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Barbara VanDenburgh

@babsvan.bsky.social

2K followers 1.6K following 1.4K posts

Poor, obscure, plain, and little. Writer, critic. Former books editor with too many bylines at USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic. Let’s talk movies https://boxd.it/lA7b

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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 · 19h

2025 watch #145: Shoot the Moon. The *one* good thing about losing Diane Keaton is it got me to watch Shoot the Moon, an unbelievably good movie about a woman navigating divorce from a narcissist too broken to talk through his feelings or allow the ego death of seeing her move on. She’s radiant.

Diane Keaton looking fierce as hell in Shoot the Moon

Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Matinee Mode @matineemode.bsky.social · 1d

I need to know what Bob Hoskins said to Princess Diana in front of Roger Rabbit at the London premiere of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988).

Bob Hoskins meets Princess Diana as a full size Roger Rabbit costumed character stands next to them.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 3d

2025 watch #144: Friendship. It took me a week of watching this in 15-minute increments to make it all the way through. I have too much anxiety for this shit, you could torture me at Guantanamo with this brand of embarrassment comedy.

Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd in a still from Friendship

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 3d

The People Under the Stairs would be my favorite even including all those other options.

A boy and girl face each other in a bathroom in a still from The People Under the Stairs

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 4d

I feel lots of things that felt like, were billed as, self-actualization read in retrospect as canaries in the coal mine for the fraying commitments we owe to each other as members of a society.

Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 4d

Relatedly, I recall a lot of "the joy of canceling plans" jokes and memes from the 2010s and now folks are talking about a loneliness epidemic, and, well...

Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 4d

People will scoff at virtue signaling and then wonder why today’s billionaires don’t build museums, libraries, hospitals, and universities like Gilded Age ones did.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

Is that good

Mark Lemley @marklemley.bsky.social · 4d

And this:
92% of the growth in the entire country this year has been data centers. And some of that is "circular deals" that dont involve actual money

fortune.com/2025/10/07/d...

Without data centers, GDP growth was 0.1% in the first half of 2025, Harvard economist says | Fortune

Is a U.S. without data centers a country without GDP growth?

fortune.com

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

Sleeper was in constant rotation in my house when I was a kid because I was a weirdo (also she's hilarious)

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

She was also a lovely writer www.usatoday.com/story/entert...

'I want to understand:' Diane Keaton candid about brother's mental illness in interview, memoir

Actress Diane Keaton gets candid about her brother's livelong struggle with mental illness in her new memoir, "Brother & Sister."

www.usatoday.com

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

Ah, Christ. I interviewed so many celebs at USA TODAY it got to feel routine, people are just people at the end of the day, doing their little jobs. But I was so nervous talking to Diane Keaton I felt like I'd jumped out of a plane. She was exactly what she seems, effortlessly funny and effervescent

Jesse Hawken @jessehawken.bsky.social · 4d

RIP to a legend people.com/diane-keaton...

Diane Keaton, Famed for Roles in 'Father of the Bride,' 'First Wives Club' and More, Dies at 79 (Exclusive)

Diane Keaton has died at age 79. Keaton was best known for roles in movies like 'Annie Hall,' 'The First Wives Club,' 'Something's Gotta Give' and 'The Godfather.'

people.com

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Jason Adams @jamnpp.bsky.social · 4d

Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world,... I feel like I can't take it. And my heart is just going to cave in.

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

This is who Mike Johnson is railing against. A mild-mannered middle-age woman who gives out full-size candy bars at Halloween and has to Google if the dog dies before she finishes a film, but sure, go off.

A woman in a shirt reading “Better a big than a fascist” at a chill No Kings protest with good vibes

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

2025 watch #143: Possession. Hahahahaha holy shit what the fuck

Isabelle Adjani going beast mode in the subway in a scene from the 1981 film possession

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

alexis simpson @amutepiggy.bsky.social · 4d

anybody who's good at history want to tell me if it's good or not to starve your troops

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 4d

Military families on day 9 of the shutdown lining up at the food bank

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Chris Berube @chrisberube.bsky.social · 4d

"Oh yeah? You like baseball? What if I make you smoke *an entire pack* of baseball?"

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

I forget other people have that and it makes me feel insane when younger, dumber people in my ecosystem get nice things until I remember generational wealth exists

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 4d

A few people I follow on social media go to every concert. Like literally every concert. We’re talking thousands of dollars every month on tickets. They have normal jobs seemingly. Like… how? Is everyone secretly an heir or just catastrophically in debt?

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 5d

My boss: so how's our fourth quarter looking?

Me, the sales manager at the company that makes inflatable frog suits: well, you're never going to believe this, but

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Jen Johans @filmintuition.bsky.social · 5d

For #WorldMentalHealthDay, I recorded a rare personal video on Navigating Friendships & Relationships with People with Chronic Health Conditions. I hope you enjoy it & please share if it's helpful.
www.patreon.com/posts/video-...

Video: Navigating Friendships & Relationships with Chronic Health Conditions | Jen Johans of Film Intuition & Watch With Jen™️

www.patreon.com

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

Maybe this is the compliment that will fix me?

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

I love it, and it's so fun to introduce to other people

Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

2025 watch #142: The Brood. Had a blast watching this gnarly early Cronenberg work of psychological body horror with an audience of people seeing it for the first time. A woman's rage and trauma manifesting bodily, her unhealed wounds imprinting on the next generation.

A woman licks a bloody baby in a still from the 1979 film The Brood

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 5d

2025 watch #141: After the Hunt. This is less the he-said she-said #MeToo campus polemic it appears to be on the surface and more a tragedy about white women’s complicity in patriarchal power structures when they stand to benefit from it.
Messy but absorbing, Michael Stuhlbarg is as always the MVP.

Julia Robert’s and Andrew Garfield lie sluttily on a couch in After the Hunt

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 6d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Reposted by Barbara VanDenburgh

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 6d

there’s this weird idea a lot of people seem to have about how all of us writers and artists must secretly want to use AI and are merely resisting temptation for ethical reasons, and like, no, it’s not hard for me to resist drinking the bowl of Piss With Glass In It actually

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Barbara VanDenburgh @babsvan.bsky.social · 6d

It's the Puppy Bowl for racists.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 6d

Turning Point USA announced it will host counterprogramming to the Super Bowl halftime show, called “The All American Halftime Show,” as MAGA critics have been enraged over the selection of Bad Bunny as the 2026 headliner.

MAGA rage over Bad Bunny at Super Bowl sparks an alternative show

Counterprogramming hosted by the group that Charlie Kirk founded spotlights the growing political polarization surrounding one of the biggest events of the year.

www.washingtonpost.com

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