Off to a much-needed writing boot camp next week and also really need a social media breather. Catch ya in June all! ✌️

So glad to have Rose, Elyse, and Juju join the @wfhinetwork.bsky.social team!

The AAUP is proud to support the Sanders/AOC AI Data Center Moratorium Act because the future of technology must be governed democratically, sustainably, & in service of working people—not corporate profit. ➡️https://www.aaup.org/news/aaup-backs-data-center-moratorium

On June 9, Czech Center NY is hosting an event to celebrate forthcoming @jcmsjournal.bsky.social publication of a dossier I co-edited on Věra Chytilová’s Czech New Wave classic Daisies (1966). Event will include talks from our contributors + rooftop party! 🎉🥂🍃🦋 www.eventbrite.com/e/sixty-year...

NYU alumni here. In honor of NYU’s graduation festivities today, Dan Streible @orphanfilm.bsky.social writes about the 1952 nontheatrical sponsored film titled “New York University” shot by documentary greats Ricky Leacock and Willard Van Dyke! 🎓 wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

"Meet the Collector: Dwight Cleveland On Turning Hollywood Ephemera into Museum-Worthy History” observer.com/2026/03/art-...

#Friday!

WORD

Also reading reviews of Starship Troopers for SF Film next week . The story I always hear is that people at the time widely "didn't get" the film. The actual reviews tell a more complex story. La Voz read it as a brilliant satire of US fascism, while The Atlanta Journal highlighted its black comedy.

On June 9, Czech Center NY is hosting an event to celebrate forthcoming @jcmsjournal.bsky.social publication of a dossier I co-edited on Věra Chytilová’s Czech New Wave classic Daisies (1966). Event will include talks from our contributors + rooftop party! 🎉🥂🍃🦋 www.eventbrite.com/e/sixty-year...

Born in Flames was shown on TV! It was broadcast on Channel 13 at 11pm on August 24th, 1986 as part of their "Independent Focus" series. The NYT took this as an opportunity to call the film "left-wing sludge."

A very cool virtual event happening tomorrow with @sffilmpreserve.bsky.social. Sad to miss it!

The very silly thing about THE MANDALORIAN is that a huge part of the character's arc is embedded in the second half of THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT, information that anecdotally I think is news to a *lot* of people. (Honestly, it's some of my favorite Mando stuff. He burns his leg on the Darksaber!)

Every success I've had with books has been because people recommended it to others I haven't had any kind of marketing budget to speak of yet, and I don't expect one at any point in the future!

“The complexities of classroom pedagogy are less like engineering, where every design tweak can in principle optimize performance for everyone, and more like policymaking in a diverse society, where every choice distributes benefits and burdens differently. Some students gain more, others less…”

Cannes still privileges documentaries *about* cinema over documentaries *as* cinema. open.substack.com/pub/anthonyk...

Ha! I promised my students I’d try to get their comments on the record and I’m so pleased we succeeded. Thanks to Emmy Martin for what I think is a very good article on the Canvas hack. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

"FILM DIPLOMACY invites us to expand our analytical lens. It challenges us to look beyond messages and narratives to the systems that produce and circulate them...." Julide Etem's new book is reviewed on the CPD blog. @julideetem.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social

Rewatched Věra Chytilová’s DAISIES (1966) for the umteenth time this week and am shocked I didn’t recall this particular 15 seconds of amazingness?!

Great opportunity for a PhD Candidate in fields related to media history and archival research!

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS at #Cannes is perfection. www.reuters.com/business/med...

A 16-year-long effort to digitize in high resolution the 175,000 or so Farm Security Administration photographs at the Library of Congress is coming to an end, perhaps by the end of this year. Read more. ⬇️ blogs.loc.gov/loc/2026/05/...

1. They stole our work to train their models. 2. Their models are behaving badly. 3. It's our fault somehow?????

On the sidelines at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, I wrote some words about #TedTurner and film preservation. Ted Turner and two (?) cheers for colorization wp.me/p7i0Y-1fK

Huge news! I'm co-producing Alexandre O Philippe's new doc IN SEARCH OF NOSFERATU. Our team (including @pattonoswalt.bsky.social) is scouring the world for uniquely aged prints of Murnau's classic. 🚨 CAN YOU HELP? 🚨 Any leads on old prints, VHS, etc, please hit me up! Our treasure hunt is global!

I’m not much of a Western person* (don’t @ me) but I’m planning to give some of these a try when I’m back in NYC in a few weeks www.moma.org/calendar/fil...

