gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Tell me when they get to Djuna Barnes. I could go for a Goodnight Wood. Assuming it has nice drawings and no big words just like the Moon book. 121
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 19/09/2026ah, well, all's good then. jerk c'mon be more forthcoming with them, or fifthcoming even... 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 13/09/2026You gotta remember that, at a certain point, abstraction can becomes purely non-representational and lose all connection with reality. I myself frequently find I fall back to purely gestural considerations as a response to this. 011
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 05/09/2026The Welles thing is bad enough, but people will write that off to "just doing his job", so don't forget to add how Wise fucked over Val Lewton, of all people, which effectively ended the career of a far more important artist. The Wikipedia snippet's the basics, the effect on Lewton more brutal. 020
Reposted by gregorNicolas Leblanc @ngrl.bsky.social · 17/07/2026Here is a worthwhile read: substack.com/home/post/p-...substack.comOn the decline of sumptuousness in cinemaPart 2: Polyester, Pink Floyd and props. 032
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 05/07/2026Oh, please, I'd welcome the Andrews Sisters instead of that. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/07/2026I'd argue that almost no one actually really believes that as being true except in conditions where the thing they like, without clear conception of why, is being questioned or compared to another work or set of works with some standard of thought behind the response. It's a bluff to avoid thinking. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Impeccable read of the audience by Kael. Yep, the audiences of 1978 sure did hate blood and violence. Total softies. Even the kids movies were softer than usual that year. 020
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/05/2026Unfortunately, long screenshots, or whatever that is, won't render fully so it just looks like a Klingon diatribe or some such. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/05/2026And, fine, if you're gonna make a big deal about it. I posted some music, but given my interests, I doubt it will make people complain less about the place... 100
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/05/2026The second is from Iris ter Schiphorst who turned 70 last week and is still kicking ass. There's a lot of other works to explore from both composers that can be found online as well. Definitely worth looking into. youtu.be/nnLw2s6pWw0?...youtu.beIris ter Schiphorst: Ballade für Orchester: HUNDERT KOMMA NULLYouTube video by the really good friends 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/05/2026Since some people are griping about how there isn't enough posting going on, here are a couple videos by composers who had birthdays last week. The first is from Sarah Gibson who died from cancer in 2024 at the stupidly young age of 38. A terrible loss. youtu.be/m-hHbGPtQQc?...youtu.beSoak Stain by Sarah GibsonYouTube video by Chicago Center For Contemporary Composition 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 25/05/2026Funny that it seems to be the feature that constantly updates the feed that people miss most, which is the feature that leads to doomscrolling and is the addictive element of these kinds of sites. It's not fun if it isn't keeping me from doing other things apparently. 100
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 10/05/2026Oh, sure, there are those within academia who dabble with papers on these things and speak about them from outside a dedicated discipline devoted to the studies. That many of those also are influencers, youtubers, or whatnot just shows how lawless this all is without rigorous academic standards. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 10/05/2026The cultural riches being left untapped by universities is astounding. I haven't seen a Podcast canon, noticed any talk of getting a degree in Tiktokology, or Social Media Bot Studies, lack of Influence Departments is more of the same. Providing scholarly qualifications would surely benefit us all. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 11/04/2026For whatever that might be worth for how odd of a film it is, but that too is something of a screenwriter's mark, the interest in telling weird stories or breaking conventions and it can be seen in some of the other films Sale wrote to varying degrees, even when they have more conventional surfaces. 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 11/04/2026White Buffalo is likely more Richard Sale's film then Thompson's in a way for how much of it can be 'heard' in the unchanged archaisms in the dialogue that are the marks of the screenwriter, along with the story structure & metaphorical flourishes it contains. Thompson gives it body, Sale the soul. 100
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 11/04/2026Stumbled on to a Charles Bronson marathon on cable during my current dogsitting adventure and White Buffalo came on. Hadn't seen it in decades, so giving it a rewatch. Nice thing about a workman director like J Lee Thompson is he isn't an 'auteur', he's realizing the script he was given. 120
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 11/04/2026What? That's crazy. That'd be like preferring Scott Foster to Glenn Gould. Nothing wrong with enjoying The Entertainer, but over the Goldberg Variations? Never. Must be a Bluesky thing. Don't let it throw you, keep to your greater calling! 010
Reposted by gregorSabzian @sabzian.bsky.social · 02/04/2026New on Sabzian: a collection celebrating 100 years of André Delvaux, who according to Luc Dardenne was “the greatest and perhaps the last Belgian filmmaker.” Texts by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Michel Ciment, Adolphe Nysenholc, Johan Daisne and Bram Van Beeksabzian.beCOLLECTION: André Delvaux, a Belgian FilmmakerAndré Delvaux (1926-2002) is counted among the most important filmmakers in the history of Belgian cinema. Although he started making films relatively late and without a formal education, Delvaux mana... 034
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 01/02/2026one film section by section in class discussion about what choices are made in each and how they fit together than make them watch a bunch of movies the prof likes to show them the 'good stuff'. It's the process that's important, not the alleged 'right answer' in taste. 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 01/02/2026which is more likely obscured by making the uninterested watch 'great films' in class, then helped. X amount of film viewing hours = -X amount of teaching, a lure to an undergrad. Sitting someone uninformed in front of a complex work & saying appreciate it! is useless. Better to take them through 200
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 01/02/2026If university students don't pay attention, they don't care. That's because they are there for the diploma & job opportunities after, not the supposed education. Film studies, at the initial level, shouldn't be about film appreciation, watching movies, it should be about understanding how they work 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 10/01/2026I mean I'm in Minneapolis and it's obvious that this isn't about fraud or immigration, Trump doesn't give a shit about that, fraud & immigration violations are old pals to him. ICE is his little army sent to stir things up so people will have something to watch & argue about on their smart phones. 030
