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Joshua Rivera

@jmrivera.bsky.social

6K followers 1.9K following 5.5K posts

writer for hire. bylines at Vulture, Slate, The Ringer, and Vanity Fair. movies and tv and games and books and

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · Nov 25

Oh I never did an intro post. So:

I’m a writer interested in pop culture and how we make meaning from it. I was entertainment writer at polygon, and before that had stints at EW, GQ, and freelanced everywhere. Stories saved my life and I want to help people understand them, and each other, better.

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 5m

I think my main problem isn’t that it’s done, but that you used to see people holding their nose, you know? An embarrassing thing to keep the wheels turning. But I’ve seen it spun as an extension of journalism and that’s a line of thinking that I find spurious

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 8m

Yeah I really hate this shit

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 4h

twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross

photo of Google News search results for Amazon Prime Day (the second this year)

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 2h

Oh hell yeah

Simogo @simogo.com · 1d

SIMOGO 15TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
October 28, 2025
Please join us for a celebration full of news and surprises. See you!

Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

excited to share this one. For the good people at @tesseractcinema.bsky.social , I wrote about The Exorcist, First Reformed, and forms of prayer

tesseractcinema.com/2025/10/08/e...

ENTER THE HYPERCUBE: FIRST REFORMED + THE EXORCIST - TESSERACT CINEMA

Joshua Rivera ties together the religious terror of The Exorcist and First Reformed.

tesseractcinema.com

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Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Grayson Morley @graysonmorley.com · 3h

"I have come to believe the silence is the point. That the questions you dare to voice when no one is there to hear them are of a different quality. That learning to ask something of the void, knowing no answer will come, is a practice worth applying oneself to."

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

excited to share this one. For the good people at @tesseractcinema.bsky.social , I wrote about The Exorcist, First Reformed, and forms of prayer

tesseractcinema.com/2025/10/08/e...

ENTER THE HYPERCUBE: FIRST REFORMED + THE EXORCIST - TESSERACT CINEMA

Joshua Rivera ties together the religious terror of The Exorcist and First Reformed.

tesseractcinema.com

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Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Jordan Cassidy @thecrossoverappeal.bsky.social · 3h

Fantastic essay about two of my favorite films.

Here is a strange thing about prayer: you do it with your eyes closed. An act of reverence, and also self-preservation […] The tension at the heart of both The Exorcist and First Reformed is what happens when you start to pray with your eyes open.

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

excited to share this one. For the good people at @tesseractcinema.bsky.social , I wrote about The Exorcist, First Reformed, and forms of prayer

tesseractcinema.com/2025/10/08/e...

ENTER THE HYPERCUBE: FIRST REFORMED + THE EXORCIST - TESSERACT CINEMA

Joshua Rivera ties together the religious terror of The Exorcist and First Reformed.

tesseractcinema.com

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 3h

Thanks so much for reading, Jordan!

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 3h

lol I have had a similar conversation

Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Scott Meslow @scottmeslow.bsky.social · 3h

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 3h

Really sharp, mean, and propulsive as hell. Crichton could cook when he wanted to!

Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Tesseract Cinema @tesseractcinema.bsky.social · 4h

thrilled to have @jmrivera.bsky.social with this brilliant look at religious terror and prayer in FIRST REFORMED and THE EXORCIST

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

excited to share this one. For the good people at @tesseractcinema.bsky.social , I wrote about The Exorcist, First Reformed, and forms of prayer

tesseractcinema.com/2025/10/08/e...

ENTER THE HYPERCUBE: FIRST REFORMED + THE EXORCIST - TESSERACT CINEMA

Joshua Rivera ties together the religious terror of The Exorcist and First Reformed.

tesseractcinema.com

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Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Robert King @robertking.bsky.social · 4h

For what it’s worth:

Speaking as a showrunner with two writers rooms going on now, this article from Ankler is insane. I don’t know who the insider is, but the reporter should call bullshit. This is a GPT press release.

The Ankler @theankler.com · 21h

The “GPT-5 pass” has gone from curiosity to mandate. Scripts, trailers, pitch decks are all being filtered through an AI model that remembers every draft and forgets what originality looks like. @erikbarmack.bsky.social on Hollywood’s uneasy reset:
theankler.com/p/run-it-thr...

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Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Eric Vilas-Boas @ericvb.bsky.social · 4h

" The tension at the heart of both The Exorcist and First Reformed is what happens when you start to pray with your eyes open. To lament and supplicate in a specific context, aware of how indirect and futile an effort it seems to be...."

this is the good stuff

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

excited to share this one. For the good people at @tesseractcinema.bsky.social , I wrote about The Exorcist, First Reformed, and forms of prayer

tesseractcinema.com/2025/10/08/e...

ENTER THE HYPERCUBE: FIRST REFORMED + THE EXORCIST - TESSERACT CINEMA

Joshua Rivera ties together the religious terror of The Exorcist and First Reformed.

tesseractcinema.com

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

🙏🏽 ty bro

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

This piece has had a long life, beginning as an exorcist anniversary story I was working on with @petevolk.bsky.social at polygon, changing a lot to become the more personal thing it is now. I hope you dig it

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

excited to share this one. For the good people at @tesseractcinema.bsky.social , I wrote about The Exorcist, First Reformed, and forms of prayer

tesseractcinema.com/2025/10/08/e...

ENTER THE HYPERCUBE: FIRST REFORMED + THE EXORCIST - TESSERACT CINEMA

Joshua Rivera ties together the religious terror of The Exorcist and First Reformed.

tesseractcinema.com

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Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 21h

just going to speak this into the world: I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall for her first meeting with standards and practices. if you know anything, I'm very easy to reach xo

Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 1d

please read my memo www.theverge.com/business/793...

Memo to Bari Weiss Re: CBS News: You’re doomed

Bari Weiss has sold her company, The Free Press, to manage the decline of broadcast news at CBS. How many ways can it go wrong?

www.theverge.com

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 4h

sad to say I have found your recognition and celebration of Hispanic heritage month lacking but that’s ok there’s still time

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 5h

That’s right! 😤

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 15h

This movie rocks so hard

Cinephilia & Beyond @cinephiliabeyond.org · 19h

In the Mouth of Madness makes its debut appearance in glorious 4K Ultra HD, looking deeper, richer, and stranger than ever!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs1q...

In the Mouth of Madness I Official Trailer | 4K

YouTube video by Arrow Video

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 18h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Reposted by Joshua Rivera

Marc Normandin @marcnormandin.bsky.social · 20h

Two pieces of good news here: Trev wrote a great meditation on sports failures/successes and death, and he's switching off of Substack, too

No Cartridge Trev @nocartridge.bsky.social · 21h

Proud to announce my new place I’m writing, my own newsletter at beehiiv (I’ll post this to substack too with a note on the move. We do not like bari weiss).

Anyway this is on baseball and death! Please read and subscribe! nocartridge.beehiiv.com/p/baseball-i...

Baseball is Like Dying, It's Easier Each Time

With Apologies to Joey Cape and Bad Astronaut

nocartridge.beehiiv.com

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 20h

got my eyes dilated today which means I could not spend all day reading. Unfortunately my job involves me reading all day

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 20h

The thing is, no matter what they are pitched as, all open world games are actually about the open world they present. The narrative, unless very carefully working in concert with that design, is a ruse!

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 20h

It really is tremendous man. I’ll probably have to write about it, keeps pulling me back when I am trying to do other shit

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