July 2025 – News on Shuffle

This is How Democracy Dies

It was announced that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert would be ending in May, days after he called CBS out in settling their lawsuit with Trump. Anyone who thinks this is a coincidence, I have a bridge to sell you. Not only is Colbert leaving the network, the show isn’t getting a new host. It’s just completely being wiped from their schedule. Here’s what Stephen had to say about it on the show last night:

The Late Show first aired in 1993 with David Letterman. It’s an institution that I never expected to see end, especially not in this way. This isn’t the first time a news outlet has bent over backwards to satisfy Daddy Trump, but it is a major look at the potential death of free speech as we know it. People often misunderstand what that particular constitutional freedom means, but it is specifically meant to protect the government from silencing us. Now yes, CBS is a private corporation that can do whatever it wants with its money, but this is clearly politically motivated. They claim it’s about finances, but who is buying that? The Late Show is one of their highest rated shows and just got nominated for an Emmy (which I briefly talked about a few days ago). If anything, losing Colbert is also going to lose them income. It’s not remotely believable that finances are a motivating factor here.

The fact of the matter is that CBS needs Colbert more than Colbert needs him. I’m sure MSNBC or Netflix or someone will scoop him up real quick. Or he probably has the money and clout to just start his own YouTube channel. Or he can go the Jim Acosta route and create a Substack to do livestreams from. There are plenty of options to keep him busy and in our feeds.

I think CBS is quickly going to realize they made a big mistake. Will that be enough for them to reverse course? Only time will tell. I worry that they’ll have trouble doing it in a way where they can save face. I think they just backed themselves into an impossible corner to escape from. I also fear that this is only the first chink in our freedoms. What’s to stop The Daily Show from being canceled next, or Last Week Tonight. If every corporation is afraid to anger Trump, the only way to protect these shows is to make a strong showing here that it would hurt their wallets more than they can afford. Everyone needs to yell at CBS and tell them you will not stand for this. Otherwise I fear this is only the start of a rolling darkness looking to snuff out the light of Democracy for good.

CBS form to contact them can be found here: https://www.cbs.com/showfeedback/

Emmy Nominees 2025

The Emmy nominations were announced yesterday and I have some thoughts. Let’s get into it!

First up, Outstanding Drama. This is such a hard choice for me between Andor and The Last of Us but I think I have to go Andor. I don’t know if part of it was the perfect timing of needing this story at this particular moment in time, but it really hit hard for me. TLoU did a great job of adapting the first part of the second game, but there can be only one winner and I think Andor squeaks out just above it in my heart.

On the comedy side of things, I’d love to throw Shadows a bone for its last season, which was very good. I especially loved the fact they did multiple endings, a la Clue.

For me, Outstanding Limited Series has to go to Penguin or I riot. It is possibly one of my favorite series of all time. The first episode was so good I clapped when the credits rolled. That level of high caliber storytelling continued throughout the entire show.

Now onto the stars of these shows… Bella Ramsey deserves all the awards for her portrayal of Ellie in The Last of Us. She has been crushing it! Same with Pedro Pascal for his gut wrenching performance in the last season. Spoilers for TLoS They both did such a brutally good job during Joel’s death scene. I grieved for Joel as if I was the one who had just lost their substitute dad.

For Lead Actress in a Limited Series I have to give it to my girl Cristin Milioti who stole the show in Penguin as Sofia Falcone. Colin Farrell also deserves awards for portraying Penguin so well that I forgot who was playing him.

Continuing my love for all things Penguin, Deirdre O’Connell did a fantastic job as Francis Cobb. Every scene with her and Colin Farrell was great. They were such a twisted family unit, but you still wanted to route for them. I attribute that equal parts to the phenomenal writing and their acting.

For Talk Series I’m always torn between The Daily Show and Colbert, but I think this time I have to give it to The Daily Show. And scripted Variety Series there is only one choice, and that is John Oliver’s consistently good work on Last Week Tonight.

Outstanding Directing I’m giving to Andor. Honestly I just want it to clean house this year. It’s one of the best Star Wars things out there, and I think the best for live action series. Especially living in the current times we are in, Andor and Rogue One have been hitting especially hard for me. Andor’s final season set the stage to make me cry even more at a movie than I already had the first time. It was impressive.

The Penguin has two episodes up for Directing of a Limited Series, and it’s hard to choose which episode I liked better. Cent’Anni, I think, was the episode that made me want to give Sofia all the awards, but A Great or Little Thing was a fantastic finale that kept me on my toes right up until the end. The latter episode is also up for Best Writing.

