Barbara VanDenburgh
@babsvan.bsky.social
Poor, obscure, plain, and little. Writer, critic. Former books editor at USA TODAY. Let’s talk movies https://boxd.it/lA7b
Pinned
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.
Not only do I now mostly get all the jokes and references in the Dungeons & Dragons movie, but I genuinely think we should have a dozen of these by now. What have I become
November 30, 2025 at 5:06 AM
Not only do I now mostly get all the jokes and references in the Dungeons & Dragons movie, but I genuinely think we should have a dozen of these by now. What have I become
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
Bullshit machine that tells you to eat rocks and kill yourself isn't popular? How quaint.
November 30, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Bullshit machine that tells you to eat rocks and kill yourself isn't popular? How quaint.
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild (Arizona desert rat edition):
Gila monster
Coyote
Elk
Rattlesnake
Vulture
Gila monster
Coyote
Elk
Rattlesnake
Vulture
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild (UK city edition):
Badger
Deer
Parakeet
Bat
Fox
#urbanfauna
Badger
Deer
Parakeet
Bat
Fox
#urbanfauna
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild:
Alligator
Albino White Tailed Deer
Moose
Black Bear
Bobcat
Alligator
Albino White Tailed Deer
Moose
Black Bear
Bobcat
November 29, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild (Arizona desert rat edition):
Gila monster
Coyote
Elk
Rattlesnake
Vulture
Gila monster
Coyote
Elk
Rattlesnake
Vulture
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
rich dudes got freakier after butlers fell out of fashion, like say what you will about having domestic servants but clearly it was some sort of moderating force on old rich dudes having a fancy man follow you around saying shit like "oh dear sir, that wouldn't be very becoming"
November 29, 2025 at 6:43 AM
rich dudes got freakier after butlers fell out of fashion, like say what you will about having domestic servants but clearly it was some sort of moderating force on old rich dudes having a fancy man follow you around saying shit like "oh dear sir, that wouldn't be very becoming"
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
Hey @newyorker.com , going by the many harassment claims against him, you really don’t have to try this hard to suck his dick, he’ll show it to you no matter what.
When a cancelled performer reënters the culture, we expect them to offer us a great work, channelling their newfound clarity into the finest art they’ve ever made. With his new comedy show and début novel, has Louis C.K. met the bar?
www.newyorker.com/culture/crit...
www.newyorker.com/culture/crit...
Louis C.K.’s Next Chapter
In a new standup special, and a début novel, the comedian navigates murky, post-#MeToo terrain: not quite exiled, not quite welcomed back.
www.newyorker.com
November 29, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Hey @newyorker.com , going by the many harassment claims against him, you really don’t have to try this hard to suck his dick, he’ll show it to you no matter what.
Putting the ethics of this aside for the moment, the framing of this is demonstrably false. So many of the sex pests and abusers who’ve wormed their way back to public life - Mel Gibson, Kevin Spacey, Russell Brand, etc. - are reactionary losers now making the worst work of their careers.
When a cancelled performer reënters the culture, we expect them to offer us a great work, channelling their newfound clarity into the finest art they’ve ever made. With his new comedy show and début novel, has Louis C.K. met the bar?
www.newyorker.com/culture/crit...
www.newyorker.com/culture/crit...
Louis C.K.’s Next Chapter
In a new standup special, and a début novel, the comedian navigates murky, post-#MeToo terrain: not quite exiled, not quite welcomed back.
www.newyorker.com
November 29, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Putting the ethics of this aside for the moment, the framing of this is demonstrably false. So many of the sex pests and abusers who’ve wormed their way back to public life - Mel Gibson, Kevin Spacey, Russell Brand, etc. - are reactionary losers now making the worst work of their careers.
The Last Crusade has always been my favorite Indiana Jones, and Stoppard is unquestionable the reason why. A glittering perfection of the formula.
RIP Tom Stoppard.
Hardly his most important work, but I remember having my mind blown by learning he had rewritten most of the dialogue on INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, one of the funniest movies ever made
Hardly his most important work, but I remember having my mind blown by learning he had rewritten most of the dialogue on INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, one of the funniest movies ever made
November 29, 2025 at 6:08 PM
The Last Crusade has always been my favorite Indiana Jones, and Stoppard is unquestionable the reason why. A glittering perfection of the formula.
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
Cannot tell you how much I learned from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Possibly the single most instructive work for me in terms of realizing what one can do with words.
One of the giants. I’d just reread Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead for roughly the hundredth time. The thing that struck me is his work is never diminished by familiarity, that on the hundredth read I’d still gasp, stop breathing at the wit and depth. www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/n...
Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88
A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Cannot tell you how much I learned from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Possibly the single most instructive work for me in terms of realizing what one can do with words.
One of the giants. I’d just reread Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead for roughly the hundredth time. The thing that struck me is his work is never diminished by familiarity, that on the hundredth read I’d still gasp, stop breathing at the wit and depth. www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/n...
Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88
A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:36 PM
One of the giants. I’d just reread Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead for roughly the hundredth time. The thing that struck me is his work is never diminished by familiarity, that on the hundredth read I’d still gasp, stop breathing at the wit and depth. www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/n...
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
Anyone have $300 they feel like pissing away buying me a ludicrously overpriced table lamp that looks like my cat?
November 28, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Anyone have $300 they feel like pissing away buying me a ludicrously overpriced table lamp that looks like my cat?
@profanity.accountant Have I been a bad, bad girl?
November 29, 2025 at 3:38 AM
@profanity.accountant Have I been a bad, bad girl?
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
truth coming out of her cup noodles to shame mankind
November 28, 2025 at 5:48 AM
truth coming out of her cup noodles to shame mankind
Anyone have $300 they feel like pissing away buying me a ludicrously overpriced table lamp that looks like my cat?
November 28, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Anyone have $300 they feel like pissing away buying me a ludicrously overpriced table lamp that looks like my cat?
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
really went dark for the sequel
November 28, 2025 at 5:41 PM
really went dark for the sequel
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
to diminish the humanities is to miss out on a lot of little guys. that’s no way to live.
Netsuke of a Rat Grasping a Soybean Pod, 19th century Japan
November 28, 2025 at 5:41 AM
to diminish the humanities is to miss out on a lot of little guys. that’s no way to live.
We are now at the point of the holiday where my dad is mad I don’t want to watch random YouTube videos with him for the next three hours. “But they’re very interesting!” he says over a menu of videos of people fixing car engines and playing slot machines.
November 28, 2025 at 5:09 AM
We are now at the point of the holiday where my dad is mad I don’t want to watch random YouTube videos with him for the next three hours. “But they’re very interesting!” he says over a menu of videos of people fixing car engines and playing slot machines.
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
we have to go back. to warn them.
November 28, 2025 at 2:49 AM
we have to go back. to warn them.
Introduce yourself with five concerts you’ve seen -
Black Sabbath
Adele
Radiohead
Fiona Apple
NBA All-Star Stay in School Celebration 1995 (Boyz II Men / Mary J. Blige / Queen Latifah / Brandy / D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince)
Black Sabbath
Adele
Radiohead
Fiona Apple
NBA All-Star Stay in School Celebration 1995 (Boyz II Men / Mary J. Blige / Queen Latifah / Brandy / D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince)
Introduce yourself with five concerts youve seen —
Whitney Houston
Weird Al and the Monkees
Club MTV tour feat. Bel Biv Devoe & C&C Music Factory
Fiona Apple
The Mountain Goats
Whitney Houston
Weird Al and the Monkees
Club MTV tour feat. Bel Biv Devoe & C&C Music Factory
Fiona Apple
The Mountain Goats
Introduce yourself with five concerts you've seen —
NIN
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Soul Coughing
Poe
Tom Morello
NIN
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Soul Coughing
Poe
Tom Morello
November 28, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Introduce yourself with five concerts you’ve seen -
Black Sabbath
Adele
Radiohead
Fiona Apple
NBA All-Star Stay in School Celebration 1995 (Boyz II Men / Mary J. Blige / Queen Latifah / Brandy / D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince)
Black Sabbath
Adele
Radiohead
Fiona Apple
NBA All-Star Stay in School Celebration 1995 (Boyz II Men / Mary J. Blige / Queen Latifah / Brandy / D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince)
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
Happy Thanksgiving, America!
November 27, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Happy Thanksgiving, America!
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
thanksgiving is a time for people to come together, to celebrate the spirit of unity despite our differences, and to demonstrate that, here is busta rhymes performing "break ya neck" with raphael the ninja turtle
November 27, 2025 at 4:06 PM
thanksgiving is a time for people to come together, to celebrate the spirit of unity despite our differences, and to demonstrate that, here is busta rhymes performing "break ya neck" with raphael the ninja turtle
Currently trapped in a car with a guy wearing an American flag Punisher shirt gushing about using A.I. to write a song, AMA
November 26, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Currently trapped in a car with a guy wearing an American flag Punisher shirt gushing about using A.I. to write a song, AMA
Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh
Me, an atheist: Your holiness I stand ready to join the crusade against the demonic computers
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
Even God Is Worried About ChatGPT
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
www.vulture.com
November 26, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Me, an atheist: Your holiness I stand ready to join the crusade against the demonic computers