iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 2h

Going year by year in the 40s and 50s and I think it’s safe to say 1950 is the nadir of horror cinema. Here’s Letterboxd’s list for the year sorted by popularity. It’s a wasteland. Shorts, cartoons, tv shows, a whole lot of nothing.

A list of horror movies and shorts, a Mexican film called The Man Without A Face is the only “real movie here. There’s a Tex Avery cartoon some terrible Abbott and Costello rip off called Tomb Itmay Concern, something called Spooky Wooky. Not much.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Tonight’s European/UK post-war horror movie was Daughter Of Darkness (1948) which felt connected to The VVitch. It’s about a young woman in a small village who women hate but men are interested in and she’s treated as a threat until maybe she becomes one. Under 500 logs on Letterboxd.

Original movie poster for DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS with a woman in a green dress with a sultry pose and lots of people glaring at her. Would it shock you to know this is a bit exaggerated compared to the movie?

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Rewatched The VVitch tonight. I like that Eggers understands almost all stories about the past are horror stories. Even before things get real bad they’re reminiscing about glass windows and apples. Things were so rough that Satan’s opening pitch is about butter.

Thomasin holding a lantern wonder what fresh hell awaits her this time

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The home invasion scene in E.T. when the mom is running around the house but they’re surrounded. I would have been pretty young so I think the idea of your home being vulnerable really scared me.

A faceless man in what’s basically a spacesuit opening a closet door. There’s nowhere you can hide in your own home!

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Say what you want about his politics, but at least Greg Stillson could hold up a kid. Vivek really is useless at everything.

Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson in the movie The Dead Zone holding up a toddler.

On a side note, not a week has gone by in 11 years that I don’t think of this movie.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“It was September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason.” Ray Bradbury - The October Country

An orangish cloud and a tree with orange leaves

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is why I never board haunted ghost ships, avoids time slips. Incredible movie, Jenkins does it again. Looks and feels like a 70s BBC documentary and keeps you as unsteady as the two deckhands getting their sea legs. Really enjoyed this podcast discussion, now it’s already time for a rewatch.

Shot of the titular shipping boat as it heads out of port past a lighthouse.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Another good Safari Inn Sunset™️ tonight.

The iconic Safari Inn sign in all its mid century glory with a nice sunset and silhouetted palms

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Thinking of Connor Senn today. Feels impossible that he’s been gone for 25 years now. Felt impossible then too.

Connor playing soccer in his OSU jersey. He was a freshman walk on back in 2001. Then in a game he collapsed on the field and never recovered. Turns out he had a congenital heart defect, all those years, all those games, this was the one where it betrayed him. AEDs were hardly a thing then. Now many states require AEDs at all sporting events.
We played together on multiple club teams, then against each other in high school. Always liked him, and he was a hell of a good soccer player.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

My brother and I were talking horror movies and he pointed out its odd given their fascination with crime and noir that the French New Wave directors didn’t make any horror. And he’s right, it’s pretty much a blank. But I did find Juliet Dans Paris (1967) a beautifully shot horror short…

Juliet, the main character wearing sunglasses and smiling as tears of blood streak down her cheeks. Honestly this might be the perfect reaction meme for 2026. If you ask me how I’m doing and I send you this, know things are pretty fucked up.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I don’t know if we’re going to make it, on a civilizational level if bakeries have to put this on their cake box. “We know you want to, but please don’t fling it at someone.” This was a $50 cake! Not some Wal-Mart slop.

Side of a cake box that pleads “Do not throw cake and or the pad at anyone as serious accidents may occur.”

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Pablo Maurer’s “We’ll Be Right Back” clips, Wayne Rooney’s assist set to Baker Street.

Deuce making a face during a US game against Jamaica

Cosmo the Galaxy mascot with a sign saying It’s Called Soccer as Jose Mourinho walks past

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It’s too bad Jack Torrance is such a bad guy cause that corduroy jacket is sweet as hell, but he’s ruined it for casual wear. At least the burgundy but maybe it would be ok in navy or a nice hunter green?

Jack Torrance from The Shining in a killer workwear outfit, jeans, boots a plaid flannel shirt and that nice jacket.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

10 Best is boring, I assume you know about Mad Men and 30 Rock if you’re on Bluesky. So heres 10 favorites, shows that felt like they were made for me in particular. If Veep is too obvious, switch it with Look Around You.

