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The Independent Variable

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Ari Aster Sets Next Film ‘Scapegoat’ With Scarlett Johansson at A24

Aster once quipped that he couldn’t believe A24 was “stupid enough” to give him $35M to make “Beau Is Afraid.” They shelled out another $30M for “Eddington,” which also failed to ignite. Maybe that’s the end of that partnership. Bless their twisted hearts, they are back again for another dip into Aster-world.

Ari Aster is one of my favorite filmmakers working today. Beau Is Afraid is a masterpiece in my opinion and his other three movies are all terrific. I'm so glad A24 continues to roll the dice on him and hope he can make something that finds a bit more success without sacrificing his own vision.

May 6, 2026

Global affairs journalist David Rothkopf wrote today in The Daily Beast: “Not since Vietnam have we seen a more systematic effort by an administration to lie about the nature, costs, consequences, and results of a war than we have seen from the White House on Iran.”

They've painted themselves into a losing corner and won't admit it so they continue to do everything they can to deflect and deny reality, extending things out further and further. And to think, if only Trump hadn't pulled out of the original Iran deal, we'd never be here. But that would just be too easy and too sane, now, wouldn't it.

I leave the US in less than three weeks

When an opportunity like this presents itself, it feels absurd to turn it down. I've lived too much of my life trying to cling to what feels comfortable, and it's never been worth it.

Really wonderful to see Keenan and Katy make that big jump across the pond (and out of this deteriorating shithole).

Meryl Streep Calls Out “Marvel-ization” of Movies: “It’s So Boring”

She argued that the genre has “Marvel-ized” storytelling, flattening characters into predictable heroes and villains, whereas real life — and more interesting cinema — involves morally complex, “messier” people with mixed traits.

She's absolutely right, but we have ourselves to blame. We all flocked to every Marvel movie during the first 2-3 waves, or whatever they call them. So the capitalistic overlords of Hollywood decided that's where they wanted to put their money. The stars in Hollywood realized they could grab a huge bag from these places, and we continued to go. Now we—and the actors, producers, writers, etc. who care about the art form and not just the check—have to deal with that outcome.

In some ways it feels like the death of an art form. In other ways, there are still places like Neon and, to a lesser extent at this point, A24, trying to do things differently and put out original, exciting films with a point of view that don't regurgitate the same thing over and over. But it's going to be on us as the so-called "consumers" to actually go to the theaters for those movies so they continue to get made. No matter what you say, movies are an art created by humans for humans to go and feel things. It's not just supposed to be a bunch of computer generated song and beautiful people fighting each other.

AT Kyrios /// a curious, slightly psychedelic blackletter font family

Kyrios is a curious, slightly psychedelic blackletter family. Though it may seem like a modern idea, it is an interpretation of lettering from a grave monument carved in the late 1800s, located in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.

I want to give a big shout out to Stephen over at ArrowType for officially launching Kyrios 1.0 and graduating from Future Fonts on this one. We've been using Kyrios here at TIV for almost 2 years now, and it's hard to imagine any other font replacing it at this point. We've had a ton of really cool blackletter fonts, including Casserole from OH No and Albertus Nova, but none of them can hold a candle to Kyrios.