Brian Darr
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hellonfriscobay.bsky.social
Brian Darr
@hellonfriscobay.bsky.social
Cinephile, music lover & library worker originally from San Francisco now living in Maine. These are personal opinions that may not reflect the views of my employer.
Pinned
Do I know anybody near Iowa City? Or anybody who knows anybody in Iowa City? Because on Monday I’ll be there (for the first time in 30 years) with my filmmaker spouse, who will be showing (mostly) 16mm works at a place called @icfilmscene.bsky.social (FilmScene). icfilmscene.org/film/the-cat...
THE CAT LANDS ON ALL FOURS: SOME MOVING IMAGE WORKS BY KERRY LAITALA - FilmScene
icfilmscene.org
20 great Westerns

Hell’s Hinges
The Pilgrim
Greed
The Big Trail
Ruggles of Red Gap
Wagon Master
the Big Sky
The Far Country
Deputy Droopy
40 Guns
Day of the Outlaw
El Topo
Quick Billy
Buck and the Preacher
China 9, Liberty 37
¡O No Coronado!
Tears of the Black Tiger
Atanarjuat
Shimásání
First Cow
February 5, 2026 at 1:43 PM
😡
First glimpe at the new Castro seats. Don't those just look soooooo much more comfortable?
February 5, 2026 at 4:00 AM
Cool event in San Francisco tonight- more specifically at Artists’ Television Access, one of the last outposts of underground culture on Valencia Street!
February 4, 2026 at 5:47 PM
RIGHT THEN, RIGHT NOW
February 3, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Do I know anybody near Iowa City? Or anybody who knows anybody in Iowa City? Because on Monday I’ll be there (for the first time in 30 years) with my filmmaker spouse, who will be showing (mostly) 16mm works at a place called @icfilmscene.bsky.social (FilmScene). icfilmscene.org/film/the-cat...
THE CAT LANDS ON ALL FOURS: SOME MOVING IMAGE WORKS BY KERRY LAITALA - FilmScene
icfilmscene.org
February 3, 2026 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Brian Darr
I also just learned that searching Google Books is not working. It’s really bizarre. It appears at least some of the advanced search functions still work. 🗃️

inauthor:
intitle:
intext:
insubject:
I don't mean to seem alarmed, but it appears Google's book search function is, just...gone.

In a sane country it would be a huge deal, front page news, that a privately owned utility that millions researches, from journalists to scholars, rely on every day to advance knowledge can just disappear.
February 3, 2026 at 5:57 PM
Just saw legendary independent filmmaker Rob Nilsson is presenting his 9@Night series at the @tenderloinmuseum.bsky.social in San Francisco! I’m briefly seen on screen in the last film GO TOGETHER, which screens February 26. Tonight USED, film #2 in the not-necessarily-chronological series screens
9 @ Night Film Series — Tenderloin Museum
Rob Nilsson’s epic 9-film cycle made in collaboration with the Tenderloin yGroup screens in 2026
www.tenderloinmuseum.org
February 3, 2026 at 4:29 PM
A fun one but it didn’t accept THE SAGA OF GOSTA BERLING as a Greta Garbo movie based on a book or play…
February 3, 2026 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by Brian Darr
Lewis black knew he was gonna show up and got ahead of it with a very believable “they wanted to hang out but I realized they were freaks” and no one seems to be mad at him
The problem with applying this logic to Epstein associates is that vanishingly few have come forward before their names show up in these document dumps.

Epstein has been an issue of public concern for a decade! Where is the public reckoning among elites for their entanglement with this asshole
February 1, 2026 at 3:54 AM
Not sure but this reminds me of something I discovered when taking a screen shot from ONE FROGGY EVENING a while back. The text from the newspaper in this frame comes from an article about the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy. A hidden-in-plain-sight message from Chuck Jones and his team?
February 2, 2026 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by Brian Darr
When they say Me Too "went too far," they mean "got too close."
January 31, 2026 at 4:25 PM
Noteworthy first views of January 2026 (new films excluded):

Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman, 2018)

Jero on Jero: ‘A Balinese Trance Seance’ Observed (Patsy Asch, Timothy Asch & Linda Conner 1981)

À Propos De Nice (Jean Vigo 30)

Dogfight (Nancy Savoca 91)

