J Hoberman
@jhoberman.bsky.social
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
📚 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
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/u...
Maybe I'm being too 20th Century here but isn't the real point that Venezuela produces... oil? Like the largest proven reserves in the world?
Maybe I'm being too 20th Century here but isn't the real point that Venezuela produces... oil? Like the largest proven reserves in the world?
Venezuela Doesn’t Produce Fentanyl. Trump Is Targeting It Anyway.
www.nytimes.com
November 19, 2025 at 9:38 PM
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/u...
Maybe I'm being too 20th Century here but isn't the real point that Venezuela produces... oil? Like the largest proven reserves in the world?
Maybe I'm being too 20th Century here but isn't the real point that Venezuela produces... oil? Like the largest proven reserves in the world?
Republicans Prove Irony Is Dead With Vote on Condemning Fascism newrepublic.com/post/203347/... via @newrepublic.com
Republicans Prove Irony Is Dead With Vote on Condemning Fascism
Republicans hate being called fascist, and yet ...
newrepublic.com
November 18, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Republicans Prove Irony Is Dead With Vote on Condemning Fascism newrepublic.com/post/203347/... via @newrepublic.com
Off the Pile #4
James Whale makes this pre-Code job--an upstairs-downstairs bedroom farce predicated on class privilege & mistaken identity--most watchable. Not Lubitsch (altho Hanns Kräly had a hand) but not bad. Casting e.g. Bela Lugosi & Lupe Velez would've made for wackier Ruritarian screwball.
James Whale makes this pre-Code job--an upstairs-downstairs bedroom farce predicated on class privilege & mistaken identity--most watchable. Not Lubitsch (altho Hanns Kräly had a hand) but not bad. Casting e.g. Bela Lugosi & Lupe Velez would've made for wackier Ruritarian screwball.
November 13, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Off the Pile #4
James Whale makes this pre-Code job--an upstairs-downstairs bedroom farce predicated on class privilege & mistaken identity--most watchable. Not Lubitsch (altho Hanns Kräly had a hand) but not bad. Casting e.g. Bela Lugosi & Lupe Velez would've made for wackier Ruritarian screwball.
James Whale makes this pre-Code job--an upstairs-downstairs bedroom farce predicated on class privilege & mistaken identity--most watchable. Not Lubitsch (altho Hanns Kräly had a hand) but not bad. Casting e.g. Bela Lugosi & Lupe Velez would've made for wackier Ruritarian screwball.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/m...
New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther found the film “an ugly, depressing view of life.” Perhaps one had to be 16 to see “Viridiana” as a grown-up version of Mad magazine. Call mine a case of arrested development, but I still do.
New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther found the film “an ugly, depressing view of life.” Perhaps one had to be 16 to see “Viridiana” as a grown-up version of Mad magazine. Call mine a case of arrested development, but I still do.
‘Viridiana’ Was Luis Buñuel’s Revenge
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:21 PM
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/m...
New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther found the film “an ugly, depressing view of life.” Perhaps one had to be 16 to see “Viridiana” as a grown-up version of Mad magazine. Call mine a case of arrested development, but I still do.
New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther found the film “an ugly, depressing view of life.” Perhaps one had to be 16 to see “Viridiana” as a grown-up version of Mad magazine. Call mine a case of arrested development, but I still do.
Reposted by J Hoberman
Fuck yeah
A chorus of Jewish New York communities, including Bend the Arc, are repudiating the ADL's blatant Islamophobia in a joint statement.
Read more below:
Read more below:
Progressive Jewish groups say ADL's 'Mamdani Monitor' is 'Islamophobic and racist' - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jewish organizations are split along ideological and strategic lines over how to interact with the mayor-elect.
www.jta.org
November 12, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Fuck yeah
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS
November 12, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS
Desperate Character www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
J. Hoberman · Desperate Character: Rambunctious R. Crumb
Rambunctious and often offensive, R. Crumb draws freely on pre-existing racial and gender stereotypes, and always draws...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 12, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Desperate Character www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by J Hoberman
Read every word & share with everyone you know. This is real life here in Chicago. Americans need to know this grotesque reality & stand with us.
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 10, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Read every word & share with everyone you know. This is real life here in Chicago. Americans need to know this grotesque reality & stand with us.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/m...
My (or rather his) class notes in the penultimate graf.
My (or rather his) class notes in the penultimate graf.
Peter Watkins, Provocateur With a Movie Camera, Dies at 90
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 8:26 PM
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/m...
My (or rather his) class notes in the penultimate graf.
My (or rather his) class notes in the penultimate graf.
