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Review: Black Phone 2 Is A Fun Follow Up That Struggles With Lazy Plotting

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 14h

Travis Johnson reviews Black Phone 2.
bluntmag.com.au/reviews/blac...

Black Phone 2 struggles to lay enough narrative pipe to justify its existence, but the Grabber remains an iconic villain.

bluntmag.com.au

REVIEW: Tron: Ares (2025)

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 14h

While competently made, Tron: Ares represents an uninspired brand extension when it should be making comment on AI. The Grid never felt so ordinary.

fictionmachine.com/2025/10/09/r...

Steven Lisberger’s Tron (1982) is a strange cult science fiction film that capitalised on an early 1980s videogaming boom to build an iconic and ambitious visualisation of people living insid…

fictionmachine.com

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 17h

I can think of at least one pretty fucking obvious sign of extremism...

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

THAT COFFEE IS FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES.

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

My love for the cassowary knows no bounds.

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

A cassowary won't *accidentally* kill you...

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

So remember to love the almighty Southern Cassowary – but also remember: don’t hug it. (13/13)

A cassowary minds its own business, on an Australian beach.

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

In 2019, a farmer in the US state of Florida tripped over in front of his pet cassowary. It kicked him to death. Cassowaries make bad pets, which is why you shouldn't import them. I assume police failed to apprehend the bird because its running speed maxes out at 50kph (31 mph). (12/13)

a person is standing in the middle of a dry grass field .

ALT: a person is standing in the middle of a dry grass field .

media.tenor.com

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

That said, given the chance they’ll try eating anything. Items found in cassowary poop have included half-digested fish, a plastic toy car, children’s blocks, and a bandicoot. (Pictured: a bandicoot.) (11/13)

A bandicoot: a rodent-liked Australian marsupial with brown fur and a long narrow snout.

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Despite their fearsome appearance, cassowaries generally eat fruit. They swallow them whole. They can even eat toxic fruit, because they have a ridiculously short digestive tract. (10/y)

An adult cassowary and its chick. The adult is literally in the middle of swallowing a pineapple.

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

The males nurse the eggs and raise the chicks, who leave the nest at about nine months. The females are off as soon as they lay, to have sex with other males. Do not slut-shame them. (9/13)

A male cassowary, which is black, with two chicks, which are brown.

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

This photograph contains a cassowary. (8/13)

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Despite this sort of take-no-shit behaviour, the Southern Cassowary is not the deadliest bird in the world. Ostriches kill 2-3 people each year. Why are Cassowaries less deadly? They are exceptional at hide-and-seek. (7/13)

A cassowary looks at you, beak open and ready to kill.

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

The first recorded human death by cassowary was in 1926. 16-year-old Phillip McClean and his brother attacked a local cassowary with clubs. Phillip tripped while trying to hit the bird; it responded by kicking a half-inch hole through his neck. (6/13)

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Cassowaries have three toes on each foot. The inner toe comprises a five-inch-long claw that would be better off described as “Jesus fuck that bird’s got a knife!!” (5/13)

A gloved hand holds a cassowary's foot. One toe has a five-inch-long claw on it.

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, a cassowary’s voice is deep. Really deep. Like, James Earl Jones once heard it and said “fuck me, brother, that’s deep”. Well, he probably said that. (4/13)

Actor James Earl Jones, wearing glasses, shocked - presumably at a cassowary.

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

They each have a hard keratinous casque on their head. We don’t know why. There are theories – a secondary sexual characteristic, for example, or a weapon for head-butting rivals. They seem to also amplify deep sounds made by the cassowary. (3/13)

A cassowary's head, which is dominated by a large keratin-based casque, somewhat like an 18th century hat.

Randolph Scott, Virtuous Loner of the West

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

I mean, they’re tall. Really tall. Average heights are 1.5-1.8 metres. Females can occasionally top the charts at just on 2 metres. That’s 6 foot 6 and a half inches. (2/13)

A cassowary crosses the road ahead of a dark sedan car.

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Is there a more magnificent Australian bird than the Southern Cassowary? There is not. Located in Queensland, Papua New Guinea, and a few Pacific islands, it is the third-largest flightless bird in the world after the ostrich and the emu. (1/13)

A southern cassowary, a large flightless bird with black feathers, a blue head, and yellow and red neck.

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Great piece on Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher.

Lonesomeness, nobility, and anti-machismo: the ‘Ranown’ westerns are an underappreciated treasure of American cinema.

www.thebulwark.com

There is something about Elvis Presley movies that keeps catching my attention. It certainly isn’t the talent: Presley is an adequate actor at best, and he typically seems surrounded by a con…

Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

The Atheling is the best Ditmar. Congratulations!

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Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Elvis Presley and Nancy Sinatra star in Speedway (1968), Hollywood's first-ever NASCAR movie. I'm guessing it also features Hollywood's first -ever musical number about the IRS.

fictionmachine.com/2025/10/07/r...

REVIEW: Speedway (1968)

fictionmachine.com

Reposted by Grant Watson

EJ/Hespa (they/them) @nb-nature-nerd.bsky.social · 2d

I am very here for seeing what Rebecca Sugar does with the Moomins! Especially given their own queer origins - www.moomin.com/en/blog/ive-...