iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

you don’t wanna miss out on this one, i promise

Alex: That’s not an observation. “The actors say stuff that’s weird.” I don’t need someone to tell me that in a critique. I’m going to see it myself and experience that. I don’t know if that answers your question.

Fred: Not really. [Laughs] But you did raise a lot of interesting points so it’s all good.

Alex: Fair enough. [Laughs]

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 26/04/2024

btw if you really wanna treat yourself, watch Women of the Night while listening to this album. you can thank me later

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 08/02/2024

since opportunities for writers continue to dry up, i’ve decided to open the Electric Dreams substack to outside contributors. if you have ideas for essays, reviews, short fiction etc. feel free to reach out (yes, i will pay you for your work): electricdreams92@gmail.com

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

Céline (1992) dir. Jean-Claude Brisseau

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

best not to dignify transparent lies like this with a response moving forward. this is a glorified troll campaign, no better than “it’s okay to be white” 4chan shit

tweet by @jpodhoretz: They baked a baby. In an oven.

THEY BAKED A BABY IN AN OVEN.

THEY BAKED A BABY IN AN OVEN.

Say ceasefire one more time, you fucking baby-murdering-loving ghouls.

tweet by @Efune: A baby was found in an oven, baked to death by Hamas terrorists, leading Israeli first responder @EliBeerUH recounted to an @RJC gathering last night.

His group was among the first to respond to and witness the Oct 7 atrocities.

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

also, more importantly, the main purpose of these claims is to divert attention from the thousands of actual children the IDF has killed so far—something the anti-palestine side sees as nothing more than a PR problem

pravda headline: United Nations report says 70% of deaths in Gaza are women and children

from an article in the irish times: Wix terminated Ms Carey’s employment following a backlash to the comments from Israeli employees and customers.

Leaked messages show an internal Slack channel called “supporting Israel narrative” was set up in response to Hamas’s October 7th attacks in southern Israel, which killed 1,400 people and sparked the current conflict.

The channel invited employees to “join a company initiative to create videos and creative campaigns”, to “support Israel’s narrative”.

The aim was to “make an impact on global perception” of the Hamas attacks and tackle “the fake narrative” pushed by the Gaza-based militant group.

Posts from staff in the internal discussion included tips from an Israeli advertising agency for how Wix employees could tailor posts “for outreach abroad”.

These included advice to “show Westernity” in posts, as “unlike the Gazans, we look and live like Europeans and Americans”. It was “very important to emphasise this in texts and images so that they feel close to us”, the message said.

The post advised employees to avoid focusing on numbers when discussing attacks on Israelis, as “the number of deaths and bombings in Gaza will be significantly higher”.

Employees were told that Israel’s bombing of Gaza was resulting in “difficult pictures” of injured Gazans circulating.

“This is the time to share difficult personal stories from the terrible [Hamas] massacre. It creates a feeling that it is happening at the same time,” the internal post said.

A message from another Wix employee sought help on a project building “a dynamic database on a website of all the companies that have come out against Israel”.

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

learning a valuable lesson about engaging with fabricated stories spread by anti-palestine warmongers: treating them with the mockery they deserve will then be twisted into you having mocked dead jewish children (which is obviously by design)

tweet by a former mutual: You know on reflection it’s actually fucking insane that today I unfriended a guy, another critic who’s written for a bunch of respectable publications, over a “joke” about dead Jewish babies. Actually unbelievable that we’re living in this time line, in this state of discourse.

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 31/10/2023

statements like this *feel* true until you actually talk to “the average person” or, even worse, try to get them to care about any given issue. and thinking the rage that is there will just cohere into something productive is wishful thinking

tweet that reads: I really, truly do not think the people in power have any fucking clue how at the end of their rope the average person is. There's no gas in the tank for anyone and all that's left is rage

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

why are we still blaming Disney for the infantilization of culture when Ozu was pulling stuff like this in 1932?

I Was Born, But…’s subtitle: A Picture Book for Grown-Ups

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 29/10/2023

every fucking time lol the list is endless

headline: Courtney love: Linda Sarsour is an anti-Semitic terrorist

Courtney love’s name, phone number, and address in Epstein’s little black book

quote tweet by Andrew Neil in response to someone criticizing Israel: only if you accost there is Israeli apartheid. Which there isn’t it’s a left-wing propaganda meme

Andrew Neil’s name and info in Epstein’s little black book

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 29/10/2023

here’s the publisher of @theatlantic.bsky.social, Laurene Powell Jobs, hanging out with her friend Ghislaine Maxwell

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 26/10/2023

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) dir. Alfred Sole

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

identity politics will have you thinking Taika Waititi could bring more to a film like Killers of the Flower Moon than Martin Scorsese. it’s about time we left this stuff in 2016

That's a shame it's not from the Osage point of view. I think Taika Waititi would have done right by the Osage if he was the director or at least on the project. He seems to be very sensitive to indigenous stories, being part Maori himself. Might have been too funny, though!

