Nina Metz
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ninametz.bsky.social
Nina Metz
@ninametz.bsky.social
14K followers 580 following 8.9K posts
TV and film critic for the Chicago Tribune
https://www.chicagotribune.com/author/nina-metz/

Newsletter: Nina Watches Everything
https://buttondown.com/NinaWatchesEverything
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ninametz.bsky.social
Depressing to see one giant media co gobbling up another in the UK, mirroring what's happening in the US: "Scale itself isn’t the answer. The entertainment business isn’t the same as making widgets"

And TY to Rick for mentioning my newsletter!

(You can read it here buttondown.com/NinaWatchesE...)
CELEBRITIES WILL NOT SAVE US TV critic Nina Metz has a very thoughtful piece on the differences between celebrities of earlier eras vs. those of today. Most of whom are engaged in this PR dance where they try and portray concern without actually expressing an opinion
November 10, 2025 at 6:27 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
lolololol
Is Nuremberg a hoot? Can we make a trial of the century and guys hangout movie, A Few Good Men, Independence Day, and Schindlers List? These were the grand philosophical questions asked by nobody that ended up on the cutting floor until a brisk wind took them out the window and into the sewer where they eventually merged with a strange ooze to become this blob of a movie.
November 8, 2025 at 5:59 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
“Characteristically, people stay and help each other”
Prof Clifford Stott, a specialist in the psychology of crowds and group identity at Keele University, agreed. Modern research, he said, showed "bystander apathy" was a myth. Instead, strangers often work together in emergency situations with highly sophisticated unity. "What modern research shows is that the public are very good at protecting themselves and that the heroic actions that hit the headlines are actually underlying, natural tendencies in all of us." That, he said, revealed something very positive about the human condition - but it also indicated that society would benefit from fostering and harnessing this natural capability by helping people to feel empowered to take control during emergencies.
November 8, 2025 at 5:49 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
I’m one of the few people left cold by this show, but it’s always good when a a person with clout in Hollywood is blunt about their concerns with AI

variety.com/2025/tv/news...
Regardless of whether his own feelings seeped into the show, Gilligan has been a vocal skeptic of artificial intelligence. Tucked away in the "Pluribus" credits, it reads, "This show was made by humans." It's an important reminder as Big Tech continues to infiltrate Hollywood, and the trillion-dollar companies behind shows like “Pluribus" are also driving the future of Al. "I hate AI," Gilligan says with a chuckle. "AI is the world's most expensive and energy-intensive plagiarism machine. I think there's a very high possibility that this is all a bunch of horseshit. It's basically a bunch of centibillionaires whose greatest life goal is to become the world's first trillionaires. I think they're selling a bag of vapor."
November 8, 2025 at 12:55 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
“Right now, the city of Chicago does not feel safe for anyone, no matter their status”
Right now, the city of Chicago does not feel safe for anyone, no matter their status. We've seen people being arrested without a warrant, tear gas released near schools, people knocked down and car windows smashed. Make no mistake. These tactics threaten all of us. When one person's right to due process is taken away, all of us have lost that foundational right. Our Constitution ensures that our laws and legal system operate with equity and fairness and apply to everyone who is on U.S. soil. We are seeing the consequences of actions that sow fear in real time, and this trauma will be with our communities for years.
November 8, 2025 at 12:14 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
The community sprung into action. Two parents at the school, Audra Wunder and Erin Tobes, who have been leading safety efforts through the PTO began asking basic questions. “Doe she need food? Does she need clothing?” Tobes recalled. “People immediately (responded), how can we help? How can we help? We set up a GoFundMe knowing we will have legal fees…We were able to collect groceries, diapers, wipes.”
November 7, 2025 at 7:07 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
And then there’s this, which I didn’t know about when I wrote this week’s newsletter

Jeremy Renner Accused Of Threatening & Sexually Harassing Former Girlfriend & Collaborator

(And allegedly said he’d report her to ICE)

screenrant.com/jeremy-renner-scandal-sexual-harassment-ice-threat-yi-zhou/
The interview also includes screenshots of the text messages she had sent, as well as a photo she had taken the day of the alleged incident. Zhou also opened up about how she had confronted Renner when he had sent explicit photos, which led to him threatning her to call ICE on the filmmaker. One screenshot from Renner reads, “Immigration will be notified of your -" before the rest is cut off.
November 7, 2025 at 5:27 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
This screenshot is quoting Jennifer Lawrence

buttondown.com/NinaWatchesE...
November 7, 2025 at 4:28 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
On George Clooney, Jennifer Lawrence, Sydney Sweeney and Kiera Knightley and more … and a look at how they’re using their fame to meet the moment