Review (the episode where he goes to space with Fred Willard might the be funniest 20 minutes of tv)
The Leftovers
Patriot
Veep
I Think You Should Leave
Sealab 2021
Lodge 49
Detectorists
The Americans
Twin Peaks The Return

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Congratulations! I’ve got my copy ordered.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Sure it’s 85 degrees but if you ignore that and squint a little it’s starting to feel like autumn.

A sycamore tree with yellowish green leaves.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Same gas station, what a difference 9 months a war in the Middle East can make!

Gas station from google street view in December 2025 showing regular gas is $4.33 a gallon

Same gas station and regular is now $6.09 and that’s the cash price!

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Backrooms (2026) I loved the backrooms, didnt need the parts in the real world. There’s a 90 minute version of this movie that’s fantastic. But the production design is incredible. Curious to see what the director does next.

Part of the back rooms with a stop sign but the word is mirrored

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Having slept on it, I think I like Miracle Mile even more. What a strange movie, no wonder it bombed in theaters. But I like the little heightened reality touches, the rats in the palm tree, the coyote inside the diner, very LA. Great soundtrack by Tangerine Dream too.

A coyote inside a diner eating scraps while an elderly woman sits at the counter unaffected.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

We watched Miracle Mile (1988) and I’m so glad I didn’t know anything going into it. Wow. Its like the director saw After Hours and said “I’ll show you one crazy night.”The grandparents who go to Canters are the only reasonable people in the whole movie. Loved all the LA locations.

The two main characters whose name I forget standing in front of Johnnies Coffee Shop which is still there on the Miracle Mile.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Yep, AI companies are trying to change the old IBM quote and hope we don’t notice.

A COMPUTER
CAN NEVER BE HELD RESPONSIBLE

THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST
MAKE ALL MANAGEMENT DECISIONS

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

USMNT pundits when a 21 year old American starts getting steady but unspectacular Bundesliga minutes:

Andy from Toy Story dropping Woody saying “I don’t want to play with you anymore.”

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Strange Angel by George Pendle is a great book on Parsons. He was a fascinating guy. As a teen Jack would talk on the phone for hours with Werner Von Braun long distance in Germany. When he first met Marjorie Cameron he thought she was an elemental summoned by his magick. People contain multitudes!

Book cover of Strange Angel the otherworldly life of rocket scientist Jack Parsons by George Pendle

I heard it got turned into a streaming series but I haven’t seen it.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Something’s going on here. First, the new The War On Drugs video is basically Adam doing a late night walking tour of Burbank, and now Oasis posts breakfast burrito spot Corner Cottage. What does it mean?

Latest cryptic Oasis video featuring a pick up truck and Corner Cottage, a Burbank institution

Adam walking past Monte Carlos, an old school Italian market and counter restaurant

That’s clearly the window of Playclothes Vintage on Magnolia here in Burbank.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Just spent 4 minutes outside and you can call me Bobby Hill…

Bobby in his seersucker suit saying “Because this flower is wiltin’.”

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Betty Gilpin had the Emmy wrapped up as soon as she delivered this line. Her episode of Widow’s Bay is my favorite folk horror movie of the year.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Had a nice hike up the Arroyo Seco last night, it’s been so hot I hadn’t been able to really get outdoors for weeks. This is one of the few shady trails, and walking along the stream is so relaxing. Getting outside, pretty good. It’s still early for migratory birds, but I did see a California quail

A coastal oak, with its leaves lit by autumnal sunlight

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Isn’t it? Here’s maybe my favorite of his, published only last fall in the New Yorker, which is remarkable by itself. Content warning: violence, it stabs you in the heart and you may not want to read it in public.

The Loved Ones

The loved ones we call the dead
depart from us and for a while
are absent. And then as if
called back by our love, they come
near us again. They enter our dreams.
We feel they have been near us
when we have not thought of them.
They are simply here, simply waiting
while we are distracted among
our obligations. At last
it comes to us: They live now
in the permanent world.
We are the absent ones.

Wendell Berry

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Your Wendell Berry for this morning…

When I rise up
let me rise up joyful
like a bird.

When I fall
let me fall without regret
like a leaf.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Look, I loved it when I was a kid too and it’s not the author’s fault, but this book has a lot to answer for.

