Eric Vilas-Boas
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ericvb.bsky.social
Eric Vilas-Boas
@ericvb.bsky.social
1.7K followers 530 following 470 posts
@vulture.com writer and editor covering animation, streaming, movies, and TV | die-hard fan of hiking and physical media

“i’m not a miracle worker, i’m a janitor”
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ericvb.bsky.social
WU-TANG FOR THE CHILDREN in the Zohran Mamdani signage
November 8, 2025 at 11:39 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
now seated at The Table of Success
Write ins 2827 votes Eric Adams 2424 votes
November 5, 2025 at 3:34 AM
ericvb.bsky.social
looking like a blowout
Latest NYT vote counts show Mamdani at 50% with 69% of the votes in
November 5, 2025 at 2:38 AM
ericvb.bsky.social
This is the good stuff. A full district by district breakdowns of how NYC voted, via @thecity.nyc -- www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/04/e...
a color-codes district by district breakdown map of how the five boroughs of NYC voted
November 5, 2025 at 2:26 AM
ericvb.bsky.social
If you see this, quote with a robot that isn’t from “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Doctor Who,” or “Transformers.”
The Gundam Mk 2 from Zeta Gundam, torso/upper body shot
October 31, 2025 at 11:32 AM
ericvb.bsky.social
Here's @tvmojoe.bsky.social on the HUGE ratings success of Dancing With the Stars this season (and beyond) — fueled by Andy Richter, Mormon wives, TikTok and more... www.vulture.com/article/danc...
CHART: Nielsen same-day ratings among Gen-Z viewers (adults 18–34) Dancing With the Stars is massively outperforming shows like The Voice and Survivor in 2025, compared to viewership in 2021 The Hottest Show on TV Is 20 Years Old Mormon wives, Andy Richter, and TikTok: Inside the ratings renaissance of Dancing With the Stars.
October 30, 2025 at 5:39 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
Hosoda's quote to AFP has made the rounds for years. With the chance to talk to him, it felt important to follow up.

His words to me: "I don’t really recall saying something like that or to that effect."

But he doesn't hold Miyazaki on a pedestal either: www.vulture.com/article/mamo...
CBR headline: "Does Mamoru Hosoda Criticism of Miyazaki's Female Characters Hold Up?" Anime News Network headline: "AFP: Mamoru Hosoda Criticizes Depiction of Women in Hayao Miyazaki Anime" Cartoon Brew headline: Mamoru Hosoda Says Hayao Miyazaki "Does Not Have Confidence In Himself As A Man"
October 1, 2025 at 5:08 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
Part of Hosoda's thoughts on SCARLET: "It’s supposed to be a kind of throughline about this general animosity, toward a cycle of revenge."

Read the rest @vulture.com www.vulture.com/article/mamo...
It’s just this sort of general climate and mood. Right now, conflict is happening more than in most modern eras that we’ve experienced. I don’t want to pick any specific event because this isn’t supposed to be a documentary. It’s supposed to be a kind of throughline about this general animosity, toward a cycle of revenge. It’s a more universal message. How do you escape this vicious cycle? Is it forgiveness? The purpose of the movie is to lead audiences in that direction. Still from new Mamoru Hosoda film Scarlet
October 1, 2025 at 4:57 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
Hosoda on searching for a visual language that can't be copied by AI: "The entire world is searching for this new animated look...." www.vulture.com/article/mamo...