The Mask (Julian Roffman 61)
February 1, 2026 at 1:31 PM
In eleven months James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN and Tod Browning’s DRACULA enter the public domain at the same moment and you know they’re gonna be shipped to blazes.
People in the Arts Use Public Domain Materials for Something Other Than "Thing That Was Cute -- now it's SCARY!" Challenge
January 31, 2026 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Brian Darr
“QAnon is a conspiracy theory in which Trump is a good person” is a penny drop phrasing that I think may drive me more insane than QAnon already did. One of the most purely psychotic and divorced from reality theories ever, all bc it’s impossible to rationally posit him as a decent human being
So, let's get this straight. Christopher "Moot" Poole created 4chan as a gathering place for hentai and CSAM enthusiasts, started /pol/ the day he met with Jeffrey Epstein, then /pol/ memed Trump to the presidency and birthed Qanon, a conspiracy theory in which Trump is a good person who hates CSAM.
January 31, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Oh my
sad to hear that Woody Allen was cheating on his daughter on Epstein island
January 31, 2026 at 2:38 PM
Decided to rewatch this awards albatross following its entry onto the National Film Registry- liked it more than I’d remembered the first time around, and glad it got a couple oddball animators into the Registry through the side door…
A review of Frida (2002)
I’m disappointed that this year’s crop of National Film Registry selections includes no experimental films (and not just because my nomination list included a bunch of suggestions), but it didn’t take...
boxd.it
January 31, 2026 at 3:45 AM
Great film to see with a laughing audience
Saturday, January 31st, 7:30pm
Bruce Loeb, Piano Accompaniment

FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE (1926) Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston

An irresponsible young millionaire changes his tune when he falls for the daughter of a downtown minister.

Online tickets here: checkout.square.site/merchant/MLB...
For Heaven's Sake Jan. 31 Not Yet Member - Niles Silent Film Museum
description
checkout.square.site
January 30, 2026 at 8:08 PM
Wrong HOME ALONE 2 cast member
Catherine O’Hara has died at the age of 71, TMZ reports.

(www.tmz.com/2026/01/30/c...)
January 30, 2026 at 6:20 PM
My first viewing from the new crop of #nationalfilmregistry inductees involves a Cecil B. DeMille bit player and is set partly at UC Berkeley. Was it actually shot there? Would love to hear opinions from campus experts willing to watch the 31-minute film online for free…
January 30, 2026 at 3:52 AM
Am I really the first person to interact with this thread with a suggestion of Wisit Sasanatieng’s 2000 film TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER? (Maybe everyone else is a stickler for beginning the 21st Century in 2001?)
If you were teaching a class on the 21st century western, what would you include? (Brought on by me reading Cormac McCarthy for the first time.)
January 29, 2026 at 11:40 PM
Finally catching up with some of my Letterboxd review backlog. Canada’s (maybe) first horror movie is something to behold, or at least its 3D sequences are…
A review of The Mask (1961)
I always used to say “never trust someone without at least two RE/Search publications on their shelf” but it would be hypocritical for me to be such a hardliner on that now that live across the countr...
boxd.it
January 29, 2026 at 8:03 PM
There are years when the Registry skips over one of these decades (or the 10s, 20s, or 50s) but I don’t think any where they’ve skipped multiple. Carla Hayden went lighter on silent cinema than her predecessor James Billington so I’m glad to see an attempt at backfilling. No shorts past 1916 though?
Wow- the 2025 National Film Registry list has been revealed, and includes the oldest surviving student film. a Frank Borzage silent I’ve long wanted to see & the first Registry entries for Julie Taymor Ethan Hawke, Ken Burns, Jim Carrey & Edward Zwick but no selections from the 30s, 40s, 60s or 70s!
Library Names 25 Films to the National Film Registry for Preservation
The Library of Congress has selected 25 films for the National Film Registry due to their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage, the Library announced.
newsroom.loc.gov
January 29, 2026 at 11:18 AM
Wow- the 2025 National Film Registry list has been revealed, and includes the oldest surviving student film. a Frank Borzage silent I’ve long wanted to see & the first Registry entries for Julie Taymor Ethan Hawke, Ken Burns, Jim Carrey & Edward Zwick but no selections from the 30s, 40s, 60s or 70s!
Library Names 25 Films to the National Film Registry for Preservation
The Library of Congress has selected 25 films for the National Film Registry due to their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage, the Library announced.
newsroom.loc.gov
January 29, 2026 at 10:49 AM
Five ‘70s flicks that you love and return to time and again:

Take Off
Take the 5:10 to Dreamland
The Bead Game
Wild Night in El Reno
Kristallnacht
Five 70s flicks that you love and return to time and again

Star Wars
Play it as it Lays
The Passenger
Je tu il elle
T.R. Baskin
Five ‘70s flicks that you love and return to time and again:

Alien
The Poseidon Adventure
Dawn of the Dead
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Star Trek The Motion Picture
January 29, 2026 at 3:11 AM
Many such cases
This movie could have been an email.
January 28, 2026 at 12:57 PM