Or more precisely NOT using their fame because the capitalist imperative tends to win out

buttondown.com/NinaWatchesE...
It's scary to put yourself on the line. I get that. There are risks and repercussions that can extend beyond career or financial considerations. Nobody wants to put a target on their back and nobody's a coward for being afraid right now. There are legitimate reasons to be afraid. And yet there are individuals who are putting themselves at risk to advocate for what's right. They are regular people who are, by and large, "nobodies," but in a much more meaningful sense, the real "somebodies" - more so than any celebrity at the moment.
November 7, 2025 at 4:21 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/07/l...
November 7, 2025 at 12:49 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
It’s such a depressing bellwether that “Squid Game” has a reality show spinoff … but the tagline for the show encapsulates a general sentiment that so many powers-that-be are cultivating — they WANT us lonely

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/07/l...
Perhaps it's par for the course that the tagline for new season of Netflix's reality show spinoff of “Squid Game" asks "Why make friends when you can make millions?" We all need money and companionship for survival, but the depressing subtext of so many competition-based reality shows suggests you can't have one without sacrificing the other.
November 7, 2025 at 12:48 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
Just the longest of sighs …

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/a...
Q: The movie operates under the assumption that there's a base level of competence of the people involved. But we know that in reality, many in both the military and government with extensive experience and knowledge have been removed from their posts, or have left of their own accord. So this idea of assuming competence doesn't sync up with reality right now. Holz: I completely agree. Let's do a quick "true or false" on the film. Would it really happen this quickly? Yes, that's true. Does missile defense work 61% of the time? No, that's false, it's much worse than that. Let's get to your question: Are there adults in the room that will save us? And I would say that's doubly false. Take John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. They both were absolutely not going to start World War Ill over the Cuban Missile Crisis. They made it very clear in their diaries and in speaking with people, they would have absolutely capitulated rather than launch missiles. But they ended up very close to launching missiles anyway through miscommunication and misunderstandings. The whole thing is terrifying.
November 3, 2025 at 12:43 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
The first sustained nuclear chain reaction happened in Chicago, so seeing seeing Chicago become the target of a (fictional) nuclear attack in a movie really does function as a terrible bookend

Anyway, the real world circumstances are … not good

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/a...
Q: Bloomberg obtained a recent Pentagon memo that had concerns about the film's portrayal. According to the memo, the U.S.'s missile interceptors have "displayed a 100% accuracy rate." In the movie, the success rate is said to be about half that. One character says it's like "hitting a bullet with a bullet" in terms of difficulty. Holz: That was one of the things I think the movie got wrong, in the sense that the number they give is very optimistic! I think the quote is that "it's a coin toss'? Those numbers are based on scripted tests where the interceptors know when the missile is going to come in and everything is kind of perfectly arranged to maximize success. And in those cases, maybe you hit it half the time. But it's never been tested in what you would consider a real scenario. So that whole thing about shooting down an incoming missile, we would love to be able to do that. We're not in a position to do that now. And it's very unlikely we will be able to do that in the future. So we have to prevent this in the first place.
November 3, 2025 at 12:41 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
I don’t think it’s a good movie tbh (it’s a premise not a movie) but I do think it’s good that it potentially gets people thinking about these issues (again) terrifying as they are!