On Mirai, you actually brought your own kids into Studio Chizu so that the animators could use their movements as references in their animation. So much of Scarlet looks hyperdetailed, often photorealistic, a blend of hand-drawn and CGI. What real-world references did you look at to create the world of the film? The entire world is searching for this new animated look. If you were to rewind the clock, you would be limited to certain styles of 2-D hand-drawn animation or 3-D texture. But I think right now we’re all searching for a new form of expression. Part of the reason for that, perhaps, is this coming of artificial intelligence. I think AI can do a great job of copying certain styles. But with the struggle that animators and directors go through, perhaps we all have to ask the question, What is that effort for now? So I think a lot of us are trying to pursue some new visual language that both hasn’t been done before but also can’t be copied by AI. In our case, we observe our surroundings, whether it’s movements or visuals. In Scarlet, there’s only one scene, I want to say, for which we used motion-capture: the dancing sequence. Everything else was hand-animated CG. The animators had to observe their surroundings, observe people move, and then subtract and abstract the key movements that onscreen deliver some kind of purpose or nuance. That’s what makes animation so attractive. Let’s stay on AI for a moment. How do you feel about the growing prevalence of generative AI right now? Do you see possibilities in the technology? We make animation from — I don’t know if I want to say thin air, but basically ideas translated through people. They manifest as visual expressions that move, that can deliver and carry some kind of message or feeling to audiences. And AI is greatly bridging that gap of going from idea to visual in ways that we’ve never seen any tool do in the past. I had the chance to chat at the Toronto International Film Festival with Domee Shi, who directed Turning Red at Pixar. When we were talking, she said, “If AI is happening, and it’s something that we can’t avoid, how do we face it? And how do we find a way to coexist with it yet still express our individuality?” In our chat, we thought that perhaps a lot of people are feeling the same way. Writers, lawyers, translators, interpreters, anyone whose intellectual, critical-thinking job can be bridged or at least greatly closed by AI — animators are no different. We’re going to come to a crossroads of: How do we find a way to coexist with this tool that can do so much in ways that we didn’t even expect? I don’t really have an answer, but I think the first task is to understand where we place the individuality of creators.
October 1, 2025 at 4:57 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
Here are Hosoda's thoughts on Miyazaki www.vulture.com/article/mamo...
I actually wanted to ask you about Miyazaki and what you thought of him. You were quoted by the Agence France-Presse as saying the following at Cannes in 2021: “I will not name him, but there is a great master of animation who always takes a young woman as his heroine. And to be frank, I think he does it because he does not have confidence in himself as a man. This veneration of young women really disturbs me and I do not want to be a part of it.” I wanted to ask: What did you mean by this? Several news organizations reported you were talking about Miyazaki. Do you stand by the quote? How do you feel about it now? To be frank, I don’t really recall saying something like that or to that effect. But the way you described it, it would be hard to think of anyone besides that person, in terms of whom it’s referring to. But I don’t know if it was a misunderstanding or a misquote or a mistranslation or if I did say it and just don’t recall. But yeah, I’m not sure what to say. I don’t think that sounds like me, in the sense that I don’t try to put down or have an ego contest with other creators. I think that kind of negativity I try to avoid. So perhaps the author of the article maybe used me as a mouthpiece and interpreted something I said in a different way and rewrote it. I don’t know. I don’t really see myself in direct competition with Miyazaki either. I see us more as coexisting in a sense of trying to do our own thing and express our own ideas and visuals through the medium of animation. I don’t know if that’s the answer you’re looking for. I’m not looking for any specific answer. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to revisit and follow up on the quote, because it had been out there. With regards to Miyazaki, there’s certainly a lot of praise and a lot of it is deserved. But there’s some that goes so extreme, that he’s a god, he’s amazing, he transcends all this. And perhaps I think that level of comparison and using that type of language to compare and then criticize other directors is, for me, a little questionable. I think there are a lot of projects that deserve a lot of respect, and some opinions on him and what he’s done just seem so extreme to me. And I think an extreme way of thinking like that is in some ways boring, because there are so many more amazing talents and directors and creators out there. In my case, I believe that diversity is what creates a lot of value in our industry and gives audiences different experiences and flavors of life.
October 1, 2025 at 4:57 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
The one from that era that my mind went to today was "Hell's Been Empty"

I cant believe I had to do a deep dive on google to hunt down the original link to drop into web archive web.archive.org/web/20160323...