Sad to learn silicosis is still a prevalent issue. TL;DR: Origin story of my entire dissertation/book is MEN AND DUST (1940), formally inventive activist documentary made to publicize public health crisis in the Ozarks. Among my earliest publications. www.filmpreservation.org/sponsored-fi...

Do I know anyone who watched Born in Flames when it was first released in the early 80s? I'm so curious when and where it was screened and how people responded to it. An oral history of the film would be really useful.

Happy birthday Forrest! A pleasure to read your first report from your first visit to what used to be my favorite film festival…

So…I co-edited a forthcoming dossier of essays on Věra Chytilová’s DAISIES (coming this fall!) and am in the weeds on some other cool DAISIES things to come. I walked into my favorite coffee/writing place today and what do I see?! An adorable green apple timer. Obviously I bought it. #IYKYK. 🍏🌼

UCLA Library Special Collections project manager Joseph Gallucci describes the ongoing effort to document audiovisual materials across Library Special Collections, including discoveries along the way. https://loom.ly/KUXtmgo

An interview with Charlotte Barker, describing her role as one of the caretakers for the studio’s history, but also someone who helps advocate for the archive and film restoration. https://loom.ly/v5Qz5RY

Strictly anecdotal: I know someone who works at big accounting firm in NYC. He says everyone in office over 40 is insanely outraged by the NYS and NYC pied-à-terre tax and everyone under 40 is like “hell yea! tax the rich! 🍾”

Grading done! Spring 2026 over! ….Tomorrow begins the three months of doing all of the writing I wish I had more time to do during the regular academic year! Livin’ that 9 (months) for 3 (months) life 🫠

Welcome to Bluesky (I think), @xfrcollective.bsky.social!

Last night in downtown Springfield, Missouri at the historic Gillioz Theater — screening of Harold Lloyd’s SAFETY LAST! (1923) accompanied by the Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra. H/t to my amazing student who told me about the event! 🎞️🎻🥁🕐🎶 cinematreasures.org/theaters/1267

Our Spring 2026 issue—"Gender, Media, and Developmentalism," guest edited by Dalila Missero and Masha Salazkina—is now LIVE! online.ucpress.edu/fmh/issue/12/2 Editors' Introduction, open access NOW: doi.org/10.1525/fmh....

now thats an anecdote with a punch, from Gillian Tett www.ft.com/content/c0ae...

Great thread and responses.

A related side note: when Turner Entertainment registered colorized films for copyright -- on video, of course -- they also submitted new 35mm prints to the Library of Congress as a condition of the registration. See BRINGING UP BABY (lccn.loc.gov/91733359) as an example.

On this day in 1935, FDR signed an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Of 2,000 WPA posters known to exist—publicizing community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs—the Library's collection of more than 900 is the largest.

One of my students alerted me to a free screening of SAFETY LAST! tomorrow in old downtown theater, scored by a ragtime orchestra. Count me in! Part of free programming in Springfield, Missouri, as part of celebration of Route 66 centennial! 🛣️ www.etix.com/ticket/p/971...

Keen to read “Emphatic Sound in Film: The Deaf Soundscape of SOUND OF METAL” by Gemma King. I’ve screened the first ~12 minutes of the film in my “Intro to Film” class for past few years and have contemplated moving this to our feature screening for sound. www.sensesofcinema.com/2026/feature...

Majority of my “Film Theory” students opted to do video essays. JAWS was our central text; students took this in many directions, including this one—a deep dive (ha!) into history of Hollywood unions, on-set labor during JAWS's beleaguered production, and likely violation of union regulations. ✊

Kind of surprised that this hasn't been bigger news. It's finals week for a whole lot of universities, and yet, Canvas (a learning/grading platform used by ~9,000 schools globally) is currently inaccessible because of a pay-or-have-your-data-leaked hack. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

This was my gen ed “Intro to Film” class. I loathed this and having to create multi-choice and true/false for an ART APPRECIATION class but…too hard to reinvent wheel. I implemented more inventive out-of-class work in “Film History” and “Film Theory” and sensed much less AI-use. But…le sigh.

New issue of @sensesofcinema.bsky.social just dropped! www.sensesofcinema.com/issues/issue...

Can’t stop—won’t stop—using em dashes.

We’re all heartbroken that Tony Stella is gone, and so grateful for all he contributed to BWDR over the years. Here’s our loving appreciation of Tony and his art from editor-in-chief @chadperman.bsky.social