iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I logged the middle two out of order, but these actually are my last four watches!

Letterboxd posters for MARRIED TO THE MOB (1988), PLEASE SPEAK CONTINUOUSLY AMLND DESCRIBE YOUR EXPERIENCES AS THEY COME TO YOU (2019), THE HAUNTED CASTLE (1921) & DESERT FURY (1947)- all first time watches.

261

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

This would be accurate,if not for one short and a not-quite finished 17-episode TV series I haven’t logged yet and probably won’t by the end of the evening.

Letterboxd posters for SULLIVAN’s TRAVELS (1941, a rewatch), COYOTE VS. ACME (2026), THREE AND A GIRL (1920, a non-poster, really, as it’s just the film title) & JANE RESCUES (1910)

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Here’s my last four (and it’s accurate!)

Letterboxd posters for DRIVE (2011), THE HAUNTING OF JULIA (1977), AN ECSTATIC EXPERIENCE (2015) and TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA (2026), all marked to include reviews but no ratings (as I my usual tradition). Both DRIVE and THE ECSTATIC EXPERIENCE are marked as rewatches.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

“No Long Talking” has been the song of the summer for me thanks to this poll of 1996 bangers (or should I say “slammers”?) Seeing Lady Saw’s name in 2 of the posters making up this installation by Jamaican artists Matthew McCarthy & Maxine Walters at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art sealed it.

Museum exhibit made up of colorful posters of Caribbean music concerts as well as speakers forming a kind of altar shape. Here’s the text from the curator’s statement:

Matthew McCarthy (b. 1992, Kingston, Jamaica; lives in Kingston) and Maxine Walters (b. 1950, Kingston, Jamaica; lives in Kingston)
The Most High - a serious ting, 2026
Painted speaker boxes, dancehall street signs, toam, wood, and audiovisuals
Matthew M vive en King Kingston, Ja
TEl Altísimo
Cajas de alt de dancehal
This work centers on two aspects of dancehall infrastructure: the speaker stack and dancehall signs. Composed of found speakers, the stack nods to the versatility and mobility of sound systems. The speakers are piled on top of each other to create a negative space that takes the form of the cross, underscoring dancehall's spiritual force and the broader importance of religion in Jamaican society. The dancehall signs are also found objects, collected on the streets of Jamaica by Maxine Walters. Jamaica has a rich tradition of hand-painted dancehall signs.
Characterized by bold colors and typography, each sign is unique and tells the story of a party or local event that occurred, embodying the attitude, cultural trends, and spirit of the time.
This work is a collaboration between Walters and an artist from a younger generation, Matthew McCarthy, designed to capture the spirit, vibe, and visual aesthetic of Jamaican dancehall.

0102

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Day 25: 1980s Manhattan Repeat: Mary Harron's 2000 adaptation of the late-eighties-set satirical serial killer novel AMERICAN PSYCHO would be Harron's first Registry entry. New: MS. 45 (1981), the iconic revenge thriller oozing early-80s Lower Manhattan, would be director Abel Ferrara's first too.

Cult classic AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000) would be the first NFR entry for writer/director Mary Harron, writer Guinevere Turner, original author Brett Easton Ellis, and actors Justin Theroux and Reese Witherspoon.

Image description: Close-up of screen capture of actor Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in the film AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000). He is smiling slightly while wearing black Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and holding a large, vintage grey brick-style cell phone to his right ear. He is dressed in a pinstriped dress shirt, blue suspenders, and a red patterned tie.

Iconic grindhouse classic Ms. 45 (1981) would be the first Registry entry for director Abel Ferrara, writer Nicholas St. John, cinematographer James Lemmo, producers Richard Howorth & Mary Kane, and star Zoë Lund (as well as most of the rest of the cast.)

Image description: A cinematic medium close-up screen capture from the 1981 film MS. 45 shows actress Zoë Lund dressed in a black and white nun's habit. She stares forward with wide, intense eyes and prominent, bright red lipstick. Her right hand is extended directly toward the foreground, holding a black .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol pointed straight ahead. The background is dimly lit and features a dark green wall, a painting, and the soft curve of a spiral staircase.

000

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Day 24: first-personal non-fiction Repeat: Spencer Nakasako helped Galileo High senior Sokly Ny craft his raw video diary into the revealing A.K.A. DON BONUS (1995). New: Kirsten Johnson's visionary memoir CAMERAPERSON (2016) is my final, & perhaps most enthusiastic, newly-eligible pick this year.

Groundbreaking video diary A.K.A. DON BONUS (1995) anticipates much of our modern visual culture while providing a fascinating window onto a Cambodian-American refugee's perspectives on urban American life. It would be the first National Film Registry entry for its co-directors Spencer Nakasako or Sokely Ny.

Image description: A screen capture from A.K.A. DON BONUS (1995) captures a young man with short dark hair sitting on a bed or sofa. He faces slightly to his right, away from the camera, with a calm expression. He is wearing a white graphic t-shirt featuring dark, stylized text that reads "WORD ISSUE" inside a circular emblem. The background consists of a plain, light-colored wall and some bedding with soft pink patterns behind him.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Day 23. propulsive transit cinema Repeat: If inducted, train-set noir thriller THE NARROW MARGIN (1952) would be director Richard Fleischer's first Registry film. New: Lana and Lilly Wachowski's cult classic SPEED RACER (2008) would be a joyfully fast-moving action movie entry into the Registry.

SPEED RACER (2008) was critically drubbed and considered a box-office failure upon its original release, but has grown to be a beloved cult classic among many action movie lovers, anime fans, and followers of transgender-directed cinema. If inducted it would be the first Registry entry for Emile Hirsch, Matthew Fox, Rain, Kick Gurry, and other cast members, as well as for cinematographer David Tattersall.

Image description: A widescreen screen capture from the 2008 movie SPEED RACER, showing the Casa Cristo 5000 race. In the center foreground, Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer, wearing his white helmet, steers the iconic white Mach 5 racecar directly toward the viewer. Colorful, high-tech rival racecars speed closely alongside him on a blurred track. The environment is a grand, futuristic columned corridor known as the Muqranna, illuminated with fiery orange light and glowing architecture.

