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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
 "The Soundtrackers Group" 
"Blogging Circle of Friends "
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
"JAFBG"
"Take up Your Cross"
Thanks for stopping by! 
November 30, 2023 at 10:50pm November 30, 2023 at 10:50pm November 26, 2023 at 11:33pm November 26, 2023 at 11:33pm
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There was an article in Fortune Magazine's website today titled, "Starbucks new CEO reveals his favorite coffee order after spending 6 months working side by side with baristas " that caught my attention. Not because I particularly care what Starbucks' new CEO Laxman Narasimhan's favorite drink off the Starbucks menu is (spoiler alert: it's a Doppio Espresso Macchiato with hot skim milk on the side), but because the other part of that title caught my attention. He's allegedly spent six months working side-by-side with Starbucks baristas at their stores.
Apparently, this was the deal:
Narasimhan honed his varied taste through the 40 hours he spent training—and six months he spent working—as a barista alongside Starbucks partners while gearing up for the CEO gig.
And while some Starbucks employees pointed out on social media that they don't need the CEO of a coffee chain with just under 500,000 employees across nearly 36,000 locations to learn how to make lattes as much as learn how to solve grander-scale corporate issues like paying a living wage, unionization efforts, etc., I can't help but think while that may be true, spending a substantive amount of time in the trenches with employees is actually a great use of a C-suite executive's time when he's first starting the job, to better understand the good and bad elements of the public-facing aspect of the company. Of course, if it's just a PR stunt or a token amount of time (a lot of CEOs will spend, like, one day every so often with the rank-and-file for a photo op or bragging rights), that's different... but 40 hours of training followed by six months working in stores (although no word if it was full-time or not) is a real effort to get to know your employees' day-to-day successes, struggles, and concerns.
I kind of wish this practice was required of all mid-to-senior level executives. Before starting a job, you should spent a significant amount of time learning about the rungs in the ladder below you and how they contribute to your job. I'm in a position now where I'm volunteering in a fairly high-level position at our small church (President of the Board of its nonprofit community development organization, and Director of Operations for the church itself), and I couldn't imagine hiring someone beneath me to do a job that I wasn't familiar with. Obviously there's a certain amount of tradeoff (it's hard to, say, learn an entire accounting system just so you can process payroll for a few weeks... or to learn how to send all-organization emails and maintain the organization's social media presence if that's not a core bit of knowledge that will be useful later), but actually getting to know what your employees' day-to-day experience is like is critical.
At my day job, it's incredibly stratified. Within my own business unit of Marvel, which is much better than Disney as a whole, there are still situations where direct supervisors don't actually know what their direct reports do, and wouldn't be able to cover for even a day if something happened and someone was out. At Disney, there are some departments where supervisors only speak to their direct reports once a year (for their annual performance reviews), and go years without speaking to someone two levels below them. To me, that's a less than ideal way to run an organization, so I'm always happy to see articles like this where some new CEO or other higher up is taking the time to get to know their business on the ground level. That feels like time well spent and relationships well cultivated.
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November 26, 2023 at 6:18pm November 26, 2023 at 6:18pm
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I just finished The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin and while it was... not really what I thought it was (full review is forthcoming for the "Book Brothel" )... I did find one particular piece of it really useful. Rick Rubin put together a list called "Thoughts and habits not conducive to the work" which I thought was worth posting here.
THOUGHTS AND HABITS NOT CONDUCIVE TO THE WORK:
1. Believing you're not good enough.
2. Feeling you don't have the energy it takes.
3. Mistaking adopted rules for absolute truth.
4. Not wanting to do the work (laziness).
5. Not taking the work to its highest expression (settling).
6. Having goals so ambitious that you can't begin.
7. Thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions.
8. Requiring specific tools or equipment to do the work.
9. Abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult.
10. Feeling like you need permission to start or move forward.
11. Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way.
12. Having too many ideas and not knowing where to start.
13. Never finishing projects.
14. Blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process.
15. Romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions.
16. Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work.
17. Prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art.
18. Distractibility and procrastination.
19. Impatience.
20. Thinking anything that's out of your control is in your way.
For anyone who struggles to write or otherwise complete creative endeavors... see anything that hits home? There are a lot of them that apply to me, but #6 and #9 and #13 and #17 and #18 are things I really struggle with. I think #6 and #17 are probably the core underlying problems, and the other three are manifestations of how those underlying problems play out. There are some other ones in there that I also definitely struggle with, and it's easy to see how one or more of these could quickly derail someone's ability to create art.