There are towns like mine in every corner of this country, and all over in between. Towns where conservative ideology evolves without natural predators, where the government is definitely coming any minute now to take all of our guns away and homosexuals are definitely going to create tax penalties for straights. Donald Trump has crushed his opponents in towns like those. For the most part, those responsible for conducting our national conversation like to pretend there’s something strange about all this. Like there’s no precedent for Trump’s rise and rhetoric, apart from pro wrestlers or fascist regimes. Like Trump metastasized out of nowhere, a newly discovered disease. But he didn’t. Sure, he’s got his wrestler and fascist tendencies, and they’re both deeply tempting comparisons to make, but they don’t tell the story. They mythologize a man who doesn’t need mythologizing, because he’s right there. Trump’s rhetoric is not absurd. It’s been around; there are precedents. Working-class conservatives have been drawn to entertaining and fear-based shows of strength for a while now. The best recent reference point for this is right-wing talk radio, and the man most emblematic of its effects is Michael Savage.
September 27, 2025 at 4:52 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
i was ecstatic to blurb Mamoru Hosoda's SCARLET for our walk-up to the great movies playing at NYFF. a good one, imo

read my bit and the rest of the flicks we're excited about @vulture.com www.vulture.com/article/most...
Scarlet Anime director Mamoru Hosoda’s latest effort is a gender-bent, action-fantasy blockbuster riff on Hamlet. After medieval Princess Scarlet’s father, the king, is murdered and usurped by her uncle, she swears revenge… and promptly fails and is also killed by the new tyrant. She is then transported to a liminal wasteland called “Otherworld,” a sprawling purgatory overrun with marauders, refugees, and the acolytes of her evil uncle, who she learns is also lurking in this dimension of the dead. Scarlet’s path of vengeance transcends space, time, and the mortal coil until she meets Hijiri, a paramedic from 21st-century Japan who joins her on her journey but slowly shows her an alternative to her bloodlust. Scarlet showcases some career-best storytelling and imagery from the director of Oscar-nominee Mirai (2018) and the richly accoladed Belle (2023). —Eric Vilas-Boas
September 23, 2025 at 6:55 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
the Clayface animation in this scene went soooooooo hard
September 9, 2025 at 8:31 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
Pete Townshend: "We’re a Who tribute band."
Why keep The Who going after Keith Moon and John Entwistle died? It’s a brand rather than a band. Roger and I have a duty to the music and the history. The Who [still] sells records —the Moon and Entwistle families have become millionaires. There’s also something more, really: the art, the creative work is when we perform it. We’re celebrating. We’re a Who tribute band. But apart from that, it does whet an appetite to think about how we should bow out in our personal lives — what we do with our families and our friends and everything else at this age. We’re lucky to be alive. I’m looking forward to playing, Roger likes to throw wild cards out sometimes in the set, and we have learned and rehearsed a few songs that we don’t always play.
August 19, 2025 at 2:53 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
like, this is a BEAUTIFUL movie. i'd argue the smears, in a few different ways, make it what it is www.vulture.com/article/kpop...
In the dance scenes, the hands and limbs of Mira and the other demon-hunting protagonists of K-pop trio Huntr/x stretch, their fingers gracefully elongated as their choreography demands. In one of their rehearsal scenes, Zoey frustratedly throws her lyric book and the book does a “wipe” smear, stretching into an arc offscreen as her body completes the full motion. In fight scenes, Huntr/x’s magic weapons trail light when the girls swing them. That trailing effect isn’t a smear on its own, but their blades also leave afterimages, duplicate smears, along their path through space. Those duplicates create an ambiguity: Is this a purely stylistic choice or is there a narrative reason their magic echoes through the air? They don’t exist solely to knit frames together. Like the movie’s flashy designs, exaggerated facial expressions (Tex Avery had nothing on popcorn eyes), and background jokes, the smears demand our attention.
August 19, 2025 at 1:11 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
Lou Reed being an absolute menace about his ice cream totally tracks www.vulture.com/article/davi...