230

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Day 22: anti-colonialist experimental docs Repeat: Marlon Fuentes & Bridget Yearian's BONTOC EULOGY (1995) confronts the "human zoo" at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. New: Ojibway Michiganders Adam & Zack Khalil's newly-eligible INAATE/SE (2016) frames their tribal history as a living prophecy.

As The New Yorker says, with BONTOC EULOGY (1995), director Marlon Fuentes "evokes the urgency of an ongoing artistic and political project of personal exploration and cultural reclamation" while exploring his family connection to Filipinos who had been brought to the 1904 World's Fair to be put on display as primitive peoples. Neither Fuentes nor his co-director Bridget Yearian have other National Film Registry representation of any kind.

Image description: A somber black and white image from BONTOC EULOGY (1995). Actor and director Marlon Fuentes sits on a woven mat spread across a herringbone brick floor in a stark, dimly lit room with brick walls. He is bald, wears glasses and a dark, long-sleeved shirt, and sits cross-legged with his head bowed and hands clasped in quiet reflection. To his left, an antique phonograph with a large, dark horn speaker sits on the mat, facing toward him. Light streams in from a window off-camera, casting shadows across the wall behind him.

Zack and Adam Khalil's INAATE/SE is a newly-Registry-eligble documentary about their tribe's Seven Fires Prophecy, which predicted the loss of an indigenous culture. Neither brother have any prior Registry representation.

Image description: A black-and-white image from the documentary film INAATE/SE (2016). The image shows a vast, snow-covered landscape under an overcast sky, bordered by a dense forest of bare trees in the background. Superimposed over the winter scenery is a stylized, black line drawing of seven human figures standing side by side. Each minimalist figure contains unique symbolic details drawn inside or around them, representing the Ojibway Seven Fires Prophecy. Small tally marks or symbols are written directly underneath the feet of the figures along the bottom edge of the frame.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Day 21: student films by world-class artists Repeat: Cauleen Smith's East Oakland 16mm feature DRYLONGSO (1998) was her UCLA thesis film. New: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 0116643 (1994) is among the best 16mm shorts the future Cannes prizewinner made at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Cauleen Smith's 1998 narrative feature DRYLONGSO follows a young woman named Pica trying to juggle her schooling and artistic practice with complicated friend and family relationships while living in East Oakland. If inducted it would be the first National Film Registry entry for Smith and the rest of her entire cast and crew.

Image description: A screen shot from Cauleen Smith's 1998 film DRYLONGSO, showing two young Black women sitting outside on concrete steps outside a bright pink house in East Oakland. The woman on the left, Pica Sullivan (played by Toby Smith), is looking toward her companion while holding a stack of Polaroid snapshots in her hands. She has her hair styled in braided pigtails and wears a light blue short-sleeved polo shirt with headphones resting around her neck. The woman on the right, Tobi (played by April Barnett), sits slightly higher on the steps with a black wooden chair positioned directly behind her. She wears a red bandana over her head, a grey-and-white oversized plaid jacket over a burgundy shirt, and loose-fitting blue jeans while holding a pair of sunglasses in her lap. The scene is lit by natural sunlight, casting shadows on the pink wall behind them.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul made several short films while studying at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, including 0116643 (1994). The film's original full title is generally now truncated by the director from its original 13-digit title, taken from his family's phone number in Khon Kaen, Thailand when dialed from the United States. Apichatpong has never had any of his films (several of which are US co-productions) enter the National Film Registry.

Image description: A high-contrast, black-and-white frame enlargement from Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 1994 experimental short film, 0116643. The image features a heavily stylized, high-contrast crop of an old photograph depicting the filmmaker's mother as a young woman. Her face emerges from the darkness of her black hair, with bright white lighting defining her eyes, nose, and mouth.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Walking by the Siskel Center in Chicago, where I will get the full experience of tomorrow when my wife’s films screen at 6PM:

Poster advertising August shows at the Siskel Film Center, including THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER, Chicago Film Society: Technicolor Weekend, and much more.

Closer in shot of Siskel Center programs including OFF CENTER: KERRY LAITALA August 10, 6:00 p.m. with Artist in Person

081

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Day 20: non-citizens make US productions about international politics Repeat: Martinican Euzhan Palcy was the first Black woman to direct a major-studio film, MGM's A DRY WHITE SEASON (1989). New: American anti-fascists hired Joris Ivens to direct THE SPANISH EARTH (1937) from a Hemingway script.

A DRY WHITE SEASON (1989) was a rare Hollywood studio film made about South Africa's racist apartheid regime during the height of that regime and the international protest movement against it. It would be the first Registry entry for writer/director Euzhan Palcy or for legendary cinematographer Pierre-William Glenn.

Image description: A medium shot screen capture from the 1989 film A DRY WHITE SEASON. Winston Ntshona stands on the left in a light blue jacket, looking toward Donald Sutherland on the right. Sutherland wears a green fedora hat and a brown patterned suit coat. They stand outdoors in front of a line of green trees and foliage. In the shallow-focus background, a crowded gathering of adults and children in 1970s attire is visible but blurred.

THE SPANISH EARTH (1937) This documentary about the Spanish Civil War, produced by Herman Shumlin and a group American intellectuals like Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Archibald MacLeish, John Dos Passos, and Ernest Hemingway, most of whom also contributed creatively, would be the first National Film Registry entry for all of them except Hemingway, who wrote the short story source of 2008 NFR entry THE KILLERS (1946), and also the first for its Dutch director Joris Ivens.

Image description: A black-and-white screen capture from THE SPANISH EARTH captures a vast agricultural landscape under a clear sky. In the lower foreground, a small group of travelers and pack animals—including two figures riding donkeys and one walking alongside a pack mule—moves along a sloped path from left to right. Beyond them, a wide plain is filled with neatly organized, long rows of crops stretching into the distance. In the far background, a small town or village sits clustered along the horizon at the base of low, rolling hills.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Day 19: radical indies about flawed utopian communities Repeat: Lizzie Borden's BORN IN FLAMES (1983) is a feminist, speculative fiction set in a post-revolutionary near-future. New: For MAGGOTS AND MEN (2009) director Cary Cronenwett assembled the largest-ever trans & gender non-conforming cast.

