iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 3h

Gamers who are also parents: is SEKIRO worth $30 if I can only play it in short bursts over a period of weeks or even months? I am a huge FromSoft fan but also have not attempted a first playthrough of one of their games since having kids.

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 16h

I'm a White Sox fan mostly by default (I hate the Cubs, so the Sox are the only hometown team left), but if anything is going to turn me into a true fan, it's the experience of cheering for a team that has the power of the Pope, Christ's Vicar, on its side

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🎃 ~hanni~ 🎃 @saffronscarf.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

well well well, if it isn’t ol’

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

ICYMI, Seeing & Believing has been running @dodgyboffin.com's TIFF recap all week. The third and final installment went up today. Sarah did an incredible job putting this together, and she shines a spotlight on so many worthy films, big and small. seeingandbelieving.substack.com/p/the-2026-t...

seeingandbelieving.substack.com

The 2026 Toronto International Film Festival Issue #3: Discoveries & Premieres

We return one more time to our 2026 TIFF coverage.

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Jaya Saxena @jayasaxena.com · 25/09/2026

Wait you guys are getting job interviews?

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James Poniewozik @poniewozik.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

But the show I want to single out—the one on my personal 10-shows ballot that did not make the list at all—is this beautiful, and apparently now largely forgotten, creation. Do yourself a favor and seek it out. (86 Ted Lasso to make room for it.) www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/a...

nytimes.com

In ‘Rectify,’ Life After Prison and the Chance to Be Reborn (Gift Article)

The final season of the SundanceTV series uses deep Christian themes in telling the story of an ex-convict who is unequipped for freedom.

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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

A program where you get an extra five days a year off from work no questions asked to pursue some hobby but you’re exhaustively banned from going online at any point on those days

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Martyn Wendell Jones @martynwendell.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

for best results, use Real Martyn™

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This essay is excellent. I hope many, many people carefully read and mull over it, even as I'm positive that way too many people will take it as an excuse to loudly demonstrate their ignorance about ... a whole lot of things.

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Martyn Wendell Jones @martynwendell.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Read @philipchristman.bsky.social's beautiful sendoff to the truly great Annie Dillard, "a Transcendentalist to whom the 20th century had happened." sojo.net/articles/opi...

sojo.net

The Pilgrimage of Annie Dillard

The celebrated author, who passed away this week, had two great themes: seeing and suffering.

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Sarah Welch-Larson @dodgyboffin.com · 15/09/2026

And that’s it for the festival—I fly out today. Full coverage coming this weekend from seeingandbelieving.substack.com

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Sarah Welch-Larson @dodgyboffin.com · 15/09/2026

#TIFF26 day five: Prima Facie - the only movie I actively hated this year Once Upon a Time in Harlem - grateful for the opportunity to be a fly on the wall The Debut - funny, surprising, God I love Paul Giamatti. Has a gag with a cigarette that *kills* Look Back - lovely way to close out the fest!

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Sarah Welch-Larson @dodgyboffin.com · 11/09/2026

#TIFF26 day one is in the can: watched ALL OF A SUDDEN, FJORD, and WILD HORSE 9. Good way to kick off a festival! So far every movie I’ve seen deals with different flavors of frustration, which for my money is much more interesting than grief right now

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

What's an example of perfect casting?

JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson from the first Raimi Spider-Man movie. He is standing in front of a window with his hands on his hips, snarling something around a cigar clenched between his teeth. Only JK Simmons could have portrayed this moment with such perfection, such clarity.

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Joshua Rothkopf @joshuarothkopf.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

What happened inside Telluride's secret screening? A meta new Elizabeth Holmes documentary, a fun Q&A moderated by Emma Stone and, for the departing audience, another secret to keep. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

latimes.com

What happened inside Telluride’s secret screening of Nathan Fielder’s new Elizabeth Holmes documentary

“You Can See Everything,” co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, offers extraordinary access to the convicted Theranos founder before taking a reality-bending turn.

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

These days, I often clutch at the following poem like a life preserver. RIP Wendell Berry, the world is a little bit brighter for having your words in it.

The Wendell Berry poem "A Discipline":

Turn toward the holocaust, it approaches
on every side, there is no other place
to turn. Dawning in your veins
is the light of the blast
that will print your shadow on stone
in a last antic of despair
to survive you in the dark.
Man has put his history to sleep
in the engine of doom. It flies
over his dreams in the night,
a blazing cocoon. O gaze into the fire
and be consumed with man’s despair,
and be still, and wait. And then see
the world go on with the patient work
of seasons, embroidering birdsong
upon itself as for a wedding, and feel
your heart set out in the morning
like a young traveler, arguing the world
from the kiss of a pretty girl.
It is the time’s discipline to think
of the death of all living, and yet live.

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I am sorry for using this exchange to hop on this particular hobbyhorse of mine, but Cottle's self-serving revisionist BS here is exactly the sort of thing that makes linguistic prescriptivists pull our hair out when talking to descriptivists

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nonfics.bsky.social @nonfics.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

On this date in 2014, 'The Look of Silence' premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Watch it now on Kanopy, Tubi, or Prime Video, and read our interview with director Joshua Oppenheimer about the documentary and his immersive filmmaking here: buff.ly/3jk9TFH

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

If we're talking about proper books (focused volumes produced by individuals rather than teams of writers), then it has to be Susan Cooper's THE GREY KING. In a way, all my reading, watching, and writing has been chasing after the feeling I got from the ending of that book.

