Excited to see the Predator enter the world of Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973)

A Few Great Pumpkins @reverseshot.bsky.social; Wesley Morris, @eshynes.bsky.social, and @robert-emmet.bsky.social on more scary movies; @fredmkaplan.bsky.social + @sshaviro.bsky.social on Kathryn Bigelow; MUBI roundtable on Radu Jude … Did You See This? www.criterion.com/current/post...

With Baahubali back in theaters tomorrow, perhaps I can interest you in an interview with Makuta VFX's Pete Draper, who has worked on every SS Rajamouli film since Magadheera (2009): filmmakermagazine.com/114153-inter...

a perfect album from 1989

"I detest the expression “horror film.” I make films on the supernatural and I make them because I believe it." – Jacques Tourneur

My terrifying wife, the writer/ghost tour baron Andrea Janes - @boroughsofthedead.bsky.social - was interviewed about the hauntings at the Merchant's House Museum by ABC7 NY:

I wrote about Jacques Tourneur's profoundly unsettling and uncertain Night of the Demon (1957), over at my Old New substack.

Thanks to everyone who came out to this epochal event! Many children got to see a beautiful new 16mm print of Bruce Baillie's All My Life (1966).

Quite a detailed and loving tribute to an American original

Alice has a message regarding our program tomorrow at @lightindustry.bsky.social

Wrote about the late Ken Jacobs, who scared the fuck out of me as a teacher, freaked the fuck out of me as a filmmaker, and was a chill dude when we collaborated on the Ken Jacobs Collection Blu-ray: oldnew.substack.com/p/a-wrenching-departure-ken-jacobs

I wrote about the wrenching departure of filmmaker and film-undoer Ken Jacobs, who I knew as a teacher and a colleague: oldnew.substack.com/p/a-wrenchin...

Yes I'm into "gooning" (watching Seann William Scott in Goon (2011) and Goon: Last of the Enforcers (2017))

Someone left this on my doorstep last night. The force is telling us that people need to buy the I'M "GEORGE LUCAS": A CONNOR RATLIFF STORY Blu-ray - out 11/18! @connorratliff.bsky.social @patrickcotnoir.bsky.social Pre-order: kinolorber.com/product/i-m-...

In one week! Come hang.

Saw a Three Amigos and Heathcliff Movie double bill

A joy to speak with Nobuhiro Yamashita, Doona Bae, and James Iha about the legacy of LINDA LINDA LINDA, an underdog indie that continues to capture the hearts of new fans. For @filmmakermagazine.com.web.brid.gy filmmakermagazine.com/132226-oral-...

For my Old New substack I wrote about Edward L. Cahn's hypnotically beautiful past-life monster movie The She-Creature (1956) + a brief note on Ken Jacobs: oldnew.substack.com/p/past-lives...

An Introduction to the American Underground Film, by Sheldon Renan (1967)

My remembrance of Tomonari Nishikawa is in the Fall issue of Millennium Film Journal: millenniumfilmjournal.com/product/mfj-...

My favorite generation-spanning action film about a revolutionary movement released in 2025 is, of course, Retro (dir. Karthik Subbaraj)

It was a special honor to speak with the great Jafar Panahi on the latest episode of The Last Thing I Saw (especially mindful of how this was impossible the last time I wrote about him). His riveting new film IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT opens today - see it! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Meredith Monk personally curated over 100 minutes of archival performance footage to include on the Monk in Pieces Blu-ray I am producing for @kinolorber.com. Out 11/25! Pre-order: kinolorber.com/product/monk...

Grateful to the Sabres for completely imploding three games into the season. I can now turn my attention to other things like this photo of Scott Adkins on the set of Bedlam (2026)

Excited to present some brainrot at @lightindustry.bsky.social on 10/25 at 2pm with my daughter Alice. She picked YouTube memes and I joined them with experimental and silent shorts. Bring your kids!: lightindustry.org/thechildrens...