BORN IN FLAMES (1983) would be the first National Film Registry entry for writer/director Lizzie Borden and nearly everyone else involved in the film's making.

Image description: A close-up shot of actor Honey as a pirate radio host in the 1983 film BORN IN FLAMES. She is a Black woman with short dark hair, wearing large vintage headphones over a bright red headband tied around her forehead. She is looking directly toward the camera with a subtle expression, wearing a dark top, a necklace, and dark eye makeup. The background shows a dimly lit, soft-focus recording studio filled with audio equipment and a glimpse of another person's shoulder.

Cary Cronenwett's MAGGOTS AND MEN (2009) would be the first National Film Registry selection for nearly its entire cast and crew, with the exceptions of George Kuchar, who directed the 1977 film I, AN ACTRESS (NFR selection 2011), has a small role in the film, and set photographer Dan Nicoletta, who was involved in making 1984 documentary THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (NFR selection 2012).

Image description: A black and white image from MAGGOTS AND MEN, capturing an acrobatic ensemble performance modeled after Soviet "Blue Blouse" agitprop theater. Eight actors from the film's historic ensemble cast are arranged in a dynamic, multi-tiered athletic stack around a central cardboard battleship set piece. On the floor, two performers lie on their backs, supporting the feet of two actors who balance horizontally in the air. A central figure stands forward with arms outstretched. At the peak of the formation, two performers stand on the shoulders of the background ensemble to hold aloft a wide, stenciled banner reading "THE SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD" alongside an illustration of a flying bullet.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Day 18: stylized Black masculinity & the crack epidemic Repeat: If entered, DEEP COVER (1992) would be the first Registry inclusion for director Bill Duke or writer Michael Tolkin. New: Barry Jenkins' MOONLIGHT (2016) is, of my newly-eligible selections, the one I'd most expect to see successful.

Pioneering Black director Bill Duke has no films in the National Film Registry, nor does writer Michael Tolkin, and inducting the 1992 crime thriller DEEP COVER would be a great way to induct both.

Image description: Screen capture from DEEP COVER (1992) showing Laurence Fishburne in a dark setting, illuminated by dramatic blue-toned light rays shining from behind. Fishburne is looking slightly upward and away from the camera, wearing a light-colored shirt beneath a denim jacket. Strong contrast between light and shadow highlights the face while the background remains mostly dark.

The Oscar-winning film MOONLIGHT (2016) would be a terrific selection for the National Film Registry on its first year of eligibility; it immediately became a cultural touchstone and helped take its cast and crew's careers to another level of success. Aside from several of its producers and actor Mahershala Ali, who worked on 12 YEARS A SLAVE (NFR entry 2023) all of its cast (including Trevante Rhodes, Andre Holland, Janelle Monae, Ashton Sanders, Jharrel Jerome, and Naomie Harris) and crew (including writer/director Barry Jenkins, writer Tarrell McCraney, editors Nat Sanders & Joi McMillon, cinematographer James Laxton, production designer Hannah Beachler and composer Nicholas Britell) would see their first Registry representation.

Image description: A wide cinematic screen shot from the movie MOONLIGHT shows a Black man played by Mahershala Ali and a young Black boy played by Alex R. Hibbert in the ocean under a cloudy blue sky. The man, shirtless and wearing a small diamond stud earring, is submerged to his chest in the water and smiles gently as he looks down at the boy. He holds the boy afloat on his back in the water, supporting his head and lower body. The boy is floating horizontally with his eyes closed and his face tilted upward toward the sky.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Why yes, we did spend much of the day at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago…

Letterboxd posters for TERRITORIES (1984), BOM BOM’S DREAM (2016), PROVERBS 24:10 (2008) and IN DREAMS AND AUTUMN (2021)

230

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Day 17: supernatural melancholy Repeat: Isn't it time M. Night Shyamalan's enduring 1999 horror splash THE SIXTH SENSE was entered into the National Film Registry? Return: Curtis Harrington is another figure with no Registry representation & I'd love to see his moody NIGHT TIDE (1961) make it in.

THE SIXTH SENSE (1999) would be the first National Film Registry selection for writer/director M. Night Shyamalan and for actor Toni Collette.

Image description: A close-up film still from The Sixth Sense shows actress Toni Collette as Lynn Sear, a woman with auburn hair wearing a thick orange turtleneck sweater. She sits in the driver's seat of a car, looking straight ahead with a tense, worried expression. In the backseat, actor Haley Joel Osment as Cole Sear, a young boy with light brown hair, watches her with a concerned and anxious look.

Writer-director Curtis Harrington has never had any of his films on the National Film Registry. His 1961 feature-film debut NIGHT TIDE would be an excellent representative of his work, and would also be the first Registry entry for editor Jodie Copelan, cinematographer Vilis Lapenieks, and actors Linda Lawson, Luana Anders and Marjorie Cameron.

Image description: A black-and-white screen shot from NIGHT TIDE captures a young sailor, played by Dennis Hopper, standing near a wooden staircase inside a dimly lit room. He wears a light-colored U.S. Navy dress white uniform with a dark neckerchief, holding a small object in his hands with an anxious expression. To the left, a large, ornate Moroccan-style hanging lamp glows intensely, casting stark shadows. A dramatic, elongated shadow of a wall decoration mimics the sailor's upright silhouette on the wall behind him.

140

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Had to get this selfie while on my first Chicago breakfast prowl in ~30 years, even though I voted for Mary J. Blige.

Picture of a Middle Ages white man with a whitening blonde beard and glasses and wearing a black sweatshirt with brightly colored lettering of the word OPTIGAN half-visible, taken from below the corncob towers in Chicago with a couple traffic lights and another squarish building visible under the grey-clouded sky.