One of the things I've been thinking a lot about this month as we head into the end of the year is what I want to accomplish next year. Every January, I think about goals for the new year and what I want to accomplish, and they're always some lofty thing that's tied to specific achievements (see the first part of #6). In preparation for next year, I'm trying to think about where I'm at right now, and an achievable goal I can reach that isn't some nebulous or arbitrary thing like, "Finish writing a book" or "Write X number of pages, words, etc." ... I'm thinking about how to go from near-zero to "back in shape."
The same is true for me and physical exercise. I'm not at the point where I can think about wanting to run a marathon, or lift a certain amount of weight; I'm at the point where I'm severely out of shape and need to get back into healthy habits. The thing I like about lists like the one Rubin provided, is that they often name the hurdles we struggle with. And naming things can take away their power. Rubin's book is definitely one of those "take what works or makes sense to you and discard the rest" kind of nonfiction title, and this list is probably the best thing I've taken from the book. I anticipate referring to it a lot in the future, whenever I need a reminder of the habits I'm falling into that aren't conducive to what I'm trying to accomplish with my writing.
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November 26, 2023 at 2:51am November 26, 2023 at 2:51am
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My wife and I just finished binge-watching a show called Undercover Billionaire (Season 1 was released in 2019). The basic premise is that Glenn Stearns, the show's eponymous "billionaire" ... although I put that term in quotes because it appears he might be just a multi-hundred millionaire  ... decides to test whether the American Dream is still possible by getting dropped off in a random city somewhere in the country with only $100, a cell phone with no contacts, and an old pickup truck. His challenge? To build a company worth $1,000,000 at the end of 90 days. The bet he made was that if he couldn't build a company valued at a million dollars, he'd invest a million dollars of his own money in to ensure it had stable funding to give it a fighting chance.
He's dropped off in Erie, Pennsylvania and the first ten days or so are more about survival: figuring out how to get more money so he can afford food and a place to live, trying to get a job, etc. This to me was interesting, but felt like it should have been for a different show (a how to build yourself up from rock bottom challenge, or something like that), but it detailed how he got his feet on the ground, basically investing all of his capital on ventures that would give him a positive return on investment, allowing him to invest more in the next thing.
That's the part of the show I found most interesting. Not how he went from $100 to $3,000 to afford to live, but how he went from only having living expenses to getting capital to start investing in the business. The show repeatedly highlighted the value of motivating good people with helpful skills and convincing them to invest their time and energy in growing the business to the point where they could all benefit in its success.
I don't want to give away too many more details about it because it really is a good show worth watching, but I had some thoughts in the whole thing.
First, I actually know the guy (well, know of the guy) who was featured in the show. Stearns Lending was a leading mortgage company coming out of the Great Recession, and I recognize the name because their headquarters is about five minutes from my house. I see the company's logo on their building as I drive by it almost every day.
Second, I learned a lot about local resources that entrepreneurs can use to help them with their businesses. There's actually Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) that operate (though the United States Small Business Administration) in many cities around the country, and they can help you with market research, putting together a business plan, access to computers, and even offering up meeting and/or office space as needed. It's an amazing resource for people who are just starting out, and I had no idea such a thing even existed. There's an office less than ten minutes from me.
Third, I learned that there's a lot of risk and setbacks involved in pretty much every aspect of running a business. Not that I didn't already know that, but when you're watching someone actually try to build a business in realtime from scratch, it really highlights the unpredictability of the process. As much as I have a real issue with the income inequality in this country, I definitely think people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and build a successful company from nothing deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor after such a rollercoaster of a process.
Overall, I really enjoyed the show and it got that entrepreneurial part of my brain working again. I've always wondered if I'd be good at running a company. I have a really diverse skillset and I think I've got pretty good problem-solving abilities ... but I'm also really risk averse and have yet to really take a leap and put myself out there investing in something that might not make it (I've always preferred the security of jobs at established employers, and the few times I've gone to work for startups, they haven't panned out). At the moment, I'm on the board of my church's community development nonprofit corporation, and it definitely got me thinking about how to invest in that organization and take more risks to see if it can succeed.
I definitely recommend this show to anyone who likes SHARK TANK or any other business-type shows.
