iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 5m

I opened up Netflix and was served a clip from the Nate Bargatze movie in which the joke is he’s too dumb to buy eggs because there are so many choices in 2026 and I guess I want him to fall into a deep hole

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 12h

This is my fourth year of programming the Film Fest Knox American Regional Cinema Competition, and it was never more difficult to select only five. This lineup represents, I hope, the great quality and diversity of work being made right now--at all budgets and in various modes of production.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Aaron Sorkin looks like Peter Sellers in The Party. Apologies if that combination of words and images offends.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I want Dems to win both house of Congress for so many reasons and one of them is to give Jack Smith a damn break.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This really is quite a scene! Schmitt is furious by the end of it, I assume because one of his staffers is an idiot who fed him a bad "gotcha." It sure is fun watching an arrogant schmuck be humiliated by a woman colleague.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A filmmaker who had regained theatrical rights to one of his films informed me recently that he had "no materials" -- meaning no print, no DVD, no nothing. I then told him, somewhat sheepishly, that I had a pretty good file I'd found on KG. I'm guessing all programmers have stories like this.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

“We always knew that you, the Americans, would realize, one day, that you fought on the wrong side!” - a French woman to James Baldwin, ca. 1953

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I guess mine would look something like this. 10. The Pitt 9. Friday Night Lights 8. Mad Men 7. Gilmore Girls 6. Top Chef 5. Deadwood 4. Andor 3. The Great British Baking Show 2. Twin Peaks: The Return 1. The Wire

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I've been listening to "guilty pleasure" music all day (this is @leegee.bsky.social's fault), which brought me, inevitably, to Throwing Copper by Live, and it's interesting how, in hindsight, this whole album is basically a butt rock cover of "Bullet the Blue Sky." www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBrj...

youtube.com

Live White Discussion 16:9 HQ Audio

YouTube video by them0rus

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This guy is running a 2024 general campaign. Does he honestly think it'll work in the 2028 Dem primary?

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

We should all use this as our email signatures for the rest of the year.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

A couple lesser-discussed high points of TIFF: At Night (Beatrice Gibson) Pelechian Project (but especially End and and The Seasons) Marie Madeleine (Gessica Généus) Dau (Ilya Khrzhanovsky) Nobody's Violence (Denis Côté) The World Before (Yoon Dan-bi) The Black Box is Orange (Yuula Benivolski)

letterboxd.com

All films tagged ‘tiff26’ by Darren Hughes

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Why am I the only film nerd at the world premiere of NEIL PEART: NO ONE’S DISCIPLE?!

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

“She’s a narcissistic bitch!” — Well-dressed 60-something woman talking way too loudly on her phone on the packed train. “Get out of my way!” — The same woman, 30 seconds later, being a narcissistic bitch to everyone on the packed train. Be the change you want to see in the world?

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

This is my 21st TIFF (!) and I can’t remember a worse day of film options. It’s 6:45, I’m in a rush line for something I’m not excited about, and so far today I’ve made it through one film — that was fine. I wanna be on the “movies are back baby!” train, but this is bleak.

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Reposted by Darren Hughes

Adrian Daub @adriandaub.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I’ve heard of brain drain, but what do you call it when someone is trying to purposefully drain their own brain?

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

TIFF gives and it takes. Sometimes you walk into a screening on a whim and levitate with the excitement of discovery (Gessica Geneus’s MARIE MADELEINE); sometimes you see the most incoherent visual strategy ever employed in a run-of-the-mill European marriage drama (Anna Foglieta’s A COMMON STORY).

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The awesome, perpetually happy woman who is always stationed at the bottom of the Scotiabank escalator gave me a big smile and said “I remember you!” TIFF should upgrade my badge or give me extra vouchers or something for my veteran status.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I'm gonna keep posting this until y'all accept it's a perfect meme.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson are for me what Kenneth Lonergan is to y’all.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The spread for UT’s game today was 48.5. They won by 47. The over/under for total points was 66.5. The final count was 65. Why does anyone gamble?

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I made the mistake just now of turning on S2E1 of The Wire and now the next month of my life is accounted for.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The Film Fest Knox program has, after several stressful weeks, fallen into place, and I'm very excited about it. This might sound corny af, but take my advice and go build something cool in your community. It might take a while, it'll probably suck at first, but do it anyway.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I had a sudden, decades-old flashback to visiting the tiny Ozark town where my dad grew up, and it only took a few seconds to navigate through it on street view and find the house where he and his sisters were raised. I swear I can smell bacon frying in this picture.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I’m ready to go to Toronto.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Remember that Lewis Black joke about how he once overheard a woman say, "If it wasn't for that horse I never would've gone to college," and how sentences like that worm their way into our brains and eventually give us cancer? We're all going to die of Trump-era idiocy. Unavoidable at this point.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Ridley Scott has achieved a nearly perfect “meh” bell curve.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

"Oh dear, the world has gotten so terribly, terribly old." - Prior Walter This is the bleakest worldview I can imagine.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Guys, I found it. The worst song. (Discovered while looking up who's playing at the county fair.)

youtube.com

Tucker Wetmore - Yours (Official Lyric Video)

YouTube video by Tucker Wetmore

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Is it possible that Yes guitarist Steve Howe is the least attractive person?

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

At the mall on a Saturday afternoon and am genuinely happy to report it’s still a suburban melting pot of tweens, neurodiversity, and queerness, as god intended.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

No shade on Tweedy, but 30 years later, I think I'm a Farrar guy at heart. The new Son Volt is really nice.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Aaron Douglas's "Aspiration" at the De Young in 2007. I was primed for the experience by being obsessed at the time with Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

My favorite two bands of the last decade are trying to put on a small tour. They explain here why the only way to make it feasible is to be sponsored by Fractured Atlas and to operate, essentially, as a small arts non-profit.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The hits to higher education have been precisely targeted and effective, and they're doing generational damage.

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Reposted by Darren Hughes

Daniel Radosh @radosh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Republicans have spent the last year trying to defund Dolly Parton

article about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Indiana

article about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Kentucky

article about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Missouri

iarticle about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Washington

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Y'all know about Imagination Library, right? Every kid born in TN gets a free book every month for five years because Dolly Parton wanted a practical solution to illiteracy in Appalachia.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

The cops stop Spider-Man from beating up the fascists. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Is it possible to program a movie ironically? I just watched a submission that I find totally fascinating for reasons I’m sure would come as a total surprise to everyone involved with making it.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

The best non-German motorik groove is Kenny Jones on “Eminence Front,” the best song by The Who. This is not up for debate.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I hope Martin Donovan has been able to put aside a little nest egg. I hate to think of 69yo Donovan worrying about money. That guy has only done good work.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

No mention of the fact that Dan Quayle has been a leader at Cerberus since 1999. He's remembered as being dumb rather than evil-in-all-the-predictable-ways, which he probably hates.

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Darren Hughes @longpauses.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Post two characters who bring you happiness. Here’s a few from me

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