Xi has been repressing China's independent film scene for the last dozen years but, so far as I know, this is the first time he exercised dictatorial power in NYC. Between emperor Xi and idiot Trump, the often brilliant international students who come here to study are going to have a tough time.
November 7, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Xi has been repressing China's independent film scene for the last dozen years but, so far as I know, this is the first time he exercised dictatorial power in NYC. Between emperor Xi and idiot Trump, the often brilliant international students who come here to study are going to have a tough time.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Rupert always knew how to monetize--it's why he left the Voice alone, albeit depressing salaries.
Rupert always knew how to monetize--it's why he left the Voice alone, albeit depressing salaries.
New York Post’s anti-Mamdani front page is a hit – with his supporters
‘On your Marx, get set, Zo!’ edition of Murdoch-owned tabloid is a hot property – with one copy selling for $355
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:23 PM
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Rupert always knew how to monetize--it's why he left the Voice alone, albeit depressing salaries.
Rupert always knew how to monetize--it's why he left the Voice alone, albeit depressing salaries.
www.sabzian.be/text/the-dar...
"In the mid-1970s, during summer courses at Columbia University, a group of students & I studied & specified the characteristics of this uniform & repetitive language form which frames almost the entire output of the MAVM. We called it the Monoform."
"In the mid-1970s, during summer courses at Columbia University, a group of students & I studied & specified the characteristics of this uniform & repetitive language form which frames almost the entire output of the MAVM. We called it the Monoform."
The Dark Side of the Moon, Peter Watkins, 2018
The following statement is concerned with the language form of the mass audiovisual media – i.e., the use by the MAVM of a repetitive, standardized structure, and abbreviated time and space, to contro...
www.sabzian.be
November 1, 2025 at 8:49 PM
www.sabzian.be/text/the-dar...
"In the mid-1970s, during summer courses at Columbia University, a group of students & I studied & specified the characteristics of this uniform & repetitive language form which frames almost the entire output of the MAVM. We called it the Monoform."
"In the mid-1970s, during summer courses at Columbia University, a group of students & I studied & specified the characteristics of this uniform & repetitive language form which frames almost the entire output of the MAVM. We called it the Monoform."
Reposted by J Hoberman
i genuinely cannot stand actual european elites condescendingly explaining american public opinion to americans. reminds me of when some british lady IRL tried to tell me she understood southerners better than i ever could, a southerner who lives in the south.
The educated liberal big city US folks outraged at Trump's renovation of Lincoln bathroom really need to scroll some Facebook of their less established relatives and friends to see what kind of aesthetic resonates with Trump's target audience.
November 1, 2025 at 2:02 PM
i genuinely cannot stand actual european elites condescendingly explaining american public opinion to americans. reminds me of when some british lady IRL tried to tell me she understood southerners better than i ever could, a southerner who lives in the south.
Big budget anti-Semitic propaganda, Veit Harlan's Jud Süß was released in late 1940 in Germany, followed by a roll-out meant to inflame population of Nazi-occupied nations. (It was also shown to concentration camp guards) Unlike Leni R, Harlan was charged w crimes against humanity after the WW2.
A friend pointed out this comparison and it’s impossible to unsee: Mamdani is read by the press as both a “Judeo Bolshevik” and a “Muslim jihadist” at the same time, or more precisely, the way these have both fused into a single image - the “Judeo Muslim threat”
October 31, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Big budget anti-Semitic propaganda, Veit Harlan's Jud Süß was released in late 1940 in Germany, followed by a roll-out meant to inflame population of Nazi-occupied nations. (It was also shown to concentration camp guards) Unlike Leni R, Harlan was charged w crimes against humanity after the WW2.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/u...?
This willfully ignant hit job could have been dreamt up by a Cuomo speechwriter. The quotes from Vance are particular odious.
This willfully ignant hit job could have been dreamt up by a Cuomo speechwriter. The quotes from Vance are particular odious.
October 28, 2025 at 8:22 PM
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/u...?
This willfully ignant hit job could have been dreamt up by a Cuomo speechwriter. The quotes from Vance are particular odious.
This willfully ignant hit job could have been dreamt up by a Cuomo speechwriter. The quotes from Vance are particular odious.
Reposted by J Hoberman
I honestly don't think the NY Times has been this bad in my lifetime, it's deeply shameful.
October 28, 2025 at 8:05 PM
I honestly don't think the NY Times has been this bad in my lifetime, it's deeply shameful.
Reposted by J Hoberman
Article says the latest executions occurred in the "Eastern Pacific" and that they were "designed" to "ratchet up pressure on the Venezuelan government."
Venezuela does not touch the Pacific Ocean.
Venezuela does not touch the Pacific Ocean.
