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mediumacolyte.bsky.social
Lady Horatia
@mediumacolyte.bsky.social
42 followers 13 following 58 posts
Film critic living in Italy. I write about whatever I feel like at any moment on my medium profile: https://medium.com/@lady-horatia
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mediumacolyte.bsky.social
Lady Horatia @mediumacolyte.bsky.social · Dec 6
I attended the Ibero-Latino Americano Film Festival for the second year in a row. And it was incredible. You can read my piece on it here.

#film #cinema #filmfestival #latinamerica #latin_america #trieste #italy #movies #art #philosophy #politics #humanity

medium.com/theuglymonst...
The Beautiful and Exuberant Faces of the Ibero-Latino Americano Film Festival of Trieste
This vibrant, optimistic, and radical film festival was human and touching
medium.com
Reposted by Lady Horatia
marisakabas.bsky.social
“Four of my children just evaporated,” Badran said, holding back tears. “I looked for them a million times. Not a piece was left. Where did they go?”

There are no words to adequately describe the evil here.
Israel used weapons in Gaza that made thousands of Palestinians evaporate
US-made thermal weapons burning at 3,500C caused 2,842 people to "evaporate" in Gaza, Al Jazeera investigation finds.
www.aljazeera.com
February 10, 2026 at 10:29 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
jacobgeller.com
But to defend books coverage in these craven terms is already to concede too much. Popularity is not always a measure of merit, and, in any case, it is not static. What people click—and what they think they like—is largely a matter of what is available to them. Publics are made and maintained, not discovered preformed, like rock formations. It is a sign of a fatally limited imagination to assume that we can only ever desire the pittance to which we are currently reconciled. It is par for the course that, in a woefully limp statement on the carnage, the Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, referred to the paper’s subscribers not as “readers” but as “consumers.” A consumer is a person whose preëxisting tastes you strive to satisfy over and over; a reader is someone you hope to change, convince, and surprise.
February 10, 2026 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
ajcousins.bsky.social
💯👇
"Our response should not be "This response to Bad Bunny's inclusion shows how divided we are, how can we stop this polarization?" Our response should be uncooperative: "The response to Bad Bunny's inclusion shows just how racist our society is. Racists are angry about the halftime show? Good! Everything about our society should make racists feel alienated. How do we make racists feel even more alienated from even more of society??"
February 9, 2026 at 1:24 PM
mediumacolyte.bsky.social
'Avatar: Fire and Ash' wasn't as well received as the rest but I thought it had the nuance that many want from this sci-fi saga.

#movies #philosophy #politics #avatar
theuglymonster.bsky.social The Ugly Monster (Oscar) @theuglymonster.bsky.social · 3d
"‘Avatar’ denaturalizes colonialism, and it uses myth, faith, mysticism, magic, science fiction, and that veil between the real and unreal to do so."

#Medium #movies

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ and the Nature of Colonial Violence
James Cameron abandons all nuance for revolutionary fervour
medium.com
February 10, 2026 at 10:59 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
theuglymonster.bsky.social
"‘Nickel Boys’ opens with one of the most universal human senses: touch. The film is demanding that we relate to its story. It wants us not just to see but to perceive."

