Why 25 minutes of trailers before movies? I wrote about the secret pay-for-play system for Forbes
These are the best things I found on the internet in the past week!
Hey everyone,
Before you ask…no, I don’t know anything about Trump’s proposed tariff on foreign film production. It’s an incredibly misguided and impossible to implement idea that’s hinting at the very real problem of productions abandoning not just Los Angeles but the entire U.S. in recent years. Logically, one has to assume nothing will come of it, but we’ve made similar assumptions about Trump before…so who knows. I think the results of what he proposed would be pretty disastrous.
Anyways! What you’re here for is another edition of my “conversation starters,” a roundup of the best, most interesting and most entertaining content on the internet in the past week. Read, watch, enjoy and chat about it with a friend!
What’s the coolest story or thing you found on the internet this week? Reply to this email and shoot me a link. Would love to hear from you!
I had two stories go up last week on Forbes. One was about movie trailers. Why is there 25 minutes of trailers every time you go to theaters? It’s the most effective marketing tool theaters have, and it turns out, there’s an under-the-table, pay-for-play system in Hollywood with studios paying millions to make sure it’s their trailers that people see before this summer’s biggest releases.
The other was a little news break, about a billionaire NHL owner spending $1 billion of his own money to improve a city-owned arena for his team (the opposite of the trend of cities spending millions to build/improve stadiums owned by the rich guys).
After decades of decline, the number of people in the U.S. identifying as religious has leveled out, for one reason: Gen-Z is coming back to faith in big numbers. Experts are split on the reasons why, says Vox. Is it a response to the loneliness epidemic? Or the loss of faith in establishment? Or (gulp) does it have to do with the country’s political polarization?
It’s hard to comprehend a concert for 2.5 million people, but that’s what Lady Gaga drew in Brazil this week. This video of the crowd is a sea of humanity as far as the eye can see.
Remember MoviePass? The original too-good-to-be-true movie subscription was one of the things that sparked my cinephilia in the first place. Then the company died, resurrected, died again (there’s a documentary about this on Max). Anyway, MoviePass is relaunching this time as a fantasy app for movies, that seems slightly sketchy but I’m 1000% going to play when I can. Who wants to join my fantasy movies league???
A prison dentist in California received $1.2 million in banked vacation days when he left the job last year — and it turns out, the state is liable for billions of dollars in unpaid benefits at any given time. Apparently 73 state employees got paid $250,000 in unpaid vacation last year. It doesn’t take DOGE daddy Elon to determine something is funky here.
One of New York City’s most picturesque and historic neighborhoods, the West Village, has been completely taken over by 20-something internet creators living the dream lifestyle that the rest of us can only dream about and gawk over on Instagram. The neighborhood has become a sorority house, but this New York Mag cover story wonders if these people are not actually the true New Yorkers in 2025. It’s our Long Read of the Week.
According to health experts at the Mayo Clinic, one of the most predictive measurements for aging is … drum roll please … the ability to balance on one leg. Can you stand on one leg comfortably for 10 seconds? The answer could be linked to more serious diseases like diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s (all of which erode your balance). National Geographic gives some tips for how anyone can improve their balance.
Thanks for reading and sharing! Guess I gotta check out Marvel’s new release Thunderbolts* before Friday, which I’m sure will be a can’t-miss edition you’ll want to come back for…talk to ya then.