iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Paul C. Dobbs

SvenThe @sventhe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Goodnight with Jacques Tourneur The Leopard Man DOP: Robert De Grasse Produced by Val Lewton for RKO 1943 #JacquesTourneur #ValLewton #FilmSky

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

First watch: The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). John Frankenheimer-directed biographical film about real-life murderer turned prison ornithologist John Stroud, played by Burt Lancaster. The supporting cast includes Thelma Ritter and Telly Savales.

The poster for John Frankenheimer's biographical prison drama The Birdman of Alcatraz

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The Mafu Cage (1978). Lee Grant and Carol Kane are very watchable in this of story of dysfunctional sisters. It's all a bit Baby Jane, and the story takes a similar dive into violent insanity, but it is as much a thoughtful mood piece as it is a gonzo exploitation artefact

Poster for The Mafu Cage. A young woman with voluminous red hair sits on a chair behind iron bars.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

5 favourite British films…as of right now The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) The Offence (1973) If.... (1968) The Wicker Man (1973) Get Carter (1971)

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

King Solomon's Mines (1937). Has way more story and action then the 1950 version, with the same sort of non-stop spirit as King Kong, Indiana Jones, and Saturday morning cliffhanger serials. Lots of impressive South African location work. Paul Robeson is as big as the landscape, his voice bigger

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Here's Phil Lynott playing a Strat. From the 1983 show GasTank, which I used to watch religiously www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2dp...

youtube.com

Phil Lynott & John Sykes - The Man's A Fool (GasTank Ep 3) | Rick Wakeman

YouTube video by Rick Wakeman

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Wilson @wilsonjettone.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Name a film with a female director: Blue Black Permanent is a haunting film, suffused with grief, that moves between blue-hued cityscapes of Edinburgh and the clearer, whiter blues of Orkney. The story of a photographer, played by Celia Imrie, who is trying to come to terms with her mother's death.

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P.M.Bryant @pmbryant.com · 27/09/2026

Ida Lupino in her first and (next to) last feature films: “Her First Affaire” (1933) and “Food of the Gods” (1976)

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Exit, pursued by a fucking bear

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Flicking through an old S&S which mentions In the Heat of the Night, Rod Steiger's character is tagged, as always, as "gum-chewing racist police chief". But he's not racist is he?

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

KIng Solomon's Mines, or Lots of Wild Animals Sneaking up on Deborah Kerr (1950). There's not much to this except for the ace location work, the said wild animals, and National Geographic-like observations of the local peoples. It looks really good and must have been sensational in 1950

Poster for King Solomon's Mines. Stewart Granger saving Deborah Kerr from a variety of stampeding African animals.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Middle of the Night (1959). First ten minutes is a bunch of old geezers talking about their ailments, who’s died, and telling each other how old they are. So that’s that theme settled. You aways know where you are with Paddy Chayefsky dont you? But turns out you don't here, or at least I didn't

Poster for Middle of the Night. Frederick March and Kim Novak looking intense

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Wilson @wilsonjettone.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Dan Duryea is an alcoholic songwriter who is inveigled into investigating the murderer of his estranged wife by the wife of the man sentenced to die for the killing. It is a superbly melodramatic set-up but it segues into a rather interesting noir.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Citizen Kane (1941). Umpteenth viewing, I took a pretty deep dive into it this time as I've been teaching it to my grad students. I feel the same way about it as I always have: a film that I can admire, even revere, but only for its technique really. The story has never made much of a dent in me

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Eddie Selover @eddieselover.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just watched THE LONG, HOT SUMMER on Criterion. Orson Welles, 43 and playing 61 (and looking it) gives a performance of truly epic awfulness. He singlehandedly destroys the movie, not a great loss considering it's imitation Tennessee Williams and totally ersatz.

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

First watch: Hardcore. Another dispatch from 1979, and Paul Schrader’s second (after Taxi Driver) re-writing of The Searchers, in which an older man tracks down a missing younger woman who has gone native with her captors. This time he gets to direct too!

The poster for Paul Schrader's Hardcore (1979), with a mostly black background on to which the tagline reads, "Oh my God, that's my daughter". A smaller insert shows George C. Scott looking anguished with his head in his hands

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Wilson @wilsonjettone.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Robert Benton's The Late Show is a great film. A revisionist noir, which veers honestly between noir and neo-noir; it is a light film, but the threat is real.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Trying to master finger technique on drums, which is the only way to build real speed and stability. It is unbelievably hard. With normal wrist technique I sound great, but when I switch to fingers I sound like a monkey on ket. Embarrassment is stopping me from doing it. But I must do it

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"The wicked very young, wicked very old." The Children's Hour (1961). An earlier version of this story, These Three (1936), was a raw melodrama of immense power. This is more complex, angrier at society as a whole, and much sadder

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Forever Louise Brooks @foreverlouiseb1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Joan Bennett by William Walling, Jr., 1936.

