iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

(This is, sadly, only a *slight* exaggeration over the actual regrettable charactrer design:)

Rotta the Hutt, aka (?), Rotta the Ripped

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Exclusive still of Rotta the Hutt from The Mandalorian and Grogu!

'buff corgi' meme with Jabba the Hutt's head superimposed

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Repost with the Russian agent who spies on your posts.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Philosophy absolutely bodied by my kids' school sending out important PSA about rejecting 'anything strange' from adults.

PSA saying "Say no if anyone tries to offer you drugs or anything strange," with the image satirically altered to depict a child rejecting "panpsychism"

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

That's cool, I wonder how that worked out for hi- oh.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Murakami, true visionary, presaging in 1979 countless failed Perception checks by generations of D&D players.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

I know it's wrong, but ngl I like the Connections Bot feature as it periodically lets me feel smug and superior amongst the clique of fellow puzzle nerds.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Lol, Sen Ernst literally did the meme. In a bad way! Don't be like Ernst/Philosophy Bro! Please save lives instead! www.huffpost.com/entry/medica...

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Duolingo's great and all, but ngl I could do without the routine Michael Corleone-style threats. I like to do my Duo in the evenings! This is not cause for implications of bodily harm, even by a cutesy anthropomorphic owl!

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Time will tell if we get another Andor-equivalent SW product anytime soon. The current slate isn't too promising, mostly conservative retreats (Starfighter, Mando, Ahsoka). Disney, be bold! Take risks! You're not like Luthen, it's OK if some experiments fall flat, no one's going to die! (/end)

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

There's a bevy of secondary original characters that could be further developed, and I'm sure they'll pop up in future shows. But I kinda wish they'd killed off more folks, the most daring decision of Rogue One, to prevent milking to death a good thing.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

The show, I think, recognizes that in the end Luthen was an even more interesting character than the titular Andor, who remains more of a cypher even at the end. I personally saw Luthen as a sort of spy equivalent of John Wayne in The Searchers, a necessity who doesn't belong in the world he saves.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

I am disappointed that there's much more limited Discourse for s2 vs s1, TBH. A lot is ripe for the picking! The compromises of independence/freedom needed for successful resistance; the power of truth/lies; the morality of murder for the greater good; the cannibalism of authoritarianism...

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Andor's a wrap! My non-spicy take: Season 2 didn't reach the heights of Season 1 (lacked the verve, freshness and tension), but still better than 90%+ of Disney SW and highly allegorical to contemporary times without necessarily intending to be. Only light-spoilers 🧵...

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

78th favorite 📽 : Driving Miss Daisy (1989). An easy-going and indelibly charming film, which has had its reputation substantially wane over the years. I think it holds up, even if its sensibilities are outdated. Such it is for many of the classics.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

79th favorite 📽: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Justice is elusive in this world, but the *idea* of justice is not. Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch is rightly remembered as an icon of this ideal, even though as such he failed to realize justice in the central case of the film (& book, of course).

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Special shout-out to Alan Alda's turn; Alda is eminently likeable in every role, and here he manages to be the most sensible character of the lot. His advice was right! Driver should have listened!

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Like many of my favorite films, the movie exudes earnestness and honesty (at least, an attempt at honesty) in its treatment of intrinsically unpleasant subject matter. Baumbach goes to great lengths not to apologize for his stand-in (Adam Driver's character), which I appreciated.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

80th favorite 📽 : Marriage Story (2019). A relatively recent entry on this list, the film operates as a sort of mirror to Baumbach's earlier The Squid and the Whale. The latter from the writer/director's perspective on his parents' divorce, whereas this gives an unflinching view from the inside.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

81st favorite 📽 : Girl, Interrupted (1999). A movie with a serious mood and attitude that I really dug. Aided by a top-tier cast, Girl, Interrupted portrays the relatability of the range of characters and their various mental illnesses. Critics were, I think, wrong to pan this gem.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

82nd favorite 📽 : Capturing the Friedmans (2003). A difficult film, to say the least, one that offered an unflinching investigation into a deeply disturbing, yet surprisingly murky case. The filmmaker is hardly impartial, but personal investment seems inevitable in a case like this.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

