Anton Bitel
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antbit.projectedfigures.com
Anton Bitel
@antbit.projectedfigures.com
3.9K followers 2.2K following 8.8K posts
Feckless freelance film critic and neurotic apanthrope.
The #Horror, the #Horror
Programmer for the London Korean Film Festival.
London Film Critics' Circle, Online Film Critics Society.
ProjectedFigures.com
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antbit.projectedfigures.com
Every so often my website reminds me why my reviews are unlikely to get confused with AI. My writing is only as illegible as I am...
'Readability scores' for my review website: just 16 of my reviews are deemed 'Good', whereas 3368 (the vast majority) are damned with "Needs improvement".
January 10, 2026 at 5:11 PM
antbit.projectedfigures.com
Cartoon. A psychiatrist seated in a chair takes notes as a butterfly reclines on the consultation couch. Text: "I just feel like, no matter what I do, someone's gonna get hurt".
January 8, 2026 at 9:47 AM
antbit.projectedfigures.com
Haute-couture whodunnit: in Mario Bava's ur-giallo BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) the "focus always remains on the dreamy mood and elegant design that create so many fashion victims". On @arrowplayer.bsky.social (US/Canada) from today. projectedfigures.com/2015/03/06/g...
a silhouette seen through a window background left, a (blood) red mannequin foreground right
January 5, 2026 at 7:24 AM
antbit.projectedfigures.com
Police close Magdalen to all vehicles and pedestrians. Cop tells walkers (inc. me) that instead of getting to Central Oxford in four minutes, we can take an hour-long detour. I blame Brexit…
Police cordon at an eerily quiet Magdalen Bridge.
January 2, 2026 at 9:13 AM
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How I met your mother: Adam Brooks’ sophisticated bedtime story DEFINITELY, MAYBE (2008) "politicises its rom while rooting its com in bittersweet realism".
projectedfigures.com/2025/12/30/d...
Will (Ryan Reynolds) telling his daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) a bedtime story
December 30, 2025 at 7:50 AM
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Honoured to have contributed my pick of the year (@diamantmort.bsky.social) to @dmovies.bsky.social's Top 10 Dirtiest Movies of 2025. dmovies.org/2025/12/21/t...
John Diman (Fabio Testi) sits looking out from his table at a hotel on the Riviera, and catches us in his voyeuristic male gaze. (from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (Reflet dans un diamant mort, 2025)
December 23, 2025 at 3:11 PM
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Here are my 10 picks for @sightsoundmag.bsky.social's "The best films of 2025". The order is purely alphabetical, and on a different day my choices might have been different, blah blah - but I stand by these choices as films that I would commend. www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...
Black Bag (Steven Soderberg, USA) Eddington (Ari Aster, USA, UK, Finland) Freaky Tales (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, USA, Canada) Frosted Window (Kim Jong-kwan, South Korea) The Ice Tower (Lucile Hadzihalilovic, France, Germany) Mother of Flies (Jon Adams, Zelda Adams & Toby Poser, USA) One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA) Portal to Hell (Woody Bess, USA) Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France) The Ugly Stepsister (Emilie Blichfeldt, Norway, Denmark, Romania, Poland, Sweden) These ten films are listed in purely alphabetical order. Every list comprises individual selections, but once I see all ten of these laid out alongside one another, certain themes become apparent. On the one hand, there are the films which take on, however obliquely, the divisions and polarities of Trump’s America (Freaky Tales, Eddington, One Battle After Another). Then more specifically, there are the films that look at the roles, perceptions and expectations imposed on women in a rapidly changing, rapidly regressing world (The Ice Tower, Mother of Flies, The Ugly Stepsister). Then, contrariwise, there are the films that offer, or at least seem to offer, a refuge from such topical, contemporary concerns (Black Bag, Frosted Window, Portal to Hell, and my film of the year, the maximalist, Euro-spy-inflected remembrance of things past, Reflection in a Dead Diamond) – although in fact even these films, despite their supposed retreat into pure genre or into emotional landscapes, come with their own political dimension and staged failure to escape certain realities.
December 22, 2025 at 4:47 PM
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yay me, I guess
e-mail text: "Your review was successful Hi Anton, Thank you for taking the time to request a review. We reviewed your account and saw that activity on it does follow our Community Standards, so you can use Facebook again. We're sorry that you weren't able to use Facebook for a while. Sometimes we need to take action to help keep everyone on Facebook safe. You can learn more about why we disable accounts by visiting our Community Standards."
December 22, 2025 at 12:00 PM
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Face***k is now insisting that I give them a bunch of facial recognition data to continue using their service, which makes me extremely uncomfortable. I cannot see any non-sinister reason why they would want/need such identity capture. Is this happening to other people?
Dialogue box from Face***k reads: "Confirm your identity with a video selfie To make sure that you're a real person, we need you to record a video selfie. We'll ask you to move your head during the recording to help us capture your face at different angles."
December 19, 2025 at 7:41 AM
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One should never speak ill of the dead, but personally I cannot wait to join billions in following Trump's own example by being extremely ungracious about Trump's passing. May it come soon, and may he rot in hell.
Trump's Truth post about the great Rob Reiner's death: "A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!"
December 15, 2025 at 3:31 PM
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if you see this, quote with something that best describes your flavour of neurodivergence
plain, empty black
December 12, 2025 at 8:56 AM
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always projecting, this one
Donald Trump in a televised interview saying (of the European states): "They're decaying."
