iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

BREAKING: Ellen Aim and the Attackers will not be opening for Ed Sheeran. This tour is going nowhere fast.

Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Daily cool thing: JOHNNY HAMLET (1968), a Spaghetti Western version of the Shakespeare play that includes a cemetery in a cave, a gold heist, a sinister homerotic Rosencranz and Guildenstern, and a hardened Sheriff Polonius who literally crucifies Johnny on a big X for dumping Ophelia.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Cool thing of the day: SHE IS A HAUNTING, by Trang Thanh Tran. My daughter recommended this haunted-house YA novel to me. Genuinely creepy, with a strong sense of teenage angst, Vietnamese history, and ghost-story tropes. It took on complex topics, but kept zagging when I thought it would zig.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This feels like something we should have expected somehow.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Son’s reaction: “No, Ghostface stab …”

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

“We negotiate with bombs.”

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

First year associate me reporting back to that one partner:

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

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.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Joe Wright’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005) is gorgeously filmed, but also impeccably structured and skillfully acted. It is hard to adapt a great novel, but this version does a great job of distilling the main ideas and events, and making them visually interesting and emotionally affecting.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

THE CONFESSION (1970) follows a Czech minister who is arrested and imprisoned during a political purge. Costa-Gravas uses a lot of techniques here to put the audience in the state of mind of a civil servant, sleep-deprived, hectored, and lied to, and then asked to confess to things he did not do.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

BOARDING GATE (2007) is a nasty little international neonoir, with sex, drugs, and murder all treated with the same shabbiness by director Oliver Assayas. Anyone else would stress the glamor, but he desaturates everything to show that—despite the money on display—no one is enjoying themselves.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

THE MAN BETWEEN (1953) is a noir about a smuggler playing both sides of the Berlin Wall. The first half drips with paranoia, the second half tenses with suspense. James Mason is great as a charmer you know better than to trust. And Carroll Reed keeps you looking round corners for the next threat.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

COMPANION (2025) features a clever script, that knows its audience knows the “she’s a robot” twist, and so fast-forwards to a twisty black comedy about bad people doing stupid things. Every twist is set up, every bit gets paid off, and often in fun, surprising ways. Delightfully dark.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

THE WILD GOOSE LAKE (2019) builds a can’t-look-away thriller from a simple, propulsive premise: a thief who’s shot a cop wants to turn himself in so his estranged family can collect the reward, but it’s so large he may not get the chance. Scathing critique of late capitalism in a great chase movie.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Steven Soderbergh’s BLACK BAG (2025) is a slick, smart spy thriller featuring a cool, calculating, almost kinky Nick-and-Nora dynamic between stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. It’s full of misdirects and reversals, but plays fair all the way through. Just a solid, entertaining film.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959) is a noir gem. It has a ruthlessly efficient script that pulls no punches. It has great acting from Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte. It has atmospheric direction that makes you feel the cold of upstate New York. And it has a gloriously on-the-nose explosive ending.

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Andy Trask @andytrask.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

MICKEY 17 (2025) is beautifully filmed, funny, and thoughtful. I liked the gross dark humor. I liked that many of the characters had more heart than expected. I really liked the way Bong Joon Ho raised the stakes with a philosophical question. And I loved the running joke of the printer glitches.

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