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November 24, 2023 at 3:38pm November 24, 2023 at 3:38pm
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In my last blog post, I took a somewhat critical look at America, so I suppose it's only fair that at least one of my other blog posts this month also takes a critical look at somewhere else. No country is perfect and, while the UK certainly isn't, I read an article this this morning that shined a light on a very particular and disturbing quirk of the UK's system of government:
How Royal Estates Use Bona Vacantia to Collect Money from Dead People
In short, bona vacantia (Latin for "vacant goods") is the process whereby the government can take assets for themselves from private citizens, if there is no will indicating where those assets should go, and no next of kin can be located. And without getting into the "well how hard is the government really looking for next of kin if they stand to benefit should no one be found?" of it all, this sorta makes sense on its face. If nobody can be found to pass the assets onto, then the government can claim them.
Here's the problem in the UK. There are two places where that money doesn't go to the Treasury, but rather into the pockets of royals. The Duchy of Lancaster (owned by the current monarch... currently King Charles III) and the Duchy of Cornwall (owned by the heir apparent... currently Prince William). Which means that, in addition to all the wealth and assets the royal family has access to through the monarchy, King Charles and Prince William also have this additional income (which is considered their "private income" but not subject to any kind of taxes or other income-based regulations of other people) that they receive. To give you an idea of the scope, it's estimated that King Charles III's annual payout from this income was £26 million last year.
Since the 1980s, the Duchies have maintained that the money collected from bona vacantia has been donated to charity, but this article from the Guardian which says, "However, only a small percentage of these revenues is being given to charity. Internal duchy documents seen by the Guardian reveal how funds are secretly being used to finance the renovation of properties that are owned by the king and rented out for profit." So, I suppose the "charity" they're donating to is... themselves? To minimize expenses and maximize profits? The article goes on to say:
Three sources familiar with the duchy’s expenditure confirmed the estate was using revenues collected from dead citizens to refurbish its profitable property portfolio, making considerable savings for the estate. One said duchy insiders regarded the bona vacantia expenditure, which has until now not been publicly disclosed, as akin to “free money” and a “slush fund”.
I don't know about you, but when the people doing the actual shady money stuff call what they're doing a "slush fund" that's usually not a good sign that what they're doing is on the up and up. And, as usual, it's become problematic because it's been taken way too far. It's one thing if the laws of a country have this bona vacantia rule specifically for the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. That is what it is. But then they had to take it a step further and misrepresent how those funds are being spent, claiming they go to charity when they're really being reinvested in the organization that's supposed to be sending those funds to charity instead. 
It's really sad to me that corruption is so rampant among the wealthy. That "because we can get away with it" is an apparently acceptable rationale for doing unethical (or in some cases blatantly illegal) things in the name of increasing one's wealth. Our socioeconomic system is already set up in a way that unfairly benefits the wealthy; it really riles me up when I read articles like this that show that all that privilege and access still isn't enough and that wealthy people have gone to even more extremes to maximize their income and net worth.
The monarchy has come under a lot of criticism lately, and this seems like yet another bad news cycle they're about to (deservedly) endure for sketchy practices that should not be a thing.
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November 24, 2023 at 3:05pm November 24, 2023 at 3:05pm
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I thought this would be an interesting blog topic because, if I'm being totally honest, there's a lot of stuff that I don't love about America right now. Despite being an optimistic for the most part, there's a lot of stuff happening in this country that I find really discouraging.
I don't love the fact that our courts seem hellbent on the broadest possible interpretation of the second amendment to allow unfettered access to guns (even while the number of annual mass shootings continue to increase), while simultaneously offering the most limited interpretation of personal and voting rights to deprive people of access to legal recourse against those in power who make the decisions.
I don't love the fact that income inequality is so pervasive that the middle class is slowly disappearing and it's becoming increasingly harder for average Americans to do basic things like save money, or buy an affordable home.
I don't love that fact that corporations have more protections and mechanisms for bailing themselves out of trouble than people do, and that private equity firms are buying up resources and, in some cases, entire industries left and right and, by and large, making them worse consumer experiences in the name maximizing return on investment.
I don't love the fact that American exceptionalism is so rampant that criticism of the country is often conflated with being unpatriotic, or even anti-American. People wave American flags around (or wear them on their lapels in the case of elected officials) as a symbol of the things this country stands for, without actually working to uphold those ideals. Or the fact that we apparently have entire "days" like this, dedicated to encouraging people to affirm and celebrate the greatness of America (often while avoiding the tough conversations about bad things that have been done in America's name over the years).