December 10, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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weirdly I saw this earlier today
Italy mapped by meeting time: map of Italy showing what actual time (by region) a meeting will take place that has been scheduled for 3pm
December 10, 2025 at 5:00 PM
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that said, this is how I spend every Christmas
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) slumped asleep in front of his typewriter
December 9, 2025 at 5:32 PM
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House of Man, house of God, house of the Devil: @ericpennycoff.bsky.social's Xmas psychodrama THE LEECH (2022) presents a mad, mother-dominated ménage (à trois). Now on ARROWPlayer (as part of "December with the Devil"). projectedfigures.com/2023/08/17/1...
Close-up of a roaring Terry (Jeremy Gardner), dressed in a Santa hat
December 5, 2025 at 6:56 AM
antbit.projectedfigures.com
How I feel about the endless privileging of 'quality', rating and ranking in film discourse, especially - but not exclusively - around Awards Season.
Medium close-up of an upset Agnes Borg Pettersen (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) declaring: "I don't care! I don't care whether it's good or not." (from Joachim Trier's SENTIMENTAL VALUE, 2025)
December 4, 2025 at 9:46 PM
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"a gory, sensationalist tale of infectious anthrophagy spread by veteran soldiers", Antonio Margheriti’s 'video nasty' CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE (1980) explores "the lasting trauma of post-Vietnam America". Screens 8.30pm tonight at @thenickelcinema.bsky.social projectedfigures.com/2014/03/21/t...
Italian cinema peaks as Giovanni Lombardo Radice (playing a Vietnam vet named Charlie Bukowski!) holds a bottle of J&B Scotch whisky
December 3, 2025 at 7:44 AM
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BODY HORROR AND THE BEAUTY MYTH: SIX INFLUENCES AND INTERTEXTS FOR CORALIE FARGEAT’S THE SUBSTANCE. Includes capsules of: The Fly (1958), Seconds, The Shining, Basket Case, Yoga Hakwon, Replace. projectedfigures.com/2025/12/02/b...
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is horrified to see that the young woman he imagines he is embracing is reflected in the bathroom mirror as old and rotting. From Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING (1980).
December 2, 2025 at 8:32 AM
antbit.projectedfigures.com
Suffering for art: truly honoured to have contributed a booklet essay to this Limited Edition of Pupi Avati's THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS (1976), available in the US from today on 4K UHD or Blu-ray via Arrow Video. My old review: projectedfigures.com/2024/01/22/t...
Picture of the boxset of THE HOUSE WITH THE LAUGHING WINDOWS: its various covers, its disc, and its booklet. First page of my booklet essay "The Resurrection of Saint Sebastian: Suffering, Sacrifice and Secrecy in Pupi Avati's Restoration Comedy THE HOUSE WITH THE LAUGHING WINDOWS". On the opposite page there is a still from the film showing the damaged painting of Saint Sebastian, naked but for a loincloth, his hands bound behind his back, with multiple daggers protruding from his torso.
December 1, 2025 at 7:36 AM
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mind blown
illustration of LHS-1140b, a distant exoplanet that looks like a giant cosmic eyeball (i.e. it appears to have a huge hole in its centre), and might be hiding a massive liquid ocean beneath its surface. the planet at the end of David Lynch's ERASERHEAD (1977), with a huge hole in its centre
November 30, 2025 at 9:21 AM
antbit.projectedfigures.com
Suffering for art: truly honoured to have contributed a booklet essay to this Limited Edition of Pupi Avati's THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS (1976), available from Monday in the US on 4K UHD or Blu-ray via @arrowvideo.bsky.social. www.arrowvideo.com/p/blu-ray/th...
Picture of the boxset of THE HOUSE WITH THE LAUGHING WINDOWS, its various covers, its disc, and its booklet. First page of my booklet essay "The Resurrection of Saint Sebastian: Suffering, Sacrifice and Secrecy in Pupi Avati's Restoration Comedy THE HOUSE WITH THE LAUGHING WINDOWS". On the opposite page there is a still from the film showing the damaged painting of Saint Sebastian, naked but for a loincloth, his hands bound behind his back, with multiple daggers protruding from his torso.
November 29, 2025 at 8:43 AM
antbit.projectedfigures.com
Nuot Arquint
Nuot Arquint in medium close-up, from TULPA (2012) Nuot Arquint, clothes-less and hairless in medium shot, from SHADOW (2009)
November 26, 2025 at 1:19 PM
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Tallinn graffito
face on wall with caption: “BE A RIOT”
November 21, 2025 at 9:49 AM
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"as this monochrome film shows two men boldly if vainly resisting tyranny, actions and words are seen as recto and verso from the same manuscript of history": Lee Joon-ik's Occupation-era DONGJU (2016) screens 11.45am, BFI Southbank for London Korean Film Fest projectedfigures.com/2017/10/08/l...
The poet and the political activist—or is it the other way around?
November 15, 2025 at 9:24 AM
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"an exhilarating, exhausting tribute to Verhoeven’s infectious movie-making mania": Eastwood Allen & Christopher Griffiths' ROBODOC: THE CREATION OF ROBOCOP (2023) is on @arrowplayer.bsky.social (US/Can) from today projectedfigures.com/2024/12/22/s...
A bald Peter Weller doing a 'talking head' interview in medium close-up.
November 14, 2025 at 6:31 AM