More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

RIP to a favorite. What are you going to watch to pay tribute? I may go JEREMIAH JOHNSON and then OLD MAN & THE GUN.

Share some of the best eyes in movies

This statement should just be posted every day. No context needed.

And today in "This world is getting stupider all the time ..."

Friends, if you haven't come across THE TIN STAR in your Western watching, do yourself a favor and check it out at your earliest opportunity. Anthony Mann, Henry Fonda and Anthony Perkins and simply one of the finest the genre has ever produced.

This review from @rockmarooned.bsky.social is pretty spot on. An entertaining movie with a great cast that I hope people check out! www.pastemagazine.com/movies/tony-...

Close, intelligent, in some cases near lifelong friends are starting to talk casually about the use of ChatGPT in their lives or in some cases are clearly getting paid/perks to promote its use and it’s like watching your social circle slowly, and with a big smile on their face, all join Scientology.

There's a *ton* of interesting stuff in this pod with Alon Levy about why US public transit is so f'ing expensive, but I really want to highlight what I take as his Main Point, to wit ...

This piece by @matthewschnipper.bsky.social is so great. I recently rewatched THE STRAIGHT STORY with my kids and everyone from 10 to almost 50 found it incredibly moving, I'm sure for different reasons. Don't make the mistake of filing this away as "minor Lynch" (as if there could be such a thing!)

100% endorse this! We switched to inviting friends out for "Movie and a Dinner" a ways back and it's a much better experience for all the reasons listed here.

maybe there's still some good left in this world after all

Hey, just a reminder that if you ever just want to flat out astonish your movie-loving friends/family members, throw on THE RAID 2 and sit back and watch their reactions. My teenage daughter now has a grin that will not go away. What a movie!

I wish I could write about *anything* as persuasively as Nadira Goffe writes about relish: slate.com/life/2025/07.... I just added it to my grocery list.

One of our most popular signed titles is What Do You Mean, Murder?, the compulsively readable account of the making of Clue by John Hatch (@johnhatch.bsky.social). We just got some more in & will be processing orders tomorrow, so jump on this if you want a copy! It's on the front page of mzs.press!

"You looking for trouble Doniphan?" "You aiming to help me find some?" In case anyone needed reminding, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE is a goddamn masterpiece.

I think most anti-abortion people, given the choice between: - abortion rates being zero and - abortion rates remaining the same but everyone agreeing that abortion is bad, would choose the latter.

Remember this any time politicians, or the media, or misinformed people in general tell you crime is out of control.

This is a great approach because my brain is FAR better equipped to remember a new acquaintance's hobby or favorite restaurant than it is to repeat where you said you work even five minutes after hearing it.

This is a very thorough breakdown by @marisakabas.bsky.social of a story that has gotten increasingly sketchy since day one. This is the kind of clarification we need.

#westernwednesday WINCHESTER '73 (1950) One of the best of the genre. If you like Westerns and haven't seen everything director Mann and star Stewart did together, you can rectify that! Start with this one: A stolen prize rifle and the obsessive quest to get it back. Wonderful.

my big takeaway after marathoning the Raimi Spider-Men and Nolan Batmans over the weekend is that superhero movies work best when good filmmakers are allowed to marry the material’s inherent affinities with their own artistic sensibility with minimal interference go figure!

They call me... Butter Cake.

One of the best reviews of the new M:I that I've read, clearly explaining how, in some ways, it's starting to show the limits of the formula it has so brilliantly constructed over 8 films, and also why YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GO SEE IT ON A HUGE SCREEN.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FINAL RECKONING checked off every box for me. And I mean that literally, in that this is my favorite action series and I have an actual checklist of things that have to happen in every installment for it to be great. The pleasure is in how they tweak the formula every time.

#westernwednesday THE BIG COUNTRY (1958) is fantastic. This is an all-timer of a Western. Anyone trying to master widescreen composition should study what William Wyler does here. Peck, Heston, Simmons and especially Burl Ives are exceptional. Complex themes of violence and masculinity. Greatness!

Just took the whole family to see Buster Keaton's THE GENERAL at Peery's Egyptian Theater in Ogden, UT, a bona fide 100-year old movie palace. Screen properly masked. Live accompaniment on a loud-as-hell Wurlitzer organ. Audience laughing. A top-tier moviegoing experience. Please give me more!

Lawyer/detective/journalist is uninterested in a seemingly routine case/story until the moment someone orders them to stop looking into it AND THEN THEY CANNOT BE STOPPED.

