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Matt Ghoulberg

@mattgoldberg.bsky.social

3.4K followers 210 following 6.9K posts

Formerly TCM and Collider; still a movie nerd commentarytrack.net

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · Oct 19

With all the new arrivals and the ability to pin a post, I figured I'd offer a brief introduction:

I'm the former Editorial Manager for Turner Classic Movies and, before that, a Senior Editor for Collider for 14 years. I currently freelance, and I also launched a newsletter, commentarytrack.net.

Commentary Track | Matt Goldberg | Substack

A pretty good newsletter about movies, TV, and media. Click to read Commentary Track, by Matt Goldberg, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

commentarytrack.net

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 9m

There may be other settings at play, but I don’t know your 4K player. I use my PlayStation 5 and most 4Ks have looked terrific, including Amadeus. The only one that looked off was Terminator 2, which people say is a poor transfer.

Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 11m

It’s wild how so many of these Republicans who liked to see themselves as moderates (see also Collins, Romney) are now shocked that their actions have consequences.

Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 14d

Justice Anthony Kennedy tells @npr.org's @ninatotenberg.bsky.social "very worried" about our country, and that "Democracy is not guaranteed to survive."

Kennedy wrote Citizens United and was the fifth vote in the rest of the Roberts Court's anti-democratic decisions.

www.npr.org/2025/09/27/n...

Reposted by Matt Ghoulberg

Mike Drucker @mikedrucker.bsky.social · 36m

This is such an embarrassing way to defend an article. “Here’s our new piece. Being mad at it makes it correct! IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, YOU ARE THE COPS.”

Okay, lady, we get it. You like Bari Weiss. That’s legal in America. Nobody is arresting you.

Sally Jenkins @sallyjenx.bsky.social · 2h

Ratio me. Please. It's a badge of honor. If you don't like a link, go follow some chicken-heart who needs the approval of the thought-police. Caitlin Flanagan of @theatlantic.com is a tremendous writer and this piece is an excellent read. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss

The new editor in chief of CBS News triumphs over her critics.

www.theatlantic.com

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 1h

They definitely labor under their idea that Star Trek isn’t “cool” and so you need everything to be sleek and shiny, and I find that aesthetic to be exhausting after a while.

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 1h

If I had to serve on that ship I’d just chuck myself over to the Borg. Assimilate me. This shit sucks.

Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 1h

House rules.

Reposted by Matt Ghoulberg

Terrence O'Brien @terrenceobrien.bsky.social · 2h

It's a long weekend, weather is gray and miserable on the east coast. Why not get cozy at home with one of the most bonkers movies ever made: 1977's Japanese fantasy horror film House.

The Verge @theverge.com · 2h

You need to watch the bonkers Japanese fantasy horror film House

The nightmare logic and surreal visuals of Japanese fantasy horror film House will leave you wondering “WTF did I just watch?”

buff.ly

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Reposted by Matt Ghoulberg

alexis simpson @amutepiggy.bsky.social · 1d

anybody who's good at history want to tell me if it's good or not to starve your troops

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 1d

Military families on day 9 of the shutdown lining up at the food bank

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 1h

The production design also makes the bridge look like the inside of a toaster oven.

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 1h

A great thread that helps explain why I felt automatic revulsion at the latest Star Trek show looking like this:

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 2h

That candy isn’t going to crush itself

Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 2h

Seems like a problem if* NOW WHO’S SMOOTH-BRAINED

Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 2h

And yeah, ACAB, but it’s wild to be like “cops are heroes but also it’s fine if they quit when they don’t get their way.”

Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 2h

I know Bari’s brain is as smooth as can be, but it seems like a people who pledge to serve and protect will only do so under their preferred politicians.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 22h

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Reposted by Matt Ghoulberg

Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 4h

Well golly it sounds like you should let long-standing precedents stand until you rule on the merits, then. That is not what you’re doing!

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4h

Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."

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Reposted by Matt Ghoulberg

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 3h

Listen to the response to this and look how easy it is to say it.

Graham Platner for Senate @grahamformaine.bsky.social · 4h

We have armed secret police kidnapping people off the street based on the color of their skin.

When we win: we will haul them before a Senate committee. The masks will come off. There will be consequences.

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 3h

The most “someone ought to do something” party ever. Not even calling for hearings if they regain power!

Reposted by Matt Ghoulberg

Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 4h

Every time someone makes me read something Peter Thiel said it’s like “Scrooge McDuck is Jesus Christ and Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel and Daisy is Mary Magdalene and that’s why women voting has lowered American sperm count.”

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Reposted by Matt Ghoulberg

A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 2d

I've noticed the opposing team's fans only cheer when the opponents score on us. To win those fans over, I recommend we score on ourselves repeatedly; that will surely make them so happy they'll start supporting us. And I'm sure all our fans will keep cheering for us—who else is there to cheer for?

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 4h

lol literally no one respects Vance.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5h

STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.

VANCE: No, George, I sai--

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 5h

And here's one from OpenAI where the ask is, "I need a recipe that says, 'I like you, but want to play it cool," which is such a weird way to look at dating (cooking for someone is a nice gesture! Do you need the computer to tell you how to make the gesture more efficient?)

Cooking Cool | ChatGPT Helps Plan the Perfect 'I Like You' Dish

YouTube video by Creative Boom

youtu.be

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 5h

Here's the one from Google where a guy goes to a James Blunt anniversary concert (and the music is "She's So High," a song by Tal Bachman, not James Blunt).

Just Ask Google

YouTube video by Google

youtu.be

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 5h

As goofy as this shit is, this is what Silicon Valley is selling! There are two different ads right now that are basically, "Gemini/ChatGPT, help me get laid."

C. Buckthorn @cbuckthorn.bsky.social · 12h

This is amazing. I laughed out loud www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

As 32-year-old Rich points out, though, "it's not like using ChatGPT guarantees success".
When he met someone in a bar one Friday night and swapped social media handles, he asked AI what his next move should be.
ChatGPT discerned that sending an initial message on Monday midmorning would set the right pace. "Then it gave me some options for what the message could be," says Rich.
"Keep it light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency," the bot advised. "Something like: Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you've got one] - good to meet you!" Rich went back and forth with ChatGPT until he felt they'd hit upon exactly the right message ("Hey Sarah, it was lovely to meet you") but sadly she never replied, he says. "It's been two weeks now."

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 5h

I came up with the best theory I could on why Disney made TRON: Ares outside of "Sean Bailey stole a company credit card."

Why Did TRON: Ares Flop? A Theory

A theory on why the studio backed a project that was almost destined to fail.

www.commentarytrack.net

Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 5h

I'm surprised that a guy who named one of his companies after the evil, mind-corrupting orb from Lord of the Rings may lack media literacy.

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 8h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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