iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

NINJA SCROLL is back in theaters this week — with a new 4K restoration! I wrote about it for @vulture.com's 100 FIGHTS project here www.vulture.com/article/best...

But the fight really ends with a cut to a tired and broken Jubei, who looks as surprised and grossed out as he does relieved, which is key to Kawajiri’s alchemy: “He spaces the action scenes with just enough exposition to guide the wisecracking Jubei and his sidekicks to the next set piece, and to give the audience time to catch its breath,” wrote anime scholar Helen McCarthy in 500 Essential Anime Movies. The fight itself is messy and disgusting, a display of violence that borrows from the aesthetics of live-action samurai cinema, but it never looks cartoony. It’s later revealed that Tessai’s rocklike skin was chipped (and Jubei’s life was saved) because he was poisoned by the female ninja he attempted to rape earlier. Even in fully clothed fight scenes, Kawajiri’s hyperviolence is inextricably linked to sexual violence.

Ninja Scroll may be a feature-length film, but it’s also a triumph of anime’s “original video animation” format — shorter films with a higher budget than a typical TV show but not as high as a full theatrical release. Kawajiri’s concept started as two 45-minute OVA episodes that were eventually combined into one feature-length film, which is another reason it’s stuffed with so much action. Ninja Scroll didn’t take off in Japan nearly as much as...

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

consider the millions of people who can't count on civility let alone safety in the country the Roberts court has shaped www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/u...

But others argue that disturbing the chief justice and his family at home is invasive, scary, and out of line with Maine’s tradition of maintaining respectful distance. They also worry such actions could be counterproductive, alienating the justice.

“John is a credit to the community and an asset to all of us whether you agree with him or not,” Kevin Lipson, his closest friend and chief defender here, wrote as neighbors debated the protests on Facebook. “Civility should be our guiding principle.”

The chief justice used to preside over a Supreme Court whose members were afforded more privacy and freedom than many other public officials. Once, years ago, Mr. Lipson and the chief justice found themselves up the peninsula from Port Clyde without a car, Mr. Lipson recalled in an interview. So he stuck out his thumb by the side of the road and a pickup truck pulled over. He and the nation’s top jurist hopped in the back and hitchhiked back to town.

Now, Mr. Lipson said, he is cautious about introducing his friend to strangers. This year, on an outing to nearby Monhegan Island, people recognized the chief justice as he walked by a brewery and started to chant: You should be ashamed.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

that this happened on the accord with AI companies on "super intelligence" is so pathetic newrepublic.com/post/216015/...

Only Trump Would Spell United States Wrong in an Executive Order
The president signed his name right above the obvious error.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

i swear if the AIs don't kill us the headline cringe will

subject line:
Tilly Norwood Says She’d Love to Work With Tom Holland and Olivia Colman: 'But Only If It Were Their Digital Twins' on an 'AI Production'

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

tech companies are betting we'll subcontract our lives to AI in exchange for unfettered access to our digital identities, and — shocker! — that deal pretty obviously sucks

It immediately asked for read/write permissions on my Google Suite, offering to sort my email inboxes, add things to my calendar, or organize my Google Drive. If I wasn’t interested in that, it told me it could shop for me, book dinner reservations, or, if I gave it read/write access to my computer, even do tasks on my laptop. But I didn’t need to do any of those things yesterday. And I definitely didn’t need to do any of them so badly that I was willing to risk it deleting something important, hallucinating an email to someone, or buying me something I didn’t want. So I sat at my computer, clicking around to find something for it to do, and eventually just gave up.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

drew the short straw (aka wrote about HBO's Harry Potter) for this one www.vulture.com/article/what...

What will HBO’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone alchemize?
Over the objections of haters across the internet, whether they oppose J.K. Rowling’s transphobia or are simply dismissive of a franchise that’s grossed more than $35 billion over the past three decades or so, HBO’s Harry Potter TV adaptation is barreling into homes on Christmas Day and promises to be a massive hit. In April, an early behind-the-scenes look at the series quickly shot up to No. 1 on HBO Max, and its teaser trailers — as by-the-numbers as they look — have generated more than 21 million views on YouTube. Imperfect as those metrics may be, the hype is real: History reminds us over and over again that the Wizarding World’s crossover appeal with audiences is matched only by its regression to the nostalgic mean; its last major video-game release, Hogwarts Legacy, was the top-selling game of 2023 even as the culture war and the franchise’s familiar designs lingered like a dementor over its release. Do we expect HBO’s debut season of Harry Potter to perform any differently, even though it retells a story that audiences already regularly watch across streaming services and its promotional materials resemble Chris Columbus’s AI-microwaved nachos? No.

