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Summer 2025

 Dislikes 


*AMC Theaters. Before any movie, you have an obnoxiously booming voice talking about laser light. Then you have a short film about different kinds of movie genres (car chase movies, dance movies, romance movies). Then you have Nicole Kidman giving her weird cult-vibe speech about how much she loves "Jurassic Park." It's too much, AMC. I thought, for a long while, that the CEOs would come to their senses. But, in fact, they're now leaning in. It's too much.

*The absence of menus. I hate everything about this. I hate digging out my phone, finding the scan option, changing the font to make things readable. I hate having to pretend that this is a delightful state of affairs--when the server explains that there are no paper menus. Most of all, I hate that this change was just smuggled in via COVID. I was not consulted. I expect that soon restaurants will say, "We actually don't make food anymore. You can purchase one of two kinds of soft drink." And we'll all just nod our heads; we'll act like sheep. As Timothy Snyder has observed, in "On Tyranny," there is often a bizarre human wish to make things *easier* for the despot.

*Big portions of NPR. Let me make an exception. I think Brian Lehrer is great. He isn't breaking a sweat. He is just a crabby guy with blunt, tough questions. ("Mr. Mamdani, your remarks on globalizing the intifada...Can you admit they were pretty stupid?") But other voices try too hard. I'm thinking of Kai Ryssdal and Kousha Navidar. The unctuousness, the grating singsong tone. Who do you think you are, Kai Ryssdal? Do you think you are Audra McDonald? It's almost a thrill to me when "Marketplace" comes on, because I take so much pleasure in hating, hating, hating Mr. Ryssdal's delivery. I don't think I'm "punching down." I think America deserves better programming.
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