Darren Hughes
@longpauses.bsky.social
1.3K followers 200 following 1.9K posts
Occasional writer and film programmer with a day job. Cinema Scope, Filmmaker Magazine, MUBI Notebook. Artistic Director, FILM FEST KNOX. www.longpauses.com
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I'm thinking about doing that middle-aged man thing where you get really into WWII or Rome or whatever but instead do the Spanish Civil War and Francoism.
I read the Philip Roth bio and hoo boy.
FB informs me it's been nine years since I chatted with and photographed these two dashing young men.
Reposted by Darren Hughes
Leni Riefenstahl is extremely useful as an example of how little scrutiny fascist aesthetics can bear. It’s all fundamentally the same lazy dopamine triggers of recognition as any pop culture nostalgia, just showing you conservative-coded shit and saying “only 1890s kids understand”
I've taken a new, more aggressive approach to blocking on social media. Health, wellness, finance, self-help influencer? Blocked. Person I would find annoying if they were seated near me at dinner? Blocked. Everyone associated with that Riyadh comedy show? Blocked. Marie Kondo but the internet.
"Grace Under Pressure is a flawless album"

This is the correct opinion.
Reposting because even if I'm the only person who thinks so, this is very funny. Imagine trying to make conversation with Bradley Cooper and not staring at his hair.
Yeah, it turns out I don't really care about one group of people duping another group of people with crypto scams 🤷‍♂️
Went for a 5-mile walk on the beach today, and every single dude I passed had the same beard, the same baseball hat, the same sunglasses, and the same bicep tattoo. It's like everyone in South Alabama went to a MAGA store and bought the ICE costume.
I'm at the beach in Alabama, and if my only source of information were local TV news, I would 100% be a fascist.
It's fun when people I don't like suffer!
I'm at the beach in Alabama, and if my only source of information were local TV news, I would 100% be a fascist.
TIL Nick Saban was at Kent State with the guys from Devo.
Bad energy, both of them. I skipped the former at TIFF and will definitely not under any circumstances ever watch the latter.
My copy is a DVD-R that I burned after renting it from Greencine twenty years ago. (Great movie.)
Glad to hear you're a fan too! The other Knoxville film, Niches, is also great.
My favorite comment on aging: "You're either gonna look old or you're gonna look weird."
Post a poster you have hanging on your wall
I'm proud to be presenting a rare screening of regional experimental filmmaker Peter Bundy, whose work in the late-'70s and early-'80s somehow reminds me of both Peter Hutton and Ross McElwee. They're now available on 16mm and digital transfer from Walker Art Center. Good stuff!
The FILM FEST KNOX program is live. :)
www.filmfestknox.com
Reposted by Darren Hughes
Normally I would never suggest engaging with Klein at all, but what is apparent here is that he is spinning out because his imagined idea of America butts up against Coates' sober and historically grounded view of it. You're watching an avatar of the privileged pundit class fall apart in real time
it's a great interview, and what's striking is that at the end of the day both klein and coates believe in winning people over. the difference is that coates thinks you do this by telling them the truth, and klein thinks you do it by empathizing with them and recognizing their concerns as Real
This was revealing. Worth reading. The basic demand is that Coates spend less time thinking/writing his true feelings and more time playing political strategist. Klein asks him over and over him to do Dem strategy; he says no, over and over. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/o...
I'm number 364. My first piece for the Notebook was 17 years ago!
Last night my mother told me that when she was doing her surgical rotation in nursing school, she was slow in responding to a doctor during an amputation, so he threw the patient's leg at her. "I thought I was going to be written up, but the doctor got in trouble." I'm 53 and just heard this story.