But another TV adaptation of a turn-of-the-century fantasy behemoth could prove a bellwether for how audiences engage with the new Potter show on a longer timeline. HBO wants Harry Potter to be its next Game of Thrones, but what if it performs more like Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power? Two seasons in, the massively expensive Amazon show and passion project of Jeff Bezos himself is critically liked but not exactly the ratings dynamo the service probably would have wanted given the series’ reported $1 billion investment. It’s notable that for season three, Rings of Power is switching up its release schedule to a model akin to that used for Andor’s second season — half the season at first, then two episodes every week. In other words, the programmers at Amazon felt something needed tinkering. Rings of Power even has a slight freshness advantage over Potter, in that it tells a story that’s at least new to the screen, whereas the Potter plan is to readapt the same books and character arcs the films were based on with likely minimal changes. New viewers may not care, but will it compel the legions of adults to stay tuned?

As far as HBO and WBD’s bottom line goes, the series’ perceived freshness points at the biggest question of all. The show’s success won’t hinge on whether audiences will be willing to watch a Black Snape or compartmentalize the ways J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans views or actions may or may not bother them. It’s what the legacy of this new show’s years-long release schedule will be. Will it blossom into the kind of generation-defining hit that the films and books became? Somewhat unusually for HBO, the bet that the network has placed is on a story that much of its audience has already watched, read, or osmosed over the past quarter-century. —Eric Vilas-Boas

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

CHOP, in this exchange, is the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia dude's a total deadbeat, practically absentee as a public servant www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Fetterman
Why do I have to keep having to meet with chop
Aide
Because they are worried about vaccines and Medicaid cuts.
Fetterman
Well I’m not
[...]
I’m convinced they just want free trips to DC

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Gundam is angry, weird, spacemagical — a dumbbutsmart horny-in-the-oddest-ways thesis on atrocity. Collateral damage by robots as anime toy ad, an outraged plea to get over your bullshit and converse this one gets it. doubt the live-action Sydney Sweeney movie will www.vulture.com/article/nymp...

It isn’t that Murase wanted to make the film look like live action. Much of the film visually emphasizes what animation can achieve that live action cannot. This doesn’t apply only to the mobile suit battles but to the film’s emotional crux, the relationship between Gigi and Hathaway. They’re Newtypes who possess extrasensory cognitive gifts that heighten their empathy and supercharge their yearning for each other. Between sorties, Hathaway can’t stop thinking about Gigi, who is dating Sleg, while Gigi finds herself being radicalized against the Federation by her time on Earth. The climactic combat sequence triggers Hathaway’s trauma, making way for a mental crashout spun into a visual feast: The muted realism gives way to the ’80s colors and designs of Char’s Counterattack, then intercuts Hathaway’s first-person memories with a conversation with ghosts. Murase could have chosen a more photo-realistic style again here, but portraying his anti-hero’s mind breaking as he floats into a vortex of purple haze just looks cooler. It’s a reminder that Gundam’s Newtype magic still looks best in 2-D animation (in this case, enhanced by a healthy dose of CG). Likewise, Hathaway’s reunion with Gigi afterward, flying on a giant robot over the skies of Australia, would look preposterous in live action — especially if it were filmed with the kind of flat soundstage lighting that’s become all too common these days.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

just in from the happiest workplace on earth (h/t @puck.news)

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

it woulda been nice to keep this massively popular 2D thing in 2D for the big screen, imo www.vulture.com/article/the-...

still from the new THE BLUEY MOVIE trailer

The new 45-second teaser trailer released at D23 features none of the simple, 2D line work of the 7-minute show beloved by kids and adults alike. It’s replaced with a more Pixar-y or DreamWorks-esque 3D CG rendering of Bluey and her sister Bingo. Together they play with a balloon, fighting to keep it the air before it finally falls to the ground in front of the camera,and they promptly run away. It’s only the tiniest snippet of the film, of course, but it teases a film rendered in full 3D CG animation, something closer to, say, Minions, than the 2D look of the biggest kids’ show of the last decade or so.