The cover of the kids book THE TRUE STORY OF THE 3 LITTLE PIGS by A. Wolf.

I think this was a lot of people’s my age first exposure to the “maybe the villain had a point” kind of thing we see all the time now. And it was clever then but tiresome now.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Now may the grace of death be upon him, his spirit blessed in deep song of the world and stars turning, the seasons returning, long rest.

Requiem
Wendell Berry

In memory of our dear friend Roger, departed this life nearly one year ago.
And as always, for you, my beloved dad.

I.
We will see no more
the mown grass fallen behind him
on the still ridges before night,
or hear him laughing in the crop rows,
or know the order of his delight.

Though the green fields are my delight,
elegy is my fate. I have come to be
survivor of many and of much
that I love, that I won't live to see
come again into this world.

Things that mattered to me once
won't matter any more,
for I have left the safe shore
where magnificence of art
could suffice my heart.

2.
In the day of his work
when the grace of the world
was upon him, he made his way,
not turning back or looking aside,
light in his stride.

Now may the grace of death
be upon him, his spirit blessed
in deep song of the world
and stars turning, the seasons
returning, long rest.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

A sequoia has fallen. Even at 92, Berry had such a feeling of permanence that this feels like a shock. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

The Peace Of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Ok, the grocery store is just mocking me at this point. It’s 100 degrees right now! I love all things autumn but come on.

An assortment of pumpkins and gourds like it’s a crisp October afternoon

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

We put on 9 to 5 cause why not and it’s funny how many people pretend MeToo started in 2020. Feels like every 10 years we invent a new term for not being an asshole, PC, woke, etc. Does threatening to shoot your boss’s dick off count as an attempted cancellation?

Dolly saying “I say we hire a couple of wranglers to go upstairs and beat the shit out of him.”
Imagine if they did this in a movie today!

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

You can just buy your own Pizza Hut cups and no one can stop you. Makes Coke taste 27% better.

Red plastic cup with a pebbled surface just like the ones Pizza Hut used to have.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Watched RABBIT TRAP (2025) it really straddles the line between dark folk tale and folk horror. Great set and sound design. Fantastically creepy kid. A good addition to the “evil sounds” genre with All You Need Is Death or Black Circle or The Shout, which also has a guest who just won’t leave.

Dev Patel, listening to some upsetting sounds.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I appreciate how HOKUM (2026) leans into Adam Scott’s kinda an asshole onscreen vibe. Lots of movies are afraid to make their protagonist a jerk.

Adam Scott in a dumbwaiter, there’s nothing good down there bud,

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

If there’s an afterlife, I hope trebuchet guy and Pompeii guy can form some kind of support group for each other.

Skeleton in Pompeii with a giant boulder where the head should be.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, Burbank is movie city, ain’t got time for books.

Old school library check out card, showing the last time this book was checked out was Sept 13, 1958

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

If you need me, I’ll be fonduing with cheddar

Poster for the 25th anniversary screening of WHAS with a cast q and a

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Speaking of seasons that come earlier and earlier, guess it’s Watch Duty season now. At least this is a smaller one.

A small brushfire in the Verdugo Mountains

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

It’s already time for LA’s pizza boxes to become Emmy FYC ads. Feels like it comes earlier and earlier every year.

A pizza box but instead of advertising Prime Pizza it’s an ad for Only Murders In The Building and celebrating its 5 Emmy noms

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

It’s still going strong and they have a car show every Friday night.

The giant neon sign in front of the Bob’s Big Boy on Riverside. Not quite the same as 1953, but the spirit remains the same. I have a bunch of shots of this sign, but this particular one is from the day David Lynch died. Already an impromptu memorial had formed around the base of the Big Boy statue.

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Happy THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS Day! Looks like old Ray was off by a couple weeks.

First pages of the Ray Bradbury short story August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains, which is about an automated house going through its routine despite all the humans being dead from nuclear fallout. It takes place on August 4, 2026

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Michael Morrison @michaelmorrison.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Thank god the shark kept malfunctioning in the original, best thing that ever happened to Spielberg. This one is stuck between wanting to be “serious” like the first one and a teen creature feature. Is it me or did they make this kid up to look like a certain director?

A teenage boy with longish hair a billed cap and glasses reading a book. Looks a ton like a young Steven Spielberg.

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