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selfstyledsiren.bsky.social
Film critic; NSFC, NYFCC. Bylines at Criterion, Sight & Sound, Noir City, my own Substack, and wherever fine film geeks are found. https://selfstyledsiren.substack.com/
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Oh wow, I missed the announcement yesterday that Joel Krosnick died theviolinchannel.com/cellist-joel...

submitted 1 hour ago • 0 comments

From my garden

submitted 2 hours ago • 1 comment

The Downy Woodpecker's name comes from the soft and downy feathers along the bird's back.

submitted 16 hours ago • 4 comments

Another delightful shot from my Claudia Cardinale web-wanderings yesterday: Jean-Paul Belmondo and Cardinale having a drink, early 1960s. One source says it's the La Viaccia (The Lovemakers) premiere, but that also says 1963 when the film was at Cannes in 1961. Anyway, aren't they cute?

submitted 17 hours ago • 5 comments

Is there a site anywhere that will let me shop in peace? Pop-up ads are an irritant I'm used to, but now the AI shopping assistants won't leave me alone. Every time I look at an item, "Do you want help?" NO. GO AWAY. YOU ARE NOT A PERSON.

submitted 23 hours ago • 4 comments

Lots of stuff to put on my ever-expanding "To Be Read" list; very pleased to see @marymallory.bsky.social's FIRST WOMEN OF HOLLYWOOD reviewed!

submitted 23 hours ago • 1 comment

I was delighted to write the introduction to a new edition of Josephine Tey’s THE DAUGHTER OF TIME, which you can read today at @crimereads.bsky.social:

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

I wrote "The Women of The Big Heat" video extra on the upcoming Criterion 4K of THE BIG HEAT, Fritz Lang's late-career masterpiece. My Main Man Fritz means the world to me, as does Gloria Grahame. This one was special. www.criterion.com/films/29681-...

submitted 1 day ago • 14 comments

🇺🇸

submitted 1 day ago • 412 comments

Love Claudia Cardinale in 8 1/2! Because it's not only her (phenomenal) beauty that makes her so alluring, it's also that sparkling verve you see in all these photos.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

It’s Charlie’s birthday tomorrow.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Criterion’s July releases ! THE ADVENTURES OF ANTOINE DOINEL 4K box set, Kubrick’s BARRY LYNDON, Fritz Lang’s THE BIG HEAT, Payal Kapadia’s ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, Kenneth Lonergan’s YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, and Mike Nichols’s CARNAL KNOWLEDGE. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p2e...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Happy birthday to Claudia Cardinale, 87 today; such a vivacious and enchanting screen presence. It's fun to go through the billion photos of CC and see that in 80%, she's grinning, laughing, having a ball. Cardinale can do the death-ray sex glare, but it doesn't seem to be her true self.

submitted 1 day ago • 6 comments

Highly recommend reading this thread to the end, for the art, the adorable kids, and the sad, hard-luck finale.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

North Dallas Forty is terrific. I saw it as a kid learning about football; was shocked at its showing the drugs to keep them playing through pain, the mental abuse of the coaches, the dirty tricks by owners. It's funny in parts and was advertised like SEMI-TOUGH (see poster) but it's a dark film.

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

Newest addition to my collection of old screenwriting and Hollywood history. (Bonus points if someone can ID the names in the Christmas Gift note.)

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Remembering Valerie Hobson on her birthday 🎂 📷 Sasha, 1939 "Valerie was a tall, strong, intelligent girl with glorious eyes & a quick wit (too quick a wit, some people thought, but I had suffered too many English ladies to complain about that)." - Michael Powell

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Fantastic choice by MoMI! Michael Koresky is a great writer, passionate about film (very much including the old ones😎) and just a lovely, lovely man.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Happy birthday, Julie Christie! Here on the set of a movie I like a lot, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1967). Christie looks rather pensive, but the lamb looks like it's having the best day of its woolly little life. More on Christie at my IG: www.instagram.com/p/DIbmwnCu2ve/

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

Ben Shahn, Passion of Sacco & Vanzetti, 1931-32. Figures in the coffins are Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti, working-class Italian immigrants sentenced to death on mostly circumstantial evidence. The case, fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment, caused international outcry whitney.org/collection/w...

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

They want you to be ok with this shit. That's why they keep talking about "toxic empathy," the "sin of empathy." They want you to silence your own basic human morality and replace it with their violent, racist, cult ideology.

submitted 2 days ago • 7 comments

Big Jia retrospective coming to The Channel in May

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

Rod Steiger was born 100 years ago today.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Love this 1930s portrait celebrating the carved-marble beauty of Valerie Hobson, #BornThisDay in 1917. She had ineffable refinement, but also inspired the thought that under the nice manners, she might not be nice at all. Recommend both her Powell/Pressburger films: THE SPY IN BLACK and CONTRABAND.

submitted 2 days ago • 6 comments