iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

2026 watch #137: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978). Find someone who looks at you the way Donald Sutherland looks at Brooke Adams in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and don’t you dare settle for anything less.

Donald Sutherland making heart eyes at Brooke Adams in Invasion of the Body Snatchers

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Looking good and alive and not at all haunted, Ms. Dell.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

2026 watch #136: The Hitcher. '80s Rutger Hauer can tear me in half in he wants <3

Rutger Hauer look hot and insane in The Hitcher

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

2026 watch #135: Wild Horse Nine. This fucker’s got Tom Waits as a hermit living at Monument Valley. Why doesn’t every movie have that? I don’t care what it’s about. Project Hail Mary? Resident Evil? Write in a Tom Waits Monument Valley hermit cameo. Anyway, good shit.

Tom Waits as a Monument Valley hermit in Wild Horse Nine.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

2026 watch #134: In the Mouth of Madness. What if a '90s hack horror writer were a god who could open a Lovecraftian portal to hell in your mind? You know, for fun? Goddamn, man, I love John Carpenter.

Sam Neill smiling as he mind slips away in In the Mouth of Madness

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

2026 watch #133: BlackBerry. I fear I may have developed a debilitating crush on Matt Johnson in the past month, because what fucking business does a movie about the rise and fall of the BlackBerry phone have being this good.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

2026 watch #132: Tom and Jerry: Forbidden Compass. At one point I thought, “Surely, this must be almost over,” and I sneaked a look at the time and we were only 15 minutes in. This movie made time move so slowly I genuinely believed it had been 90 minutes.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

2026 watch #131: Toy Story 5. I slept on Pixar’s latest because I was so disappointed by Toy Story 4, so imagine my surprise to discover there’s some juice left in the tank. This film has some thoughtful, moving things to say about children, screens, and the nature of play.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

2026 watch #130: Resident Evil (2026). Holy shit, they did it, they made a good Resident Evil movie, and they did it by creating a protagonist who responds to the scenario the way I play the video game: poorly and with lots of screaming.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

2026 watch #129: Local Hero. Show this to every ghoul trying to build a data center in your neighborhood right now. Boom, problem solved.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

whats a movie less than 60% on rotten tomatoes that you consider to be a perfect movie? like not a bit, genuinely perfect film. Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette with an inexplicable 58% tomatometer rating

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

2026 watch #128: Predators. Christ, what were any of us thinking? The aughts were an absolutely lawless era of reality TV programming, as captured in this documentary about the production of To Catch a Predator. This and Primetime work nicely together as companion pieces investigating its morality.

Chris Hansen in the documentary Predators

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

2026 watch #127: Primetime. “You see how this looks, right?” It’s not just a question for the would-be pedos caught in Chris Hansen’s sting operations orchestrated for ratings, but a question the film asks of its subject - and of those of us entertained by his show. Fucking chilling, man.

Robert Pattinson’s unwavering gaze in Primetime

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

2026 watch #126. Just a couple hours of Nicole Kidman caressing a pussy and never taking the hint.

Nicole Kidman caressing a cat in Practical Magic 2

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

2026 watch #125: Red Sorghum. First time seeing Zhang Yimou's debut film and big surprise, it's visually stunning, saturated with heart-stopping washes of red. The film is warm and funny until the Second Sino-Japanese War hits the rural village with violence so cruel I gasped.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

2026 watch #124: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. This silly bullshit based on a Canadian web series inexplicably joins the ranks of Mulholland Drive and Robert Altman's 3 Women as movies I immediately rewatched upon finishing.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

2026 watch #123: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Just me sitting alone on my couch for an hour and 40 minutes muttering “How the fuck did they make this?” to no one until suddenly I’m crying about the magic of having a best friend. Glorious.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

2026 watch #122: Groundswell. If The Tree of Life were a corporate sizzle reel scored by Coldplay.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

2026 watch #121: Blue–Chong. Enjoyed this debut student film from Sang-il Lee about Zainichi Koreans navigating adolescence and identity in an inhospitable Japanese culture. Really truck by the thoughtful compositions on such a shoestring budget.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I’m maybe like a 2 on the Kinsey scale but I have a very specific type which is apparently “blondes who I want to be a little mean to me.”

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

2026 watch #120: Times Square. Watched for young Tim Curry as an iconoclast disc jockey rooting on two young girls defying the system. The first half is so good, if only this movie knew it could be queer.

