Hotel For the Holidays (2022) - Amazon checks in on the Christmas movie craze

 It is after Christmas now but I didn't have time to watch this until Christmas Day itself. As an enthusiast of Madelaine Petsch, the preeminent star of the CW's "Riverdale", I had this movie circled as soon as I heard about it. Petsch stars as Georgia, an ambitious and industrious hotel manager  who finds herself at the center of a love triangle, torn between the lovelorn hotel chef and a wealthy, smooth-talking foreign prince. You will never be able to guess who eventually wins her heart.

Some hints after the jump?

YSL 16/12/22 - When should we boycott?

 

As usual I find myself getting in arguments online with people I probably agree with on more than I disagree. I really don't have much interest in going back and forth with Serbian nationalists all day so I'll make my comments here instead. But it got me to thinking on a larger subject I've been pondering - where do we draw the line? Who and what do we choose to support or give a pass to?

Is it right to treat Russians or Chinese as pariahs on the world stage? Should we do business with dictatorial regimes and rigid theocracies such as Qatar? I don't have all the answers but I ahve some thoughts after the jump.

Wolf Warrior (2015) - In a word, preposterous

Wolf Warrior was written and directed by Wu Jing, a wuxia actor who got his start in Hong Kong but made his name in China. He plays the lead character, a maverick sniper in the PLA who is reassigned to a special division outside of direct combat situations after killing a drug dealer without waiting for instruction. The title kind of gives it away - I thought this movie was kind of dumn, but it turned out to be a pretty important launching pad. 

Read more about it after the jump...

YSL 26/11/22 - Breel Embolo and how Globalization undermines national teams

When Cameroon-born Breel Embolo scored the winning goal for Switzerland against the nation of his birth, he declined to celebrate and seemed quite emotional. Journalists and pundits described the moment, which occurred in the opening match of Group G in this year's World Cup in Qatar, as "powerful". I would describe it instead as slightly perverse.

More on this after the jump...