Michael Snydel

ICE thugs violently kidnapping a pregnant woman off the streets in Elgin, IL as her child watches in horror.

Please keep elevating these stories — Do NOT normalize this abuse. These people need to be held accountable.

This is also on Ovid if you don’t want to watch with ads.

From Ground Zero From Ground Zero is a collection of 22 short films made in Gaza. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the project was born to give a voice to 22 Gazan filmmakers to tell the untold stor...

Just noticed that From Ground Zero, the 22 short film anthology from Gaza filmmakers, is streaming free on Plex. watch.plex.tv/movie/from-g...

Eddie Palmieri, a pianist, composer and bandleader whose contributions to Afro-Caribbean music helped usher in the golden age of salsa in New York City, and whose far-reaching career established him as one of the great musical masterminds of the 20th century — not to mention one of its fieriest performers — died on Wednesday at his home in Hackensack, N.J. He was 88. His youngest daughter, Gabriela Palmieri, confirmed the death, which she said came after “an extended illness.” From the moment he founded his first steady band, the eight-piece La Perfecta, in 1961, Mr. Palmieri drove many of the stylistic shifts and creative leaps in Latin music. That group brought new levels of economy and jazz influence to a mambo scene that was just beginning to lose steam after its postwar boom, and it set the standard for what would become known as salsa. From there, he never stopped innovating. In the 1970s, Mr. Palmieri roped salsa into conversation with jazz, rock, funk and even modern classical music on a series of highly regarded albums, including “Vamonos Pa’l Monte” and “The Sun of Latin Music,” as well as with the fusion band Harlem River Drive. He also teamed up with thoroughbred jazz musicians — Cal Tjader, Brian Lynch and Donald Harrison among them — making essential contributions to the subgenre of Latin jazz. Mr. Palmieri’s fundamental tools, he once said in an interview, were the “complex African rhythmic patterns that are centuries old” and that lie at the root of Afro-Cuban music. “The intriguing thing for me is to layer jazz phrasings and harmony on top of those patterns,” he said. Explaining where he got his knack for dense and dissonant harmonies and his gleefully contrarian sense of rhythm, he cited jazz pianists like McCoy Tyner and Thelonious Monk as inspirations. (from his NY Times obit)

'Unfinished Masterpiece' (Coco 1975): Some Palmieri aficionados regard this album as his most complete recording, showcasing his improvisational ambitions and delivering an "earth shattering" salsa version of the Argentine tango "El Día Que Me Quieras". The blog Burning Ambulance recognizes it as an album worthy of more attention.

'Vamonos Pa'l Monte' (Tico 1971): This album is recognized for its fusion of Latin, jazz, and funk, while maintaining a strong Cuban clave rhythm. JazzTimes notes that it features more layers than his earlier work, with "seething trumpets" and solos from both Eddie and Charlie Palmieri.

'El Sonido Nuevo' (Verve 1966): This collaboration -- my favorite -- between vibraphonist Cal Tjader and pianist Eddie Palmieri (who provided the arrangements) is considered a masterpiece, especially for its innovative instrumental focus. It was Palmieri's finest work to date due to the depth of his instrumental arrangements.

R.I.P. Grammy Award-winning pianist, bandleader, musician & composer Eddie Palmieri, proudly born of Corsican and Puerto Rican ancestry. His music was full of life. His album with Cal Tjader 'El Sonido Nuevo (The New Sound)' (1966) is a favorite among these others showing here. More: alt text

This was indeed 25 years ago this year though

Berlanti?! How do I not remember this? Pretty solid cast including Billy Porter??

I would say, boycott Dean Cain, but he’s already considered a difficult, talentless pariah in Hollywood.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Columbo

This is truly the most 30-something avant-garde/noise/jazz festival I could ever attend. I've embraced being a self-parody. Off the top of my head, feel like Body/Head might be something you're into from this lineup.

There's like three people who follow me who are going to have any idea what i'm mad about here.

These schedules are painful. What do you mean that Juliana Barwick/Mary Lattimore, BASIC, and Lia Kohl/Macie Stewart/Whitney Johnson are all at the same time?! Or Bill Callahan and Irreversible Entanglements?!

Home - Sound & Gravity ABOUT US Sound & Gravity is a new week-long festival brought to you by Constellation. The festival will take place across multiple venues in Chicago’s Bricktown neighborhood from September 10 to 14 an...

Incredible lineup for this Chicago music fest. soundandgravity.org

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe

Israel is using Microsoft Azure to store recordings of every phone call made by Palestinians in the occupied territories, then using AI to analyze the contents and select targets. Microsoft is (dubiously) claiming ignorance.

A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on this day, in 1945. The following year, in a landmark piece, John Hersey reported on how six survivors experienced the event and its aftermath. nyer.cm/lsrB5Gi #NewYorkerArchives

Rookie (feat. Loraine James), by Purelink from the album Faith

This song has been such a balm this year. purelink.bandcamp.com/track/rookie...

Perfume Genius - Glory (2025)

Purelink - Faith (2025)*

Juana Aguirre - anónimo (2025)*

Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) (2025)

2025 New-To-Me #260-#263

A rare glimpse behind the scenes of King Kong (1933)

Apropos of nothing in particular… (not)

The cover for “Abbas Kiarostami: Early Shorts and Features,” #47 in the Eclipse Series, a box set of 17 films to be released in November.

Eclipse returns in November with Imogen Sara Smith as the new series editor ! www.criterion.com/current/post...

As end-of-empire scenarios go it is so much more dignified to get your capital city sacked by the Visigoths than to have a bunch of illiterate rich people in their 70s doing it through a series of incomprehensible tantrums because their brains were defeated by their phones.

Thrilled to share that I wrote an essay for This Is Cinématographe, a new print zine from @cine-matographe.bsky.social, which also features work from @812filmreviews.com @bilgeebiri.bsky.social, Richard Brody and @jlalibs.com, who put it all together.

Order here: vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/...

RFK Jr. backs down all the time when he gets push back, so if anyone wants to call, here's the HHS number 1-877-696-6775.
I'd also call your senators/reps as well.

An all-timer!!

In addition, Lynch himself was dealing with a hernia "during the entire shoot"; he had injured himself while laughing too hard at something funny that Angelo Badalamenti did.

This tidbit from the Wikipedia entry on Fire Walk with Me

'Against All Odds': Adventure Written by Women A list of 977 films compiled on Letterboxd, including The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Kingdom of the Fairies (1903), Ben Hur (1907), Beauty and the Beast (1908) and The G...

New list of adventure films written by women boxd.it/N1B9o 🎥

Hope you enjoy!!

Nino Paid - Love Me as I Am (2025)*

Rwake - The Return of Magik (2025)

Macie Stewart - When the Distance is Blue (2025)*

Charif Megarbane - Hawalat [Habibi Funk 03] (2025)*

2025 New-To-Me #256 - #259

Would not usually write this long of an answer, but feeling extra pressure to justify her as one of the best living directors haha.

As far as Reichardt, Meek's Cutoff or Wendy and Lucy are two that demonstrate her naturalistic approach to societal and generational conflict. First Cow is not uncharacteristic, but a bit lighter than most of her work. She's sometimes pigeonholed as quiet, but I think her films thrum with a fire.

Hamaguchi is such a rewarding director whether he has the space in Happy Hour to rhythmically stretch or he tightly packs unseen history into Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy. As far as Petzold, most people will probably say Phoenix - but I prefer Transit (first place I saw Franz Rogowski) and Jerichow.