BelleBrit

I really enjoyed this film and I thought that it was wonderfully acted by the two leads (especially Adam Driver, who I always liked in his Girls role, but never quite got how he suddenly became a leading man. This movie made me "get" him more). That said, I don't think that it ranks in my top few Baumbach films. I wish that there had been a more organic way to bring the "list" back in the end rather than that clunky and cringe worthy scene that we got of the son conveniently finding it and reading it aloud. The thing with the knife was hilarious, but there should have been a better way to get something like that in instead of "Dad, do that thing with the knife." I also don't get the buzz about the Dern performance, but maybe it's because it seemed very similar to her BLL character. I couldn't shake my guilt for sympathizing more with Driver's character, knowing that he was a virtual stand in for Noah in real life, down to having sex with someone that the couple both had worked with (re: Gerwig, though in fairness this is just from publicized speculation as to the timeline of their relationship). And this is really nit-picky, but how much time is supposed to have passed in the film-was it really necessary that Nicole is seen getting a directing Emmy nomination for her show? That did not seem realistic.

Nothing confusing about it. This is what Joe does. Remember in the '08 primaries when Joe pumping up Obama, and then switched to cheering for Clinton when Obama was pulling ahead, repeatedly calling her "his girlfriend"? He's just trolling, none of it ever seems genuine, especially when he's giving his "expert" advice to Democrats.

Thanks, I also see an article on CNN from April 2018 regarding a Quinnipiac University poll about her job performance. I'm really not sure that a broad spectrum of America even knows what Haley did as UN Ambassador, I'm guessing that didn't hurt in terms of her polling popularity. I think it would be different if there were an actual campaign. I don't see Trumpers backing Mitt at this point.

Has there been actual polling that backs up Donny's assertion that "Nikki beats every Democrat, Mitt beats every Democrat"? Genuinely curious. Joe was a trainwreck snapping at Donny this morning about "America's mayor". Bleh. His long riff on Bill Clinton and impeachment makes me think he has not ruled out his dream of running for office again (but this time of course, as an "independent". Again, bleh) that was constantly being leaked to the media.

I can't believe that I watched all of part 2, but it's a train wreck that you can't look away from. My favorite part may be when she dismissively sneers that no one "helped her" when she was coming up. The level of delusion in these clips is just astounding. If this was my friend or family member, I would make her watch the clips and ask if they really thought these make her look like a well, adjusted person. She has a lot of anger. Proof that money does not buy happiness I guess... edit: close second for favorite moment is when she is asked why she never joined the military and she says something like "I don't know, I should have! People ask me that all of the time. Somehow, I got into Columbia...". OMG.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Wow, so ABC doesn't give an actual shit. Didn't they also have her homophobic rage tweeting husband on just recently? ABC news has given up. I cannot wait to see what a mess she makes of herself again. And yet, she is getting paid, which irks me. Yeppp. I also don't know how Christie is taken seriously at ALL or managed to land his cushy ABC contributor gig after bridgegate. Not surprisingly, Meggy has not commented on Twitter about Trump's latest disgustingly racist attacks against Representative Cummings and his district.

I know it's supposed to be an analogy, I agree that Meghan would love to go to the Hamptons though and be considered part of the political in crowd. In terms of reality, I know that she mentioned in April that she had been unable to go "home" (AZ) since her father's death, but in fairness, I'm not sure if that's changed/whether she more regularly spent time there on the weekends in the past. That little publicist planted comment just reiterated to me that she is always trying to insinuate that she spends way more time in red states than she actually does-she's an East Coast Elite, and has been since college.

But will wherever she goes next let her take her precious blue cards with her? 😁 Agree that the article just seems like a woe is me power play. I feel like we're not getting rid of her that easily, unfortunately.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/meghan-mccain-feeling-like-an-exhausted-defeated-caged-animal-may-exit-the-view I am going to chalk this up to fake news, if only not to get my hopes up!!! Some parts of the article seem true (that she has a mouth like a trucker), but the part about how she supposedly spends all this time in AZ (“hanging out in the creek and doing Jell-O shots and shooting guns”) while her co-hosts spend time in the Hamptons seriously made by blood boil. We literally KNOW that is not true! I will say this, Meghan must have a talented publicist.

Eating crow because I didn't think that it would happen, but Vincent Zhou has confirmed that he is joining Mie Hamada's group (though he is also keeping Tammy, so just ditching Tom it seemed...like Camden, lol. I know there were whisperings of Tom also perhaps going to California, but I'm not sure what the latest status of that is). Vincent also confirmed that he is going to Brown, but is just doing one semester to start and then focusing on skating in the run up to the Olympics.

