Increasingly ashamed of my degree from a public university in Florida.

More James Baldwin: “In Paris everything is very slow. Also, when dealing with the bureaucracy, the man you are talking to is never the man you have to see. The man you have to see has just gone off to Belgium, or is busy with his family, or has just discovered that he is a cuckold.”

Tennessee has been gerrymandered to the point where congressional elections happen only in the primaries. Every blue state legislature should follow Virginia’s lead.

A free stream of one of the best films of 2025. Get on it.

What's the over/under on the number of films I'll see in Berlin next week that are better than an episode of The Pitt?

Derek Dooley is running for Senate. If you don't understand how hilarious that is, just trust me. It's hilarious.

Listening to Kenny G is a perfect companion to @carlzoilus.bsky.social's excellent book on Celine Dion.

Good news guys, MAGA is falling apart because of an ad, and I'm confident that this time MAGA *really is* falling apart because those dorks who wrote some speeches for Obama say so. (I credit my radicalization to those photos of Obama and Springsteen posing in sunglasses by a convertible.)

Two Film Fest Knox award winners were selected for True/False. :)

I'm struggling to avoid succumbing to conspiracy brain when it sure as hell appears that a group of white, patriarchal oligarchs (redundant?) destabilized the world's democracies for shits and giggles. Everyone mentioned in those files should be asked about nothing else for the rest of their lives.

OBAA has got me re-evaluating PTA and, you know what? he's really good. Rewatching Inherent Vice last night was the most fun I've had watching a movie in quite a while. It's the same pleasure as peak Pakula--scene after scene of actors absolutely nailing the one thing they were cast to do.

This movie rocks. I'd never made any connections between Spike Lee and Godard, but now I want to do a deep dive. He loves Theresa Randle's face like Godard loves Anna Karina's, and I'm sure they lifted production design ideas from Godard's early color films. Randle should've been a Movie Star.

It finally happened. My kid asked if I'd ever heard of a song that she likes, and I got to piss her off by telling her I saw the band play it live 20+ years ago, right after it was released. So, anyway, Wren has discovered "There, There" by Radiohead.

Just popping some gift links to our Epstein reporting from the last few days in this thread

If you miss 30 Rock, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins scratches the same itch. So many jokes.

“I love to argue with people who do not disagree with me too profoundly.” This is now a James Baldwin appreciation account.

I had a small epiphany a couple weeks ago while watching Baldwin’s N—— (Horace Ové, 1968). I was the kid in Sunday School who would ask why, if we spend so much time studying a book of prophets, there were no longer any prophets in the world? Watching Baldwin speak with such precise moral clarity…

I do think discourse about machine intelligence both overrates the complexity of machines and underrates the simplicity of humans. "It's just been trained on human behavior to convince humans it's just like them" cool man me too

Good news! It's a damn shame that so many Desplechin films have gone undistributed in the States.

FB reminds me it's been eight years since Paul Schrader gave me his IFFR chocolate.

They all imagine themselves as heroes, protecting "freedom" or whatever. They expect to be honored for their service and sacrifice because every day of their lives they've seen soldiers, cops, and first responders valorized for just existing.

After writing this, I was pleased with myself to read Sarris on the film: "Carmen Jones succeeds on its own questionable terms as the Preminger musical par excellence—drab, austere, and completely depoeticized."

It did my heart good to hear four smart people wrestling with the ethical challenges of MLK's radical non-violence. Recorded the day after Pretti's murder, the episode is also angry and deeply moving. This is the good stuff.

I scored a $7 blu of Li'l Quinquin at the used bookstore today, so I can now watch this scene in high def whenever I need to laugh myself silly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_YF...

TIL Sherilyn Fenn is Suzi Quatro's niece.

Black Bag is finding its way into the Moneyball and Confess, Fletch camp — perfect entertainments that I’ll happily watch any day of the week.

I haven't seen The Frighteners for 30 years, but I still immediately think of Jeffrey Combs whenever I see one of these weaselly Nazi chuds.

put this next to Obama's toothless terms & conditions-ass statement

I assume Girl 6 is difficult to see right now because the license for Prince’s music expired? I’m reading bell hooks and watching the films she discusses that I’ve never seen before. (There’s a rip of the Japanese Blu on kg.)

I just put down a book I was excited to read after three paragraphs. They are so dumb and poorly written, I have zero faith it will get any better.

And people say film criticism is dead.

Pretty sure I’m going to wake up to a dozen fallen trees.

If you need a distraction, turn on this scene and only watch Sinatra. Then rewind and only watch Martin. Pure cinema.

It’s a very specific despair, knowing that the three people who represent me in DC are eating snacks and cheering on the violence.

Is that a real trailer for a new He-Man movie, or is it a spoof of IP bullshit and the death of cinema? No one will ever know.

Somewhere out there, Ryan Werner is disappointed Sirat got only two nominations. As soon as he recommended Arco to me, I knew it would sneak into the animated category. 😂

Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you've seen, with WOMEN lead singers The Sundays Sonic Youth Wye Oak My Brightest Diamond Beth Gibbons

This weekend we're gonna get 0-36 inches of snow here in East TN, and I think they should just let us all go home now and sit on the couch and read books and drink coffee. This is my retirement plan, by the way -- coffee and books and sitting on the couch, ideally with an animal or two beside me.

This mf’r out here stealing Jim’s tweet for engagement!

In memory of Rob Hirst ... one of the all-time great live-TV rock performances.

Bookmarking for later. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I didn't have a strong rooting interest in the game last night, but I'm glad this guy's beard lost.

We know that people are being horrendously abused in these facilities. It will take a long time for us to figure out exactly what that abuse looks like. But we can’t say that we didn’t know.

The guards are terrible at protecting the entrance to the Zone. The Stalker, the Professor, and the Writer aren’t exactly master criminals.

Just had my first Avatar experience and am trying to imagine an aesthetic more repulsive than “Roger Dean album cover + Sid and Marty Kroft + that weirdly colonialist parade of nations at Epcot.”

Fwiw, I’ve never known my uncle to express a political opinion — he’s in his 70s, a blue-collar guy from rural southern Illinois — and he’s pretty fired up about ICE attacking citizens and hard-working immigrants.

I just watched the NFL for the first time in a decade. Kickoffs are goofy now, and apparently I don’t know what a catch is? Weird game.

the toddler’s fury that Obama got a sticker that he didn’t get is unquenchable, and there are no limits to the lengths to which he will go to play pretend that he got the sticker too

First thing that came to mind is the old security guard giving Wendy $6 in Wendy and Lucy.