The effect may take Bluey fans some time to get used to. The show’s visual identity is defined by bold outlines and strong colors. Though Bluey has never looked lo-fi, this visual style makes it feel homespun, its hand-drawn aesthetic lending an intimate, coloring-book familiarity to its family-friendly vignettes. The elegance of 2D designs are central to its appeal: Not only is it less stimulating to my toddler than the average pre-school show, but its characters are super easy for artistically challenged parents like myself to convincingly doodle when the kid inevitably asks for a Bluey drawing.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

"Friends" is a beloved American sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, following six young adults—Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe—living in New York City. The show explores their friendships, romances, careers, and personal growth over ten seasons

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

the level of AI use hyped through CEOspeak is always a bit whiplash-inducing to me (worth remembering too these calls are very much prepped and produced for investor audiences) www.vulture.com/article/disn...

D’Amaro cited using AI tools in Disney productions across the following examples:

• Various processes “throughout our production pipeline”
• Conversions of titles into 3D and other premium formats
• Adding “visual effects to more shots”
• Rendering or de-noising footage

Beyond the film or TV studios, AI is steadily permeating the entire company. His technology, advertising, and marketing teams are exploring “gen-AI-powered creative” and ad delivery. On streaming, “AI is helping us improve personalization on Disney+ and it allows us to further enhance our recommendation engine,” he says. He also shouted out ESPN as a model for integrating AI workflows into its business, from the fan engagement product SportsCenter for You, to advertising products, live captioning, and highlight clipping. In the Experiences businesses, it’s popping up in the Imagineering pipeline, booking, and various forms of trip personalization. “With AI, it’s not just about efficiency,” he said. “We use it first and foremost to enhance a creative process. That creative process will always be human-centered. It’ll always be artist driven and creator-led.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

More in there to dig through, including some the latest (still quite early) tracking for both films from Greenlight Analytics... www.vulture.com/article/dune...

As of late July, Greenlight places frequent moviegoers’ general interest in Doomsday at 77.2 percent, compared to Dune’s 70 percent. Theatrical intent for Doomsday among frequent moviegoers is 65.3 percent, to Dune’s 54.8 percent. Casual moviegoers’ interest in Doomsday is 67.5 percent, to Dune’s 44.5 percent. Theatrical intent to see Doomsday is at 49.6 percent, to Dune’s 29.1 percent. “I would be shocked if Dune 3 outgrossed Avengers on opening weekend domestically, even though I believe there’s room enough for both to succeed,” Katz says.

But Dune 3, the more niche offering, is gaining ground. Per Greenlight, audience interest in Dune 3 rose by 9 percentage points between June and July, while Doomsday plateaued, which Katz noted is not uncommon for blockbusters this far from release. While Doomsday has a larger baseline of interest and multigenerational reach, audience awareness scores of Dune 3 nearly doubled in that same span. The film’s theatrical intent score rose 9.5 points, and its willingness-to-pay score rose 9.1 points. And while Marvel stars are already promoting their film, Dune 3’s hype cycle has hardly begun and promises to put Gen Z–friendly faces like Chalamet, Zendaya, and Robert Pattinson front and center.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

reading this from a writer who regularly puts in the work is gutting worth underlining: journalists don't cover this beat because it pays off financially—or even in respect among most other journalists. im not saying it should be easy, but i wish it weren't *this* aftermath.site/i-hate-doing...

• I’m paid either $85, $100, or $200 (depending on what publication I’m writing for) while juggling five features a week in tandem with this interview (or other anime interviews) at the same time.

• The process begins again.

It’s within reason for a Japanese studio to request questions early ahead of an interview for translation purposes to alleviate the bottlenecked amount of time we’ll have to chat. But it invariably leads to a slippery slope where the journalism I showed up to conduct is treated as optional, a hurdle for the studio to jump over nearly every step of the way before any of my anime work gets published.

At my most sardonic, I find humor in the challenge of asking pertinent and provocative questions, given that the above process only yields questions like whether my interviewees liked the colors, shapes, and sounds they saw in a show. At my most exasperated, I ask myself what we are even doing here, grumble about how the integrity of my work is being compromised, and wonder whether I should just slide my keyboard to my interviewees so they can write it up themselves, since I’m a middleman whose journalistic purpose feels ground to dust.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

still thinking about @shineyezehuhh.bsky.social's refreshingly honest piece about doing anime interviews I'll often find myself re-explaining my pub's editorial policy on 11pm Zooms to like 8 studio/PR ppl—*after* a creator has already given a thoughtful answer aftermath.site/i-hate-doing...