Mirai had at least won the junior grand prix final, Caroline had won JR worlds, and Gracie had medaled at JR worlds when this hype was going on, though in fairness, the content map has truly exploded since then so it's difficult to compare. It's perfectly feasible for girls at senior worlds to compete clean programs with triple triples and end up in the latter half of the top ten, and I think that's difficult for US non-figure skating followers to "get" when they try to talk about where US "went wrong". Likewise, it's why Ellen told Adam Rippon that he should have "won the gold" when he came in 10th. Timing is also everything when it comes to body changes and injuries. That said, I do think that the fed did everything in their power to try to boost Bradie and Mariah over Alysa at US nationals. I personally would have been a bit annoyed if Mariah had won nationals with her current content. When you are leaving out a triple triple and salchow, you have better be perfectly clean in your long. Alysa is supposedly getting a nike sponsorship and it's not like her family could turn something like that down. I went to Stars on Ice this year with a non-figure skating fan, and I really enjoyed it. That said, I just don't know that SOI would be selling out if our girls were winning Olympic medals or if the skaters were skating harder content like they typically do in Japan. The entertainment landscape has just changed a lot since these shows were selling more tickets in the US...

https://www.si.com/olympics/2019/05/16/alysa-liu-us-figure-skating-future-quads *Sports Illustrated* (for some reason I originally wrote RS) article on Alysa Lui. I'm still not sure about the quad stuff because they often look so janky and unpleasing to the eye, though they are obviously a tremendous athletic accomplishment for girls who are getting them. I just favor the look of a beautifully executed triple axel...I also don't want to dismiss her raw talent because clearly she is something special. But too many US skating fans remember when Caroline Zhang was the next big thing, and when Polina Edmunds and Karen Chen were touted as "our answer to Russia" in their respective senior debuts...I remember how people were excited about Gracie because she seemed to have already had her growth spurt by the time she won nationals. And, for contrast (because, not to be cynical, but I'm still a little unsure about the whole putting the weight of the world on a 13 year old's shoulders thing), Gracie's Olympic channel podcast interview (https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/stories/features/detail/figure-skater-gracie-gold-interview-mental-health/) They mess up when they say Gracie came in 5th in Sochi at the beginning, but it was kind of interesting. She's self deprecating about her situation to the point where she says some sarcastic things that make me uncomfortable at points. She talks about how she felt guilty when USFS found out about the extent of her problems and were spending money to get her help, because "she wasn't one of the top prospects that year" (though paying for Gracie's therapy is perhaps one of the better uses of USFS's money in recent years tbh).

Has anyone (would they dare?) ever said to Meghan "don't look at me that way", like she has done to co-hosts in the past? It's fine for her to be passionate about this issue, but her GLARING while Ana goes on to open up about her brother was not a good look. She radiates hostility, and the way she snarled "Are you pro-choice, I don't know" to Ana was ugly. Also, I'm fine with her articulating her view, which as she said, is held by lots of other women, but things got a bit wild when she started to talk about "science" and that there is a consensus that supports her viewpoint. She has been getting away with saying some wild stuff for a while on abortion and I wish that they could have someone on who could truly challenge her on some of the specifics.

Seth was polite and respectful to her. But Meghan is not interested in having a conversation. She just PANICS when someone pushes against her pre-programmed talking points/fibs. It's not a surprise that her husband is equally hyper-defensive, a match made in heaven. Also, the irony in him saying that Seth is only where he is because he sucked up to the "right people" (because Meghan most surely is where she is today because of her talent). I also feel like this demonstrates how spoiled Meghan is. As stated above, if Meghan is set on being deferred to as a political pundit, she needs to not FREAK THE F OUT when people press her to defend her comments.

OMG, I had that dreaded song in my head all of last week due to the "scandal" 😂 Not gonna happen. Mie also has Satoko who has her own under issues, though beautiful and unmatched artistry. Plus, like it or not, Tom and Tammy's stock seems to have risen with Ting's jr world's medal and Vincent's 4CC/worlds medal, that's more than a lot of coaches can claim right now. But you never know. If they make moves, it will be within the US. I think that I read somewhere (here?) gossip that Ting's situation in Colorado was always meant to be temporary. It's hard to see Eunsoo staying with Raf, I wonder where she'll go.