#film

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘Nickel Boys’ Unearths the Ugliness Buried Within America
This film is not just about one particularly abusive correctional school
medium.com
February 10, 2026 at 4:30 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
erikahall.bsky.social
My favorite artifact in the "you don't need AI to do art" discourse is, of course, screenwriter Dan O'Bannon's sketch of the facehugger to explain it to Giger.
A 2 panel sketch disgram of a 1 meter tall pod. in the second panel, an oval section pops off and a demonic little face with short tentacles flies out, crudely drawn.
February 7, 2026 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
danifroom.bsky.social
"I need AI to make art, human art is only for the rich and privileged-"
Iron Man meme, edited, Obadiah Stane yelling, "Your ancestors made timeless art in a cave! With berries and ash!"
February 6, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
lalahaenzy.com
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue
February 5, 2026 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
hmsnofun.bsky.social
we are maybe a few years away from the rise of revenue-sharing newsletter collectives. it'll be a controversy-ridden disaster until someone gets it right and suddenly it becomes a dominant model, and then a year or two later we'll look around and realize we just reinvented newspapers
paperalphabet.bsky.social Kristen Evans @paperalphabet.bsky.social · 9d
i know that this is an unpopular take, but everyone starting their own newsletter as a revenue stream is not a sustainable model for writing and reporting or for people who love and want to pay for media.
karenho.bsky.social Karen K. Ho @karenho.bsky.social · 9d
A lot of people cannot just start a paid newsletter or become freelancers to sustain their careers. The sports, metro, and international desks did work that requires *team* resources, like legal checks, documents, access to archives, and long-term beat experience.
February 4, 2026 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
keezyyoung.bsky.social
in any case I hope this is an eye opener for any folks who think having a lot of followers on social media (of any platform) must have it made. about 0.28% of my followers have bought and read my latest comic haha. sm is not NOTHING but it's also not that meaningful in the grand scheme of things
keezyyoung.bsky.social Keezy Young🌼 @keezyyoung.bsky.social · 8d
I wish people would stop telling me to "just self publish" 🥲 I do! here's what the last comic I self published netted me: months of work for 120 reads and a tiny bit more than one month's rent. I'm grateful of course to everyone who did read it!! but it's not an answer. it's just a way to spend time
my itch.io dash for it's bitter showing $1327 gross revenue and 124 payments
February 5, 2026 at 4:17 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
hmsnofun.bsky.social
saying "they have their flaws" of the Matrix Sequels is like saying Van Gogh's later work is good despite the ways it flaunts the rules of classical art. the art is in the friction of choice. highbrow or lowbrow, love it or hate it, good art is a series of choices no one else would/could have made
February 1, 2026 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
hmsnofun.bsky.social
just posted a little essay about "AI" upscaling and why i'm not a fan.

www.tumblr.com/hms-no-fun/8...
screenshot of the first two paragraphs of a tumblr ask response. the last line is cut off in the middle, meant to entice readers to click through and read the rest. hint hint. Anonymous asked: How do you feel about AI upscaling? hms-no-fun responded: bad. i haven't done much in the way of research on the current meta of "AI" upscaling technology so maybe there's some magical new trick that's suddenly made it work good, but i doubt it. what i can speak to is practical use cases i've found in the wild. on the amateur/consumer end, upscaling gets used to transform low resolution media into high resolution media. you see this a lot with documentary footage from the turn of the 20th century, where horsedrawn carriages are romping down the dirt roads of new york city in 4k60fps and colorized from black and white. like most things "AI"-related, this has a window of genuinely impressive novelty that lasts for about twenty seconds, maybe up to a minute if the result is decent. wow, it's like i'm looking through a window into the past! pretty quickly though you start noticing the smear frames, the interpolated faces, the hallucinated artifacts. watching these upscales for any real length of time, for me at least, rapidly approaches nausea-inducing. most information present in these videos is artificial, which is basically
January 28, 2026 at 12:15 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
marceliusb.bsky.social
Almost every reason people have for defunding or abolishing ICE is also a reason to defund or abolish the police, yet many people who are rightly calling for action against ICE would never come close to doing to the same for police. But this fight goes beyond just ICE. ICE represents a larger issue.
January 27, 2026 at 2:20 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
theuglymonster.bsky.social
"Cars are an extension of colonial rhetoric, except in reverse. Where colonial subjects are dehumanized and de-personalized, cars are humanized, personified and anthropomorphized."

#horror #movies

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘Christine’: The Violence of Possession
Possession makes you paranoic, and paranoia makes you violent
medium.com
January 25, 2026 at 11:23 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
maxgranger.info
The Deporter-in-Chief finally chimes in. Fun fact: under Obama, ICE and Border Patrol’s budgets exploded, dozens died in detention, and over 3,000 people were killed at the border by the bipartisan policy of “prevention through deterrence.”
barackobama.bsky.social Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 19d
The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.
January 25, 2026 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
hmsnofun.bsky.social
it is a moral imperative that we abolish prisons
briangaar.bsky.social Brian Gaar @briangaar.bsky.social · 28d
Here's an enraging story I wrote about today: A lady currently incarcerated in Texas has been taking care of a stray cat. It got sick. Her daughter started a fundraiser to pay for the vet. The prison now has put her in solitary confinement. thebarbedwire.com/2026/01/15/p...
After a Prison Cat Fundraiser Went Viral, Texas Officials Put His Caretaker in Solitary Confinement
“She was crying when she called me,” her daughter told The Barbed Wire. “This is not a place my medically challenged mother should be.”
thebarbedwire.com
January 18, 2026 at 7:44 PM
mediumacolyte.bsky.social
Rest in peace to a king of cinema. There will never be one quite like you Lynch. You left a hole within us all. You're my favourite director and this is my best article ever. I wonder if it would have you happy.