The interview, if in person or over Zoom, is given a limited window of 5-10 minutes if it's a press event with other journalists queued up in waiting rooms and thusly limited depending on if the person ahead of me went over their time, leading to an improvised reshuffling of questions to ask briskly while taking translation time between questions and answers into account.

If the interview is at a convention, either live or over Zoom, it’s given a 20-minute window if I’m lucky. If it’s an exclusive interview spurred by my own volition, I'll be given upwards of 30 minutes again, if I’m lucky. The aforementioned time-for-translation phenomenon still applies.

Interview ends, and I get to writing my draft.

Interviewee requests to review my draft to check for “accuracy” and “tone.” This isn’t usually a requirement for English-language interviews, but when you’re working through a translator it’s generally a good practice.
-Bonus: Interviewee requests to have answers omitted from the draft because they feel it isn’t pertinent to the conversation about the anime.

The subject takes issue with the fact that the questions they answered are in the article I wrote. They want some of the answers that they gave on the record removed. This takes the editing process to a dead halt.

We have a back-and-forth where I tell the interviewee I can't allow a subject to peer review an interview before it is published, which leads to a deadlock where an article is in limbo for weeks of correspondence and I’m not paid because it isn’t published yet.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

16 years flew by and somehow I forgot every track here is a stone-cold banger open.spotify.com/album/50VtxP...

Spotify album art for A Sunny Day in Glasgow's album 'Autumn, again'

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

solid blog on this discourse. if you can't see The Odyssey in Imax, I absolutely promise you it will command your attention on a big-ass screen in a dark room www.patreon.com/MaxRead/post...

But the tweet is also revealing about the discussion. "What NOLAN actually filmed" may have been 1.42:1, and rich people might catch a bigger picture, but The Odyssey was obviously framed for a traditional widescreen aspect ratio. (Arguably the tighter widescreen crops are much more focused and dramatic!) The case for seeing The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm over any other format (and its corresponding aspect ratio) is almost entirely that such a huge screen, filled from edge to edge, will enable a singularly immersive and overwhelming viewing experience—not that there's something special or important about the 20 percent more forehead. Even if you could project the 1.42:1 image onto a regular widescreen (not really possible in most circumstances), as many are asking, what would that actually gain you? Twenty percent more ship mast? A smidge more beach? Tom Holland's hair? Matt Damon's helmet plume? The point of IMAX is that it's big, not that it's square.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

google's $190 billion spend on AI this year definitely working out for them

A search for 'The Odyssey' obviously referring to the new Chris Nolan movie that googles AI erroneously describes as having been "directed by Fede Alvarez"

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

"It really is the storyboarding... Nowadays with CG, you can do anything, and somehow it's still not as cool as that." –Genndy Tartakovsky on why Hayao Miyazaki's movies and shows look so good www.vulture.com/article/best...

GENNDY TARTAKOVSKY:
I was 24, 25, and I was trying to figure it all out. I would look at this sequence and think, How did he make this feel so dense? And it really is the storyboarding. Because it’s still done on a TV budget. Everything’s very controlled, and you spend the money where you need to spend the money. The animation is not feature quality, but it’s just very specific and neat, because the compositions are great. The choreography is great. Everything is very clear, and it’s staged very simply because it has to be production friendly.

There’s this one shot where Lupin is coming around the big plane, and it’s just a pan, but it just feels really great and very simple. Super clear action. You know where to look. Nowadays with CG, you can do anything, and somehow it’s still not as cool as that.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

apparently per the Castle in the Sky artbook, Miyazaki went back and forth on including it? makes you wonder about all the ideas that don't make it into his movies

Pazu plays the trumpet.
The concept art that inspired Pazu's design, along with his trumpet, was originally designed for another project. Mr. Miyazaki had quite the back and forth about whether or not to include the scene in which he plays his morning fanfare, but it ultimately made it to film after Animage editor Osamu Kameyama insisted that it be kept.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

this is a moral disaster. a collective sin committed against literal babies. and we know exactly the people responsible

In the first years after birth, the human brain develops at a remarkable pace. Every second, more than a million new neural connections spring into being, shaping a person’s physical and emotional health for the rest of their life.