Eurosport is not known for their accuracy (they are often extremely off when they try to predict the scores and also say very factually inaccurate things about skaters and their careers that I've noticed, I never trust them because of it), but I do believe that Vincent deserved the bronze on balance. When people have a reputation for underrotating, as Vincent deservedly does, I feel like everyone tries to be a technical specialist when they do well. There have been times when he has gotten rotation on quads that I don't think he deserves, but also times where he has gotten unders on quads that I thought were around (and of course lots of times where other's quads seem around that I feel should have been marked as under but never are). Vincent didn't get away scot free here in the short or long and did get some unders. It's too bad that technical calls will continue to be subjective and controversial (aren't PCs enough for us to argue over) until there's some sort of better technology...it's long been a way to manipulate scoring. Evgenia's flutz got no edge call and very high GOE.

Mariah also doesn't have a triple salchow in her free skate (which is a little strange, since she's done them in the past, they must be working on her technique), so all things considered, her score was pretty generous, even though she has great flow out of her jumps. One judge even had her in fifth in the LP. Honestly, a top ten finish is definitely not what it used to be-a clean sp and long with triple triples still could have you just inside the top ten. This worlds definitely seemed like a new frontier with quad salchows and triple axels landed. I think that the US obsesses a little too much over the three spots thing, and that it's fine not to have them for now. Let Ting et. al battle it out next year if they want one of those two spots. I'm a little heartbroken for Kaori. I'm sad for Rika, but she did single her axel in the short so it's fine that she didn't medal here. It was nice to see Elizabet land the quad salchow, if only because her short score was a little controversial. But I'm not particularly looking forward to the onslaught of quads next year. I have to admit, I'm super impressed that Alina pulled it out, even if I don't agree with her PCs. Phil Hersh did his usual "I wonder how Alysa Lui would have done here" BS. Alysa is impressive, but she is very lucky that she did not have another competition following nationals (not even jr worlds, like past young national champs) where she would have been subjected to an international technical panel and with the pressure of being national champion.

I think specifically Lim's management company requested that KSA file a complaint against USFS/Mariah for the incident. They allege that there has been bullying going on behind the scenes at their rink that's lead to separate practice sessions, etc. Hopefully Raf weighs in. Honestly have a really hard time believing someone would injure another athlete intentionally (save the Tonya situation), but I have no trouble believing that there could be some tension behind the scenes that has escalated, etc. It's pretty normal to see collisions on the ice but the background could have lead to some misinterpretations. Honestly, Mariah always struck me as the type who is not aggressive ENOUGH so this whole storyline is interesting. Not sure that Adam needed to weigh in with his 500k Twitter followers... The SP was weird. Sofia got no PCS boost despite going clean and being European champion (granted she is tacky), Mariah's toe under in the combo was completely ignored, Elizabet's PCs came out of nowhere, and Satoko got burned on PCS IMO. Rika's SP did not surprise me, it's so tough to put a triple axel in the SP, honestly her score was pretty generous considering the issues.

Someone who used to work at Comedy Central wrote on Twitter yesterday "If you're a media outlet covering/owning the college cheating scandal and you give out unearned internships to the kids of celebs as favors to their parents, and it's always a disaster for the people who have to work w/them bc the kids totally don't care, um, I SEE YOU!", I thought about Meghan's internship with Saturday Night Live (not sure how that plays into a degree in art history).

Yes, I had almost added a caveat to my note that it's difficult for a coach to make many changes during the first year, and I recognize the stability that he added to Adam and Brezina's careers (particularly Adam's triple axel) are notable, though Adam also kind of had a difficult nationals last year even though he was placed on the Olympic team, and his technical ability was such that skating his best was basically only good enough for 10th place at the Olympics (points for his contributions to the team event though, but hearing people like Ellen talk to Adam about how should have won got frustrating to hear from the perspective of a skating fan). I agree that people make too much about the affect coaches will have on a skater, which was partly my point. I just think that his stable seems kind of full already and that he's overrated for what his skaters put out is all (going to him is "trendier" than going to Tom Z, etc.) Love hearing his comments in the Kiss and Cry though. I have a soft spot for him letting Adam live with him when he was low on funds, though that NYT article where Adam talked about his unhealthy eating habits was pretty disturbing.

