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Barbara VanDenburgh

@babsvan.bsky.social

2K followers 1.6K following 1.4K posts

Poor, obscure, plain, and little. Writer, critic, comms & events at The Sidney Poitier New American Film School. Former books editor with too many bylines at USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · Jan 3

2025 watch #1: Wicked. This is as if BookTok became sentient and made a film. The green and pink Stanley cup of movies, the Starbucks of cinema, the cultural lowest common denominator for a country that just reelected a disgraced reality TV star president. No gravity defied here.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 8h

10 horror movies to get to know me by

🧛 Fright Night
📌 Hellraiser
👻 Poltergeist
🏕️ The Blair Witch Project
😈 Demon Knight
🕯️ The Craft
🐺Bram Stoker’s Dracula
🪰 The Fly
🐐 The Witch
🐕 The Thing

Ashley Lynch ✂️🎞️ @ashleylynch.bsky.social · 9h

10 horror movies to get to know me by

🧟‍♀️ Evil Dead 2
🧗‍♀️ The Descent
🧙‍♀️ A Dark Song
😱 Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
🧩 Hellraiser
🌒 Messiah of Evil
🤖 Hardware
🦇 Fright Night
⚰️ Phantasm
🎹 Deep Red

Paul Lê @paulle.bsky.social · 10h

10 horror movies to get to know me by

📺 Ghostwatch
👻 Kōrei/Séance
🚗 Joy Ride
🐗 Razorback
👍🏻 The Hitcher
🕯️ Poison for the Fairies
☎️ When a Stranger Calls Back
🩺 Pin
🏳️‍🌈 Hellbent
🐈‍⬛ Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

marina🌸 @dovesplants.bsky.social · 16h

what etsy witch do we hire to heal dolly parton

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Gretchen Felker-Martin 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 20h

I have watched my talented, ethical friends lose their jobs because Nazi fuckups like Weiss siphon all the money out of the room and use it to create propaganda mills where sycophants tell the Führer and his thugs they're so special and brave and everyone loves them

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 21h

No shit I'm furious. I spent eleven years learning to write well about complex topics in ethical ways, often for criminally low rates, because I believe that work's important. It's deeply insulting to see a total dipshit get fabulously wealthy for telling the rich what they want to hear!

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 21h

2025 watch #140: Roofman. Cianfrance is fully in mainstream mode, shedding the vestiges of gritty naturalism for a mostly heartwarming family drama about a criminal who has a gift for schemes but lacks the coldness to get away with it. Would watch more movies set in the Toys R Us liminal space.

Channing Tatum wearing headphones with a bag of peanut M&M's in his lap in a still from the film Roofman

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 1d

People clutching their pearls over Taylor Swift fucking up Ophelia references like that bitch didn’t write the line “Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter” almost 20 years ago, she’s always been failing that AP English test

Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Spooky Joseph Boo-cker @josephzucker.bsky.social · 1d

Taylor Swift is basically Marvel Studios now. You get a new album every year, which feels a little worse than the last, and it becomes harder and harder to ignore the commercial factors behind her decisions.

defector.com/taylor-swift...

No Good Art Comes From Greed | Defector

The packages arrived square and thin and carefully wrapped on Saturday afternoon. There were three of them, but only one was mine. If I could have rejected my package, sent it back from whence it came...

defector.com

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 2d

Hell yeah

Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Michael F @michaelf617.bsky.social · 3d

I asked a Christian baker to write Charlie Kirk on a gay wedding cake and we've been staring at each other for 39 straight hours now

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 3d

the christmas adverturers' meeting scene takes place at ronald reagan's old house. absolutely incredible attention to detail www.mercurynews.com/2025/10/02/o...

Where the final chase was filmed, and more ‘One Battle After Another’ locations

Humboldt County has been enjoying its rare moment in the Hollywood spotlight; Sacramento and the Anza-Borrego Desert also have more than cameos.

www.mercurynews.com

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 4d

increasingly convinced preventing americans from getting their little packages is the thing that will take this government down

Adam Rose @adamrose.bsky.social · 4d

How bad are tariffs going?