Western Wednesday: MAN FROM DEL RIO (1956) Excellent Anthony Quinn as a Mexican gunfighter in an all-white town. They like his way with a gun enough to make him sheriff to fight off the rifraff they're scared of, but have no intention of making him part of the community. GREAT final showdown.

On an already great podcast, when @tasharobinson.bsky.social opened the convo by asking for favorite less-known superheroes, I said to myself "Gotta be Squirrel Girl and Nightcrawler" and then she and @genevievekoski.bsky.social spent the next 5 mins talking Squirrel Girl and Nightcrawler! Heaven!

Ghost Protocol Fallout Rogue Nation Mission: Impossible III Dead Reckoning II (And the only place there is a significant gap is between Dead Reckoning and II)

tbh this really explains trump brain, he genuinely doesn’t understand grift as a concept because it’s so ingrained into How To Do Business

Today I am feeling: CLUE GAME NIGHT and BERRY GORDY'S THE LAST DRAGON

Dr. Oz: "We're not getting our money's worth" on treating chronic illness? Please accept my invitation to fuck all the way off. These people are villains.

Western Wednesday: THE GUNFIGHTER (1950) is a perfect movie. Gregory Peck as a notorious "gunny" tired of his fame and the violence of his past and just wants to leave it behind. No one will let him. Incredible. (Amazing Criterion art by @jenniferdionisio.com & essay by @melvillmatic.bsky.social)

I recently went on a Spielberg completist tear and I know they're obscure but I have to stump for SAVAGE (TV movie/pilot) and his segment of TWILIGHT ZONE as the only things I don't think I could bear to watch again.

Western Wednesday: John Ford's WAGON MASTER (1950) is everything I want in a Western. Mormon wagon trains! Outlaws! Incredible images of Moab AND Monument Valley! Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr and Ward Bond! See this one if you haven't. A peak movie of the peak decade of the genre.

Great article on the acting of Tom Hardy, one of our best Nicolas Cage-level weirdos: slate.com/culture/2025... (from @isaacbutler.bsky.social )

I can't be the only one who immediately thought "Pope le Pew."

I forgot to post my Western Wednesday! In a better world, we would have a dozen Westerns teaming Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott, but at least we have 1982's THE SHADOW RIDERS, a very fun adventure with the two as Civil War vet brothers (from different sides!) fighting raiders on their family land.

Vulture Cinematrix No. 384: Apr 14, 2025 I got 9/9 Correct Score: 2604 🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩 Play at: vulture.com/vulturecinem... #vultureflowgrid

Western Wednesday: STELLAR WESTERN ALERT! A contempo (for 1957) Western, Jeff Chandler is a rural county sheriff investigating the murder of a Mexican worker on big bad land baron Orson Welles' ranch. The town wants him to stop digging because the evil rich guy promises economic prosperity. 1/2

Western Wednesday: It will surprise no one that our movie this week was 1993's TOMBSTONE, featuring the late Val Kilmer's greatest performance as Doc Holliday. What was weird was that we had already planned to watch it in preparation for our visit to the real town next week. Anyway, perfect Western.

Chris Claremont's X-Men run

Not that I need an excuse to go watch old Westerns, but I decided to make Western Wednesday a thing at my house. 1st up was this blast from 1966. A slam bang "end of the West" action Western, with Lancaster, Marvin, Ryan and Strode as one of the great "we're gonna need a team" lineups of all time.

The decisive test of our society in my lifetime was the 2024 election and our failure was spectacular and total. I will never again have any faith in the American electorate to do the obviously right thing.

I like to remind myself how lucky I am to have a local theater that shows classic silent films with live accompaniment on a huge Wurlitzer organ. They did a Buster Keaton program last night with SEVEN CHANCES and ONE WEEK and there is truly nothing like laughing with a crowd in a full theater.

I don't know why exactly our local theater chain is showing both DUNE movies this week but we just watched part one for the first time since it came out and good lord that is a great theatrical experience. Part two tomorrrow!

[if Chuck Schumer replaced Liam Neeson in Taken] CHUCK SCHUMER: [on phone] I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I will find you and I will help you kill my daughter

I love this shoutout to Sally Hawkins in the Paddington movies by @petrana.bsky.social . While still acknowledging that the new movie is very good (it is! See it!) this reminds us not to overlook what a valuable contribution Hawkins made to the first two. Great piece! www.polygon.com/opinion/5242...