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 10/01/2026Nothing about this is meant to gain consent. ICE was sent to stir discord, to set people against each other, they attack cities in the 'Blue' states because it fosters disunity. The stupid fuck probably thinks he's doing something important when no one on 'his side' gives a fuck about him at all. 120
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/01/2026From Kihachi Okamoto's The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman (1963) (One of the odd films that's well loved on Letterboxd, but the popular reviews seem to miss the mark entirely. That's not entirely surprising for Okamoto though.) 030
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 04/01/2026On a roll with my second movie watch of the year and already the mood has been perfectly captured. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 02/01/2026That sure seems like I would more or less have expected given the literary flights within his criticism. I imagine it's part of his structuralist want to tie everything to everything else. That's his strength of course, seeing these deep associations and giving them some sense, at times too much so. 130
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 01/01/2026I'll give it a try since it has Gwenyth Paltrow in it. She's so cute as Pepper Potts! 020
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 01/01/2026I don't know, I mean I hear a lot of people say he's boring, so I haven't checked him out yet. Which of his movies is the best to start with? 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 27/12/2025Honestly, I don't even know how to approach that claim coming from where it does in a disagreement over whether a movie belongs on the best of the year lists for Slate. There's so many layers of interference between "good taste" and any meaningful alternative that the concept is completely occluded. 120
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 22/12/2025I saw you said not Russia, so I'm assuming you're including the Soviet states, but I'll add letterboxd.com/film/sevil/d... as one to look at when you do get to the Soviets since it's an Armenian film outside the more familiar Soviet models. Otherwise, Throw of the Dice is an excellent suggestion.letterboxd.comSevil (1929)After the play of same name of Jafar Jabbarli. This melodrama is about the woman who had unhappy homelife and tried to free herself from shariat rules. 130
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 14/12/2025Yes, that is more what I was thinking. I mean classical music almost requires some formal education, writers & painters likewise, Rousseau aside, usually had some, so different than naive art, but where the systems of categorization haven't been fully laid out. Stein lived it, didn't 'learn' it. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 14/12/2025Yeah, better as systemized rather than formalized, as it isn't an issue of being educated but accepting certain systems of knowledge that differentiates modernism from post-modernism. I mean this is all just something that struck me seeing your post, not fully worked out. Heh. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 13/12/2025Which is to say it is precisely because Stein doesn't fit into social/political expectation readily that she could write as she did and make the rest of the world be shaped into her process of consideration. The absent contextual awareness replaced by a heightened attention of individual focus. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 13/12/2025That's pretty much my feeling on Stein. Since you started reading it, I've seen a number of essays pop up on Stein, all trying to find ways to reconcile her work to her life, but none really noting that Modernism largely relies on the odd autodidact, formalizing modernism produced post-modernism. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 07/12/2025Which, incidentally and as much as it bugged me at the time, the book matching her with Kael is kinda perfect since Kael didn't care much at all beyond the feelings of the moment, as filtered through memory. Sontag was invested in the 'why' of it all going forward, Kael more the 'what' right 'now'. 000
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 07/12/2025It's an iffy word choice, particularly given Against Interpretation, but seems fairly evident to me that her mode of understanding requires something beyond the moment, a hook of thought that can be taken in, if she misses it, like with Stein, she is at a loss. I have some sympathy with that. 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 07/12/2025Eh, I don't think so, more that Sontag preferred 'intellectualization' over feeling and was reacting against the tide of certain conventions in popular filmmaking. I question some of her favored choices, but the general drift has some pull still, or maybe has some returning strength in Netflix era. 120
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 07/12/2025Heh. An argument of the times against formalist tendencies in criticism, which would be rendered moot at best almost simultaneously with its printing. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 07/12/2025Although I will admit I find it funny that Notes on Camp is in the same book as Against Interpretation. (Especially when it's abundantly clear Sontag has absolutely no affinity for camp at all.) 110
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 07/12/2025Ouch. Too harsh! Sontag says plenty of things to disagree with, but at least there's an actual argument behind what she says, not just pop culture vibes. 220
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 26/11/2025They are definitely not Loachian, nor Loach Dardennesian, nor whatever front back, top bottom, push me pull you combination one could imagine, that's just dopeytalk 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 16/11/2025For me, it's an irritant that I think keeps people from reflecting on some larger notions of art that are badly needed again. So I guess I end up becoming a bit of an irritant myself in trying to push for different aesthetic considerations. Like going beyond 'great' artists to ideas of art itself. 010
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 16/11/2025Yes, there was a useful element in the very basic claims of the politique that was understood as responding to the situation of French cinema, but they aware of the limitations as well, to varying degrees. Bazin never took much to the grander auteur concept & Godard saw it via production practices. 020
gregor @mothwater.bsky.social · 16/11/2025Essentially, once an artist's work is recognizable by name, to whatever group, they are effectively understood as an 'author' of sorts, but in films, people want to have authors and favored authors (auteurs) without added effort in differentiation beyond liked/disliked, so it's mostly a naming game. 010