1181

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Name a movie where the title character *isn’t* the main character.

221

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Day 16: multi-part essay films Repeat: 15 directors contributed 13 non-fiction films to the moving, kaleidoscopic 9/11 response omnibus UNDERGROUND ZERO (2002). New: Deborah Stratman’s THE ILLINOIS PARABLES (2016) uses exactly eleven Land of Lincoln vignettes to interrogate justice, faith & power.

One week after September 11, 2001, Jay Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi put out a call to 150 filmmakers to make work in response to the devastating event. From the responses, they put together two programs of films; one leaning more toward traditional documentary, and one more experimental. Program 1 is the version that had wider theatrical distribution and is listed under the title UNDERGROUND ZERO (2002) in databases; it includes films by Rosenblatt, Zahedi, Frazer Bradshaw, Robert Edwards, Eva Brzeski, Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, Paul Harrill, Norman Cowie, David Driver, Laura Plotkin,Valerie Soe, John Haptas & Kristine Samuelson & Ira Sachs, and of these only Epstein and Friedman have work already in the Registry: THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (NFR selection 2012) and COMMON THREADS: STORIES FROM THE QUILT (NFR selection 2024).

Image description: A black-and-white image from Jay Rosenblatt's 2002 short found-footage film PRAYER, which was featured in the compilation film UNDERGROUND ZERO. The image shows school children sitting close together, the three with heads visible with their eyes tightly closed in a moment of prayer. In the center foreground, a young child with short hair holds their hands together with fingertips touching their chin. To the left, a boy in a collared shirt holds his hands clasped tightly before him, and to the right, a girl wearing a dark jumper over a light-colored turtleneck sits with her palms pressed flat together.

Experimental filmmaker Deborah Stratman served as director, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor and sound designer on the 2016 documentary THE ILLINOIS PARABLES. If inducted, it would be her first film in the Registry.

Image description: A screen capture from Deborah Stratman’s documentary THE ILLINOIS PARABLES (2016) shows a young Black boy smiling warmly at the camera, standing in a sunny outdoor setting with a vibrant yellow towel slung over his bare left shoulder. Behind him on the historic brick facade of 2746 W. Madison Street in Chicago’s East Garfield Park, a monumental community mural honors the memory of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Painted in high-contrast tones of blue, charcoal gray, and white, Hampton is depicted looking slightly upward and speaking with an open, expressive mouth, capturing the dynamic energy of his live community speeches. A black fabric awning on the right of the red-brick building serves as signage for neighborhood district office of U.S. Representative Danny K. Davis, though the words are cut off by the edge of the frame so a viewer of this image alone would only be able to know that through outside context.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Day 15: pioneering cineastas Repeat: Argentine Hugo Fregonese was the first Latino to direct Hollywood feature films in English, like 1954 noir BLACK TUESDAY. New: José Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Melendez was the first Latino animator to direct for TV & film, such as 1969 classic A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN.

A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN (1969) was the first animated adaptation from Charles Schultz's Peanuts cartoon strips that was made for theatrical distribution. None of the voice cast or creators of this film has National Film Registry representation, except for director Bill Melendez, who had worked as a character animator on 1950's GERALD MCBOING-BOING (NFR selection 1995). No film he directed is in the Registry.

Image description: A screen shot from A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN showing spelling bee contestants' disembodied heads against a flat, solid dark brown background. Rather than a realistic spelling bee stage, the frame isolates nine floating heads and shoulders of children clad in formal dress collars and ties, most with anxious expressions. Charlie Brown is placed at the bottom center with a downcast expression, surrounded on three sides by eight unnamed contestants whose visual styles mirror the iconic Peanuts comic strip designs (one looks almost exactly like Schroeder, but isn't he.)

141

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Day 14: African diasporic migration to The South Repeat: Is Mira Nair's MISSISSIPPI MASALA (1991) the first film about an interracial romance between 2 non-whites? New: Akosua Adoma Owusu's non-fiction short RELUCTANTLY QUEER (2016) visualizes UVA scholar Kwame Edwin Otu's letters back to Ghana.

Director/producer MIRA NAIR shot MISSISSIPPI MASALA (1991) largely on location in Greenwood, Grenada, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs, MS. It would be the first Registry representation for Nair, an India-born New Yorker and long a naturalized US citizen, as well as for writer Sooni Taraporavela and actors Sarita Choudhury, Sharmila Tagore and Charles S. Dutton.

Image description: A screenshot from MISSISSIPPI MASALA (1991) featuring Sarita Choudhury and Denzel Washington walking along a wide, sandy beach at sunset. On the left, Sarita Choudhury faces slightly right, wearing a vibrant, long-sleeved orange tunic and matching pants. On the right, Denzel Washington walks with his back partially to the camera, his hands clasped behind him, turning his head left to look at her. He wears a light green button-down shirt and light-wash blue jeans. The background shows a calm ocean under a soft, gradient sky that transitions from pale yellow near the horizon to a warm pink and purple hue.

210

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Okay, I’ll add my own answers to this prompt to my weekly-updated thread, though I hope these four don’t really need my push to be entered into the @bestalbumbrackets.bsky.social 1988 tournament as they’re al universally beloved classics, right?l

The cover to Living Colour’s 1988 album VIVID, which I’ve always taken as an early computer-art mish-mash of color and mostly-unidentifiable images. I am not feeling up to trying to identify and describe them all except to say it looks like if a floppy disk had a junk drawer in one corner and you opened it up to take a peek.

The cover to the 1988 Bangles album EVERYTHING featuring the four band members posing for a monochromatic photo together, surrounded by brown and green leaves and other vegetation with the band name in shimmering gold font above their heads.

Album cover for Head of David’s 1988 release DUSTBOWL; band and LP name are in a black typeface not dissimilar to an all-caps version of Papyrus emblazoned over a monochromatic (black and silvery-white) square photo of a sun peeking over sand dunes, most of it covered over by another, landscape-rectangular monochromatic photo of sand dunes, this time with two quasi-military, perhaps apocalyptic trucks driving over a flat section of desert in the foreground.

