“Are you telling me this clown is a Level Four Naughty Lister?” This is the least-worst quote I could find in the new Red One movie. It is dumb and only a little funny, but I enjoyed J.K. Simmons as the iron-pumping Santa Claus and watching Captain America freak out as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson tries to find who kidnapped Santa. An uninspired effort by Hollywood, right when we could really use an infusion of comedy and good feelings before heading into the unfriendly whirlwind of 2025. Accordingly, I will forego the typical One Thoughtful Paragraph to review our best movie suggestions in 2024. We need to start the New Year right.
In the meantime, this news explains why I think that 2025 will be an “unfriendly whirlwind”:
- Businesses can no longer be friends. The FTC and DOJ withdrew its Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors, and directed collaborators and competitors to no longer rely on these guidelines. What that means here and here.
- Members of Congress can no longer be friends. The last-minute budget battle means tough times ahead for House Speaker Johnson and bipartisan governing.
- MAGA supporters and DOGE leaders can no longer be friends. DOGE leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy supported President-elect Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan as his AI policy adviser in the face of a MAGA supporter backlash against foreign-born tech workers with H-1B visas.
#3 Office Space. It is an older film about people who go to work. The link to health policy was provided by Blue Shield of California and Salesforce at the HLTH conference this year – to demonstrate the companies’ partnership to fully automate the prior authorization process.
#2 Armageddon. A favorite disaster-but-everything-is-ok movie, we show how the line “he’s got space dementia” explains Steve Buscemi’s strange behavior on an Earth-dooming asteroid could also be an expert’s commentary about either candidate in this year’s cringey presidential debate.
#1 All My Love. It is a Coldplay music video directed by Spike Jonze featuring Dick Van Dyke at 99 years young. Surprising link to health policy: We explain how Brad Smith, who is now leading DOGE but used to run CMMI and two major health care companies, is a bit like a non-dancing Dick Van Dyke. Want to feel warm and fuzzy? Watch this.
See you all back here in 2025. Happy New Year!
