By Olivia Craighead

Finally, a slate of nominations that might actually make people tune in

This year, the voting body of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally decided to do what people have been telling them to do for years: nominate movies and performances that people actually saw and enjoyed. That is not to say that there aren't clunkers in the mix — looking at you, Ana de Armas — but taken as a whole, the 2023 Oscar nominees feature a comfortable mix of major popcorn movies like Top Gun: Maverick and small but mighty indies like Aftersun. One of my coworkers who has not been Oscar-pilled even said she “might actually watch lol.” That’s a win for the Academy.

The most unsurprising category of today goes to Best Picture, where nominations went about the way everyone thought they would.

By Fran Hoepfner

The IKEA shark’s enduring appeal approaches a decade of memeability

The hottest home accessory is not an arched floor mirror nor string lights nor the West Elm couch that we all hate: It’s Blåhaj.

You know Blåhaj, whether you know Blåhaj or not. The IKEA plush shark toy has been an iconic part of the Swedish furniture and home goods store since 2014. A little over three feet long, with a slate-blue top coat and a soft white belly and the weight of but a feather, Blåhaj is the size of a child with no bones, give or take a few inches. It is a perfect body pillow or statement piece, elegantly draped across a couch or bed, or perhaps posed on a chair. Its name is Swedish for “blue shark,” the real-life animal on which Blåhaj was modeled.

By Fran Hoepfner

Some new picks for 2022’s worst of the worst

Good morning — or should I say, bad morning to the 2023 Razzie Award nominations, the most useless, boring, hater-mindset aspect of film criticism in an industry full of hater mindset. Every year, the Razzies — or the Golden Raspberries, as per their official name — dole out a handful of nominations of what they deem the worst entries in film from the past year. Fine, whatever, people are doing this on Twitter constantly. The Razzies, however, have built up a somewhat troubling reputation, as evidenced by their giant apology to Bruce Willis on their homepage.

By Claire Carusillo

Maybe pack it up vis a vis acting and really focus on your genderless grape serum line or reconnecting with your six children

Brad Pitt’s work in Babylon, a three-and-a-half-hour movie about the dawn of the golden age of Hollywood that isn’t Mank, didn’t get nominated for an Oscar. Maybe when you’re the undemocratically elected Mayor of Tinseltown (my vote went to Nelson Franklin…), you must be required to take yourself out of the running during awards season. Or maybe it was because we don’t need another film about the Roaring Twenties because we’ve all seen enough flapper-themed parties on Real Housewives of Wherever to last a lifetime.

The Pitt-less Best Actor nominees consist of ...