2026 Berlinale #5. Karim Aïnouz's ROSEBUSH PRUNING enters the increasingly crowded eat-the-rich genre but is as soulless as its subjects. "The characters, the visuals, and even the soundtrack are all garish, but there’s little underneath the burst of color." www.micahrickard.com/film/rosebus...

2026 Berlinale #4. ROSE was one of the best, with a standout performance from Sandra Hüller. A transcendent and earthy film "about the 'miracle of being new' that occurs with each birth, with every springtime, with every choice we make to reshape ourselves." www.micahrickard.com/film/rose-2026

Time for a calm movie night with my good friends Mikey and Nicky

noem's big sin to trump wasn't killing innocents or detaining immigrants. it was looking bad on tv in his name. thats all he cares about.

Great review by @micahrickard.bsky.social of one of the films I really liked ftom the Berlinale: We Are All Strangers www.micahrickard.com/film/we-are-...

PEPFAR, the program to stop hundreds of thousands of children and adults from dying of HIV/AIDS, was $6.5 billion a year.

2026 Berlinale #3. I did not go for Gore Verbinski's latest. "GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE never bores, but—like a human trapped in an A.I.'s virtual reality—one has a gnawing suspicion that there should be something more real beneath its sheen." www.micahrickard.com/film/good-lu...

2026 Berlinale #2. TRIAL OF HEIN is a slippery mystery of identity and communal memory that "characterizes the way a society projects its idea of itself to take the place of the truth." www.micahrickard.com/film/trial-o...

I'm getting around to posting my reviews out of this year's Berlinale Film Fest. First up, the festival's opening film, NO GOOD MEN. "This does not set out to be a straightforward romcom. The real world is always close at hand, always a threat. www.micahrickard.com/film/no-good...

“Democracy allows people the freedom to make stupid decisions, so long as they make them collectively. But a system that allows a country to be dragged into war at the whims of a single person is not much of a democracy at all.” @qjurecic.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Introducing the wife to Twin Peaks (and David Lynch in the process)

"Whatever happens, though, one thing is clear – that this use of force by the US and Israel is manifestly illegal. It is as plain a violation of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter as one could possibly have." @ejiltalk.bsky.social www.ejiltalk.org/the-american...

folks theyre saying the pale rider doesnt want us to break the seventh seal, theyre saying no one has the strength to handle it. what do you think folks, what do you think of that pale rider. should we do it? *crowd going absolutely ape shit* i dont know, i want to but they say I shouldnt

People are always like what’s something you miss from the past and one of mine is antitrust laws

Masterful Troll, TCM.

Anyone have a recommendation for a good Mark Wahlberg 40 Day Challenge devotional?

I finally caught up with the new movie and I have to say, I love the way they're expanding the Badlands universe. Just a really unpredictable direction to take things

An important rule to keep in mind is that you dont HAVE to speak to Rod Dreher

Rarely have I felt as seen by a movie as watching a writer immediately turn his finished draft over to his wife to review, critique, and revise it

I apparently can't stop writing about ghosts

I wanted to think more about the curious place of MARTY SUPREME's anachronistic soundtrack, so I dug into it at CAPC

Next time somebody tries to get me to justify the existence of the humanities, I’ll just point out how for the past two Super Bowls we’ve all jumped online and engaged in collective semiotics and hermeneutics of the half-time show as text.

I'm hardly the first person to note this, but it's enormously instructive that our President and his followers saw the message "THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE" and understood it, correctly, as an attack on them

Heart rate is doing great,thanks for asking

Who doesn't love a good road trip? And what road trip could be more restorative than watching William Friedkin's Sorcerer 4k restoration on one of the biggest screens in town?

They’re trying to run the Kilmar Abrego Garcia playbook with a five year old boy in a bunny hat because nobody can find peace if they embarrass the Trump administration publicly. Normal people didn’t like it with Garcia and they really aren’t going to like it for Liam.

Not sure I could have pick a more jarring pair of movies to watch on subsequent days than PETER HUJAR'S DAY (so excellent, so warm and calm) and JFK (also excellent, but umm something besides warm and calm)

Birthday evening watch: THE HUNTED. Man I'm missing the PNW (didn't expect that from this movie).

“There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.” abc7ny.com/post/ice-min...

Judge Biery signed the order with a photo of Liam and two bible verses: The first is "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The second is simply "Jesus wept." Astonishing thing for a judge to do.

Me getting to write about DRIVE MY CAR (yet again)

I got assigned to read Simone Weil's essay on the Iliad and force and it is, well, unavoidably enlightening for our times.

"Not only don't people work less when they are guaranteed an income, they might actually put in more effort at work. And the fact that they have more money to spend leads to the creation of more jobs." Nobel Prize–winning economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Been reading way to much 20th century philosophy for it to be anything else

It's not clear what rhetoric Homan is referring to here, but: I've spoken to lots of activists (mostly faith leaders) who've been deeply involved in pushing back against DHS/ICE, and I have yet to hear any cite a politician as inspiration. Instead, they cite their faith, videos, experiences, etc.

"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me." --Homan in February "Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely." -- Tom Homan in March "I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room" -- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman

An advance look at the cover for next week’s issue: “Targeted,” by Till Lauer.

This judge says: - refugees must be released in the next 5 days - Returned to Minnesota. Not released onto the streets of Texas, which is what's been happening. - ICE must alert the refugees' lawyers so they aren't released into dangerous cold without someone to meet them

Judge orders release of Minnesota refugees targeted in ICE crackdown: www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...

Keep Honking! I'm Liking Sinners And One Battle After Another The Exact Right Amount

I watched DREAM SCENARIO last night and (I'm sorry for this) I just kept thinking how much better every individual scene would work if it was Tim Robinson. Really would have locked in the energy of the movie.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Awesome news for Seattle's movie scene

Until Miller’s gone these are just gestural purges to sanitize and consolidate his reign of terror.

Me during the first shot of The Earrings of Madame de...

Yet another day

Just staggered by the complete moral void of not even *pretending* to wait for more information before pivoting to “the opponent of the state deserved it.” It is so insanely depraved. Soulless.