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

artists should tackle whatever subject matter they feel drawn to. it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that

Genuinely curious: Does everyone feel that stories about indigenous people should ONLY be tackled by members of said indigenous people? I was under the impression that FLOWER MOON was made hand-in-hand with the Osage Nation, but apparently even that's considered insensitive?

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 21/10/2023

The Hut (1981) dir. Lee Doo-yong

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 20/10/2023

wow James Baldwin and Jane Austen? thank god these booktok “creators” are here to let us philistines know about what’s happening on the margins

“Classical literature is great,” Jackson says. “But if you’re only talking about these people, and you haven’t read any James Baldwin or Jane Austen, then you’re just interested in the books because they’re written by straight white men.”

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 20/10/2023

wow these tiktokers are really letting the bros on booktok have it

Hower adds that while she probably wouldn’t let a person’s favorite book immediately halt a date, she has established red flags that would make her think twice about interacting.

“Books like Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and the vast majority of Haruki Murakami’s published works, are books that I don’t immediately consider red flags but if you tell me those are your favorite books then I’m going to have some questions,” Hower says. “What’s more important to me than anything is how somebody interprets a book. So if a man tells me that Lolita is his ‘favorite romance’ I’m outta there and also he should be put on a watch list.”

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 20/10/2023

last fm friday 4x4 (yes the new Ken Carson is fire, don’t bother asking)

everyone asked about you - paper airplaines paper hearts
ken carson – a great chaos
ryuichi sakamoto - merry christmas mr lawrence
dinosaur jr - bug
nabihah iqbal - dreamer
nation of language - strange discipline
bart graft - the mall scene
armand hammer - we buy diabetic test strips
ride - nowhere
billy woods - aethiopes
dinosaur jr - dinosaur
dinosaur jr - you’re living all over me
hako yamazaki - hako no ohako
key glock - yellow tape
oneohtrix point never - again
propagandhi - potemkin city limits

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 18/10/2023

namedropping Leni Riefenstahl with no qualifiers and then calling Spike Lee racist two sentences later. Armond White remains undefeated

The Eras Tour is the most calamitous movie event since Barbie. It's in the mode of post-Madonna, post-Obama mind control. The Taylor Swift industry would like us to believe that the world is not crumbling and that Swift's prominence comes from her being a great artist. Yet girls who don't know Jane Austen, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, or Lesley Gore's "It's My Party" fall for Swift's narcissistic display.

British director Sam Wrench - a rock-video pro, having done concert films for Billie Eilish, Luke Bryan, Lizzo, and The Weeknd - transcribes the 20-city Eras tour. But he's no Leni Riefenstahl able to turn the event into an impressive aesthetic spectacle (even though he collapses favorite angles from three shows at the Los Angeles SoFi Arena).
The Eras Tour is not even as impressive as U2 3D, a superior follow-up to the group's Rattle and Hum, Laurie Anderson's Home of the Brave, or Jonathan Demme's Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense. Even racist Spike Lee called the latter "the greatest concert movie ever made," meaning better than Richard Pryor Live in Concert and Prince's Sign o' the Times. That's how easily Millennial hype forces consensus.

If feminism has indeed had "a nervous breakdown," as Tammy Bruce, a former NOW president, has said, then Swift represents its infantilization - a symptom of generational naïveté and mental illness and bad taste. In the history of female pop stars, Taylor Swift is the least impressive artistically. All her songs - fast tempo or slow - strike the same petulant, egotistical note. Her fandom aligns with the media manipulation we see in politics, when the press encourages constituents to deny the evidence of their senses - which ought to sensibly resist Swift's utter physical blandness. She doesn't wear clothes well despite the show's many costume changes, and during
"Tolerate It," the Citizen Kane moment, she vamps to drab effect. Plus, she's not a good actress. Remember: Cats was a resounding flop, and Swift's performance in Amsterdam only got a rise out of viewers when David O. Russell offed her.

Demagogues are not always easily dismissed. Madonna was also a media favorite during the '8s and 'gos, but she at least had catchy tunes, as did Lady Gaga with her infernal hits. Swift's big-screen self-display catches the youth of the Great Reset at their most gullible.