With all that said, I can't really imagine living anywhere else. There are a lot of things that I do love about this country, like the fact that you can pursue pretty much any life you want. That's not a guarantee you'll succeed of course, or that it'll be easy... but there are very few hard restrictions on the kind of life you choose to pursue. Somewhat related, but I also love the fact that you can pretty much start over anytime. You can be twenty years down the road of a particular career and there's nothing stopping you from moving across the country to start a completely new one. While I think there are a lot of qualifiers and a lot more hurdles than there used to be for a lot of different types of people, I do still believe in the American Dream, and I believe in the independence that this country grants its citizens to (by and large) live the kinds of lives they want to live.
I also love the fact that this country is so diverse. From its geography to its people, to its industries, there are few places that have more variety to choose from. You can visit mountains, oceans, deserts, plains, forests, swamps, and any number of both natural and man-made sights without ever leaving the country. You can find communities of people from dozens, even hundreds of other countries all around the world. For me personally, I love living next to a large city where there isn't just a variety of ethnic foods to try, but there are a variety of ethnic communities to try that each of dozens of restaurants, retailers, houses of worship, and other features that truly allow you to immerse yourself in another culture without having to go anywhere farther than a different neighborhood. And America is a leading contributor to so many different industries, from finance to technology to entertainment to medicine to real estate to manufacturing. No matter what your profession, you can probably find an employer in America that's near the top of the field.
America is a place that I really do love. It most definitely has its problems, and I have a real problem with people who pretend like it doesn't, or who ignore fair criticisms and aren't interested in making improvements... but as a whole, I'm proud of the things this country has accomplished and the things it could still accomplish. That's why I still vote. It's why I still care passionately about who my elected representatives are, and what they stand for. It's why I get frustrated or even angry when I feel like we're taking backward steps politically, culturally, financially, or in any of a variety of other ways. Just like the "dream" that America lends its name to, success and upward mobility are possible if we can just figure out how to stop doing the stuff that's holding us back (and in some cases, hurting us).
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November 21, 2023 at 2:40am November 21, 2023 at 2:40am
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I just read an article from Hello! Magazine (already an auspicious start to a blog post  ) titled, "The Billionaire Club: Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift - How They're Singing All The Way to the Bank," and it included some pretty staggering assumptions about Dua Lipa's music. If you haven't heard the Taylor Swift side of this, she recently became a billionaire thanks to her wildly successful Eras Tour, which put her over the line and into the ten-figure net worth club.
This article starts with the sentence, "Forging the way for other young female performers, Dua Lipa is on track to become a dazzling new addition to the exclusive dollar-billionaire club, following in the footsteps of fellow pop star Taylor Swift by hitting a ten-figure fortune in a male-dominated industry. Traditionally, the billionaire club is the province of industrialists and businessmen, but now one of the most successful female artists in showbusiness could be joining trailblazer Taylor in their ranks."
Here's the problem... last I checked (which was quite recently because I looked it up for this blog post), Dua Lipa's net worth is somewhere around $35 million as of 2022. Apparently some new "wealthiest celebs" list this year says it's £75 million (about $94 million USD according to Google's currency converter). Which is certainly an accomplishment in and of itself. But saying someone is "basically already a billionaire" because they have less than 1/10th that amount of money now is kind of like someone who runs a 5K saying, "I'm pretty much a marathon runner already."
It turns out, the article's argument is this:
Displaying a business savvy as sharp as her songwriting, 28-year-old Dua, who ranked 21st in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List for under-35s, with an estimated worth of £75m, could hit the billionaire mark after parting ways with her former management company. She has bought the rights to her publishing catalogue and joined forces with her businessman father, Dukagjin, known as Dugi, to set up a company to manage all her commercial assets. “Essentially, the move has echoes of Taylor Swift – a huge female pop star rewriting the narrative and making money on her own terms,” a source told The Sun."
Okay, so she bought the rights to her own music catalogue so she can make the business decisions about how to capitalize on it. Cool. Great. That's honestly probably a fine business strategy. But if you want a look at what music catalogues are worth, it's probably a good idea to see what private equity firms are paying these days to buy them up from music icons. Here are a few artists that have sold their music catalogues recently... and what they got for them:
 Bob Dylan - $600 million between two separate deals for his publishing rights and his masters
Bruce Springsteen - $550 million
Phil Collins & Genesis - $300 million
David Bowie - $250 million
Katy Perry - $225 million
Dr. Dre - $200 million
Justin Bieber - $200 million
Imagine Dragons - $100 million
Don't get me wrong, I love Dua Lipa and think she's super talented. She's young, so she has years and years left to invest wisely and continue to grow her business. Maybe she will be a billionaire someday. But I don't think you can look at where she's at now, look at the estimated values of music catalogues that are more extensive that hers, and say that it's a foregone conclusion that she's going to be a billionaire because she and Taylor Swift happen to have a few things in common.
