iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

It’s Here! It’s Here! Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! It’s Here! Enjoy INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE JIM BACKUS DAY wherever you go! It’s the only way to fly, lovies!!!

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

A national treasure forever. 🇨🇦

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Noirvember begins tonight @thewestdale.bsky.social theatre in #HamOnt with Otto Preminger’s 1944 dreamy murder mystery, LAURA! For you old movie weirdos I just know that you can hear David Raksin’s score as soon as you saw this pic! #Noirvember

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Come join me this October 29th at the historic Westdale Theatre in #HamOnt as we go back to the Weimar Republic where everything is beautiful in 1972’s multi-award winning CABARET directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey as the Emcee! @thewestdale.bsky.social

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

October 7: FOOTLIGHT PARADE kicks off The Westdale Theatre’s 6 film series of Musicals on the Big Screen!!! A great big Art Deco, Pre-Code Naughty & Bonkers Song & Dance! Starring fast-talkin’ James Cagney! Saucy Secretary Joan Blondell and Busby Berkeley’s Syncopated Gams! @thewestdale.bsky.social

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 05/10/2025

Happy 130th Birthday, Buster Keaton!

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 05/10/2025

We are screening Federico Fellini’s Academy Award Winning film from 1973, AMARCORD with a special introduction and discussion with Italian cinema scholar, professor emeritus and frequent contributor to @criterion.bsky.social Frank Burke @thewestdale.bsky.social on October 5! #HamOnt #Fellini #cinema

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

We are screening ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) at the historical @thewestdale.bsky.social theatre June 11th at 7pm! Cannoli from and conversation for members after the screening! #HamOnt #AudreyHepburn #ClassicMovies

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

We screened ‘Bicycle Thieves” this spring @thewestdale.bsky.social The audience fell in love with Enzo Staiolo’s performance, 77 years after it first appeared on the silver screen. Enzo Staiolo. Riposa in Pace.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Born on this date in 1907, the incomparable Katharine Hepburn who will soon appear in David Lean’s SUMMERTIME (1955) at @thewestdale.bsky.social theatre in #HamOnt

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

I watched Bergman’s great classic THE SEVENTH SEAL @thewestdale.bsky.social in #HamOnt this past weekend. It may have been my first exposure to a foreign language film in a theatre back in the late 80s. I was blown away by the eternal questions in the movie, like how many hot dogs could Death eat?

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

What a great evening at #HamOnt historic art deco theatre @thewestdale.bsky.social A cinema full of film aficionados enjoying #AlfredHitchcock put #CaryGrant through the paces in that beautiful (and seemingly indestructible) grey suit in NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959).

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

This Wednesday, our Hitchcock retrospective continues with NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason at the historic @thewestdale.bsky.social theatre in #HamOnt #AlfredHitchcock

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

He has risen! LA DOLCE VITA (1960) Directed by Federico Fellini.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

We screened TO CATCH A THIEF (1955) at the historic @thewestdale.bsky.social theatre in #HamOnt where it appeared 70 yrs ago. Cary Grant stopped by at the Tivoli movie palace for a matinee screening in 1956; not the 1st time Mr Grant was here-he appeared in an acrobatic act at the Lyric in 1923.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Last night we celebrated the Master of Suspense #AlfredHitchcock at the historical art deco cinema @thewestdale.bsky.social with a 70th Anniversary screening of TO CATCH A THIEF. VOLUME UP as the audience gives its love for Hitch! #HamOnt #CaryGrant #GraceKelly

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

In my introduction for Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER, I referenced TVO’s Elwy Yost as an influence to learning about classic films. It was Mr. Yost who introduced me to the works of the Master of Suspense on ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’ in the early 80s. @tvotoday.bsky.social

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Last night, 120 classic film lovers watched a 71 year old movie in a 90 year old theatre and gasped, laughed aloud and applauded at the brief appearance of its director, Alfred Hitchcock! The film was DIAL M FOR MURDER and the theatre was @thewestdale.bsky.social in #HamOnt