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 18/10/2023

currently about 1800 words into a Dinosaur Jr. piece for Bug’s 35th anniversary!

snapshot of the piece covering the You’re Living All Over Me LP

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 17/10/2023

hallucinatory in a way few slashers can pull off effectively. definitely a strong giallo influence going on

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 17/10/2023

Evil Dead Trap (1988) dir. Toshiharu Ikeda

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 15/10/2023

god, psychic powers, body horror, and aliens — quintessential Fred-core

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 15/10/2023

God Told Me To (1976) dir. Larry Cohen

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

we doin last fm friday over here?

minor threat - first two seven inches
anri - timely!!
jawbreaker - 24 hour revenge therapy
afi - decemberunderground
laurel halo - atlas
sonic youth - sister
newjeans - get up
the communards - communards
anri - heaven beach

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 04/10/2023

King of the Ants (2003) dir. Stuart Gordon

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 03/10/2023

when you get mad at me, this is who you’re getting mad at

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2023

Jean Peters in Pickup on South Street (1953)

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2023

we are witnessing the normalization of nazism and the whitewashing of its history in real time. even germany, liberalism’s post-WWII model student, is doing it

Netanyahu: Adolf Hitler didn't want to kill the Jews, but a Muslim convinced him to do it

mark hamill on a video call with ukrainian drone operators who have a neo-nazi flag hanging in the background

zelensky and trudeau along with the entire canadian parliament applauding yaroslav hunka

@jungewelt on twitter:
Shocking response from the Federal Government (Germany) to a small inquiry made by @SevimDagdelen and the Left Party in the Bundestag on »Right-Wing Extremist manifestations of Ukrainian historical politics«:
The Federal Government explicitly rejects categorizing »historical groups or individuals« such as Stepan Bandera, the Waffen-SS Division »Galicia«, the OUN or UPA, as well as the Azov Regiment, as universally »right-wing extremist, antisemitic, anti-Roma, or otherwise racist.«

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 28/09/2023

The Cathedral (2021) dir. Ricky D’Ambrose

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 26/09/2023

thinking about the ballet sequence in The Red Shoes (1948) and smiling

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

and ofc the farce wouldn’t be complete without these critics flexing their credentials as if that makes their words any less vapid

I'm not a "fan" lol l'm getting a master's degree in cinema studies and linked a review I wrote of the film in my tweet

Im sorry Finn Patrick Clisham they pay me 50 bucks a review which I put towards getting a masters degree from UCLA cinema and media studies is that prestigious enough for you?
Asshole

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

a huge chunk of online “criticism” is just stuff like this: accusing people who dislike something of being haters, chastising them for expecting too much, and/or infantilizing artists

The BOTTOMS hate is stupid because it's all coming from online nerds who are jealous of Seligman's success as a young filmmaker. I don't think she's a rich kid at all I think she's a talented and smart filmmaker whose work resonates with audiences. My write up for movieranker

It was so funny and sweet and Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri are both completely magnetic.
I don't get the criticism! What did they expect
Space Odyssey??

Also ridiculous not to factor into your criticism of the film that she's a 28 year old woman. Not even in an identity politics way she's just very young!!!!! And directing a larger budget film is a totally different beast than directing an indie intended for a very niche audience

So stupid also that film had a 200k budget and Bottoms was 11 million obviously she had to turn up something that was going to make a profit / have mass appeal...she's obviously not a 'seasoned' director but that makes sense because she's a woman in her mid 20s

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 24/09/2023

The Messiah (1975) dir. Roberto Rossellini

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 20/09/2023

and instead of critically examining the homogeneity of the algorithm age, we have writers patting pop stars on the head for rehashing ideas from artists who were themselves rehashing ideas. this cultural trend only serves to further shield big names from criticism

Vox headline: “Dear Olivia Rodrigo:
Ignore the internet.
"Originality" is overrated.”
subhead: “No art is original. So why do we get so worried about artists paying homage to their influences?”

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 14/09/2023

3:10 to Yuma (1957) dir. Delmer Daves

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 11/09/2023

this is the kind of drivel that Exclaim! and others were publishing and getting pats on the back for lol

As they became more popular, Viet Cong received all kinds of complaints from different Vietnamese and Asian communities. A few public letters were published explaining why seeing a name "loaded with a history of violence and trauma — ripped by a rock group who does not, and cannot identify with it" is offensive. Despite all this, the band have been irresponsible and dismissive, issuing flippant non-apologies.

it being explosive and dark." In an interview with Impose Magazine, the band talk about how, in old movies, the Viet Cong were so "bad ass."
Using this fantastical imagery from American cinema is problematic, in the view of people like Jon. "They're promoting the idea that Vietnamese people are these communist, war hungry killer monsters. If you look at any Hollywood film since the '60s, the only time that Vietnamese people show up is in war. It's the same as Native people in American 'Cowboy and Indian' films.
Vietnamese people and Native people in these movies are like hard, stoic robots of death. To name themselves after this army is promoting this stereotype."

I spoke with Xuan Yen, who does anti-racist work in Toronto and is an avid supporter of the Canadian indie music scene. Both sides of her family fled the war, relocating to France and Canada. She volunteered at an orphanage in Vietnam not long ago, and met children born with defects as a result of their parents being exposed to Agent Orange during the war. She wonders how the band would feel about their name if they made the same journey. Xuan Yen believes that, like these other bands, Viet Cong are acting from a place of entitlement. "I think in terms of why it's racist boils down to power," she says. "It's a lot easier for white people to take something from other cultures and other people and just make money out of it. They don't really face any real repercussions relating to issues other cultures they're appropriating from have to deal with; they just take something, making it shiny and new for their own benefit."