remember when we met, he was eating an incredible amount of ice cream. I think he went through two of those quart containers of Häagen-Dazs ice cream in one sitting. We were like, Whoa.” Chris Frantz similarly recalled the hang at Reed’s apartment in his memoir, writing that Reed used a “bent and blackened spoon” and “didn’t offer us any ice cream or anything else.” He added, “it must have been four o’clock in the morning.” We
August 14, 2025 at 11:32 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
pretty excited for the 9/1 releases hitting HBO Max, but much MUCH more hype for the ones in the coming months. ANGEL'S EGG
• 🏆 Angel’s Egg (dir. Mamoru Oshii) (North American streaming debut, 4K streaming debut) • Liz and the Blue Bird (dir. Naoko Yamada) • Lu Over the Wall (dir. Masaaki Yuasa) • Millennium Actress (dir. Satoshi Kon) • Mind Game (dir. Masaaki Yuasa) • 🏆 Perfect Blue (dir. Satoshi Kon) (4K streaming debut) • 🏆 Shin Godzilla (dir. Hideaki Anno, co-director Shinji Higuchi) (4K streaming debut) • Summer Wars (dir. Mamoru Hosoda) (4K streaming debut) • The Boy and the Beast (dir. Mamoru Hosoda) (4K streaming debut) • 🏆 The Colors Within (dir. Naoko Yamada) (North American streaming debut) • The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (dir. Mamoru Hosoda) (4K streaming debut) • 🏆 Wolf Children (dir. Mamoru Hosoda) (4K streaming debut)
August 13, 2025 at 7:31 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
My favorite Doctor and Companion
August 9, 2025 at 2:55 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
impressively incoherent!
August 8, 2025 at 8:43 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
getting harder and harder to compartmentalize the hard pivot toward open kleptocracy www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/u...
The proposal calls for the university to make a $1 billion payment to the U.S. government and to contribute $172 million to a claims fund that would compensate victims of civil rights violations. If U.C.L.A. accedes to the demand, it would be the largest payout — by far — of any university that has so far reached a deal with the White House. Columbia University agreed to pay $221 million in connection with its settlement with the government, and Brown University pledged to spend $50 million with state work force programs. The University of California’s president, James B. Milliken, said in a statement on Friday that the university had “just received a document from the Department of Justice and is reviewing it.” He added, “As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources, and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians.”
August 8, 2025 at 8:35 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
Andor ROBBED www.vulture.com/article/2025...
SNUB: The Andor ensemble just doesn’t matter, I guess! Sorry, did your eardrum rupture from the sound of my agonized screaming? Partly in joy: Andor getting more nominations than the once-dominant The Bear is a deserved recognition of all the technical effort that went into the Star Wars show, and 14 nominations across Writing, Sound, Original Music, Visual Effects, Production Design, Cinematography, Editing, and Direction are great. But there’s also my rage scream: This series’ only two acting nominees being Forest Whitaker and Alan Tudyk is an infuriating oversight of Diego Luna’s work grounding this fantastic ensemble for two seasons and making the pain and joy and effort of the Rebellion tangible; of Stellan Skarsgård’s delicious performance as the ruthless Luthen Rael; of Elizabeth Dulau, Genevieve O’Reilly, Denise Gough, and Adria Arjona bringing humanity to their commitment to the cause — I could keep going. It’s especially frustrating to see so many other ensemble series game the Emmys’ system by overloading categories with their nominees (The White Lotus, Severance, etc.) when Andor could barely break through at all. May I again suggest we limit the number of a series’ nominees per category, because man is it boring to see so much categorical dominance at the expense of my beloved Andor. —Roxana Hadadi
July 15, 2025 at 7:20 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
absolutely vital work on the And Just Like That... Dead Dads Beat by @ralter.bsky.social @vulture.com www.vulture.com/article/and-...
Astute AJLT fans pointed out that in season one, episode two, LTW talks to Charlotte about losing her dad the year before. Even stranger, in a season-two episode titled, unbelievably, “ALIVE!,” LTW’s father attends her anniversary party. We learn that her dad, played by Billy Dee Williams, is Lawrence Todd, “a renowned playwright, poet, and founder of the Newark Free Theater.” He supports his daughter’s creative career and roasts his son-in-law for being a greedy banker, and as far as I can tell, he’s not some sort of zombie or revenant. We don’t hear of him again until he dies, a second time, in season three. Could the loony bin known as the AJLT writers’ room have made such a big continuity error? Or did they book Billy Dee Williams, then decide not to care? If you swallow the HBO party line, this second coming and second killing was intentional and fully logical. The production team told The Hollywood Reporter that the dad LTW said died in season one was actually her stepdad. Like it was intentional. Like it was the plan all along. Like AJLT thinks we’re dumb. Ungenerously, I’d say they just dropped the ball on this and forgot that line from season one. Generously, I think it’s more likely that the introduction of LTW’s living father in season two was a retcon, a change to the continuity that they had no interest in trying to justify in some labored way, until it was pointed out.