Alice in my Mets jacket from 1989

That time Ken Jacobs wrote about The Polar Express for Film Comment: www.filmcomment.com/blog/ken-jac...

Congratsz to László Krasznahorkai for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature! In my 2012 interview with Béla Tarr he discusses their friendship and his decision to retire...

My wife Andrea Janes is on the USA Today bestseller list, just above the constitution

Vadim Rizov gets the full picture of Ken Jacobs in his memorial for @filmmakermagazine.com.web.brid.gy:

New for subscribers only, a look at a pair of Marko Zaror fight films. Affinity, in which he fights an army of drug dealers, and Diablo, in which he fights Scott Adkins. www.thechinesecinema.com/affinity-bra...

Was entranced by Rishab Shetty's modern fable Kantara (2022), and very much looking forward to the new (confusingly titled) prequel Kantara: A Legend - Chapter 1, which opened last week...

That's me, July 1969, in Colorado where Ken somewhat improbably was teaching at the Aspen School of the Arts & I even less probably was his feckless 20-year-old assistant. I learned how to thread a Kalart Victor (& outside of class dropped acid & had the revelation that Everything is Now.) Thx Rob!

😎 @jhoberman.bsky.social pic by Ken Jacobs

"Ken Jacobs" by Art Spiegelman (2008, reprinted in Binghamton Babylon)

www.villagevoice.com/witnessing-a... The ultimate underground movie--a lyrical junkyard allegory annotated w chunks of mainly ’30s found footage. “A documentary showcase for the underdog’s spontaneous, uncontrolled fantasy” (Parker Tyler), desperately, despairingly beautiful, never more relevant.

Made the family watch Orchard Street (1955). A crowd pleaser!

It was one of the great honors of my life to have Ken Jacobs as a teacher, and then to work with him on releasing a Blu-ray collection of his work. One of the true geniuses of the cinema. RIP.

Ken Jacobs (1933-2025) A great artist, a wonderful teacher, & speaking personally, a close friend for over 50 years. Linking to a piece I wrote to mark his 80th birthday. www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/m...

Translation of Eric Rohmer's first and only book out in July 2026: www.mcnallyeditions.com/books/p/elis...

At the movies

I interviewed internet personality @willsloanesq.bsky.social about his Ed Wood book over at my substack OLD NEW.

It's been over a decade since Parker (2013), but somehow 2025 is Donald E. Westlake szn with 3 of his books adapted for film..directed by Shane Black (Play Dirty), Park Chan-wook (No Other Choice), and Duke Johnson (The Actor).

Zaror is an inspiring independent film artist/action god. Enjoyed this peek into his process. Wrote a bit about Affinity in my Big Bad Film Fest coverage: oldnew.substack.com/p/dtv-action...

🚨Out today from Andrea Janes & @leannareneehieber.bsky.social!🚨 Publisher's Weekly sez it's a "Spine-tingling investigation of ghostly mayhem and gory deeds." Buy a copy or I will be lock you inside a secret room in my fogbound mansion! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/781356...

mailchi.mp/filmcomment/... Crashing into the zeitgeist against who-knows-what headwinds, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is a kick-ass, madcap, antifascist action flick—imagine Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames on big-budget steroids, served over ICE... Not only tumultuous but funny.

Henry Threadgill’s Listen Ship is out today via Pi Recordings - a 6 guitar-2 piano voyage through interstellar space. I wrote about the world premiere performance at the Long Play Festival earlier this year…https://oldnew.substack.com/p/with-ears-wide-open-long-play-festival

Had an animated chat with @nicolasrapold.bsky.social about his brilliant new Miyazaki book, formative Ghibli moments, and totalitarian parakeets. It's over at my Old New substack: oldnew.substack.com/p/flibberti-...

A Working Man is the absolute nadir of Jason Statham's otherwise flawless filmography.

RIP Claudia Cardinale Gebo and the Shadow (dir. Manoel de Oliveira, 2012)