Cover to Tracy Chapman’s 1988 self-titled album, a monochromatic sepia tone photo of a head-and-shoulders Chapman looking downward with her name arranged sideways on the left side of the image.

271

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Day 13: Europeans directing US silents Repeat: Paul Leni brought his German expressionist touch to Universal, making Super-Jewel THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928). New: French pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché made the earliest surviving all-Black-cast comedy A FOOL AND HIS MONEY (1912) in her Fort Lee, NJ studio.

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928) was the second of just four horror and/or mystery films made by German director Paul Leni in Hollywood after Carl Laemmle lured him to Universal and before he died at age 44 of sepsis caused by a tooth infection, cutting short a very promising career. Neither Leni nor screenwriters J. Grubb Alexander, May McLean, Marion Ward or Charles E. Whitaker, nor original author Victor Hugo, have any films in the National Film Registry.

A black and white film still from the 1928 movie THE MAN WHO LAUGHS. The scene shows actor Conrad Veidt as the character Gwynplaine and actress Mary Philbin as Dea. Both look highly distressed. Veidt has wide, tragic eyes paired with a grotesque, exaggerated grin that permanently exposes his teeth. His hair is slicked back, and he tightly grips the collar of his loose tunic with both hands. Mary Philbin, featuring voluminous blonde ringlets, leans her head sadly against his shoulder with a downcast, empathetic facial expression.

A FOOL AND HIS MONEY (1912), thought lost until its rediscovery in 2000, is the earliest surviving Black-cast narrative film (as opposed to 1896's SOMETHING GOOD - NEGRO KISS, NFR entry from 2018, which is a short scene without a fully-developed comic plot) known to scholars. Most of its cast is as yet unidentified, but protagonist James Russell is the exception; as this is also his only known film, its selection to the Registry would naturally be his (and presumably the rest of the cast's) first. Director Alice Guy-Blaché's 1913 film MATRIMONY'S SPEED LIMIT was previously inducted in 2003.

Visual description: A black-and-white screen capture from the 1912 film A FOOL AND HIS MONEY. A Black man, played by James Russell as the character Sam Jones, sits at a small round table with a white tablecloth. He wears a dark formal suit, a white collared shirt, and a dark bowtie. He smiles warmly as he writes on a document with a dip pen, positioned near an inkwell on the table. Seated next to him is a Black woman playing his fiancée, Lindy. She smiles broadly, looking down at her hand, and wears a light-colored lace dress with a matching decorative floral headpiece or headband. They are positioned in front of a dark paneled wall with a decorative vase visible in the background.

141

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Day 12: Indie debuts about transit riders Repeat: Leslie Harris's JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE I.R.T. was a landmark film released wide on 200 US screens soon after its 1992 debut. New: Ryan Coogler's FRUITVALE STATION (2013) would be the first National Film Registry entry for most of its cast & crew.

JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE I.R.T. (1992), written, produced and directed by Leslie Harris, was the first film directed by an African-American woman to be given a wide theatrical release in the US. Neither Harris nor anyone else in the cast or crew has representation on the National Film Registry.

Image description: A screen capture from the 1992 independent movie JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE I.R.T. shows a young Black teenage girl standing inside a New York City subway station. The camera focus is sharply set on the background wall rather than the actress, leaving her figure in softer focus in the foreground. She stands in the center with her hands placed firmly on her hips, wearing early 1990s streetwear: a light green oversized T-shirt, black overalls, a thick black belt, a long necklace, and a gold bangle. On her head is a prominent, brightly colored floppy hat covered in a vibrant, multi-color abstract pattern. Directly behind her and sharply in focus is a white-tiled subway wall featuring a large, mosaic-style station sign. The sign reads "FLATBUSH AVE" in white block lettering against a dark red rectangular background. Below the sign, a thin black directional arrow points to the left across the wall.

FRUITVALE STATION (2013), which dramatized the tragic killing of Oscar Grant on an Oakland BART platform, could be the first National Film Registry entry for writer/director Ryan Coogler, cinematographer Rachel Morrison, composer Ludwig Göransson, and stars Michael B. Jordan and Melonie Diaz.

Image description: A close-up screen shot of actors Michael B. Jordan and Melonie Diaz from the film FRUITVALE STATION, smiling broadly while standing next to each other inside a train car, with a BART transit map visible on the wall behind them.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Day 11: films featuring Bay Area poets Repeat: BREATHING LESSONS: THE LIFE & WORK OF MARK O'BRIEN, earned director Jessica Yu the 1996 Best Documentary Short Oscar. Return: THE BRINK (1961), San Francisco Beat poet & Holocaust survivor ruth weiss's only film as director, adapted from her own poem.

BREATHING LESSONS: THE LIFE AND WORK OF MARK O'BRIEN (1996) profiles Berkeley poet, journalist and disability-rights activist Mark O'Brien, and inspired Ben Lewin to adapt one of O'Brien's articles into the feature film THE SESSIONS (2012). If inducted, BREATHING LESSONS would be writer/director/producer Jessica Yu's first Registry representation, as well as cinematographer Shana Hagan's.

Image description: A close-up, slightly high-angle shot from a documentary film showing a middle-aged man, Mark O'Brien, lying horizontally inside a yellow iron lung machine. His head rests on a blue and white striped towel outside the collar of the machine, with his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open. A clear plastic tube from a respiratory apparatus extends near his mouth, and a larger white corrugated tube connects to the machinery on the right side of the frame.

100

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Day 10: animation heroines Repeat: Indie animator Suzan Pitt is not yet represented in the National Film Registry. Is ASPARAGUS (1979) her likeliest? New: APPLE ANDY (1946) features work by the first woman in studio-era Hollywood to earn an animator credit, the also-un-Registried LaVerne Harding.

Suzan Pitt's ASPARAGUS (1979) is one of the classics of underground animation, preceding David Lynch's ERASERHEAD (NFR entry 2004) at many midnight screenings across the US. Pitt is as yet unrepresented on the Registry.

