You know, in this crazy world chock-full of hyper technology, a bit of setup and you can really have it made for taking quick thought breaks. Armed Police Batrider, Mighty! Pang, Super Puzzle Bobble, and you’re set.

Just occurred to me that Donald Trump is literally looking at the world map, seeing how big Russia looks on it, and thinking "how can we make the USA even bigger than big old Russia?" So Canada, Greenland, rebrand the Gulf of Mexico as an extension of “US territory.” Idiocracy ✅

Watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for the umteenth time. It's simply superb, to the point it might end being known as his best film. Part of me thinks Tarantino has some kind of duty to make, in full, every movie referenced in that movie. They wouldn’t count against his “ten and done” rule, naturally. The Fourteen Fists of McClusky; Tanner; Kill Me Quick, Ringo, Said the Gringo… They’d just be 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, and so on. I think there's ten such movies referenced in OUATIH. Backstories.

I’ve been reading through this collection of David Lynch reviews from <rogerebert.com>—especially the ones written by Roger Ebert himself. They have a beautiful progression, knowing Ebert came around to Blue Velvet in time, and feeling his frustration with Lynch’s style of directing, thinking he was being artistically conned (and often saying the same kind of things many critics say about Tarantino, style over substance) while seeing there was something special about his work, then ultimately loving The Straight Story and adoring Mulholland Drive, in its fully experimental, dreamlike form (which he was being told about of Lynch since Dune).

This (from NYT's obituary) is incredible as the means of David Lynch breaking into filmmaking. Something like it should be made a reality again, where unusual films can build an audience by word-of-mouth over years, playing in independent movie theatres (or even, independent streaming platforms).

“Eraserhead” was four years in production and required another three to consolidate an audience. […] Supported by a word-of-mouth audience, “Eraserhead” played the Cinema Village through the summer of 1978, then opened again at midnight a few blocks away and a year later at the Waverly (the venue that incubated the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” cult) where, adopted by a downtown audience, it played for two years. By then, Mr. Lynch had been discovered by Hollywood.