iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

One of the things that Nolan got from Kubrick is cadence. People treat both reverently because of the hurdle of iambic pentameter. It’s a way to get normies to take things seriously they wouldn’t any other way. But the text is “stupid guy does stupid thing, often ends up okay.”

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 11h

As I get older, the things that ages and limits most people is being incurious. I think a lot of people think they learned everything in school/by a certain age. Everything good and interesting is learning. Not wanting to be challenged or evolve is death, physically, spiritually, intellectually.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 12h

Mike Flanagan’s JAWS comments highlight a problem with a lot of modern creatives: too much fealty. I want directors who think they’re better than Spielberg/Hitchcock/etc. I wish when people used the Woody Allen or John Carpenter fonts it wasn’t in homage but saying “bitch I do this better than you.”

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 13h

One of the things killing modern criticism is that the conservative movement has ruined the idea of rigorous ideologies so most people don’t want to listen to people they disagree with, either because they can’t trust the criticisms are real, or because they are afraid to learn they might be wrong.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 13h

MISTY GREEN: Chris Rock has the main character complain it’s hard to be a middle aged Black American woman in show business and not be a nepo or British, then casts Brits for the Black leads. Rock doesn’t understand he’s part of the problem. He doesn’t know his main character, it’s embarrassing.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 14h

Whenever I think of the average Trump voter I think of my great aunt Veda. She was the first adult to prove to me that adults can be wrong (to hate someone at five and be right about it is odd). But she thought she was being moral when all she really wanted was to be the center of attention.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 14h

OTHER MOMMY: I thought this was great. Best homage to SCANNERS in the digital age. Probably just unlucky to be the second best AI-themed horror movie starring a Duplass of 2026.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 18h

Realized why I find THE LAST BOY SCOUT - which I love - slightly atonal: It’s the guy who invented the (Simpson and) Bruckheimer template doing a Joel Silver film.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The best dark joke in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE is how Alex’s old friends end up as cops.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Ben Affleck keeps taking AI, ANIMALS is an AI film so that fits. It takes someone else’s idea (in this case HIGH AND LOW) and rips it off poorly, so you see no art, just the scaffolding of greater works.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Guy out for a walk on my work campus to me: “Nice night for a walk, eh?” Me, with accent: “Nice night for a walk.” Him: “Laundry day, nothing clean, right?” Me: “Laundry day, nothing clean, right.”

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

They’re playing a YO! MTV RAPS mix at Trader Joe’s. “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y)” for real. I am dust.

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Reposted by Damon Houx

pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I don’t like to buy “hard tickets” for a “road show” movie because I hate treating a movie as an occasion. I don’t want to be pinned down days in advance; I enjoy the casualness of moviegoing — of going in when I feel like it, when I’m in the mood for a movie. (1969)

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It’s hard to tell if the problem is that computers have exhausted their potential and this is what happens when you have to keep selling, or if the people who make it are just hammer salesmen who drank the kool aid and think it can fix any problem. Probably both.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

It’s funny how MERCY mimics most AI stuff where it’s sold as the supercomputer that is smarter than us all, then makes an obvious mistake and it becomes like “whoa whoa whoa, we’re all human, computers are smol beans too.” And, no.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

One of the funny things about now is that Oscar winner Mikey Madison has a movie out Friday. It’s not that long ago everyone would know this, and part of the reason it’s not a bigger deal is they don’t pay like they used to.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Many of the contrarians I know and trust loved DIGGER. I don’t know if it will mean much, but I think a rep as “got fucked, actually good” is solidifying.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Some films seem ended by the death of home video. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, people actually liked it, but it came out as contentification was taking over so it never got a second life on home video. Never even got to a “I hate GARDEN STATE” style backlash.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This isn’t wrong, but who do you think owns all the studios now?

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

“Would you like to see my gyrocopter?” “You’re pronouncing it weird.” “I assure you I am not.” [produces meat helicopter] “Told you.”

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Reposted by Damon Houx

Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The "Is AI alive" conversation is 100% this, too. If you can be conned by a chatbot, I fear for your general safety. You are the guy at the stripclub who think the dancers really like you.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I got my mom (old - but not telling how cause that’s rude) to watch OBSESSION because my nephew (14) loved it. She hated it. Every generation deserves their versions. I’m okay with the film playing better for tweens/teens/20-somethings. Lotta demonstrable “better or were you 12 when you saw it?”

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

One of the things I think that’s a problem with both modern criticism and modern movies is that Stanley Kubrick was an insufferable genius and we don’t have an environment where that would be tolerated or respected. This isn’t an apology for abusive behavior. Modern stuff has low ceilings.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Yeah, sorry to be about it, but if a president says he’s okay if two of his cities are destroyed they shouldn’t be president. Modern conservatism may be a mental disease if this is their thinking.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Watched an old special feature where basically they were predicting in 2007 AI becoming sentient around now. Funny they could never guess that AI’s usefulness would be limited by the fact that the billionaires who hawk it can’t stand empirical truths.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The way Oscar season is no longer connected to box office any more means it’s hard to say if PRIMETIME doing well helps its Oscar chances. Normally stuff like it and TONY would be odds on favorites to get some nominations. TONY could get ten or none.

