wow seahawks wow, this is wonderful —a punt return TD for the first time in ten years and then a blocked punt a couple minutes later & a 21-0 in the first quarter?!?!

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.

So delighted to see BREWSTER MCCLOUD on the criterion channel, a completely bonkers Altman film that actually slightly helped create BWDR; I wrote about it for This Recording in May 2009 & found myself wishing there was a place I could write or read more about offbeat favorites. BWDR started in July

As both a therapist and a human living in the world, I really, truly, passionately wish that more people were aware of justice sensitivity in adhd brains. i know it sounds like a made up term/thing, but it’s very real & explains a lot of reactions that otherwise wouldn’t make a lot of sense

THE HYPOCRISY IS THE POINT!!

Jackass 3D is back in theaters this weekend, so now's a great time to revisit one of my favorite things I've written this year about the series ❤️

Had no idea this existed until right now and this is such wonderful news

Support independent media

I think the coolest thing you can do right now is live with integrity and care about the people around you, not just your friends and family but your community. Deny the lie they want you to believe, that taking as much as you can while giving nothing back is the goal.

first kid is officially moved out and off to college, nothing feels normal, trying to adjust out of rhythms i’ve been swimming in for 18 years, lots of grace required & appreciated 🥹

More tomorrow, but now might be a very good time to consider subscribing to What’s Alan Watching? alansepinwall.ghost.io

how do you handle your first kid going off to college, i’m at a loss beyond “feeling really sad”

Curiosity has always been an underrated personal trait but now it feels like it’s being actively discouraged?

good: wait was that the seahawks who just drove down the field and scored on their first drive for the first time in over a year?! bad: having to watch aaron rodgers throw to dk metcalf soon

“The most valuable thing to me in terms of my mental health is to read a poem or see a painting or listen to music which speaks to me, which breaks me open for a moment, and where I feel an experience honestly & delicately portrayed. That’s another reason AI can never create anything artistically.”

Psychotherapy is the name we give efforts to study and improve one’s experience and view of things - one’s subjectivity - with the help of another’s subjectivity. - Leston Havens, 𝐴 𝑆𝑎𝑓𝑒 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒

Wrote about the week. How the shooter's ID didn't appear to matter to ppl. How the discourse takes place in very same spaces that incubate/perpetuate hate & violence. How shooters now know that their acts will be flattened, analyzed, argued over & amplified. How all of this feels so dark & poisonous

For @bwdr.bsky.social’s latest issue, I wrote about mentors, dirty jobs, nightlife, and the two movies where those ideas intersect: MAGIC MIKE and ROAD HOUSE (1989)

i mean, what else do you say to a Road House/Magic Mike double feature pitch?! also, i’m the kind of nerd whose entire day is made by a great pitch, and writers like Sarah make that a regular part of my life :)

It's been five years since I watched the entire thing twice in a year—in the middle of 2020/lockdown—but i still think THE LEFTOVERS explans just about everything about everything and I probably have that thought at least twice every day

still perfect

The good old days are here again, at least over at BWDR—a fantastic essay on SOMETHING WILD from Travis, accompanied by pitch perfect, bespoke art from Brianna! Jonathan Demme issue ending in style 😍

New today over at @bwdr.bsky.social, a little ode to Jonathan Demme’s glorious anti-rom com SOMETHING WILD.

morning chopin

Haven’t heard much talk about Long Story Short, but i’m about halfway through & it’s pretty wonderful - hits that same Bojack existential/melancholy/funny bone at times, while still being completely its own thing. Plus has perfect little moments like this

Leaving twitter (where we still have over 3x the followers we have here) and using Bluesky as our primary social network has increased both direct traffic and subscribers at @bwdr.bsky.social far more than twitter ever did the previous few years. Easy decision—Blueskyism is where it’s at folks.

"It’s a moonshot, but a calculated one; a film like THE FOUNTAIN can’t possibly work for every single viewer—but those who do connect, connect deeply." - @chadperman.bsky.social

WE'VE DONE IT, SEATTLE! 🤩

PAULIE!!! Sounders win 3-0, holy shit

SOUNDERS!!!!!!!! 2-0!!! Suck it Miami ;)

Eddie Vedder at the Leagues Cup Final in a Sounders jersey. All of my worlds colliding

Messi in Seattle playing for a championship is a big deal, but the even bigger deal is when the Sounders beat Messi & his highly paid friends (his salary alone is more than Seattle’s entire payroll) at Lumen Field in front of 65,000+ fans & are the first MLS team to win every North American trophy🏆

can’t believe how strange it is to be anything at all

Between doomscrolling & doomlistening, there is some (literal) light this week to treat your poor, anxious 2025 brain to: @billmckibben.bsky.social talking with @chrislhayes.bsky.social about the ☀️ and how solar power is (truly! already!) here & ready to change the entire world as we know it.

My son is currently working on this Chopin piece for a recital months away, which means i get the absolute gift of hearing this several times a day, and it absolutely shapes the mood & rhythms of my days. 2025 is a fucked up year, but for me, it will always sound like this (especially 4:50-4:54)

Illinois Gov. Pritzker vows to pursue Trump officials who participate in an illegal National Guard deployment to Chicago: "If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me - not time or political circumstance - from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law."

thank you for existing, wilco (tonight, at the zoo, for 3 hours)

it’s not even close & i’m writing about it (finally) for the next issue. but long story short: most of what i love about my life literally wouldn’t exist without this movie existing

if you're ever wondering what's actually important to your ego, try to remember what you got praised the most for when you were like 6 or 7 years old

the way i screamed when watching this last night

A central pillar of Chicago’s vibrant film culture, a reliably smart critic with a deep knowledge of & love for cinema (& theater, the beat he started out on), & a wonderful colleague & friend. If you care about art in your city, read & support your local critics, because our species is endangered.

not saying this is why things are How They Are Now in america, but also it’s probably not entirely unrelated…

The peace this brings to my heart, every time. The music, yes, absolutely—but watching him experience it is such a wonderful thing, too. "It is the entrance to heaven. Schubert wrote the music which gives the peace, the feeling of the nothing of entering death resigned & happy." - Artur Rubinstein

Quiz Show is so good there aren’t even words to describe how good it is, thus making it by far my least successful video store recommendation of all time. But if you ever have the chance, trust me: watch it.

12 years ago on a phone call with @chadperman.bsky.social, we decided that I was going to be the illustrator for the new version of BWDR we wanted to put out into the world. I owe my entire career to that phone call, and the support the site has received over the years. It’s simply too good to lose.

One of the great modern American film magazines needs your help! The best way to help is to get a 1 year subscription. The price -- $2.41 a month!! -- is bargain for all the great writing and illustrations it'll help pay for.

july was a tough month, sucks to have to post this, not sure what else to do, it’s been 16 years of my life 🫠

i love that when i have big ideas for things, the future me i imagine tackling them is this calm, organized, motivated, energetic guy with all kinds of free time, when in reality future me is just me, still, and very tired

"The 56-year-old who made Bringing Out the Dead was a much different person than the 33-year-old who’d made Taxi Driver; though he was revisiting plenty of the same themes that had driven his earlier films, he was coming at them from a much different place in his life." - @chadperman.bsky.social