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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 7d

Happy October—here’s a list of 100 avant-garde horror films I recommend, and links to watch the large majority of them.

100 Avant-Garde Horror Films

(and where to see them)

notreconciled.substack.com

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 9d

we made a pumpkin-caramelized onion risotto with fried sage and hazelnuts

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 19d

much respect to this guy hamming it up with a Donald Pleasance impression for a Librivox recording of Freud lectures

Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 23d

I wrote about Rhayne Vermette’s feature film Levers which just premiered at Toronto and will be at NYFF next month. My “analysis” feels wholly inadequate, but that’s appropriate for such a willfully hazy work. It’s really good.

notreconciled.substack.com/p/levers-rha...

Levers (Rhayne Vermette, 2025)

The images in Levers seem to belong to a narrative film, but you’d be hard pressed to discern the narrative.

notreconciled.substack.com

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 23d

so said many people on Twitter that week

Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 23d

you must’ve missed the week of Twitter discourse about whether the big bad in weapons is a transphobic signifier

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 24d

I wrote about Basma Alsharif’s latest film, which is one of the best of the year

Morgenkreis (Basma Alsharif, 2025)

I’ve been a fan of Basma Alsharif’s work since I saw her first film, We Began By Measuring Distance, however many years ago.

notreconciled.substack.com

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 27d

My favorite films in Wavelengths this year (most of which I’ll be writing about elsewhere):

FELT (Blake Williams)
Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze)
Morgenkreis (Basma Alsharif)
Levers (Rhayne Vermette)

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · 27d

I wrote about the films in the second Wavelengths program as part of this dispatch

inreviewonline.com/2025/09/11/t...

TIFF 2025 — Dispatch 3: The Currents, Honey Bunch, Blue Heron | In Review Online

A new festival coverage dispatch from the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival from film review site In Review Online.

inreviewonline.com

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Reposted by Alex Fields

Michael Sicinski @msicism.bsky.social · Sep 2

@afields9.bsky.social, @joshuapeinado.bsky.social and I took several passes at Crossroads 2025. Ch-check it out. inreviewonline.com/2025/09/01/c...

Crossroads Film Festival 2025: We Become Traces in History | In Review Online

A new festival coverage piece on the 2025 Crossroads Film Festival for film review site In Review Online.

inreviewonline.com

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Aug 18

Is there a worthwhile “best horror films” critics poll out there or should I conduct one before October

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Aug 8

anyone have access to a digital version of any of these books?

Pontormo & Rosso: Diverging Paths of Mannerism
Noa Turel - Living Pictures
David Ekserdjian - Parmigianino
Lucy Davis - Rubens: The Two Great Landscapes
Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer - Theodore Gericault

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Jun 15

Michael Baxandall describes a form of cultural knowledge that was lost for over four centuries after the Italian Renaissance, until the films of Straub-Huillet:

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Jun 7

I have not been keeping up with festivals or screeners the last few months, and I’m interested in anyone’s short lists of the best avant garde films of the year so far so I can prioritize catch up

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · May 20

It’s ironic that Kant specifically uses wine as an example of a merely agreeable/interested liking as opposed to beauty/aesthetic judgment, because the Critique of Judgment is the best book ever written about wine

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · May 14

Emerson on social media: “their every post chagrins us”

Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · May 5

there’s something funny about the moment in an RPG when, after hearing for ages about some dreaded immortal being, you find out how many hit points they have

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · May 2

“From this, it can easily be seen that…”

-Immanuel Kant after writing the densest, most abstract, most syntactically indecipherable paragraph in western history

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Apr 28

I no longer have access to an academic library and can’t afford to buy every scholarly book I want to reference. If anyone has PDFs of any of the following I would be very grateful

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Apr 8

Apropos the USA in 2025, I’ve been thinking of the passage in Minima Moralia where Adorno says (I’m paraphrasing) that the supporters of fascism are so desperate for a blow to be struck against their ill-defined enemies that when it happens they cheer it on even if it’s they themselves being struck

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Apr 3

I’ve been casually working on an all time favorite albums list, posting this rough top 12 now in honor of the goat Michael Hurley. RIP

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Mar 31

all the sets I saw at Big Ears ranked

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Mar 29

The legacy of John Fahey is alive but it is not well

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Mar 29

learned from this post that Colin Newman is here

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Alex Fields @afields9.bsky.social · Mar 29

there are occasional things worth living for, like getting to see the best rock band of the last decade and the best jazz ensemble of the last decade (still house plants / ahmed) back to back in my lil city in Appalachia

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