July 9, 2025 at 7:47 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
you can't sanitize art time and again like this and expect audiences to connect (or trust you) on reputation alone. it sucks for creatives, but it's also bad business www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
But if you bought a ticket to Elio and don’t remember seeing this, it’s not just that you chose the wrong time to refill your soda. According to multiple insiders who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, Elio was initially portrayed as a queer-coded character, reflecting original director Adrian Molina’s identity as an openly gay filmmaker. Other sources say that Molina did not intend the film to be a coming out story, as the character is 11. But either way, this characterization gradually faded away throughout the production process as Elio became more masculine following feedback from leadership. Gone were not only such direct examples of his passion for environmentalism and fashion, but also a scene in Elio’s bedroom with pictures suggesting a male crush. Hints at the trash fashion remain in the released film, with the boy wearing a cape decorated with discarded cutlery and soda can tabs, although without any explanation for the unusual attire. The Elio production resulted in fraught feelings for those with ties to Pixar who have come to question whether the company intends to prioritize diversity. Docter sparked debate when he noted in a 2024 interview that the studio should make the “most relatable films” possible, which was perceived as advocating for a shift away from underrepresented characters and voices. These remarks came in the wake of the 2022 criticism of then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s response to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Additionally, Toy Story spinoff Lightyear whiffed at the box office in 2023 after right-wing pundits ignited a furor over its same-gender kiss. And the Pixar series Win or Lose launched on Disney+ earlier this year after creating controversy over its transgender storyline getting scrapped. But did the decisions to downplay Elio’s queer themes actually come from the parent company? Insiders aren’t so sure. “A lot of people like to blame Disney, but the call is coming from inside the house,” says the artist. “A lot of it is obeying-in-advance behavior, coming from the higher execs at Pixar.” The person cites such examples as next year’s animated feature Hoppers having to tone down themes of environmentalism and also reveals that a movie in early development got a startling note: “That director was told, ‘You can’t have divorce in this movie,’ which is so wild.” A different source with knowledge of the project downplays the notion of this representing major meddling and sees such suggestions as typical of any early development process, noting there was no mandate prohibiting divorce.
July 1, 2025 at 2:36 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
will we have a country at all by the next election cycle or just be acting out a Mad Max movie prospect.org/politics/202...
Workers at the understaffed Social Security Administration are steeling themselves for millions more people to flood field offices, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision last week that will upend, at least temporarily, the constitutional provision allowing for birthright citizenship. The conservative court’s ruling effectively kills the Enumeration at Birth program that has for decades allowed parents at hospitals, birthing centers, or those using a licensed midwife to request a Social Security number for their newborn at the same time that they register the child’s birth. Under that program, parents simply checked a box on a form, and their child’s Social Security card arrived by mail about four weeks later. Easy. Now, parents will likely have to fill out the form and take it into an administration field office, where workers will have to figure out if the baby should be counted as a citizen, a determination they’ve never had to make, for which there is no process.
July 1, 2025 at 1:55 PM
ericvb.bsky.social
proof positive he's got em pants-shitting scared newrepublic.com/post/197279/...
On Wednesday, the day after the 33-year-old democratic socialist handily secured his party’s nomination, the New York Young Republican Club, or NYYRC, took to X, begging Trump immigration advisers Stephen Miller and Tom Homan to revoke Mamdani’s U.S. citizenship and deport him. “The radical Zohran Mamdani cannot be allowed to destroy our beloved city of New York,” the NYYRC’s post states. “The Communist Control Act lets President Trump revoke @ZohranKMamdani’s citizenship and promptly deport him. The time for action is now—@StephenM and @RealTomHoman, New York is counting on you.” In the replies, the X account for the Republicans for National Renewal tweeted, “We fully support this initiative. Communist radical Zohran Mamdani should be remigrated as soon as possible,” and the John Birch Society approvingly posted a “100” emoji.
June 26, 2025 at 8:21 PM