An interior shot of a heavily stylized, surreal theater from the animated film Asparagus. The large stage features a vibrant, colorful mural of a rushing blue waterfall flowing between rocky cliffs under a glowing sky. The theater walls are dark gray with undulating, wavy vertical pillars, while side walls display pink and white striped patterns adorned with black triangular shapes. Several small balconies along the upper right side host small, painted figures acting as an audience. In the foreground, dozens of miniature audience figures sit in neat rows of red theater seats, facing the illuminated stage.

APPLE ANDY is an Andy Panda cartoon released by the Walter Lantz cartoon studio in 1946, directed by Dick Lundy, co-written by Ben Hardaway and Milt Schaffer, and animated by Emery Hawkins and Laverne Harding, the only female animator working on mainstream cartoons in the Hollywood studio system at the time. It features a song called "Up Jumped the Devil", written by Darrell Calker, and a memorably nightmarish apple-feeding sequence. If inducted in the National Film Registry it would become the first Registry film produced by Lantz (though animation by Lantz is in the Registry via KING OF JAZZ, inducted in 2013) or directed by Lundy (though he'd previously worked on 1998 NFR entry STEAMBOAT WILLIE and 2007 NFR entry THE THREE LITTLE PIGS), and the first Registry appearance of any kind for Calker, Hardaway, Schaffer and Harding.

Image description: A screenshot from the 1946 Walter Lantz animated short APPLE ANDY. The scene features the cartoon panda character Andy Panda strapped securely into a small wooden seat attached to a long, grey pole by a thick grey strap. He wears a black long-sleeve sweater, red shorts, and large white gloves. His expression is one of worry or surprise, with wide eyes looking downward and an open mouth. He sits in a dimly lit cellar surrounded by large piles of dark green apples.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Day 9: documenting urban belonging Repeat: Curtis Choy's THE FALL OF THE I-HOTEL is the textbook film on the displacement of immigrant communities and grassroots organizing in the face of eviction. New: For KEDI, Boston U alum Ceyda Torun filmed the street cats & caretakers of her native Istanbul.

Though Curtis Choy has National Film Registry representation through his work as a sound recordist and mixer on Wayne Wang's CHAN IS MISSING (NFR entry 1995) & THE JOY LUCK CLUB (NFR entry 2020), his work as a director, writer, producer and editor has thus far been overlooked, and inducting his great 1983 documentary THE FALL OF THE I-HOTEL would rectify that.

Image description: A high-angle, color screen capture from Curtis Choy's 16mm film THE FALL OF THE I-HOTEL looking down Kearny Street in San Francisco, capturing a massive protest outside the International Hotel in the late 1970s. A prominent white rectangular sign with blue and red text reading "INTERNATIONAL HOTEL" hangs from the side of a brick building. The street below is packed with a dense crowd of demonstrators, and several era-appropriate cars, including a blue Volkswagen Beetle and a white sedan, are visible amidst the commotion. In the right foreground, people look out from an upper-floor window of an adjacent brick building toward the street protest below.

Ceyda Torun's KEDI, newly eligible to join the National Film Registry this year, ten years after its 2016 world premiere, would seem to be an unlikely choice to enter the Registry due to its setting in Türkiye, but it would be in line with past selections from American filmmakers focusing on non-American subjects, like EAUX D'ARTIFICE (NFR entry 1993), TRANCE AND DANCE IN BALI (NFR entry 1999) and FUJI (NFR entry 2002). KEDI is recorded as the third-highest-grossing foreign-language documentary in US box office history, and would be the first Registry representation for Torun, her crew and of course her adorable subjects.

Image description: An orange and white cat sits perched on a dark rooftop ledging, looking intently off to the right side of the frame against a soft lavender and purple twilight sky. Below and behind the cat, the expansive cityscape of Istanbul stretches into the distance, dotted with glowing warm streetlights, building silhouettes, and the distant dome and minarets of a large mosque.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Day 8: debut narratives about photography & self-destruction Repeat: Jerry Schatzberg's pivot from fashion photographer to feature filmmaker was PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD (1970). New: Lisa Cholodenko's first feature HIGH ART (1998) was, by contrast, set in New York's gallery and publishing world.

PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD (1970) was the feature filmmaking debut from fashion photographer Jerry Schatzberg, starring Faye Dunaway as a model experiencing burnout and working through trauma with a photographer played by Barry Primus. If selected for the National Film Registry it would be the first appearance for both Schatzberg and Primus.

Image description: A screen capture from the 1970 film PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD showing a man and a woman in a spare photography studio setting. The woman, played by Faye Dunaway, sits on the right facing forward. She has her hair styled in a 1960s-era voluminous updo, wears a large statement necklace and matching drop earrings, and is wrapped from the chest down in a white towel. Her right hand is raised to her neck, showing bright red fingernails. A man in a black tuxedo leans in from the left, bowing his head forward to press his lips against the right side of her neck. The scene is framed on both sides by large, black industrial photography studio lights pointed toward the couple, set against a solid, light grey background.

Writer-director Lisa Cholodenko got her start in the independent film world with her debut HIGH ART (1998) starring Radha Mitchell, Ally Sheedy and Patricia Clarkson as lesbians enmeshed in the New York photography scene and, to varying degrees, hard drug use. It would be the first Registry entry for Cholodenko, Mitchell, Clarkson, cinematographer Tami Reiker, editor Amy E. Duddleston, and composers Craig Wedren and Nathan Larson.

Image description: A medium close-up shot from a scene in the 1998 film HIGH ART shows actor Ally Sheedy inside a car, sporting short, dark hair and looking intently out a window while holding up a silver and black 35mm camera. Sheedy, wearing a bright orange collared shirt, holds the camera with both hands, positioned near her face as if preparing to take a photo. In the foreground, actor Radha Mitchell's face is visible but heavily blurred and out of focus. The background outside the car window shows a green, natural setting

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Day 7: the Western, critiqued & critic Repeat: In 1957 Puerto Rican artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz ritually destroyed a 16mm reduction of a Hollywood oater. Then he reassembled it as COWBOY & "INDIAN" FILM. Return: In 1954 Registry-absent Allan Dwan directed SILVER LODE as critique of HUAC madness.