#lynch #movies #film
theuglymonster.bsky.social The Ugly Monster (Oscar) @theuglymonster.bsky.social · 27d
"The argument adopted by commenters is an essentially Anti-Allegory stance. It believes that stories are not just events with bold faced meanings seared onto the surface."

#DavidLynch #movies

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘Lost Highway’ and the Nature of Desire
Desire can never be satisfied, but it can be lived vicariously through surveillance
medium.com
January 17, 2026 at 11:40 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
davis.social
David Lynch passed a year ago today. I hope we all can absorb just a little bit of the energy he put out in his lifetime.
David Lynch sitting in a naturally lit room and wearing sunglasses: “I’m wearing dark glasses today, because I’m seeing the future and the future is looking very bright.”
January 16, 2026 at 6:47 PM
mediumacolyte.bsky.social
Progress is a myth. Maybe we'd do well to interrogate that myth.

#philosophy #arcane #politics
theuglymonster.bsky.social The Ugly Monster (Oscar) @theuglymonster.bsky.social · 28d
"Technological progress and social progress are in conversation. Hextech is not isolated to the sphere of technology; it interacts, interlinks, and converses with the social sphere."

#Arcane #LeagueOfLegends #Medium

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘Arcane’ and the Myth of Progress
We like to imagine progress as a perpetual social benefit, but is it really?
medium.com
January 16, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
phoenix-rights.bsky.social
If you’re anti-ICE but not anti-cop you are missing the whole entire point.
January 15, 2026 at 2:58 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
anarchozoe.bsky.social
Have been reading lots of prehistory and learned that prior to the emergence of agriculture 12,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers invented ceramics, sewing/weaving, and sea-worthy boats. Don't think they get enough credit for amazing innovations that still impact our lives today.
January 15, 2026 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
theuglymonster.bsky.social
"It is less a biopic than an adaptation of one very particular moment in Walsh’s career: the birth of his revolutionary journalism."

#movie #Argentina

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘Escritor’: Writing as a Weapon
Rodolfo Walsh was the father of investigative journalism, but he was also a revolutionary
medium.com
January 12, 2026 at 12:23 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
theuglymonster.bsky.social
"What most stood out to me about ‘One Battle After Another’ was not its shallow (and dangerous) representations, but rather its nature as a work which is subsumed to capital."

#GiftArticle #GoldenGlobes

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘One Battle After Another’, ‘Eddington’ and the Neo-Silent Cinema of the 2020s
Silence can be both loud and inspire revolution, or quiet and inspire complicity
medium.com
January 12, 2026 at 7:00 AM
mediumacolyte.bsky.social
This is an article I wrote with a plot twist.

#film #philosophy #politics
theuglymonster.bsky.social The Ugly Monster (Oscar) @theuglymonster.bsky.social · Jan 12
"Cuba cannot be understood within the limited liberalizing perspective which pins the end of history at the end of the Cold War. It is impossible to understand Cuba within a static, linear, and dichotomous perspective."

#geopolitics #movies #Medium

medium.com/theuglymonst...
‘Adiós Cuba’: Why Do Cubans Leave Cuba?
‘Adiós Cuba’ sheds some light on history’s most misunderstood migration
medium.com
January 13, 2026 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Lady Horatia
johntheduncan.bsky.social
Read it here for free www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The ‘hidden roots’ of neoliberal fascism: race, gender and the intensification of neoliberal hegemony
With the rise of authoritarian figures such as Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban, several scholars have examined the linkages between neoliberalism and contemporary fascism...
www.tandfonline.com
January 12, 2026 at 2:36 PM