What Else?

I feel like I’m having a weird case of face blindness where people are getting haircuts and I am just not recognizing them anymore. For instance, I didn’t recognize Laverne Cox with this bob that is somehow both angular and blunt. (Go Fug Yourself)

The Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs are meeting once again in the Super Bowl. I am not saying that Taylor Swift didn’t launch Travis Kelce, and by extension the whole Kelce clan, into the stratosphere of fame, but the Kelces’ collective star started rising when the Eagles and the Chiefs played in the 2023 Super Bowl, pitting the Kelce brothers against one another. I remember there being a lot of fluffy news coverage about the “brother bowl”. 

Jason Kelce played his whole career with the Eagles, he’s a beloved figure in Philadelphia, and though he is retired, he regularly sports all-Eagles gear and keeps up with the team. He won’t say who he’s rooting for in the Super Bowl. Which means it’s the Eagles and he just doesn’t want Swifties after him. Smart man! (Celebitchy)

Sales at Sundance are slow, and indie films are starting to languish longer and longer on the shelf before finding distribution, often in very small, self-financed deals. It’s not a secret that the state of cinema is tough, it was before the pandemic and it’s still not fully recovered from the 2020 shut down, never mind all the additional situations piling more delays and complications onto the industry. But independent cinema is especially bleak, that sector of film is really, truly, struggling. 

For a hot second in the 2010s, it looked like streaming might be the bastion of a new indie renaissance, but the bubble burst, revealing what I always sensed to be true—there’s no money in streaming. Films need theatrical releases and theatrical audiences to survive. The margins on indie films were always narrow, but now they’re non-existent, and it begs the question. What will happen to independent cinema if it simply becomes economically unviable? (Pajiba)

A super-pod of Risso’s dolphins some 1,500 strong has been spotted off the coast of California. No one is exactly sure what they’re up to, besides frolicking in the sea. Perhaps they’re preparing to leave the planet in advance of Earth being demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass through the Milky Way. (The Independent)

Speaking of aquatic wonders—bioluminescent buttholes! (Atlas Obscura)