COWBOY AND “INDIAN” FILM (1958) is an experimental collage film begun in 1957 and completed the same year as Bruce Conner's A MOVIE (NFR selected 1994) by Puerto Rican artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz; it would be his first Registry appearance.

Image description: A stark, high-contrast black-and-white film still framed within a wide black border. The upper half of the image is completely dark. A sharp, diagonal white beam of light cuts across the lower half, illuminating a group of dark silhouettes. These dark figures resemble cowboys or riders on horseback, but they are inverted upside down, appearing to hang beneath the line of light. Further to the right, a couple of softer, upright silhouettes on horseback fade into the darkness.

If inducted, 1954 film SILVER LODE would essentially be the first National Film Registry entry for at least three major Hollywood figures: its director Allan Dwan, almost inarguably the classic-era Hollywood auteur most glaringly absent from the Registry, its female lead Lizabeth Scott, and its cinematographer John Alton (although one film he worked on, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, did enter the Registry in 1993, he was not the main cinematographer on that film.)

Image description: A man and a woman in Western attire stand together inside a home, looking off-camera with tense, concerned expressions. The man on the left has dark hair and wears a light blue button-down shirt with a dark belt. The blonde woman on the right holds his arm, wearing a pink and white gingham dress with white ruffled lace trim. They stand in front of a window covered by white lace curtains, with trees visible outside in the background.

220

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Day 6: actors-turned-documentarians Repeat: Lee Grant's acting career was interrupted by blacklisting, later inspiring a string of activist docs launched with THE WILLMAR 8 (1981). Return: Shola Lynch, on Sesame Street as a girl, now directs films like FREE ANGELA & ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS (2012).

THE WILLMAR 8 (1981) is a documentary about a strike held in the dead of a rural Minnesota winter by bank employees whose pay and promotional opportunities had been stifled due to their gender. It was filmed by Lee Grant, who has yet to have anything she directed enter the Registry and is represented only by her acting performance in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (NFR selected 2002).

A vintage-color screen capture from Lee Grant’s 1981 documentary THE WILLMAR 8 shows a group of striking female bank employees holding a strategy meeting inside a cluttered, grassroots campaign office. Approximately six women are gathered closely around a dark wooden table, with most viewed from the back or side profiles. In the foreground left, a woman with bright blonde, voluminous hair wears a royal blue sweater, while to the right, a woman with short, textured light-grey hair wears a charcoal-grey long-sleeved shirt. The background wall functions as a chaotic bulletin board, covered completely with pinned sheets of paper, typed flyers, and informational documents. Mounted prominently on the far left wall is a large white poster board featuring bold, black, hand-painted block letters that read "ON" stacked directly above "STRIKE," serving as the focal point for the labor meeting.

FREE ANGELA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS (2012) is a documentary by Shola Lynch; neither Lynch nor the documentary subject Angela Davis are represented in the National Film Registry.

Image description: A screen shot of black-and-white archival footage cropped to 16x9 for the documentary FREE ANGELA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS featuring a close-up of political activist and academic Angela Davis standing next to a chalkboard. She looks toward the camera with a serious expression, showcasing her signature large afro hairstyle while wearing a dark top and a beaded necklace. On the dark chalkboard to her right, handwritten text in white chalk reads "Socio-economic."

160

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Day 5: frenemies Mark Twain & Bret Harte, adapted Repeat: Will Vinton's THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN (1985) could be Claymation's NFR debut. New: SALOMY JANE (1914) is the sole surviving feature from San Rafael's California Motion Picture Corporation & Venezuelan-American star Beatriz Michelena.

THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN (1985) Stop-motion feature film made by Oregon animator Will Vinton would be the first National Film Registry entry based on the writings of Mark Twain, as well as the first for Vinton and his studio (which was later transformed into Laika), writer Susan Shadburne or voice actor Michele Mariana.

Image description: A vibrant screen capture from Claymation feature THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN displays a cynical green clay-style frog sitting on a map labeled "CALAVERAS," surrounded by California Gold Rush iconography.

The frog features heavy, half-closed eyelids that give it a smug, cynical expression. It rests on an orange-brown parchment map featuring blue river lines and the word "CALAVERAS" spelled out in arched, dark-red letters. To the left of the frog is a gray panning dish overflowing with yellow gold nuggets, and to the right is a crossed shovel and pickaxe. Strong lighting from the upper left casts sharp shadows behind the frog, the raised lettering, and the borders, while industrial mechanical elements with screws and red nubs frame the bottom corners of the display.

SALOMY JANE (1914) was the debut feature from the California Motion Picture Company in San Rafael, as well as for its star Beatriz Michelena. It was also the first feature film credit for legendary cinematographer Hal Mohr. If inducted, it would be the first National Film Registry appearance for Michelena, for the California Motion Picture Company, for its directors William Nigh and Lucius Henderson, and for most of the rest of its cast and crew, as well as for its original author Bret Harte.

Image description: Screen capture from the 1914 silent film SALOMY JANE, showing actress Beatriz Michelena from the waist up as she stands in front of a massive coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) tree.

Michelena is positioned slightly off-center to the right, looking down and away from the camera with a subtle smile. Her dark, voluminous curly hair is piled in a 1910s style, and she wears a form-fitting gingham check dress featuring a wide, scalloped white collar. The background is completely filled by the deeply grooved, textured bark of the coast redwood trunk. To her left, a large, dark, vertical fire scar forms a hollow cavity at the base of the tree, creating a stark contrast with the rest of the forest scene.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Day 4: perception-changing non-fiction Repeat: The late Fred Wiseman's BLIND & DEAF SERIES would be a great Registry inclusion; his work with other cinematographers is in but nothing with John Davey. Return: Jeanne Liotta's OBSERVANDO EL CIELO, perhaps this century's greatest US experimental film?