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/a...
"Most of the time, Hollywood gets the nuclear issue wrong," Bell says. "It's usually a MacGuffin to move the plot along. It's been a long time since Hollywood put out a movie that really just deals with the threat that nuclear weapons present each and every day, but I'm not surprised by that — the world moved on, too. At the end of the Cold War, everyone sort of wiped their hands and said, 'Ugh, glad we finished that particular problem' and put their focus elsewhere. Putting the nuclear threat front and center wasn't something people thought was necessary because post-Cold War, we had managed that threat and came out on the other side."
November 3, 2025 at 12:35 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
They deleted their post, which I respect! It’s the right choice when you realize, oh I had bad info

Screenshotting it here just to clarify what this thread is responding to (sans identifying info cuz this isn’t about dunking)
If you're wondering how the Overton window has shifted since the CDC shooting, they bombed a research building at Harvard where a friend works yesterday and as far as I can tell 99% of people on here have no idea / it's received no notable coverage outside the Crimson
November 2, 2025 at 8:04 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
Concerns about awareness are ~always~ valid

(I’m concerned, for ex, that people outside Chicago are unaware how intense and constant and violent ice raids are here)

But it doesn’t help to decry an absence of “notable news coverage” when it does in fact exist via local/natl. outlets

A sampling
Screenshot of Google search turning up a story in The Guardian (“No one hurt after ‘intentional’ explosion at Harvard medical campus, officials say) and one in Newsweek (“‘Intentional’ explosion at Harvard Medical School prompts manhunt”) A screenshot of a Google search showing a story from NBC News (“Explosion at Harvard Medical School spurs search for suspects”) and one from the Boston Globe (“Explosion at Harvard Medical School building appears intentional”)
November 2, 2025 at 7:46 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
I'm cynical enough that I didn’t expect the British media to treat Virginia's Giuffre’s book with seriousness, and for a sustained period of time

But I beg ... have higher entertainment expectations than another season of Peter Morgan's "The Crown" to interpret this

buttondown.com/NinaWatchesE...
Who knows if Great Britain will ever seriously consider getting rid of the monarchy. But as a consumer of pop culture, I do recognize a good story, and I have concerns that Netflix might be compelled to pull Peter Morgan back into service for yet another season of “The Crown” to tackle however this moment plays out. I saw someone with a sizable following literally type out the words “I would 100% watch another season of ‘The Crown’” and … (stares into the void). Unfortunately, Morgan has neither the curiosity, the intellectual rigor nor the emotional constitution to conceive of these real-world events as anything but a tragedy for the Windsors, absent any analysis or insight. He’s too reluctant to tackle the dirty reality.
October 31, 2025 at 5:20 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
Peter Morgan really biffed his timing with Netflix's "The Crown" bc we're living through the most interesting moment for the British monarchy **right now** — "Abolish the Monarchy" a British magazine argues — but he's in no way equipped to tackle this moment. At all!

buttondown.com/NinaWatchesE...
A royal mess I never understood the appeal of Netflix’s “The Crown.” But more than that, I never understood the conversations that were happening around the show. Ahead of each season, there was so much preemptive foot-stomping and concern from Buckingham Palace and royal reporters that the portrayals would be “lurid” and “unflattering. As if! Unlike creator Peter Morgan’s earlier examination of the British monarchy (the 2006 Helen Mirren film “The Queen”), his TV series about the Windsors is royalist propaganda through and through, envisioning The Firm only as the gilded cage that it is — and the dysfunction within a result of that — but ignoring that it is also an innately corrupt endeavor with a history of racism and other various coverups. Nothing in the series builds to a larger thesis about these people or the institution itself. The impressively lavish settings only accentuate the emptiness of the scripts.
October 31, 2025 at 5:16 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
buttondown.com/NinaWatchesE...
Let's consider the context in which the ad is airing. Right now, terrifying violence is happening to people in America at the hands of the American government, inflicted primarily on those who don't have sufficient whatever to deem them “American." It's also being meted out on people who are protesting, or even just filming what is happening. Our neighbors are being disappeared and a small handful of people are getting rich off it. Here's a primer [hyperlinked In newsletter] on "billionaire oligarchs and corporations profiting from ICE's deportation machine." There are so many other distressing examples of "we can do anything we want" happening each day. One could argue the demolition of the the East Wing of the White House earlier this week (“despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects," according to one report) was done specifically to drive this idea home. One could argue Ram's "Never Stop Being American" ad tacitly embraces and endorses all of the above. If nothing else, the "we can do anything we want" messaging feels loaded in this context.
October 26, 2025 at 2:50 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
Scorsese is interviewed at length and he’s a good talker and likable! You come away with a better understanding of his films and the different periods he was working in