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

First watch: Pickpocket (1959). Robert Bresson’s low-stakes take on Crime & Punishment in which Michel (Martin LaSalle) plays a lonely thief living in an attic apartment, who has fantasies about his superiority to those from whom he steals on the metro and at the racecourse

The poster for Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959), largely consisting of a hand appearing to reach into someone's breast pocket

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979). Wiser people than me have written about this lately, so pace everyone, I don’t think it works. Basically it’s creep meets girl, creep doesn’t get girl. But it is baffling on many levels. Why is she entertaining him at all? He's waving about a million red flags

Poster for Chilly Scenes of Winter. A big drawing of a man's smiling bespectacled face. He has snow on his head. Tagline reads: "Love does strange things to people. And Charles is a little strange to start with."

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Farran Smith Nehme 🇱🇧 @selfstyledsiren.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with 500 Joan Crawford fans, as I introduced the restored LETTY LYNTON. Here’s what I said, with some added comments. selfstyledsiren.substack.com/p/one-hell-o...

selfstyledsiren.substack.com

One Hell of a Character

An afternoon with Letty Lynton and 500 Joan Crawford fans

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Magic (1978). I know William Goldman is a legend but the characterisations and dialogue in this are really shaky. Hopkins is technically brilliant in the dual role of ventriloquist and dummy but he feels restrained, almost detached. He should have camped it up a bit like he did with Lecter

Poster for Magic. A scary ventriloquist's dummy with big staring eyes

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John Hodson @mgcroadster.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

"...The shoestring production values belie a genuinely gripping tale of cross and double cross that's never quite heading where you expect..." My brief Letterboxd notes on Phil Karlson's twisty crime thriller... #FilmSky boxd.it/gonnTt

boxd.it

A ★★★½ review of Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Tim Foster: "What makes a two-bit heel like you think a heater would give him an edge over me..?" Brief notes on Phil Karlson's labyrinthine 1952 crime thriller KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL this afternoon...

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Over the last few weeks I have watched or rewatched all 12 Gainsborough melodramas listed on the Wiki page. It has been a fun ride, and they consititute a great body of British genre cinema. I would rather watch one of these than an Ealing comedy or a Hammer horror, but then I am a soppy old tart

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James Dalrymple @jamesewand.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

First watch: Le Beau Serge (1958). Claude Chabrol’s feature debut, about an educated young man who returns to his provincial home town after a long absence to find his once-promising best friend in a dead-end job, unhappy marriage, and succumbed to alcoholism

Poster for Le Beau Serge (1958), directed by Claude Chabrol, with amusingly non-representative pictures of a couple on a bed

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Ten great films from 1979 Alien Life of Brian Scum Being There Eagle's Wing Wise Blood Le Pétomane Apocalypse Now Saint Jack Escape from Alcatraz

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Wilson @wilsonjettone.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Going in Style is a perfect comedy. It is perfect because it isn't really a comedy at all. It looks like a comedy, is plotted like a comedy and is full of funny lines, but the perfection comes from the simmering emotion that underpins the film.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The Man in Grey (1943). First of the Gainsborough melodramas, and the prime example. The bad characters are bad enough, but there is enough pity or principle in them to render them properly tragic. They could all have been happy, if only their flaws had let them

Poster for The Man in Grey. A psychotic-looking James Mason holding a rod, ready to thrash someone

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Wilson @wilsonjettone.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I didn't really understand Joan Crawford's appeal until quite recently. What changed was I saw a few films, like Dance Fools, Dance, from the early 1930s. Here she has a bazillion watt smile, encourages the camera to leer at her legs while dancing, and the buzzing energy of an actress on the rise.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I have only seen nine of these. I need to have a word with myself

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The Wicked Lady (1945). An old favourite of mine, and as much fun as ever. Lockwood and Mason are hot stuff: "Oh, just one more!" "I've heard you say that in other circumstances." Oo-er! But she is a bottomless pit of villainy and poor old Captain Jackson doesn't know what he's getting hisself into

Poster for The Wicked Lady. James Mason leaning in close to Margaret Lockwood, their gazes locked. Elsewhere he is posing as a highwayman with pistols out

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John Rain🥇 @johnrain.co.uk · 15/09/2026

Ed Sheeran's tour bus.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Graham Greene on the ending of The Third Man, and how he underestimated Reed's vision. "I was afraid few people would wait in their seats during the girl's long walk from the graveside" From his preface to The Third Man/The Fallen Idol

One of the very few major disputes between Carol Reed and myself concerned the ending, and he has been proved triumphantly right. I held the view that an entertainment of this kind was too light an affair to carry the weight of an unhappy ending. Reed on his side felt that my ending – indeterminate though it was, with no words spoken – would strike the audience, who had just seen Harry die, as unpleasantly cynical. I admit I was only half convinced; I was afraid few people would wait in their seats during the girl's long walk from the graveside and that they would leave the cinema under the impression that the ending was as conventional as mine and more drawn-out. I had not given enough consideration to the mastery of Reed's direction, and at that stage, of course, we neither of us could have anticipated Reed's brilliant discovery of Mr Karas, the zither player.