Since the Trump administration entered the White House last year, at least 500 babies and toddlers have spent some of that pivotal time in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE has dramatically increased detentions of children aged 3 and under, holding 25 of them in custody on an average day between January 2025 and March of this year, according to a new analysis by The Marshall Project and MS NOW of records obtained by the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers who collect and share federal immigration data. That number is 10 times higher than it was in the previous 12 months under former President Joe Biden. Back then, on an average day, fewer than three babies and toddlers were held at facilities across the country.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

It's really bleak, and stuff like this is especially petrifying www.chronicle.com/article/my-s...

$My students from districts that surrendered to devices and standardized testing arrive cognitively winded. A democracy that requires a literate electorate is now training one fraction of that electorate out of literacy while marketing to the other a “deep work” lifestyle as a luxury good. The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.$

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

this is a brutal read in part because the middle-school teachers I know are burnt out fighting their own literacy battles, and it doesn't feel like their younger cohorts now are "bouncing back" in the post-covid era. it feels like it's getting worse.

But I want to be plain about the limits of what an individual instructor can do, and all of these solutions have costs. Scaffolding a 20-page article into halves compromises the integrity of the argument I am asking students to engage, just as modeling note-taking in a credit-bearing rhetoric course is using a college slot to teach a middle-school skill. None of the syllabi I teach are designed to deliver this type of cognitive rehabilitation, and pretending otherwise has produced credential inflation. We cannot keep conferring degrees on students who cannot do what the degree is supposed to certify.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

As part of our reporting on the success of 'The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act' — yesterday's box-office leader with $7.8M in sales — Tim Brinkhof talked with a few other YouTube animators why they stick with the platform...

Another YouTube Phenomenon Is Crashing Theaters This Weekend
This one is an indie cartoon — and it already beat He-Man, Scary Movie, and Backrooms on Thursday night.

By Tim Brinkhof

created by artists who cultivated large YouTube followings and sold it to Adult Swim). “No gatekeepers, no development cycles, no committees. You can make something strange, release it immediately, and see how people respond in real time. That direct line to an audience is something the studio system still can’t really replicate.”

For Haver, sticking to YouTube is also a matter of principle. “I turned down a major streamer to make an animated series for them for this very reason,” he says. “I’d much rather make my stuff for less, and make less from it, if it meant I retained my true independence.”

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

oof. Scott Pelley ripping into management at CBS News/60 Minutes this morning

Pelley did not let up, however. The veteran newsman told Bilton and Forelle that the way management handled the firings was "cruel." Forelle—yet again—responded by calling Pelley "rude."

"I'm not being rude," Pelley shot back. "I have some pretty—you know what was rude? Black Thursday. That was the absolute definition of rudeness. Telling Tanya Simon she had to be out of here at five o'clock. Sending Draggan Mihailovich to HR to get fired, because nobody could look him in the eye. Not talking about Tanya's contract. Not talking about Sharyn Alfonsi's contract. Not talking about Cecilia Vega's contract. Just calling them up and telling they were fired. That's rude. This is a conversation. That is rude, and you were part of that."

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I also asked Murase what his feelings on AI were. He's open to experimenting with the tech in his films — though not without some key reservations And "probably not" for the third chapter of the Hathaway trilogy www.vulture.com/article/nymp...

He did comment on another issue that’s dominated conversations in animation circles lately, though: the use of generative artificial intelligence. Murase denied using any AI tools to make Nymph Circe but did express curiosity, tempered by caution, in using them in animated films going forward: “I do have a desire to use it at some point. When you think about AI, the source of where the knowledge base that the AI is built on is not very clear. So from a production standpoint, we need to be very careful,” he said. He pointed out that it’s probably becoming more cost-efficient to use AI rather than the CG used to bring films like Nymph Circe to life, “but whether or not we’re going to use AI for the third chapter of Hathaway, probably not.” (He was careful to disclaim immediately afterward that his stance on AI might differ from “the official standpoint of Bandai Namco.”)

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Some long stretches of the film (like its predecessor 'Hathaway') play out in the dark, almost "pitch-blackness" per director Shuko Murase. That was creatively intended, he said, but even he had trouble controlling the levels of darkness he wanted onscreen www.vulture.com/article/nymp...