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Reposted by Damon Houx

Jenny Deiker Restivo @jennydeikerrestivo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

There are so very many things to be angry about, but today I'm holding space for David Zaslav and his $165 million farewell salary. He totally succeeded - at minimally increasing shareholder value while decimating an entire industry.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

As I grew up in Portland in the eighties and nineties, there are some things that I feel like didn’t make as much of an impression because Portland, like: 1) Burt Reynolds 2) Baseball 3) Billy Joel/Bruce Springsteen

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Though there’s moving parts, I wouldn’t trust Paramount to stick with James Gunn. CLAYFACE is looking to (at best) make $100 Million domestically, but probably won’t and that’s strike two. If MAN OF TOMORROW doesn’t easily clear $200 Mil stateside, failson Ellison isn’t going to give doubt benefits.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I like working the second shift, in almost all ways I prefer it, but they’re doing an employee appreciation lunch on Wednesday and it’s like 50/50 if they’ll do anything for us. Always the way.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Kubrick hates AI. Anyone who uses it and thinks they like Kubrick are phonies. Did you watch 2001?

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Stanley Kubrick is a god, genius, but also someone who spent much of his career making comedies that aren’t funny.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Though I like DOCTOR SLEEP and THE LIFE OF CHUCK, Mike Flanagan is a horror filmmaker who has never achieved capital letters. No matter how good he is or isn’t, for a multitude of reasons, he won’t be talked about with more favorability that Lewis Teague.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

David Fincher is sorta like Stanley Kubrick in that they are both funny people who don’t know how to tell a joke.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

One thing that’s changed - but maybe hasn’t - is that when some people were super into their pets it was a reflection of their own narcissism and highlighted that they were sociopaths who were more able to empathize with pets (that they wrote mental narratives about) than people.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Thinking on it, the film canon was ruined by 9/11. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE and MULHOLLAND DR. kinda the last helicopters out. Feels like more people are likely to watch Kurosawa’s RED BEARD than THE ZONE OF INTEREST.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Though it could be said of every modern movie, DIGGER is now done. The 1% who still go to video stores, the drop to streaming, none of that demonstrably changes the amount of people who will watch it. Whereas IDIOCRACY came out on seven screens and died but home video and cable made it a touchstone.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

DEAD POETS SOCIETY: Though a lot of it is that it’s Peter Weir, dear Lord, how the fuck have we come so far that a fucking Robin Williams school movie from thirty years ago is fucking high art compared to most modern dreck.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

We’re 20 years into the contentification of culture and it has ruined everything. Artists should be trying to make something great, not marketable, we shouldn’t be exploring the mythologies of Crystal fucking Lake. Superheroes are myths for children, superheroes would work for or kill Musk.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

One aspect of why comedies are DOA is that the Harvard-to-writers’-room pipeline has made most comedies completely unrelateable and not that funny. NO HARD FEELINGS, THE BREADWINNER, GOOD BOYS, STRAYS, even something like BLOCKERS gets too far away from anyone’s known without that being the point.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

VERITY: Did AI write this? Did Michael Showalter suffer brain damage, or is finding work so hard you don’t rewrite? Does Dakota Johnson not know how to drink water convincingly?

static.klipy.com

Jurassic Park: That is one big pile of shit

ALT: Jurassic Park: That is one big pile of shit

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Warner Brothers has had a rough year. Most filmmakers don’t have final cut or control the marketing, so when Warner fails (and it wasn’t really with films these two shepherded) either it’s because it was their intent to help the sale or because they are bad at their jobs.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I think Alejandro González Iñárritu is a phony, an arthouse Rob Marshall, a simulacrum of art personified, so color me flummoxed that I think DIGGER could be the best film of the year. Also getting “missed the point of RHINOCEROS” from some reviews.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This is a weird Oscar year, cause stuff like DIGGER and THE SOCIAL RECKONING may be DOA. Not a lot of studio home runs, stuff like SENSE AND SENSIBILITY may sneak in.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The only AI I would be interested in is AI that eliminates all other AI from my purview. Just don’t want to ever see it.

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

🎶 Even if it’s funny It’s still AI 🎶

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Funny for Ben Affleck to talk AI while promoting a movie that seems to rip off HIGH AND LOW without seeming to credit Ed McBain/Evan Hunter or Akira Kurosawa. That’s so AI!

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Brains need exercise it seems, and I think the early effects of people getting dumber from AI use is starting to be more and more apparent. It’s like a slow dumb version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

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Reposted by Damon Houx

Austin Shinn @untitleduser.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I think a lot about how Seth Rogen and Dave Franco cut ties with James Franco. One of those men is his literal brother. If they can do it, Bird just looks complicit

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Damon Houx @damonhoux.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Had a Snickers at work. There’s a lot of perfectly fine American stuff I just don’t really go for. Budweiser, McDonalds, Milky Ways, etc. Not that they are bad, just they’re not interesting and have a ceiling. Weird to see this is the Disney model now. MCU, STAR WARS, Pixar. Sanded down to product.

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