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JacquiWine @jacquiwine.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

NO DOWN PAYMENT (Martin Ritt, 1957). Bar the ending, which lacks any degree of subtlety, this is an excellent drama about the hollowness and the corrosive nature of the American Dream. Focusing on the marital tensions of four young couples living on a new suburban estate, >> #FilmSky

Film poster showing a blonde woman lying on a bed looking at a bare-chested man lying face up on the floor.

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Shot Zero @shotzero.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This week is about shots which spin! In Moontide (1942), Bobo (Jean Gabin) looks up, and the camera follows, moving into a shot of a ship's-wheel-like lighting fixture which spins and crossfades over a spinning bottle and clock hands, around and around . . . all to make us feel as dizzy as Bobo.

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Juli McKenna Kearns @idyllopus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Peter Lorre in his sole outing as a director, "The Lost One", from 1951.

Close-up of Peter Lorre lighting his cigarette, the flame still in the frame, reflected in his dark eyes.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Sirāt (2025). It's the Odyssey really isn't it, with its mortal little crew mere playthings of the gods. But it has a much more optimistic view of human nature. I loved the portrait of those people who had become a family, and how they took in needy strangers. It's very quietly and very well done

Poster for Sirāt. A big desert landscape with two wagons parked up, some big sound system speakers set up and people sitting around, all looking small in the middle distance

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Watched Tommy last night. Never seen it before. It’s amazing how Eric Clapton manages to be boring in the middle of all that. It’s like that’s his true art. To remain dull amongst any level of flamboyance. You’d think some of it would rub off. No. There he is. Boring away, the little beige bigot.

Clapton as guitar Jesus, somehow making that tedious.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Things I was frightened of as a child: 1. The Changes (TV programme) 2. Not being able to feel my own pulse (have I died?) 3. Spontaneous combustion 4. 2000AD being sold out (it happened once) 5. Priests

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Wilson @wilsonjettone.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Gaslight is a swift 84 minutes, it strips away all melodrama inherent in the story, in favour of tension. The film is directed by Thorold Dickinson, and really focuses on shadows, ticking clocks, and claustrophobic intimacy to create a genuine sense of suspense.

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Wilson @wilsonjettone.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

"Darling, remember, you are Gaston Monescu. You are a crook. I want you as a crook. I love you as a crook. I worship you as a crook. Steal, swindle, rob. Oh, but don't become one of those useless, good-for-nothing gigolos." A perfect film. The Lubitsch touch in full flow. Not one wasted scene.

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

New guitar sticker art from a local artist who came to our gig. Very happy with this

Sherwood green Fender Jazzmaster with a sticker showing a painting of an astronaut in a space helmet surrounded by weird and wonderful decorations

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K. A. “Kîck Åß” Pillë @keithpille.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Some further Sugar thoughts: -as a person whose brain does some internal screaming every day about how much I hate the phenomenon of aging, I think it was good for me to see 3 guys deep into their 60s step onstage and just kick ass with no reservations

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P.M.Bryant @pmbryant.com · 11/09/2026

The final product…

Closeup of Ida Lupino in makeup and costume for her role as Bessie in “The Light That Failed” (1939)

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The Brothers (1947). This is a jaw-dropper. Young orphan Patricia Roc gets sent to skivvy for the dour Macrae family in their stony little bothy on the isle of Skye. Skye is as grim as you like. The only law is fascistic Catholicism, the casting of pagan curses, and the lynch mob...

Poster for The Brothers. A young, lusty looking man holds a woman roughly by the arms. She looks like she doesn't mind this at all

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I drink the hard knock life beer FiLite. It's half the price of most other beers but it tastes fine and makes you feel like Song Kang-ho looks here

The poor family in Parasite all drinking cans of FiLite. Song Kang-ho is smiling happily

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Grabbing a bit of light refreshment. Just noticed I am running on free wifi from the kimbap shop three doors down. I ❤️ mah country

A tin of beer on a table outside a convenience store

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Paul C. Dobbs @steadytiger.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Forgot the poster for this. Won't be able to sleep if I don’t put it up

Poster for The Root of All Evil. Phyllis Calvert looking horrified for no apparent reason

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