I wouldn't say that Rika didn't do well in juniors, even though she never managed a worlds medal or a junior grand prix final medal, she consistently medaled on the jgp/made the final, and beat top senior skaters at her nationals, usually a mistake like popping her triple axel into a single would cost her a lot of points. That's why it's so great to see her doing so well now! I hope that she has a long senior career. I figured that Ting would bomb the lp after skating well in the short, she has so much potential but is very hot and cold so far....jr worlds will be telling. And while I love Raf's personality and appreciate that he's a great coach, I still find him a bit overrated and scratch my head when people suggest sending skaters to him as a fix (which I've seen suggested for Ting). Other than his success with Nathan Chen (which still got away from them at the Olympics-and for which, Raf quickly threw Nathans' family under the bus for, which is just kind of a tacky move and a habit for him to distance himself as soon as one of his own skaters falters, I've noticed), Eunsoo kind of imploded at Korean nationals and she couldn't capitalize on other's mistakes here, Marin got further behind in her country's pack of ladies on the grand prix and at her nationals, and while Mariah has improved, she continues to throw away some perfectly great opportunities to walk through an opening. Plus, while Ashley is clearly an independent thinker, I still tend to think that he mismanaged Ashley's last year in the Olympic quad/it was his idea for her to keep Moulin Rouge last year, which seemed to be a big tactical error.

I didn't mean to imply a negative connotation with the word "dumped". I do think that it was very clear that the coaching relationship wasn't working anymore. Simply put, in this case, Frank seemed to be the dump-er rather than the dump-ee (like when he "dumped" Nagasu and Goebel, but unlike when he was the "dump-ee" of Michelle Kwan).

Yuki Saegusa of IMG. She is also Mirai, Adam, the Shibs, Bradie, Nathan, Kristi, and Karen's agent (to name a few, haha). I'm sure she is not a bad person, she seems to have a particularly nice relationship with Nathan, she also went to Yale and seemed to really promote the idea of him going to college. I just wondered how much and what she knew about Gracie's downward spiral, though to be fair the NYT article did say that people were trying to help her for a while, and she was resistant. I just remember Gracie having her tough nationals in 2017 and Frank dumping her, and it seemed like there was an instant effort for her team to launch a media offensive to show her sponsors that everything was ok (She came in 6th at nationals and still went on the Today Show afterwards to talk about her coaching change, and there was also a strange ESPN W article, linked below, that had a very "cleanup on aisle 4" feel. Plus, she was assigned to the Japan Open 2017 Fall IMG event in the summer, even though it was clear that she had lost her triples by Stars on Ice that Spring). Not blaming the agent, but I'm sure she's very excited about Alysa and all of the money that she could potentially make off of her if she's "the next big thing". (here's the link-http://www.espn.com/espnw/life-style/article/18647109/gracie-gold-season-felt-tom-brady-first-half-super-bowl)

One thing that stuck out to me about the Gracie article was how her mother said that it wasn't just her own expectations that were crushed by 2016 worlds, but that Gracie felt "the expectations of her country" and "the expectations of her agent" on her shoulders at 2016 worlds. For one, figure skating is just not popular enough that Gracie should have felt like the country's expectations were on her. And secondly, I'm not even sure that the figure skating community's expectations were necessarily on her for 2016 worlds, even if she felt that way. I think they did hope that the "drought" would end, but didn't really care if it was Ashley or Gracie who got it done. She had just had disappointing performances at the grand prix final and 4CC that season (and even though she won 2016 nationals, she had a pop in the short program). Heck, Gracie even bombed her short program at her first senior nationals in 2013, even though she pulled up to silver, so I feel like there was always issues with pressure there. The agent, I just don't trust, she was still promoting Gracie as an Olympic contender in 2017 spring/summer when it was clear that she was losing her triples and spiraling downwards. Now that same agent has Alysa. The circle of life. Even though Nathan's issues at the Olympics get blamed on his layout changes, it's telling that he is such a grounded and seemingly consistent person that the pressure got to him too in the Olympic year.

Alysa's going to be on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and the Today show. I do feel a little better that Ting and Hannah showed a ton of potential at this year's nationals, hopefully they can continue to improve and give some competition to Alysa in upcoming nationals (since Alysa won't be able to compete at a senior level until 2020...). I'm looking forward to seeing how Ting does at 4CC. I'm also not sure how I feel about USFS paying to send Alysa to watch the grand prix final. Let's just hope that the figure skating community can protect her a little bit. The NYT article about Gracie could have been a documentary that ended with Alysa winning nationals. I know that maybe that's unfair to say. I think that it will probably help that there is not as much depth in the US compared to Russia. Hell, the US "class of 2008" basically just stopped competing.