 15-25 minutes. Or you could sit with it all day. Heat is what activates this conditioner and makes your hair really soft.

What I really love about this product is it provides this lowlight, highlight look with a dark subtle pumpkin blonde. If it’s depositing the darker or lighter tones in my hair, I have no idea. Use this product every so often, and you’ll get this result. You could go wild and comb it through so it reaches different points. Get creative.

This is my workout hair about a few months out from dying my hair with the permanent Olia dye. I could retouch. Because I’m lazy and don’t feel like it, and because messing with your hair too often breaks your hair into pixie town, I do this.

Garnier Olia Copper 7.45 is the dye I use whenever I want. In the United States, that shade is called Intense Fire Ruby.

The real post dye shade is like a light auburn red velvet cake, with medium auburn in some areas. My natural hair has always been lighter in the front with these dark blonde-y skunk streaks like Lily Munster’s white streaks. You can guess that picks up lighter when this starts washing out. Anywhere your hair gets lighter on its own or in the sun, that will be fine.

The shade is intense.

Warning, it will streak everywhere a bit when you towel dry your hair for a few washes until the Kool Aid looking drips come out. That’s OK. The hair dye is doing its job because you need that coppery depositing. The toner on that mixed into the dye is really, REALLY, REALLLLLLLLLLLLY RED.

I look like a cupcake red. After a few washes, it starts fading out into this sort of ombré with the darker red on top, and my lengths lightened, before becoming that pumpkin tint I mentioned above with the help of the conditioner.

Yes, I am well aware how I smile like a gopher. Why do you think my primary work photos are all serious? 😄

Olia is really nice because all the other brands I tried put a brown fade out over my virgin hair that naturally has a reddish tint. The darker at first on the roots thing isn’t my top choice. The end result is. I love the pumpkin latte vibe this takes on that never fades, easily matchable to the roots with some conditioner.

When I want to tidy it up again because it could use a red lava boost, I hit up that Olia.

And now you know. 🌈☀️😊

Emily in Paris is very clearly a Darren Star production, and Darren Star makes no secret about it. He did it once. Why not replicate the bestselling sandwich? This is Sex and the City for a younger generation, right down to the fantasy lack of logic that other people project onto Gen Z and Gen Alpha, the romantic whiplash roller coaster ride, and the idea that one woman’s personal life can somehow bend an entire city around her. Spoiler, it wouldn’t in reality.

Our Carrie Bradshaw lite wannabe is Emily Cooper, played by Lily Collins. She does her best doe eyed, Illinois transplant who leans hard into the “naïve Midwesterner” archetype. Emily’s high-pitched, rapid fire, and at times, nervous delivery, exaggerated body language, theatrical clothing, and questionable life choices wouldn’t last five minutes in the actual Chicago she’s supposedly from. How might I know? I spent my childhood in Illinois, the living one that isn’t on Netflix. Nothing about her feels grounded or realistic. I love camp, like really, I love camp so much, but even camp needs an internal belief system. This somehow overshoots the mark. What next, Emily? Asking for no sauce on a deep dish pizza?

Season 1 plays like a crash course in American vs. French cultural differences, filtered through an Instagram obsessed lens. Don’t expect depth, because the show skims past anything genuinely interesting in favor of quick gags and social media punchlines. Anything Emily does turns to gold on the platform. Sure, Jan.

Emily’s version of Mr. Big is a French chef who floats between doormat and villain depending on the episode. He is not given much to do.

Her best friend, Mindy Chen, played by the incredibly talented Ashley Park, feels like a total missed opportunity. You could skip Mindy’s storyline entirely and lose almost nothing in terms of the main plot, which is a huge problem. Sex and the City worked because it was a web of interconnected lives. Emily in Paris exists firmly in “main character syndrome” territory. Everything revolves around Emily, Emily, Emily, Emily! If her friends disappeared, would she notice? Probably not, nope, not if there’s another love interest waiting around the corner and a selfie ready for today’s look.

Emily cycles through the same romantic spats and personal messes Carrie Bradshaw did decades ago. If you’ve seen Sex and the City, you’ve already seen a sharper, more self aware, thankfully adulting version of this show. As SATC fans know, and you know from the title serving as that show’s entire plot in a sentence, Carrie was rarely single for long. Emily isn’t either. A new man appears every few episodes it feels, including one notably uncomfortably younger love interest. It’s interesting how this dynamic is framed as light comedy when the older character is a woman, something we’ve seen before, from Desperate Housewives to here, and not when a man does it. Double standards much? Imagine if there were Charlie Sheen in Paris. Wouldn’t we call out people responsible for that?

Visually, the show delivers exactly what it promises: postcard Paris, selfie ready backdrops, clothes all over, foodie fun, and endless aspirational scenery. And, just like Carrie Bradshaw, Emily is inexplicably adored at work with a few minor non-issues. Every man is attracted to her. Everyone believes in her marketing ideas. In a city full of supermodels and the birthplace of effortless French girl style everyone copies, Emily somehow turns Paris upside down?! The idea that Europeans, famously less impressed by American celebrity culture and statistically less obsessed with social media and podcasts, would fawn over her influencer status just doesn’t hold up! Really, I saw the stats were what, 1/4 of the populations listens to podcasts, and if I recall, 3/4 or more of America does?

Mindy is repeatedly given opportunities to sing for reasons that have nothing to do with the show’s actual story, and it’s kind of annoying. These moments don’t serve her character and feel like a separate, less interesting series stitched in. Honestly, I’m far more interested in the show that never existed: Mindy as a rebellious heiress trying to launch a singing career in romantic Europe. She’s fun, well acted for being a side plot nobody role, well, “nobody” in Emily’s world, and the best part of this series. She doesn’t get to shine, because she is supposed to shut up and be a wimpier SATC Charlotte. Heck with it, I would watch an entire movie devoted to her.

For a while, the series felt like it was slowly cancelling itself, until season 5.

Then season 5 arrived, all fancy but casual, set in Rome, and something finally clicked. The over the top soap acting becomes knowingly cool, if even, fun. The locations are more visually dynamic than post-season 1 Paris. The men seem in on the joke. Emily is finally treated like what she is: late night comfort viewing for days when you want to forget your stress, not a realism exercise.

People push back on her marketing ideas. She’s told no. She carries a fake Fendi bag and gets called out. Mindy finally has a storyline that actually weaves into Emily’s life. Suddenly, the show feels lighter, sharper, and more self-aware, and much, much better for it. Maybe it quit taking itself so seriously.

Which only makes you wonder why seasons 2 through 4 didn’t aim for this balance sooner. SATC was a hit from Kim Cattrall providing a rougher quality to Carrie’s delusional world. “Honey,” she always started, to say something true. Or she had a life of her own outside of Carrie. She pointed out how Carrie sucked as a friend.

Emily in Paris doesn’t do this until season 5, and it does so fearfully. For this to be a long running program, it needs a lot more Samantha bite.

My advice: watch season 1, skip right to spoiler scenes you can find like the wedding and intro to some of the men, hit season 5 for the fun.