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Tomorrow Night our Hitchcock Film Talk Series continues with DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954), w/ Grace Kelly, Ray Milland & Robert Cummings. Originally filmed in the 3-D trendsetting fad of 1953, our screening will be the gorgeous flat version! Still Suspenseful as Ever! @thewestdale.bsky.social #HamOnt

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

The mesmerizing PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK directed by Peter Weir is 50 this year. I saw it days ago at The Playhouse Theatre in #HamOnt and can’t get it out of my head. Zamfir’s pan pipes, the superimposed images, slow motion, freeze frames, and haunting use of sound disorient in wonderful ways.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

My secretary in the national security group chat

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Last night, I learned that some of our audience members @thewestdale.bsky.social experienced their first Hitchcock movie…ever…and it was in our beautiful art deco cinema from 1935 and that movie was NOTORIOUS! #HamOnt #Hitchcock #IndependentCinema

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946) Directed by Powell & Pressburger

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Gene Hackman. The Royal Tenenbaums. 2001.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Matthew Rankin & Ila Firouzabadi at a post-screening Q&A for their beautiful film UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE at the historic Playhouse Theatre in Hamilton, ON. #UniversalLanguage #HamOnt #Cinema

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

What a pleasure to host a tribute to the art and life of David Lynch @thewestdale.bsky.social with a screening of ERASERHEAD (1977). Thank you to those who attended for the post-screening discussion! What a man Lynch was! #DavidLynch #Eraserhead #HamOnt

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

International Talk Like Jim Backus Day is Coming! It’s The Only Way to Fly, Loveys! www.facebook.com/share/19o5vJ...

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Celebrating Robert Altman at 100.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

We were so fortunate to have a David Lynch in this world during our lifetime. Wow.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

After 80 years, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS still captivates and charms audiences as it did last night at The Westdale Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. #longliveoldmovies

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Not just any old Kreskin….this one was AMAZING!!! RIP.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

The kids certainly can’t get enough of Roger Corman’s THE MASQUE OF THE RED-NOSED REINDEER…

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

John Waters has published Top 10 Films of 2024! www.vulture.com/article/john...

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Was kinda bloated at the Macy’s Parade…

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

The new Kissinger Float is really going to move a lot of hearts and minds on this Thanksgiving holiday.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

@merriam-webster.com Claims that the first time “gunsel” was used was in 1943. I think those good folks may need to tune into THE MALTESE FALCON tonight! P.S. Depending on who you talk to, they may also need to expand the definition! 😳

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

That time I joined the Spanish Civil War…Kapuskasing Division.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

The scene at the Loew’s Theatre on Washington Avenue in St. Louis, November 22nd, 1944. #HATM

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

80 years ago today, MGM premiered their biggest hit since GONE WITH THE WIND, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS directed by V. Minnelli and starring Judy Garland, at Loew’s in, where else? St. Louis! I will be introducing this all time classic on December 9th at www.theWestdale.ca in Hamilton, Ontario! #HATM

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Cinema history is full of extraordinary child performances that are frozen in time. Forever young, as it were. Uma Das Gupta brought so much life to Durga in Satyajit Ray’s PATHER PANCHALI. The joy in the torrential rains, that will ultimately bring about so much heartbreak is with me forever. #HATM

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Incidentally, F. Murray Abraham attributed much of his performance as the aged Salieri to the skills of the legendary make-up artist, Dick Smith. Abraham was only 44 when the film was shot.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

I am looking forward to revisiting Milos Forman’s Academy Award winning, AMADEUS in our local rep cinema. I am always struck by how much sympathy I have for Salieri, portrayed by the incredible F. Murray Abraham. Salieri was not without talents, he just happened to be a victim of time and place.

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Jeffrey Bender @benderoni.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

In an art deco theatre from 1935, surrounded by fellow film noir lovers, I soaked in the delight to watch Bogie and Bacall spar in innuendo on what kind of horse race they thought the other would run in THE BIG SLEEP (1946), directed by Howard Hawks. (Yes, I know that’s Sonia Darren)

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