While nobody is getting beat up or visibly excluded, there are several other kinds of racism happening here. Instead of trying to exercise a little bit of empathy, a lot of people are quick to make "intellectual," derailing arguments. These guys can name themselves whatever they want, but they should know that by ignoring a marginalized group of people and taking something that isn't theirs to take, they are ultimately excluding people because of race. Brenda Johnston breaks it down thusly: "In human rights law, intent is irrelevant — it is the impact that counts, and this has had a negative impact on many individuals from Vietnamese communities. They are appropriating a term or identity, and this is inappropriate and racist."

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 11/09/2023

a bunch of spoiled, do-nothing, rich-kid college students (with help from @exclaimdotca, who ran articles calling the band racist) got them to “both sides” the fucking vietnam war and we were expected to think that this was somehow a progressive victory

Our band, Viet Cong, has existed for a little over three years now. When we named ourselves, we were naive about the history of a war in a country we knew very little about. We now better understand the weight behind the words Viet Cong. While we don't take any concerns about the name lightly, we feel it is important to let you know that we never meant to trivialize the atrocities or violence that occurred on both sides of the Vietnam War. We never intended for our name to be provocative or hurtful.

We truly appreciate the seriousness of the feedback we've received, and we will continue to be open to listening to issues and concerns from all perspectives.

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 09/09/2023

so when are we getting the deep dive on Ashton Kutcher’s ties to the CIA, scientology, the Clinton Foundation, his BS anti-child trafficking org, the “red wine stains” story, and his involvement in the tech industry?

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 03/09/2023

this is the vibe my writing will have going forward

a tweet review of The Killer (2023) by @theatomreview: “REVIEW: Malevolent MASTERPIECE, Zodiac's spiritual sequel! A sinister psychological thriller with tension that'll crawl underneath your skin & stimulate your clitoris.
This isn't just another adaptation, it's the best David Fincher movie ever! A fitting end.”

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 03/09/2023

just found out that the lamest people on the planet are already offended by Aggro Dr1ft so i’m feeling a little more optimistic about this whole EDGLRD business

letterboxd review of Aggro Dr1ft: “This movie comes straight from the head of a white cisgender heterosexual man, GTA enthusiast, artsy type, obsessed with streetwear, POC wannabe, women objectifier, narcissistic deeply in love with himself and all "aesthetic instead of concept" king of person. Nothing good to say, a "movie" extremely pretentious, forcefully artistic (not in a thoughtful way whatsoever), poor in storyline and boring.
I was honestly envious of those who left the room.
Bonus point: if you take a sip every time you hear the word "money" or "killer" you are going to get drunk enough to forget the obscenity you're watching.
PS: bring to the cinema some cuffie because in order to keep people awake the volume is extremely high and disturbing
PPS: obviously it it in negative because how basic are you if you do not make a film with only yellow, red and blu? Extremely basic choice (sold as deeply thought art decision)”

“Genuinely has to be the WORST "movie" i've ever seen in my life. Travis scott has a snake tongue???
Strippers had fireworks coming out of their 🍑??
Satan made a cameo? Last half hour was actually vile, felt like i was being forced to watch torture/ SA porn 👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽 also the infrared just looked terrible. 0/5”

“Let's get something straight, the conception of this film is phenomenal, the negative, the colours, the experimental graphics -> loved it
Too bad the director has one of the biggest egos
I've ever seen transcribed and too bad that narcissism bleeds through through the film. At what point does modern poetry end and ridiculous begin? It's giving 'Blonde' with the male gaze. No part of me is convinced that the self proclaimed « lonely hero » is in fact, desiring love as the theme tries to convince us he is.”

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Fred Barrett @fredbarrett.bsky.social · 02/09/2023

i’m not one of those “the cinema is sacred” people but this all sounds like fairly common tech industry-adjacent hucksterism to me — which is not to say that the stuff that comes out of it won’t be good or interesting at least

"It's closer to being inside of a game," says Korine, who is using the project to launch a company he calls EDGLRD, with backing by Matt Holt, president of the board of The Paris Review. "It's probably like the most excited I've been about anything I've made in forever. I've been working to get to this place for a long time. I spent the last couple years with a lot of tech people, and also creative people - like gaming developers and animators - trying to develop something that I felt was the next phase."

So what is EDGLRD? Korine, who pronounces the handle "edge lord," explains: "It's like a design collective, in the way that the focus is on designing entertainment and alternate forms of content," he says. "It's live action, with a really strong emphasis on video games and experimenting with the gamification of films."

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