When robotic forces do eventually clash, the struggle is explosive and largely plays out at night, lit by the muzzle-flash of green laser weapons. Murase’s goal for the combat, he told Vulture in a brief interview ahead of the film’s release, was to avoid the blue tones typically used to depict night scenes in anime and to, instead, shroud the film’s action in a “pitch-blackness” inspired by the nighttime of the real world. Doing that, he felt, would better capture the dread of not being able to see one’s enemy: “There are some elements that I myself couldn’t control, and so some scenes are even darker than I wanted them to be,” he said.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

bong joon ho animated action movie let's fucking goooooooo variety.com/2026/film/gl...

Is there something new and exciting for you as a storyteller that animation gives you that you didn’t have before?
Just personally as a director, I’ve always wanted to create an awesome action sequence, to create a sequence that can surpass the great ones created by George Miller or Miyazaki Hayao, and I felt like this film was my chance to practice that ambition. With live-action, to do an action sequence you have to block all the roads, you only have three prop cars that you can explode and there’s a deadline. But with animation, there’s no limit — the control freak in me can be fully unleashed.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Rex Reed could be everything people say and more—offensive, cutting, and very funny—usually in one sentence. He could also be sweet, when he wanted to be. I'm grateful to have known him. RIP.

email from Rex Reed, Aug 26, 2021:
-
Eric,
I am in a total state of shock.. I thought and hoped you would be one of the exceptions to the mass exodus that has become the Observer trademark. I do not blame you for departing for greener pastures, but I am sorry we never met. I care what happens to you from this point on, so please do me the favor of keeping me posted on your future plans. I too have greatly enjoyed working with you. It is always a concern when one editor leaves and you have to get used to another one, so I only hope moving forward will not be as daunting as it seems now. I am the single longest employee still connected with NYO, and I have survived all of the previous changes, so I hope my luck holds. Meanwhile, best of luck to you and I am still hoping one day we can meet in person and perhaps discuss the past. Rex

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

important www.vulture.com/article/jaco...

Vulture headline:
ART IMITATES LIFE | 2:03 p.m.
Jacob Elordi Cans Cannes Plans, Not in Jury Due to Injury
Ouch! His foot!
By Fran Hoepfner

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

it's high time Logan teamed up with Snoop Dogg

[Verse 1: Snoop Dogg & Doggyland]
There is no one better to be than myself
There is no one better to be than myself
Today is going to be an amazing day
Today is going to be an amazing day
My feelings matter
My feelings matter
I get better every single day
I get better every single day
I choose to feel happy
Ichoose to feel happy
My family loves me so much!
My family loves me so much!
I care about others
I care about others
I learn from my mistakes
I learn from my mistakes

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

thought “It’s a great time to be a novelty-seeking wellness writer on Substack” was the most demoralizing sentence i'd read today before i made it to "Those pharma brands need to advertise somewhere" i mean sheesh

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

grateful to @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social for articulating the problem with Dr. Robby's villain season on The Pitt www.vulture.com/article/the-... @vulture.com

Robby’s transformation serves a narrative purpose — how much more foreshadowing could a trip to a place called “Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump” provide? — but in emphasizing his PTSD and burnout, The Pitt is neglecting the colleagues most affected by it. The character interactions are no longer reciprocal: Robby yells; the person he’s yelling at looks upset but doesn’t get to defend themself or engage in a way that illuminates the character; Robby finds someone new to yell at. Robby’s heel turn is purposeful, but in order to pull it off, The Pitt is undercutting the rest of its ensemble.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

i don't think he's on here, but shoutout to the editor on the project, Nic Juarez, who wrote this yesterday when it ran in @nymag.com's One Great Story newsletter

If Vulture has a calling card, it is our love for making extremely comprehensive and undeniably definitive ranked lists. We debate, watch, rank, rewatch, fight, rerank, and sometimes cry (which actually happened this time) during a yearlong process that ultimately pays off with a list that feels original and authoritative, and invites plenty of spirited debate. Last year, the bravest, weirdest Vulture staffers were game to endure the lengthy process of researching and evaluating every original series from Adult Swim, the beloved and freaky late-night programming block from Cartoon Network that shaped the tastes of a bleary-eyed, post-ironic generation of comedy fans. As the potential Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros., the home of Cartoon Network, looms and the fortunes of cable television decline, the future of Adult Swim has never been murkier, so we felt a long look at the network's history and impact felt imperative. The team approached the exercise with a balance of deep analysis and rigor against personal biases and tastes. As you'll see in the ranking, the result is part critical history, part love letter, and the full Vulture list experience.