Outstanding Guest Actor is another really hard choice for me. There are two actors from The Last of Us and one from Andor. Do I give it to Forest Whitaker for reprising his role as Saw, or Jeffrey Wright for nailing his portrayal as Isaac? Honestly I think I’d be happy either way, it’s too close to call in my eyes.

Finally, for Outstanding Animated Program I’m really pulling for Arcane’s final season. The last episode made me cry buckets. Anyone who says animated stuff is for kids is simply wrong.

I think by now you can tell I just want all the awards to go to Andor, The Last of Us, and The Penguin. All three shows were water cooler television for me. (Remember when we used to watch shows weekly and talk about them at work/school the next day?) I’ve heard good things about some of the other series that have been nominated, but these three I could not stop talking about while they aired. I wish everyone the best when the night comes, and may we keep being blessed with such good television to escape into in the future.

Superman of the People

Last weekend was opening weekend for a movie I had been anticipating for quite some time – Superman. From the day the first teaser dropped and they so expertly wove a variation on the old theme music into a series of images that told us nothing while simultaneously peaking our interest… I was pumped.

I watched this multiple times in a row and hyper analyzed every frame when it came out. The casting looked great, and they clearly wanted to appeal to old fans of the comic. There were a few full trailers that came out after this, and each one got me more excited than the last while only somewhat giving us an idea of the actual plot. They evoked the right emotions while spoiling nothing.

Fast forward to a little nonbinary nerd celebrating their day (happy belated nonbinary day everyone!) while finally getting to watch the movie they had anticipated for what seemed like ages. The reviews were all great (minus the people crying it was too woke) so I knew I was in for a treat.

Here’s where the actual spoilers for the movie come in, so pause here if you haven’t seen it yet and come back when you have.

logo for James Gunn’s Superman movie

The movie starts with the theme playing and the old Superman design appearing, which immediately got me in my feels. We then get a brief bit of text appearing on screen explaining the history we need to know about the character in this universe. I am super grateful to them for doing it this way and not making me sit through yet another origin story.

Cut to a scene we got in the teaser, of Superman having just lost a fight and having to be dragged home by bestest boy Krypto. In general the scenes from the trailer all mostly happen at the top of the movie, which I also really liked that choice.

I won’t do a play by play of the whole film, but I will dive a little bit more into what I loved and what I can see some people nitpicking over. First, the likes! I loved the casting for starters. Everyone was the perfect choice for their roles. I also love that black Perry Mason seems to just be canon now. I’ve seen it in a few iterations at this point. Personally I don’t think skin color matters for that character, as long as you nail the personality down. You don’t get a ton of Perry in this movie, but the scenes you do get really captured his spirit. I also almost said out loud “that is a perfect representation of Cat Grant” but held back since I was in public. I can’t wait to rewatch this at home and really get into it.

Next, let’s talk about it being too “woke”. There are aspects of the movie that can perfectly be layered over our current discussion about immigration right now, but does that make it “woke”? In my opinion, the folks who are complaining about this are simply realizing that they are more similar to the villains of these stories than the heroes. Comic books have always been about standing up for justice and protecting the little guy. Sorry if you’re just noticing now that you worship an actual supervillain (Elon Musk) and lost some of your humanity along the way. Superman gives a fantastic speech towards the end of the movie where he calls Lex out on what it means to be human and how he would be better off if he saw that for himself rather than being jealous of Superman. But other than that, the movie doesn’t beat you over the head with its message, and if you were uncomfortable that might be a you problem.

Now for the possible nitpicks. If you’re a comic book fan, you might notice that they change the origin of Ultraman. I personally am not bothered by this, but my knowledge of the character is also weak to be fair. The one teeny thing I could nitpick on is the appearance of Supergirl at the end of the film. My ears perked up when Superman mentions his cousin, but I don’t love making her a party girl. Again, my knowledge of the character isn’t as good as the core cast (Superman, Lois, Jimmy, and Lex) but I feel like she’s supposed to be more mature than that. Hopefully her own movie gives her more depth.

Despite the teeniest of complaints at the end, I overall thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would give it a solid 4.8 out of 5 stars. I would go see it in theaters again (which is rare for me) if it weren’t for the fact that I’m saving my money to go see Fantastic Four later this month. I highly recommend going to see Superman in theaters, and the sooner the better. It’s the little dose of goodness and hope we could use in these dark times.

Superman flying up with the words "look up" to his right