And while I'm ranting a bit here, why is being a billionaire such a big deal anyway? I feel like most people could manage to be perfectly happy with a $35-94 million net worth (and many people are quite capable of being happy with quite a bit less than that!), and yet there are so many media stories like this now where it's like, "You're nobody if you're not a billionaire" or "This person is smart and talented... but how much money will they be able to earn???" I think there's way too much glamorization of wealth right now, and not just wealth but obscene wealth. While I can appreciate a YouTube real estate tour of a sprawling mansion, or imagine how nice it might be to never have to worry about standing in the TSA line at the airport if I had a private jet, that's all just escapist fantasy. The problem is, it feels like everyone's taking those escapist fantasies and trying to convince you that you're nobody if you don't achieve them.
Articles like this make me really sad and more than a bit angry because it feels like nobody's just okay accepting people as they are. It always has to be, "What are they doing next?" or "How will they top this?" or "What's their ceiling in terms of success and wealth?" And maybe it's just me, but I don't feel like I desperately need answers to any of those kinds of questions. What we do desperately need is for people to start accepting each other for who they are and celebrating the accomplishments they've already achieved, not making them feel the pressure to deliver whatever's next.
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November 21, 2023 at 1:55am November 21, 2023 at 1:55am
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I thought it might be fun to play a little game of "Two Truths and a Lie." If you want to play, post your guess in the comments to this blog post. One guess per person and the first person to correctly guess the lie will get a thematically-appropriate merit badge. I'm going to include a little bit of detail, just to add a little flavor to the statements.
1. I've visited each of the fifty states. Thanks to a lot of childhood road trips, family located all over the country, and an insatiable love for travel to new places, I've officially visited each of the fifty states in the USA. For the sake of clarity, "visiting" means an overnight stay, an extended drive through, or feet on the ground in a particular state... flying over in an airplane doesn't count.
2. I'm almost a black belt. I took martial arts classes throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school and was training to take my black belt test, but I never ended up taking it. I haven't taken a class or trained in over twenty years, but belts don't have an expiration date, so I'm technically still a third-degree brown belt.
3. I don't drink alcohol and I never have. There's no religious or moral reason; it's probably because my teenage years involved being around more than a few drunk people doing stupid things and it just never seemed that appealing to me. But, yeah, I've never once had beer, wine, liquor, or any liqueurs (outside of ones that are used in cooking/baking).
So... which one do you think is the lie? |
November 21, 2023 at 12:53am November 21, 2023 at 12:53am
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Tomorrow (the 21st) is "World Television Day," and since my last blog entry was on my most anticipated movies of 2024, I thought I should probably do a post about television too. Television doesn't have quite the advanced notice that movies do, so instead of anticipated future series, I'm going to post today about the current shows I'm watching that I really enjoy. I'm only going to pick current shows, nothing that's been canceled, ended, or is in reruns. In no particular order:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As the spiritual successor to The Daily Show (which is weird to say since it's still on), this is one of my favorite entertainment news shows. I love the format of doing a deep-dive on a particular topic rather than a sweeping overview of a lot of stories, and John Oliver's brand of humor is perfect for the often heavy topics that the show covers. It's one of the few shows that I can honestly say entertain me while also teaching me something about the world, and I try not to miss an episode.
The Boys. An irreverent, gross, and disturbing send-up of superhero culture, this show is not for the faint of heart, but it's brilliant in the way it shows superheroes behaving badly and taking advantage of their supernatural abilities. The acting is great, and the show always comes up with really clever ways to shock and surprise the audience. I haven't seen the spinoff Gen-V yet, but it's at the top of my list of new shows to watch.
The Bear. Both seasons have been amazing character studies, and it's about the world of restaurants and good food, so this is right up my alley. One of the episodes in the second season ("Forks") is one of my favorite episodes of television in the past five years. It's so well written and so emotional and everything I aspire to be able to write myself as a screenwriter.
Only Murders in the Building. This show is just delightful. It's an old school murder-mystery show and it's great to see Martin Short and Steve Martin together again. Selena Gomez is an unexpectedly great addition to the cast, and each season has had a really intriguing mystery that's kept me guessing in the best way.
The White Lotus. At first I wasn't really into this show, but I love the anthology approach to it, where each season is a different "White Lotus Resort" somewhere in the world, with a different cast of characters. That keeps it fresh and interesting and, of the two seasons its had so far, there have been some amazing characters to root for (and against).
