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Sometimes these newsletters come to me like a flash. I read or see something during the week, or connect two new dots in my own consciousness, and know: ah, that’s the dispatch for the week! But sometimes I get to Monday or Tuesday and I’m starring at the blank screen thinking I don’t have much to say, at least anything coherent and worthy of your precious time. In these moments, I try to take a breath and just let something come through.

Hi, my name is Kate. I am married, have four children, and live in the Midwest. My kids are 12, 10, 4, and 1. Three boys and a girl. My oldest has a diagnosis of severe, nonverbal autism. Although, if you ask me, he’s pretty chatty these days. (He just got off the bus and asked me to go on the boat.) I started blogging 10 years ago. I can still remember the feel of the green couch on the back of my legs as I said to my husband…’I started a blog.

Dayna Cunnigham was initially hesitant about sharing his personal journey. The rugby-loving Southland dairy farmer doesn’t want to come across like he’s telling people what they should do. But he feels obliged to open up publicly. He knows there will be people “in a hole” struggling both physically and mentally. As he did. He wants them to know they aren’t alone and there are ways out. “People need to understand that they are not failures, life is tough.

Behold, we have hit Peak New York Times! The paper of record tells us that a stadium full of hardcore black nationalist Marxist-Leninists, singing a song calling for the murder of white farmers, is not really about calling for the murder of white farmers. Even though Julius Malema, the hardline Marxist-Leninist who heads the Economic Freedom Fighters party, and who led a stadium full of the faithful in singing the murderous song, has called for violence against whites many times — the Times wants us to believe that it’s not what it seems like.

Love Lies Bleeding Dir. Rose Glass 104 min. One common pitfall of mediocre neo-noirs are filmmakers who get caught up with signifiers, fiddling too much with hard men and femme fatales, stylized dialogue, and flashy chiaroscuro lighting techniques. Starting with the title, Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding serves as a potent reminder that passion is the true engine of the genre, even as it trades robustly in the familiar archetypes and the nasty little twists that go along with it.

Welcome to The #Content Report, a newsletter by Vince Mancini. I’ve been writing about movies, culture, and food since the aughts. Now I’m delivering it straight to you, with none of the autoplay videos, takeover ads, or chumboxes of the ad-ruined internet. Support my work and help me bring back the cool internet by subscribing, sharing, commenting, and keeping it real. — Once upon a time, The Room became a cult hit, not because of its fascinating plot or lively pacing, but because it was somehow both ineptly made and yet thoroughly revealing of the man who made it.

There’s no reason why anyone in this world should hate either of the Mamma Mia! Films. People often cite its absurdity, that it’s too fabricated, or even that the ABBA music doesn’t really fit with the plot. Well, get over it! Life is too short to hate these explosions of dance, beauty, and happiness and anyone who does is an immediate red flag. But we’re not here to argue about the Mamma Mia excellence — we’re here to gossip about Donna, Sophie, and Sam.

E: What do you get when you combine two charming redheads, one mid-century modern office, 10 blissfully partnered couples, and the bleak reality of millennial financial stability? Netflix’s new(ish) reality show, “Marriage or Mortgage.” “Marriage or Mortgage” follows Nashville-based wedding planner Sarah Miller and realtor Nichole Holmes (the aforementioned redheaded duo), as they compete for the business of 10 Tennessee couples and convince them to either have their dream wedding (marriage!

NEW STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This newsletter aggressively spoils things. Recently, Hulu started streaming Moonlighting, the show mainly famous for a) making Bruce Willis into a star and b) being almost totally unavailable in the modern age. I used to think streaming meant I'd be able to watch anything I wanted, any time I wanted like those lucky ducks in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, but now TV shows and movies are literally vanishing from streaming platforms and being memory-holed by their own production companies, and my brother, who is a die-hard physical media weirdo, laughs at me smugly as he fondles all the movies he literally owns that no one can take away from him.