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J Hoberman

@jhoberman.bsky.social

1.4K followers 270 following 1.1K posts

Occasional film critic, Columbia adjunct, old VV staff writer 📚 Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds, The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism, 3 books on Hollywood & the Cold War 🔜Everything is Now: NYC 60s Avantgarde

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J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · Mar 21

www.versobooks.com/products/297...

Coming, May 27

Everything Is Now

Like Paris in the 1920s, New York City in the 1960s was a cauldron of avant-garde ferment and artistic innovation. Boundaries were transgressed and new forms created. Drawing on interviews, memoirs, a...

www.versobooks.com

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 19h

Got it. (I mentally added the quotes, then cited McCarthy to suggest that crying "antifa" is the new redbaiting.)

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 20h

Not sure what you mean

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 20h

Wasn't Joe McCarthy an "expert" on imagined communists?

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 21h

Totally agree--not least for its heavy Ronald Reagan, first seen scowling, squinteyed & leathery in the company of his servile gofer (Norman Fell!) Reagan’s last movie, it was the first I ever saw & his Teflon image notwithstanding, it left an indelible impression

www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/m...

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 21h

Unfortunately, Trump is the only entity w any leverage over Netanyahu & he cares not for Palestinian rights. Bibi may be loathed by the demoralized Israeli left but they are no match for the rightwing settlers who were encouraged to colonize the West Bank.

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 21h

No doubt. But M's charisma & media savvy are real. (So sad to say is Trump's outsider appeal.) Insulting hed aside, you might say a charismatic socialist is the oligarchy's worst nightmare. (Trump though is licking his chops. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to put a victorious M under arrest.)

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 22h

Bernie is an obvious omission in this piece (Obama too if you think about it) but he's right to focus on Mamdani's outsider charisma. Lindsay and (going back further) LaGuardia won as much on anti-establishment energy as policy. I don't care how M wins, the main thing will be how he governs.

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 1d

He's more useful as a domestic target.

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 1d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/o...
Despite the misleading hed, this is a not uninteresting analysis

Opinion | With Mamdani, the Left Finally Has Its Trump

www.nytimes.com

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 1d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/o...
"The main driver was Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu... As the inestimable Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea noted, Mr. Trump doesn’t threaten Mr. Netanyahu, he orders him." Where there's life there's hope but Bibi's reward will be a greenlight to annex the West Bank.

Opinion | A One-Side Peace Plan Still Gives Palestinians Hope

www.nytimes.com

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 1d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/n...

"Casablanca" ban next?

Rutgers Expert on Antifa Flees to Spain After Death Threats

www.nytimes.com

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 1d

I would never do that. (Besides, Ford's ridiculous allegiance to Sons of the Pioneers precludes his appreciation for swingers like Burt or emo-hepcat Gene.)

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 1d

Memories are made of that! (Re Pit/Bach: For sentimental, or maybe professional, reasons I'm partial to "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.")

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 1d

Satantango

www.bookforum.com/print/1805/t...

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 2d

My analysis fwiw: Hamas played Trump w promises he'd be very Nobel on TV freeing the hostages. Bibi has to keep his hawks in line until the big pay-off: Trump OKs annexation of the West Bank apartheid state while Gaza becomes a slave labor emirate-financed protectorate cum Kushner vacay fantasyland

Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · 2d

Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for what exactly? Renaming DoD to "Department of War?" Murdering civilians in Venezuela? Sicing the military on American cities? Destroying USAID and dooming countless children to death? Pardoning war criminals? Should I go on?

Chris Cillizza @chriscillizza.bsky.social · 2d

What if...Donald Trump actually deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 2d

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDH0...
What to make of this early Bachrach, a hit for erstwhile jazz singer Gene McDaniels in late 1961? Should it be bracketed w Leslie Gore's drama queen classic "It's My Party (And I'll Cry if I Want To)" released in early 63?

Tower Of Strength

YouTube video by Gene McDaniels - Topic

www.youtube.com

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 2d

PS Krasnahorkai's American publisher (unnamed in the NYT piece on his Nobel prize) is New Directions--think about it.

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 2d

www.bookforum.com/print/1805/t...

Éljen Krasnahorkai!

The two manifestations of an absurdist Hungarian classic – J. Hoberman

www.bookforum.com

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 3d

Ken's last Eternalism

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 3d

And I had no idea that he used Vulgar Modernism as a text. Thanks for letting me know!

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 3d

Alexander Granach (original Nosferatu) and Dwight Frye (orig Dracula) are incredibly creepy, fly-eaters both.

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 3d

"A dignity deficit that would embarrass renfield"--wow!

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3d

really can’t say enough about how mike johnson is a sniveling little coward of a man. a bayou-bred pushover with a dignity deficit that would embarrass renfield

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

Q: Do you agree that the mayor of Chicago and governor of Illinois should be in prison?

MIKE JOHNSON: Should they be in prison? I'm not the attorney general. I'm not following the day to day on that

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 4d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...
Tell me about it! Grade inflation at Harvard is ridiculous. Give an undergrad a generous A- & watch an incredulous tantrum. That everyone feels entitled to an A in every course is an insult not only to the profs but the genuinely great students. I could go on...

Harvard Students Skip Class and Still Get High Grades, Faculty Say

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by J Hoberman

Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 4d

please read my memo www.theverge.com/business/793...

Memo to Bari Weiss Re: CBS News: You’re doomed

Bari Weiss has sold her company, The Free Press, to manage the decline of broadcast news at CBS. How many ways can it go wrong?

www.theverge.com

J Hoberman @jhoberman.bsky.social · 4d

Just saying: My widowed grandmother Sarah Hoberman (1890-1974) was the smoked fish dueña de la bodega of Nagle Avenue although I believe that her store, which stocked pre WW2 canned goods, made less money than the neighborhood poker game she ran out of her Thayer Street apartment around the corner.

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 4d

I grew up going to Zabar's. So many of my childhood memories center around the best lox in NYC (which is saying something). With Saul Zabar's passing today, the Upper West Side has lost a legend who turned his parent's humble store into a culinary institution.

Saul Zabar, Smoked Fish Czar of Upper West Side, Dies at 97

www.nytimes.com