I paid for $32 of shaving cream from Canada. Unique stuff I’ve used for years, nothing like it in US. Small family business.

UPS guy came to my door today with box and said I have to pay additional $120 before he can hand it to me.

That makes it 5x more expensive!!! 🤯

Screenshot of message from UPS:

Hi Adam,
All import fees must be paid prior to delivery.
Save time - prepay online for your FREIGHTCOM shipment. If import fees are not paid before delivery, an additional surcharge will be applied.
Total Amount Due
119.20 USD
Additional charges may have been applied based on recent tariff policy changes.
Pay Now ›

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

2025 watch #139: Cronos. Every little girl needs an undead grandpa whose skin is falling off to play with. That’s more or less Guillermo del Toro’s entire thing, isn’t it? Gross guys who are big sweeties.

A man looking worse for wear in a still from the film Cronos

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

I have seen so many movies and I’m not even close to running out, it rules.

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

Gifted programs are a way for schools to funnel resources to a desired demographic (white kids!) while starving everyone else. The answer isn't gifted programs, its funding and resourcing the entire school the way you would a gifted program.

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

I had to take some "non-gifted" classes with the general population, and you know what? They were harder. Because they were over-crowded, under-resourced and full of tedious busy work. I got worse grades in the gen-pop classes, the "easy" classes, because being under-served isn't actually easy

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

"Gifted" students (almost all white) were nominated to the program by teachers (all white), where they received more individualized attention, better resources, more funding. We got the fun field trips, overnight or weekend-long camps, got taken to the theatre every month, saw an opera or two...

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

I was in gifted programs from 4th-12th grade. Even at the time I understood them to be segregationist at heart. I grew up in Maryvale, a working-class Phoenix suburb, in a district with a higher-than-average percentage of minority students, and I could count the non-white "gifted" kids on one hand

Aaron Ross Powell ☸️ @aaronrosspowell.com · 6d

My wife is an elementary gifted ed specialist. The idea that gifted kids either don't exist or don't benefit from gifted education services is both wrong and harmful to those kids. Phasing out gifted programs is stupid. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/n...

Mamdani Says He Would Phase Out N.Y.C. Gifted Program for Early Grades

www.nytimes.com

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 6d

There is no better movie you can watch right now than A Hidden Life to steel your moral code, to draw red line your soul will not cross.

Bright Wall/Dark Room @bwdr.bsky.social · 6d

A HIDDEN LIFE | "I'm With You" Clip | FOX Searchlight

YouTube video by SearchlightPictures

youtu.be

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

ceej @ceej.online · 7d

if the government doesn’t show up for ten minutes we all get the day off

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 7d

Hey @apnews.com who’s in charge of every branch of government right now

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 7d

BREAKING: Democrats vote down a GOP bill to keep the government open, putting it on track for shutdown after midnight.

Democrats vote down GOP funding bill, putting government on path to shutdown

Senate Democrats have voted down a Republican bill to keep funding the government, putting it on a path to a shutdown after midnight Wednesday.

bit.ly

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 7d

2025 watch #138: Anemone. Hooray for Daniel Day-Lewis’ magnificent face back on the big screen.

Daniel Day Lewis and Sean Bean in Anemone

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 7d

My energy

Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

cass city @heavenlygrandpa.bsky.social · 12d

meanwhile at the Riyadh Comedy Festival

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 7d

Only way out is through

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jeff computers @helldude.bsky.social · 7d

call his bluff. let him tear the rest of the scaffolding down around him. we are either rebuilding or not, one way or another. stop playing ball with him

Jacob Bogage @jacobbogage.bsky.social · 7d

👀 Just Now -- President Trump in the Oval Office said a government shutdown gives his administration the power to cut benefit programs, which include Social Security and Medicare.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them, and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. And, you all know Russell Vought. He’s become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn't do any other way. So they're taking a risk by having a shutdown. Because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people. We don't want to do that, but we don't want fraud, waste and abuse.”

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 7d

2025 watch #137: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. These silly motherfuckers would do the same gag 5 times in a row and I'd laugh at every one.

Abbot and Costello gasp as they look into a shipping container containing Frankenstein's monster

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