—Nic Juarez, staff editor, Vulture

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

we're really still doing this sort of thing, huh

“Lanterns” co-creator Damon Lindelof has published a statement on Instagram after finding himself in hot water with DC Comics fans due to a joke he made on podcast last year when asked why his show wasn’t just called “Green Lanterns.” The creator wisecracked at the time: “It’s called ‘Lanterns’ because we all agreed that the ‘Green’ was stupid, so now it’s just ‘Lanterns.'”

Lindelof’s words came back to bite him following the release of the first “Lanterns” trailer earlier this month. The footage left some fans worried about the series given that, aside from a quick shot of one character taking flight, nothing about “Lanterns” was giving comic book vibes. HBO appears to be marketing “Lanterns” more in the lane of a “True Detective” mystery than a superhero show. There was also no green in the trailer, which prompted Lindelof’s original comment to resurface about the “Green” in the title being “stupid.”

Comic book writer Grant Morrison, who was behind a popular 2018-2021 run of “The Green Lantern,” then to took to Substack to address Lindelof’s comment by writing: “TV writer/producer Damon Lindelof’s comments notwithstanding, the ‘Green’ in ‘Green Lantern(s)’ is not ‘stupid.’ Why does a writer attach himself to this kind of narrative if he thinks it’s fundamentally ‘stupid’? … What is this jockish dismissal of superhero conventions intended to prove anyway? … The only people who give a fuck about the Lanterns TV series are Green Lantern fans. Why alienate them at the start? That feels more like ‘stupid.’”

“I made a dumb joke on a comedy podcast. I’m not going to bob and weave about context, the joke was dumb, the fandom is not. I owe them an explanation and a genuine reflection of my actual feelings,” Lindelof added about his resurfaced comment, later clarifying: “Green is not stupid, it is my lifelong favorite color and I have a questionnaire that I filled out in third grade to prove it. Green is fucking awesome.”

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

With KPop Demon Hunters likely to win Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, I'm bumping this short piece again. Three cheers for smears! www.vulture.com/article/kpop... @vulture.com @nymag.com

KPop Demon Hunters Is Worth Watching at Half-Speed
Netflix's animated megahit owes its success, in part, to a techniwue that dates back to the earliest days of animation.
By Eric Vilas-Boas

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

This new Kiki's Delivery Service poster (using concept art by Yoshifumi Kondo) they made for the Imax debut is really something else

new poster for Kiki's Delivery Service in IMAX that features Yoshifumi Kondo concept art

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

and jesus said-eth to him i am the way and the truth and the $5000 home theater on wheels www.theverge.com/tech/881788/...

anker nebula x1 soundcore with speakers outstretched like arms

christ statue looking over rio de janeiro

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Things You Cannot Actually "Repeal" for $2,000, Alex

NYT breaking news alert:
Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change
The administration repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

cry "havoc!" and let slip the blogs of war, george!!! www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-featur...

One night in 2024, while the second season was airing, Martin wrote a blog post, “Beware the Butterflies,” which publicly revealed some of his gripes. When he woke the next morning, it was as if Martin had unleashed his own Red Wedding. An upset HBO exec had called Martin’s manager, who phoned Martin’s assistant, who took down the post — but not before entertainment sites (including THR) picked up Martin’s comments. “I would’ve put it back up, but then I would’ve looked like an idiot,” he says. “And 80 percent of it was praise, but that’s not what people focused on.”

Still, the post was meant to be just part one of six detailing the author’s issues with Dragon.

Martin says he can’t say anything beyond this. But sources say Martin and Condal’s relationship deteriorated further and came to a head during a Zoom call with the show’s producers and some HBO executives. The purpose of the call was for Condal to present his vision for season three. After Condal spoke, Martin detailed his many objections and allegedly declared, “This is not my story any longer.”

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

One day, a weary blogger will publish the last "how to watch TK EVENT" post. When that day comes the world will not mourn. But in the meantime I intend to keep tapping this sign while we can www.vulture.com/article/how-...