83rd favorite 📽: American Beauty (1999). Admittedly the film is somewhat over-wrought, but I found its characters intriguing and off-kilter melodrama endearing, aided by an excellent script. The characters all strive to escape a sort of emptiness, a suburban malaise of the soul.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

The chaos and disorder of rebellion is in full display. This is its moral core (contrasting the crushing discipline of the Empire), but also its central weakness. So too today, with nascent resistance needing to organize against nascent fascism.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

It's always a little obscure how much the creators are actively writing allegories to our present time. I choose to believe it's coincidental, that life is imitating art rather than the other way around. One mini-arc feels so pressing (spoilers) - the chaotic implosion of the Maya Pei Brigade.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

I was worried for Season 2 of Andor, that they wouldn't be able to maintain top-shelf quality. Happy to report, 2 episodes in, the show remains in top form! Strong out of the gate with the casual, bureaucratic genocidalism of fascism (echoes of Wannsee), contrasted with the murkiness of resistance.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Ten years after this came out, Errol Morris made a somewhat parallel documentary, The Unknown Known, centered around Donald Rumsfeld. I couldn't stomach to watch his dissembling, but by all accounts Rumsfeld was far less forthcoming or circumspect than McNamara.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

84th favorite 📽: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). This forthright retrospective came out near the outset of the Iraq War, which almost certainly colored how I saw it - underlining how none of the film's titular lessons were actually learned.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

I'm still not sure what exactly to make of the film's unsettling ending, and exhausted Tommy Lee Jones's obscure dreams. Maybe that's part of the point - the inexplicability and pointlessness of the mayhem that precedes is as inescapable as Chiurgh. Bleak, perhaps, but a fully realized vision.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

"Call it, Friendo" - the quiet menace of Bardem's Chiurgh unshakeable force-of-nature enforcer stays with you. Later on, one of the characters calls out the hypocrisy and incoherence of his seeming offer of a chance of mercy, but it doesn't matter. There is no arc for him, only relentless pursuit.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

85th favorite 📽: No Country For Old Men (2007). The Coen Brothers are multi-genre masters, and this is one of their heaviest. Stripping away the dark humor that underpins most of their work, all that's left is the emptiness and desperation of a doomed cadre of characters.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

In some ways the AI trend is a good lesson of what underpins great works like those of Miyazaki et al. The elements of the films are not merely in the (distinctive, wonderfully crafted) visuals, but the confluence of storycrafting, worldbuilding and thematic construction of the creators.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

OK, back in the saddle for my 86th favorite 📽: Princess Mononoke (1997). Miyazaki's most mature film, and the one wherein one of his signatures (no true villains) first really dawned on me. The way that sub-theme unfolds is elegantly paced and truly beautiful.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Less than 3 months, and we've already got literal Thought Police. www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Post a ship that's not Star Trek or Star Wars

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Windows Spotlight's default wallpaper today is certainly capturing that 'impending existential dread' mood that's all too appropriate right now...

Three primates clutching each other, looking up at the sky with expressions seemingly of dread and fear, as if a meteor is crashing down from the heavens and these are their last few precious moments on earth.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

This is what the war on science looks like, folks.

Spelling Bee claiming 'unblinding' is not on the word list

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Counterpoint to all the Phantom Menace/George Lucas apologia in light of current events: Ep 1 really was dumb, it just turns out we're living in a comparativey dumb timeline too.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Borderline criminal that this beautiful, perfect Pangram was rejected. And they said D&D was mainstream now!

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

87th favorite 📽: 5 Centimeters per Second (2007). My fav of Makoto Shinkai's corpus, it's ponerous and heartfelt without feeling shmaltzly. The pacing is, admittedly a bit slow (the title's no joke!), but that gives it much room to breathe and develop its bittersweet roamtic yearning.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

88th favorite 📽: Clue (1985). Prob the best film from the year of my birth (Sorry, Back to the Future!), this is just an absolute riot and masterclass of slapstick farce. Before IP adaptations became soulless cash grabs, Clue had spirit, verve, and pun-tastic humor.

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G. Owen Schaefer @owenschaefer.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

89th favorite 📽: In Cold Blood (1967). This one is of more historical interest as an early docudrama, bit it still holds up and surpasses almost all modern genre entrants. Unflinching, gripping and menacing.

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