Two girls at a microphone in Times Square

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

2026 watch #119: The Hunt for Red October. Sometimes you just want to watch a bunch of S-tier actors playing Russians and speaking in every accent but Russian.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

2026 watch #118: Drive. Ryan Gosling's scorpion jacket still fucks so hard, I can't stand it. Got to show this to a friend who'd never heard of it, and watching her was as much fun as watching the movie. Albert Brooks as a villain remains a revelation.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Brontë’s getting surgery today. Everyone say good girl, Brontë!

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Zuzu has two brain cells that never work simultaneously. The one time she got out she hid under the house for two days and wouldn’t budge from the back corner and it was a whole thing to get her out. When we had a rat once, she made friends with it like a Disney Princess. I love her.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Oh goodness, your cat looks so much like my cat!

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

My face when I saw my most-watched film on Letterboxd.

Roy Scheider in Jaws, thinking they’re going to need a bigger boat

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

2026 watch #117: The Tin Drum. You ever find yourself yearning to spend 3 hours with a little Nazi shit who won’t stop banging a drum and shrieking? For the discomfort of watching a child go down on a grown woman? To see eels slither out of a dead horse’s head? Then boy, do I have a movie for you.

Shrieking, banging little Nazi shit in The Tin Drum

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

This is Zuzu. She has two brain cells and they do not work at the same time. That’s ok, because one brain cell is enough when your job is to look pretty and eat chicken.

A pretty white cat with no thoughts behind her crossed blue eyes

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

My baby girl Brontë has a tumor on her leg that they tell me is likely benign. She’s going back to the vet Friday to see if we can surgically remove and biopsy. Please tell me your stories of fur babies who went through something scary and came out okay? Because I am a mess.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I went to a sketchy vet last week I’d never been to before because it was the only place I could get an appointment, and they had this AI slop on their walls. You are drowning in real cute kittens! Put a stethoscope around one and snap a pic! Jesus fucking Christ!!!!!!

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

2026 watch #116: Legend. You won’t catch me out here hating on a movie with a million dollar glitter budget and Tim Curry as sexy Satan. Not now, not ever.

Tim Curry serving absolute cunt as an unnecessarily sexy Darkness in the film Legend

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

2026 watch #115: 9 to 5. “Well, I say we hire a couple'a wranglers to go upstairs and beat the shit out of him” rest in peace you absolute fucking legend.

Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

You don't even want to know how many times I read this goddamn thing

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

2026 watch #114: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I mean, it’s right there in the title and I still gasped when they said the line.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Tim Curry waiting for Trump on the other side.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Show of hands: how many weird 80s kids had the stirrings of a sexual awakening because of Tim Curry's unnecessarily hot Satan? It can't just be me.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

2026 watch #113: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Hannah Einbinder leaning in to whisper “split diopter”… that’s me.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

2026 watch #112: The People's Joker. This shit is punk as fuck.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

2026 watch #111: Noah Kahan: Out of Body. Watched the Netflix Noah Kahan documentary to better understand his whole thing because I'm out of touch and going with a friend to his concert. It's indistinguishable from all the other Netflix slop-factory docs, but he seems like a nice sad boy.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Not sure it was the first CD I owned, but the first I can remember buying with my own money as an angsty 7th grader was Metallica’s black album

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

2026 watch #110: WALL-E. Waiting for a little trash boy to wrap me up in Christmas lights and drag my darkened husk around the wasteland until I hold his hand back.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

2026 watch #109: Obsession. A nasty bit of business more invested in the tortured interiority of the "nice guy" who tries to sidestep consent and gets got than in the girl trapped in the body he's raping. Too fundamentally flawed to be fun and honestly not well made.

A girl spattered in blood in the film "Obsession"

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

2026 watch #108: The Mummy. (Me, midway through Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy when the half a gummy kicks in) When you think about it, The Mummy is really just Hellraiser.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

That feeling when you cost your mom a cool grand at the vet just for fun.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

2026 watch #107: Deadwood. Soup-to-nuts rewatch of my favorite show. That last season with Hearst - a man whose obscene power conferred by wealth bends an entire community to his will - has extra kick to it now. "He wants me to tell him something pretty" but there ain't nothing pretty to tell.

Al Swearengen regarding an ominous package on his desk in Deadwood

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

2026 watch #106: Night Gallery ("Eyes"). Steven Spielberg's directorial debut, directing Joan Crawford at the ripe age of 22. A good lil' nasty morality tale and he directed the shit out of it. Horror anthologies were such good training grounds, I yearn for the return of Tales from the Crypt.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

The Third Man Notorious Pickup on South Street Kiss Me Deadly

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