But the best way to watch this, and pretty much any live event, is a cheap antenna you can buy at a dollar store. The broadcast will be free after the cost of the device, which will deliver HD video marvelously. It will also spare you yet another streaming subscription — or handing your email or other marketing info over to a streaming company.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

May we all walk in this world with the moral courage of Jafar Panahi variety.com/2026/film/gl...

What is your reaction to Donald Trump saying, “I pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we make Iran great again” and his pledge to strike Iran if protesters are killed, which they have been? Do you fear U.S. intervention in Iran?
This regime has fallen already. And, as I have said before, the people who are carrying out the protests in the streets, they want to make that happen. Of course, international support can make a difference. But until people themselves decide to do something or not, nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to make any difference. It has to come within, from within the country, by the will of people.

So you do not feel the need for U.S. intervention in Iran. Correct?
You do not seem to understand. Let me say it again: Until people have the will to change something from within, nothing will be able to make that change. It has to be by the will of the people from within.

You have repeatedly stated your desire and resolution to return to Iran as soon as your activities related to the promotion of this film allow you to do that. But given the escalating violence against protesters and dissidents in your country, and also given the fact that you have been given a prison sentence, are you having second thoughts?
These developments make absolutely no difference in my decision. As I also said during my interviews in Cannes, it doesn’t matter what will happen to me as a result of this film: I have to go back to Iran. And I did go back to Iran [after Cannes]. I am the kind of person who needs to be in his country. I need to breathe there and work there. And even if they want to go ahead with that prison sentence, they can go ahead. Nothing will change my mind about going back.

The real question is: why wouldn’t we want to stay in Iran? Why should it be us, the people, leaving?Whereas it is the regime and its representatives that seem entitled to stay there. We are entitled to our own country. It’s the regime that has to leave and go. Because it has fallen.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Bit more from her here, on the irony of the tools as described... www.vulture.com/article/open...

➼ Will the bet on Sora — which feels a lot like a play for Gen Z and Gen Alpha — actually pay off? Lin pointed out that the restrictions Disney and OpenAI will have to impose on the use of its characters will be strict, possibly strict enough that they’d be a turnoff for their target audience. “They’ve spoken about having these kinds of safeguards that will prevent any sort of disturbing or terms-of-service-violating content from being made,” she says. “But to me, that limits sort of what the novelty of this technology was about in the first place. If you can only generate things that are company approved, I don’t see what the purpose of investing in this technology is.”

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

NEW: Animation Guild prez Danny Lin speaks out against Disney's OpenAI deal. “It feels like Disney throwing in the towel, rather than competing with these tech companies,” she says. Read it at @vulture.com / Buffering >> www.vulture.com/article/open...

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

you will be visited by 3 spirits

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

devastating www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

You have chosen to spend every Christmas Eve flying around the globe giving gifts to all of the, and I’m quoting here, “good girls and boys.” Why did you decide that only good children deserve gifts?

I wouldn’t say that I made the decision. I’d say that I’m following the traditions set forth by Christianity and other religions in which acts of good are rewarded, while acts of bad are punished. Christmas is a fun way to teach children that being good and kind can lead to positive results, even if being mean or a bully feels better in the moment.

And so-called bad children deserve nothing.

That’s not what I’m saying, Isaac. I’m saying that the better a child behaves, the better the gift they get. There are degrees of bad. A child who won’t play with his little sister might not deserve a Nintendo Switch 2, but, like, a baseball glove? Sure. I can do that.

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Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

this whole thing is a time capsule from an earlier era of digital media vinepair.com/articles/lea...

Mike Nizza, Esquire’s head of digital at the time, recalls sitting in a meeting with a woman from parent company Hearst who was chiding him for not yet hitting the website’s traffic goals for the month. As this was occurring, he looked over her shoulder to the large, real-time traffic monitor on the wall in the newsroom.

“I see Chartbeat go vertical to the point where it is completely maxed out. It hit the top of the screen and it couldn’t go up anymore,” Nizza recalls. It did well over 1 million unique views almost immediately.

“This article was massive for Esquire,” recalls Eric Vilas-Boas, Esquire’s food & drink editor at the time, who also handled the social media rollout on the piece. “It was the heyday of Facebook, social [media] traffic, and buzzy headlines.”

Hundreds of comments were left on the article.

Thousands of Tweets.

Tens of thousands of Facebook shares. And then it began to get written about and reported on by other publications, major publications.

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