But he’s not challenged on anything, like his self-perceived underdog status www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/23/c...
Even so, "Mr. Scorsese" is often rich viewing. Scorsese's self-conception is that of the outsider who was never part of Hollywood's favored circles, a sentiment that is perhaps somewhat disconnected from reality. Like anyone, he has faced challenges, both personally and professionally. But despite it all, he continually had opportunities to work. Someone was always there to fund his films, resulting in a new movie out every two or three years. This is not the trajectory of an underdog! But you sense an edge of "I had to fight for everything" in the stories he tells, and looking back, he's not able to put some of that in perspective, knowing what he surely knows about the career prospects for filmmakers who aren't white men.
October 23, 2025 at 11:17 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
Customers Ditched Disney+, Hulu After Kimmel Suspension
Cancellation rates for both Disney streaming services doubled in September from a month earlier

Via WSJ

www.wsj.com/business/med...
The rate of customer defections for Disney+ doubled to 8% from 4% in August, while those for Hulu doubled to 10% from 5%, according to data from subscription-analytics company Antenna. The rate is calculated by dividing the number of cancellations in a given month by subscribers at the end of the prior month. Antenna estimated a total of 3 million cancellations for Disney+ and 4.1 million for Hulu in September. Both of those figures far exceeded the trailing three-month averages for the services, a sign of customers’ ire over Disney’s decision to temporarily suspend the show.
October 20, 2025 at 5:02 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
Federal immigration agents raid Swap-O-Rama, patrol Southwest Side: ‘It’s us against y’all’

Gift 🔗

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/17/s...
When masked federal agents arrived at the Swap-O-Rama flea market, the people standing between the might of the United States government and the livelihoods of the immigrants who make up its vendors and customer base were working-class employees in red sweaters. They faced armed federal agents wearing camo and bearing guns.
October 17, 2025 at 7:48 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
At a time when so many are saying AI is a fait accompli, Nick Offerman is one of the few celebrities I've seen to give a full throated "I think the fuck not" as he does in the preface to his new book

He encourages things like *thinking* and *problem-solving*!

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/15/n...
And so, instead of falling into the trap of getting online and being the one billionth person to give my hot take on the state of affairs, I recognize the futility of that. And I recognize the delight that the billionaires and corporations take in all of us being distracted with online fist-shaking. My solution, instead, is to write a book that encourages positivity, that encourages empathy, and in this case, it’s encouraging people to keep the reins of your life in your own hands and don’t allow corporations to decide what happens with all of our natural resources. That’s what it comes down to: By lazily handing over this agency to AI or whoever is running the algorithm, then you’re saying “I don’t care what you’re doing with the oil, or the ocean or the fish or the soil. Or the people.” I think it’s incumbent upon us as citizens of this nation and this planet to always give a (expletive) about what is happening to all of those resources. I’m not a literally religious person, but that’s where my spirituality lies. I think we’re responsible to one another — and to the creation — to care for it, if for no other reason than to be a good ancestor to the generations coming after this.
October 16, 2025 at 12:51 AM
ninametz.bsky.social
This is an image from the story. According to Wikipedia, principal photography began on the film in Jan 2024 — less than a yr ago

It's not uncommon to see BTS production photos of people wearing masks. It's important to know this still happens. If you were thinking about masking again, do it!
Nia DaCosta is seeing directing Tessa Thompson (wearing a gray evening dress, elbow-length white gloves and a choker necklace) on the set of "Hedda." DaCosta is wearing a white KN95 mask.
October 15, 2025 at 6:21 PM
ninametz.bsky.social
Peacock is ninth most-subscribed streamer in the world, "behind Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Hulu and two Chinese platforms"

‼️
ccording to FlixPatrol, Peacock’s 41 million subscribers make the NBCUniversal platform the ninth most-subscribed streamer in the world, behind Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, Hulu and two Chinese platforms. According to a June report from Nielsen, only Sunday Night Football — which airs on NBC and is also streamed on Peacock — delivered more than 5 million or more total viewers after 35 days of cross-platform viewing, coming in second to Netflix’s Squid Game. Of the 27.1 million viewers who watched the NFL on Sundays on NBC in the 2024-25 season, only 12.5 percent of that tally (2.7 million) watched on Peacock. And the NBA is not the NFL when it comes to viewership (see above). All this is to say that Peacock’s roster of original programs — think The Traitors, Ted and Poker Face — haven’t pulled their weight in bringing in new subscribers to the platform.
October 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM