"Joy is resistance" is not just a platitude, it's actual fucking praxis

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It’s profoundly ignorant to suggest that the Pope should be fighting crime on behalf of the Catholic Church. Anyone who was remotely familiar with Roman Catholicism would know that that’s what Daredevil is for

It matters to remember the Confederates as unambiguous bad guys in American history because any nation's identity is in large part defined by the narrative of the villains we've defeated: monarchism in the Revolution, the Nazis in WWII, and alongside those, the white supremacist slave power.

3 stars is good actually

This is the question I wake up with and go to bed with every day and the rest of my real life is just a deserpate and failing attempt to avoid the question, since I have no answer for it. www.thenation.com/article/poli...

“We negotiate with bombs.”

Aesop: I TOLD YOU

nobody does more brutal fashion reviews than the irish

What To Know About ‘Sinners’ https://theonion.com/what-to-know-about-sinners/

Paging @adamrothman.bsky.social

To someone still in the trenches this reads like: 6 - you’re not a fool for trying. 7 - Dig in, level up. 8 - (to others) We got one!

“You should never be proud of doing what’s right. You should just do what’s right.” When Dean Smith comes up, this story is always the first thing I think of. www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colle...

Important these words are repeated again and again.

All serious historical novels are works of speculative fiction, even ones set in the ‘60s and ‘70s. These three are absolutely brilliant.

Lived in Europe for a few years. This 💯

Hemingway was once bet that he couldn’t write the world’s happiest short story in just 5 words. He replied,

<sidles up to England> Hey, so...you like the rule of law too? 👀

Nia DaCosta’s adaptation of an Ibsen play, HEDDA (2025) is great drama. Over the course of a nighttime party, it charts the self-destruction of a number of clever people doing awful things for petty reasons. Tessa Thompson is fantastic in the lead. It’s a modern RULES OF THE GAME, and it hits hard.

Charles Burnett’s THE GLASS SHIELD (1994) had the audacity to take on racism in the LAPD only two years after Rodney King. It follows a Black cop trying to make it in the Sheriff’s department, and is unapologetic about the allies he can’t rely on and the personal compromises he comes to regret.

Being a news and politics junkie when undiluted evil dominates both kinda sucks.

Leave aside the fact that their taste is impeccable, this is still the best Four Favorites video ever.

This is George C erasure!

Jordan Peele’s GET OUT (2017) is a modern horror classic. Brilliantly plotted, expertly cast, but above all, just so well-directed. Peels uses unusual shot angles, offbeat performances, and even sound design to create an unbearable feeling of unease that culminates in a genuinely frightening climax.

#ResistanceRoots #BlackHistoryMonth Today in history, 1920: Andrew “Rube” Foster organizes the first Negro National League in Kansas City, Mo. It was the first Africa American baseball circuit to last more than one season, providing a platform for stars such as Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell. /1

Comedies are hard; you either laugh or you don’t. Hangout comedies are especially hard, because all you have are the characters and the setting. F. Gary Gray’s FRIDAY (1995) makes it look easy, harnessing two great performances from Chris Tucker and Ice Cube, and coining an iconic line. Bye Felicia.

This partner kept telling me to “boil the ocean” and I didn’t know what he meant but this is what I should have said

First year associate me reporting back to that one partner:

Kasi Lemmons’s EVE’S BAYOU (1992) begins “the summer I killed my father I was 10 years old.” It takes its time delivering on that promise, which allows her to build a coming-of-age story with fascinating characters occupying a magical-realist setting. Like Toni Morrison if she did film.

I could have posted any of Antoine Fuqua’s EQUALIZER films starring Denzel Washington as an ex-CIA guy beating up bad guys for the less fortunate. They’re perfect dad movies where a competent man uses his skills to make the world better. I chose EQUALIZER II because it’s filmed where I grew up.

See, this is shortsighted and wrong. Those threats and ramifications are already there. Naming them doesn’t create them. It just means now you can recognize them for what they are.

D’Urville Martin’s DOLEMITE (1975) is uneven, but when it works—Dolemite getting out of jail, reciting dirty poems, anytime the crooked preacher is onscreen—it’s downright iconic. The script is full of sly, subversive wit. As an action film, it’s ok; as a slice of 1970s LA, it’s pretty great.

Carl Franklin’s DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (1995) is a perfect neo-noir based on the Walter Mosley’s novel. Denzel Washington demonstrates why he’s one of the best leading men out there, but it’s Don Cheadle that steals every scene he’s in as the loyal psychopath Mouse.

Bill Duke’s DEEP COVER (1992) promises your standard conflicted undercover-cop story, where a good man struggles with betraying new friends. But it delivers so much more: a scathing critique of the drug war as a war on our own underclass. Fishburne gives a ferocious performance. So good.

DEAD PRESIDENTS (1995), directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, was marketed as a heist movie, but is really a Vietnam War movie along the lines of THE DEER HUNTER, following a young man’s flirtation with criminality, experiences in Vietnam, and postwar tragic fall. It’s unflinching but captivating.

Julie Dash’s DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991) is a challenging watch: it’s non-linear, visually packed, and covers an unjustly obscure piece of American history. But the history is fascinating, the cinematography is gorgeous, and the density rewards rewatches. Which is why it’s considered a classic.

The pioneering Japanese actress Takako Irie (入江たか子) was born 115 years ago, on February 7th, 1911. She was the most popular actress at Nikkatsu in the late 20s-30s and, in 1932, became the first woman to establish an independent studio in Japan. youtube.com/shorts/rKsTM...

Wendell B Harris Jr’s CHAMELEON STREET (1989) is an impossible movie I’m glad exists. It’s an unvarnished portrait of a real-life sociopath who impersonated various professionals—including an ob-gyn. It’s CATCH ME IF YOU CAN without the feel-good redemption arc or the “charming rascal” take.

Sidney Poitier’s BUCK AND THE PREACHER (1972) deserves to be better known. It’s a Western buddy-movie pairing a Harry Belafonte’s rascally Preacher with Poitier’s strait-laced wagon-train leader. The story’s good, but the real appeal is watching these two charismatic actors just do their thing.

This sucks so hard. That thing really was invaluable.

John Singleton’s BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991) is a coming-of-age story set in South Central LA that avoids the mawkishness and preachiness of its genre. It’s funny, exciting, prescient (that gentrification speech), and compelling. It reveals a whole world through a few well-realized characters. Amazing.

In Oscar Micheaux’s BODY AND SOUL (1925), Paul Robeson plays a con man posing as a preacher who robs and assaults members of his church. The melodrama can get over-the-top, but Robeson’s performance is brilliant, and Micheaux’s direction has surprisingly modern moments.

Ryan Coogler’s BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (2022) accomplishes impossible things for a big-budget studio superhero film. It addresses the death of its star; it puts together a coherent geo-political thriller that critiques colonialism, and it introduces an all-woman superhero team. Great stuff.

In honor of Black History Month, here's a thread with one book recommendation a day.

February is Black History Month, so each day will be a favorite movie by a Black director. First up: ALICE (2022) by Krystin ver Linden. Inspired by real events, a Black woman escapes a brutal slave plantation only to discover it’s the 1970s. Starts like a period drama, ends like a revenge thriller.