BLIND AND DEAF SERIES a.k.a. DEAF AND BLIND SERIES (1986) is a four-part documentary (including titles BLIND, DEAF, MULTI-HANDICAPPED and ADJUSTMENT AND WORK) made by Frederick Wiseman and his most-frequent cinematographer John Davey at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Talladega, AL. Though Wiseman has several prior films in the Registry, none of his color work or his work with Davey or his longtime producer Karen Konicek, both of whom were mainstays of the better part of Wiseman's career, have been selected. Inducting this portrait of four distinct schools in the Institute (which sometimes are thought of as four separate films, though they were originally funded as one film, and filmed and released as a group) would provide a much more well-rounded section of Wiseman's quintessentially American filmography onto the Registry.

Image description: An eye-level photograph shows two teenage musicians rehearsing indoors in a scene from Frederick Wiseman's 1986 documentary BLIND. In the foreground, a Black youth looks slightly upward while blowing into a large white fiberglass sousaphone. He supports the brass valves with his right hand and has a concentrated expression. In the background, a white youth in a blue button-down shirt sits behind a drum kit, his mouth open as if counting the beat or singing along. The room is dimly lit, with dark furniture and musical equipment visible in the background.

OBSERVANDO EL CIELO (2007) is a 16mm film showing, through long-exposure takes shot across evenings in various US locations with optimal visibility of starlight, the rotation of the earth upon its axis. It makes an axiom of our life on Earth that is usually imperceptible into something visible. It would be the first National Film Registry for either its director and cinematographer Jeanne Liotta or her sound collaborator Peggy Ahwesh.

Image description: A large dome-shaped observatory building sits in the lower-left corner against a deep blue night sky filled with sharp, clear stars. Prominently visible in the dark expanse to the right of the dome are the stars forming the constellation Auriga, while the stars of Gemini occupy the upper sky to the left.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Post-MIFF hangover has mostly been stuff from that folk horror box set, plus a doc I could have lived without seeing but couldn’t be bothered to stop watching.

Letterboxd posters for We Always Find Ourselves in the Sea (2017), a John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office (2025), Our Selves Unknown (2016) and To Fire You Come At Last (2023).

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Day 3: fragmented identity narratives Repeat: Wendell B. Harris Jr's landmark independent film CHAMELEON STREET brilliantly fictionalized the true story of a Detroit con man. Return: It's been a bit since I nominated MULHOLLAND DRIVE, which would be David Lynch's second NFR entry after ERASERHEAD.

CHAMELEON STREET (1989) This Michigan-made Sundance prizewinner was the only narrative feature directed by Wendell B. Harris, Jr. Nobody involved in the film has prior National Film Registry representation.
Image description: A man with short dark hair and a few days' growth of stubble sits at a desk cluttered with open and stacked books inside a prison. He looks upward with a thoughtful or exasperated expression while holding a pair of glasses. In the background behind a barred prison cell partition, another inmate wearing a blue head covering grips the bars and looks toward him.

MULHOLLAND DR. (2001) would be the first National Film Registry entry for its stars Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, its composer Angelo Badalamenti, and its editor/producer Mary Sweeney.
Image description: A wide film still shot through a large round mirror shows two women with short blonde hair standing closely together in an indoor hallway. The woman on the left (Naomi Watts) wears a light blue sleeveless top and a pearl necklace, while the woman on the right (Laura Harring) wears a bright red top under a dark jacket. Both are looking forward with focused, slightly tense expressions.

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Day 2: non-theatrical Afro-masterpieces Repeat: Howardena Pindell's FREE, WHITE AND 21 is one of the best early forays of video art into the gallery world. New: My first of several newly-eligible nominations this year, LEMONADE also bypassed movie theatre showings but made a huge cinematic impact.

FREE, WHITE & 21 (1980) is a video performance piece interrogating a racist term found in several Hollywood films including FOOLISH WIVES (National Film Registry selected 2008) & I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (NFR selected 1991), made by Philadelphia-born artist Howardena Pindell, who has no prior NFR representation.

A still from the 1980 color video artwork FREE, WHITE AND 21 shows a Black woman, artist Howardena Pindell, looking directly at the camera with an open expression as if speaking. She has a short afro and wears a dark blue shirt against a solid, bright orange background. The image has the pixelated, slightly muted quality of early video art.

140

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Day 1: 1979-era auterism Repeat: THE WARRIORS because Walter Hill's only Registry representation is as ALIEN screenwriter; it's time for one of the films he directed to make it in. New: HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER'S APOCALPYSE; it would be the first for Eleanor Coppola OR for a making-of doc!

A line of eight young male actors from the 1979 film "The Warriors" stands closely together, facing forward with serious, intense facial expressions. They are dressed in matching brown, sleeveless leather vests worn over bare chests. The character on the far right is in sharp focus in the foreground, while the other gang members stretch back into a softly blurred, dimly lit urban background.

A medium shot of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and his wife Eleanor Coppola standing outdoors against a backdrop of dense green foliage. Francis, on the left, wears a yellow graphic t-shirt, a light-colored baseball cap, sunglasses, and has a full, thick beard. Eleanor stands to the right, looking intently off-camera with a serious expression; she has short dark hair and wears a long-sleeved bright green shirt.

260

Brian Darr @hellonfriscobay.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Crunched the numbers some more (tossing out the oldest three since the seeding was done so differently) to discover round 2 has had fewer upsets proportionally than any other round. This chart shows the range of upset percentages each round, and the overall percentage for each round over time.

Round 1: 6% (1991) - 27% (2000) / 15%
Round 2: 6 (1998) - 19 (Nineties) / 13%
Round 3: 6 (1998) - 25 (1999) / 14%
Round 4: 0 (1990, 93) 50 (1999) / 20%
Round 5: 0 (many) - 75 (1999) / 18%
R 6: 0 (most) 50 (89, 90, 92, 93) / 18%
R 7: 0 (1990, 92, 93) - 50 (most) / 36%