October 28, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Article says the latest executions occurred in the "Eastern Pacific" and that they were "designed" to "ratchet up pressure on the Venezuelan government."
Venezuela does not touch the Pacific Ocean.
Venezuela does not touch the Pacific Ocean.
jewishcurrents.org/the-myth-of-...
This is a cogent wag-the-dog analysis (albeit w/o discussion of Israel's decades-old unofficial status as a nuclear power)
This is a cogent wag-the-dog analysis (albeit w/o discussion of Israel's decades-old unofficial status as a nuclear power)
The Myth of Israeli Innovation
Israel has long relied on Western patrons for arms and backing—even as it has cast itself as a security “innovator” the West can’t afford to do without.
jewishcurrents.org
October 28, 2025 at 2:40 PM
jewishcurrents.org/the-myth-of-...
This is a cogent wag-the-dog analysis (albeit w/o discussion of Israel's decades-old unofficial status as a nuclear power)
This is a cogent wag-the-dog analysis (albeit w/o discussion of Israel's decades-old unofficial status as a nuclear power)
Found this 1935 item
Intro sentence: "Fascism not only exists in America, but it has become formidable and only needs a Duce, a Fuehrer, an organizer, and a loosening of the purse strings of those who gain materially by its victory, to become the most powerful force threatening the Republic."
Intro sentence: "Fascism not only exists in America, but it has become formidable and only needs a Duce, a Fuehrer, an organizer, and a loosening of the purse strings of those who gain materially by its victory, to become the most powerful force threatening the Republic."
October 27, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Found this 1935 item
Intro sentence: "Fascism not only exists in America, but it has become formidable and only needs a Duce, a Fuehrer, an organizer, and a loosening of the purse strings of those who gain materially by its victory, to become the most powerful force threatening the Republic."
Intro sentence: "Fascism not only exists in America, but it has become formidable and only needs a Duce, a Fuehrer, an organizer, and a loosening of the purse strings of those who gain materially by its victory, to become the most powerful force threatening the Republic."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/u...
That's capitalism: Set a fire so you can make $$$ putting it out.
That's capitalism: Set a fire so you can make $$$ putting it out.
Trump’s China Deal May Avert a Crisis of His Own Making
www.nytimes.com
October 27, 2025 at 8:11 PM
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/u...
That's capitalism: Set a fire so you can make $$$ putting it out.
That's capitalism: Set a fire so you can make $$$ putting it out.
www.villagevoice.com/wackos-save-...
Forget Bugonia, save the original, Korean director Jang Jun-hwan’s Save the Green Planet: Snazzy, playful, somewhat gory, often hilarious... What’s most remarkable about this lurid, wildly busy spectacle is how serious it can be—that is, how poignant and poetic.
Forget Bugonia, save the original, Korean director Jang Jun-hwan’s Save the Green Planet: Snazzy, playful, somewhat gory, often hilarious... What’s most remarkable about this lurid, wildly busy spectacle is how serious it can be—that is, how poignant and poetic.
www.villagevoice.com
October 27, 2025 at 12:26 PM
www.villagevoice.com/wackos-save-...
Forget Bugonia, save the original, Korean director Jang Jun-hwan’s Save the Green Planet: Snazzy, playful, somewhat gory, often hilarious... What’s most remarkable about this lurid, wildly busy spectacle is how serious it can be—that is, how poignant and poetic.
Forget Bugonia, save the original, Korean director Jang Jun-hwan’s Save the Green Planet: Snazzy, playful, somewhat gory, often hilarious... What’s most remarkable about this lurid, wildly busy spectacle is how serious it can be—that is, how poignant and poetic.
www.democracynow.org/2025/10/24/w...
"Israel’s Knesset has advanced legislation that would effectively annex the West Bank, prompting rare criticism from the Trump administration, which says it does not support annexation." Interesting...
"Israel’s Knesset has advanced legislation that would effectively annex the West Bank, prompting rare criticism from the Trump administration, which says it does not support annexation." Interesting...
As Israel Pushes to Annex West Bank, Norwegian Refugee Council Condemns Growing Settler Violence
Israel’s Knesset has advanced legislation that would effectively annex the West Bank, prompting rare criticism from the Trump administration, which says it does not support annexation. We get a report...
www.democracynow.org
October 24, 2025 at 5:07 PM
www.democracynow.org/2025/10/24/w...
"Israel’s Knesset has advanced legislation that would effectively annex the West Bank, prompting rare criticism from the Trump administration, which says it does not support annexation." Interesting...
"Israel’s Knesset has advanced legislation that would effectively annex the West Bank, prompting rare criticism from the Trump administration, which says it does not support annexation." Interesting...