Selling Sunset and Selling the OC. This is my guilty pleasure reality show. Hot people selling hot real estate and getting into super-petty drama. It's a fun show to watch when I just want to mentally check out and watch something.
There's a whole bunch of other shows that I've enjoyed that are limited series and therefore not eligible for this list, as well as some old shows that I'm just now getting around to watching and really enjoying. I'm trying to watch a handful of seasons of new (or new to me) television every month, so this list is always evolving.
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November 20, 2023 at 12:09am November 20, 2023 at 12:09am
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Now that the actors' and writers' strikes are over, there's been a huge push to get back into production on a lot of films and television, so I thought I'd put together a list of the movies that I'm most anticipating that are (as of now) slated to be released in the calendar year 2024. I'm going to list these in order of least to most anticipated.
Dune: Part Two. I thought the first one was a little slow, but really well made. I'm looking forward to watching this one for the amazing visuals, but I expect this will be another one where it feels a little tedious to get through.
Furiosa. Same as above. I liked Mad Max: Fury Road a lot, but perhaps not as much as some. A revisit to this world will be interesting and it's sure to be a fun time, but I'm not looking forward to it as much as some of the other movies on this list.
Bad Boys 4. Martin Lawrence and Will Smith are never not fun together in these movies, although it'll be interesting to see what this movie looks like without Michael Bay's signature directing style.
Challengers. This looks like a really interesting movie about a love triangle between a tennis player turned coach, her husband, and an up-and-coming star player. I love tennis (there aren't nearly enough sports movies set in this world!), and the character dynamics in this movie make it seem like an interesting watch.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3. I'll admit that I like this series. My kids love it, and both of the previous two films have been fun to watch. Jim Carrey does a great job as the bad guy, and James Marsden is always a charming sidekick/protagonist.
Ballerina. I haven't watched The Continental television series spinoff yet, but this is the first feature spinoff of the John Wick franchise. I've enjoyed most of the movies so far (although the last two have been a tad long), and a friend of mine created this world, so I'm always rooting for it to grow and develop into even more. It's crazy where this franchise has gone from what it was originally conceived as.
Inside Out 2. The first film was really heartfelt and insightful; I'm excited to see where they go when they introduce puberty and new emotions like Anxiety.
Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim. If it's Lord of the Rings, I'm in. It's an animated prequel directed by someone who isn't Peter Jackson so I'm curious to see how it plays out, but I'm definitely here for it.
Transformers One. An animated Transformers movie about their origins? Yes please. Back to basics; Transfomers: The Movie from the 1980s is one of my all-time favorite animated movies so I can't wait to see this series return to its roots after a lot of not-very-good live action adaptations from the past twenty years or so.
Despicable Me 4. I love me some minions. This franchise has surprised me with how popular it is and, while not all of them have been as stellar as the first couple, they're always entertaining. Illumination (the animation studio behind this, Sing, this years Mario movie, and others is on a real hot streak and I'm excited to see where this installment of the franchise goes.
Borderlands. I don't know anything about this movie other than that it's based on the video game franchise which is one of my favorite games in recent years (well, the recent years in which I've played video games which aren't all that recent anymore... ), and that's all I need to know. I'm in.
The Fall Guy. I don't know a whole lot about this movie other than the premise, which is about a stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter, and it's directed by David Leitch who is one of my favorite action directors of the past few years. He's a former Second Unit (stunt/action) director who started directing in his own right and has directed John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, and Hobbs & Shaw, among others. It's pretty safe to assume the action sequences in this one are going to be bonkers, and that's exactly what I want out of this kind of movie.
Spider-Man Beyond the Spiderverse. This is such a great franchise, I can't wait to see where they take it next. I've seen the first film probably a dozen times (my kids love it too), and the second one I've seen only once but I'm already ready to watch it a bunch more. Hopefully the third installment lives up to the promise of the first two.
Deadpool 3. This list was never going to end any other way. Not only is it the third film in a franchise that I have loved so far, but I actually get to work on this one. Ever since Disney bought Fox, we've dreamed up ways to merge the MCU with the Fox franchise films and, other than the live-action Spider-Man films (which are co-productions with Sony), this is our first opportunity to really play with these characters in our sandbox. The company showed a bit of footage during a recent town hall meeting and if the early footage is any indication, this movie is not going to disappoint anyone who was a fan of the first two. I can honestly say that I'm really looking forward to this one, both as an employee and as a fan. |
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