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I had an Usborne book that summarized a bunch of Greek and Norse myths, which I read cover to cover so many times. It prepared the soil for everything I read afterward.

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David M Rubin @six18sfoundry.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

First poems. Denise Levertov 1940. Very apt for this corner of Bluesky: flowers & birds #poetrysunday

Listening to Distant Guns
The roses tremble; oh, the sunflower's eye Is opened wide in sad expectancy.
Westward and back the circling swallows fly, The rooks' battalions dwindle near the hill.
That low pulsation in the east is war:
No bell now breaks the evening's silent dream.
The bloodless clarity of evening's sky
Betrays no whisper of the battle-scream.
1940

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Joseph Fahim @josephfahim.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

A penetrating study of the moral price of what happens when a divided place and people decide to move on. Reverberates beyond Germany and World War II. Pawlikowski's most affecting and least fatalistic film to date, and my favorite of his. youtu.be/-I2-X9v-ogs?...

youtu.be

FATHERLAND | Official Trailer | Only in Theaters October 23

YouTube video by MUBI

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

look, they just *really* love Nazi Germany, okay

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Fortunately, I recently moved on from Resident Evil 4 to Ori and the Will of the Wisps, so now instead of being brutally decapitated by centipede/lampreys erupting from the necks of cultists, I can just hang out with my lemur pals. Maybe go fishing in the cerulean waters of the nearby forest pond

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Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Lincoln! In The Bardo

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Finally caught up with THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER last night. Between it and THE ODYSSEY, 2026 seems to be a big year for period epics that wrestle with cultures of violence and whether it's possible even for the powerful to break those cycles without a radical realignment of ethics.

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HEALTH @health.band · 15/08/2026

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Patrick Monahan @pattymo.com · 16/08/2026

The Songwriter from UNDER THE SILVER LAKE has joined the MCU.

The Songwriter from UNDER THE SILVER LAKE. An old guy at a piano. One of the most memorable scenes/concepts in a movie in recent years, to me

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Pretty striking contrast btwn the Luhmanns and @ericlipton.nytimes.com (the NYT's "ya gotta hand it to Karoline Leavitt" guy). Sure seems like a couple of Midwestern teens have a clarity of purpose and awareness of the gravity of our present moment that are completely beyond many established journos

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Netrunner! Rival corporations and rival super-hackers, all at one another's throats in various permutations in a cyberpunk LA that is home to a literal elevator to the moon.

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

"Goebbels is actually pretty chill once you get to know him! Always ready to lend a hand if you have a question about something"

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

We Tolkien fans occasionally indulge in condescension toward fans of other fantasy works, but at least those people don't have to share their fandom with dopey tech bros like this

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

"I don't know the full royal lineage of all three rival houses." "...You don't KNOW?" "The story only covers the years after the flowering of the Realm-yew, it doesn't go all the way back to-" *breaks nose with hardcover edition of The Silmarillion* "START AGAIN!"

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The worst I can think of is Don DeLillo's THE SILENCE. Had to apologize to the rest of my book club for selecting that one when it was my month.

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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Iranian cleric honestly a little let down to discover the United States is actually an Indecisive and Middling at Best Satan.

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Sarah Welch-Larson @dodgyboffin.com · 31/07/2026

Delighted to be returning to TIFF for Seeing & Believing this September!

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Don't make me tap the sign, Odyssey discussers

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Tobey Maguire sighing irritably before pulling on his tights one more time

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RogerEbert.com @ebertvoices.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

As the Lake Street Screening Room shutters its doors, Richard Roeper offers a tribute to the iconic movie watching space, citing memories of watching films with Siskel & Ebert:

rogerebert.com

A Home Away from Home: Goodbye to the Lake Street Screening Room

A loving ode to a place that shaped Chicago film criticism.

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Wolfgang Petersen's TROY is annoying for many reasons, but the one that sticks in my craw is that it has the perfect Odysseus in Sean Bean and then completely wastes him. Lightning in a bottle, and Petersen just uses it to grill a burger.

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I really liked Nolan's ODYSSEY and disagree with a lot of Emily Wilson's critiques of it, but my main takeaway from her piece is that she thinks a Robert Eggers version would have been way better, which I can't argue with

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Emily St. James @emilystjams.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Me: *smiling politely as the cashier rings up my groceries* Servo, singing: Emily at the store. Buying her groceries. Crow: Six individual yogurt cups _and_ a Diet Sunkist? Sounds like a party! Mike: Back in Minnetonka, we call that the Spinster’s Delight. Me: *gesturing for the cashier to hurry up*

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

*crashes through wall like the Kool Aid Man* Who's ready for some Balrog Discourse!!

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Kevin McLenithan @mclengthyname.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

People with a very specific childhood will immediately hear the line delivery and music in their heads, crystal-clear. The suckiest of Proustian madeleines

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Sarah Welch-Larson @dodgyboffin.com · 18/07/2026

Ancient Greek stories are about inevitability. A perfect fit for Nolan's preoccupations with time and duty. I loved THE ODYSSEY. Review here:

seeingandbelieving.substack.com

The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan makes the ancient feel immediate.

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