Alan Mattli

Moving from shaded area to shaded area in scorching Locarno, I'm realising I don't actively know how exactly sunburn works. Picturing sort of a DARK SOULS-style status damage build-up bar, or maybe a timer like when Link enters Death Mountain without the Goron tunic.

As an historian, I think it's bad when "blood libel" goes from denoting a very specific part of anti-Jewish history rooted in particular forms of medieval Christian anti-Judaism, to just meaning any criticism of Israel. A whole generation won't understand just how bad the actual blood libel was!

Oh, and Óliver Laxe gets a shoutout in the credits.

Also, considering where Danny Boyle and Alex Garland seem to be taking the 28 DAYS LATER mythos, they might want to let Ben Rivers have a go with one. Based on his latest, he's got a decent horror sensibility in him.

Ben Rivers succeeds where Noah Baumbach failed (adapting Don DeLillo).

bart simpson is sitting in a theatre watching a movie . ALT: bart simpson is sitting in a theatre watching a movie .

Actual footage from my Locarno screening of the new Ben Rivers. (I'm Nelson, obviously.)

I love to go to Chat GPT 5 with its alleged “PhD level expertise” and an ask it about my MA thesis work and see that it really cannot do that level of academic work whatever. It can do a SIMULACRUM of that work, which might fool you if you did not have any expertise.

POLICE STORY midnight screening on the Piazza Grande. Sometimes life is good.

Two professors at Columbia University Business School defended Israel on the same grounds. Their expertise is in supply chains and marketing, not famine.

Up there with the most damning illustrations of the state of current discourse I've seen recently.

Tweet by Andrew Cuomo: In case you forgot, I'm Andrew Cuomo, son of Mario, grandson of Andrea. Welcome to the heavyweight bout, @ZohranKMamdani This is a two man race. You look tired already. It's just the second round.

I believe this is what they call cringe.

Yessss, it's insane!

it’s basically trite to note at this point but if this were any other president, and certainly a democrat, spending a ton of money to gild the white house would be a legit scandal

It really is exhibit A of how much people fucking love falling for baseless conspiracy theories.

Getting irrationally angry at the anti-Stratfordians again.

It really does feel like a lot of formerly reasonable people have been infected by some sort of terrifying brain parasite when it comes to unthinking and total acceptance of using AI tools

This argument used to be about stuff like universal healthcare and now it’s about specific groups of people deemed an acceptable loss

Movie was awful though.

Day one of the Locarno Film Festival and I'm already choosing a Piazza screening over the retrospective. I am become mainstream.

The reason the Dems are a failed party is because they have collectively decided that the best policy for any issue is a halfway compromise between a good idea and fascist bigotry, rather than fighting for any sort of coherent ethical framework

there's an episode of The Simpsons where Marge tries to get a violent cartoon pulled from the airwaves, only to discover that the people backing her aren't going to stop at just the art that *she* doesn't like, and that supporting artistic freedom means accepting discomfort.

It aired in 1990.

Academy Awards 2026 Academy Awards 2026

Wir wissen alle, dass es letztlich HELDIN sein wird, aber ich hoffe, wer auch immer für den Deutschschweizer Nicht-Start von HANAMI verantwortlich war, fühlt sich jetzt mindestens ein bisschen schlecht. www.swissfilms.ch/de/news/acad...

Still thinking about this. I like Zach Cregger.

One thing that doing creative work teaches you is that ideas are worth nothing. Anybody can have an idea. In a writers room you have to come up with a hundred ideas a day, and most of those don’t make the page. It’s the work of making something that gives it value. The patina of humanity.

I had a great time! I'll let you find out the rest.

There's a shot in this one right before the end that could also have been in THE NAKED GUN – and it's wonderful.

Hot damn, this was fun!

About to head into the WEAPONS press screening. I know nothing about the plot except the premise. Just gonna assume it's secretly a "Pied Piper of Hamelin" adaptation.

This is true and also, increasingly, I am less and less understanding of a public that indulges these lies - because what is meant by illegal in too many minds is "inhuman". And that belief is encouraged by the media, yes, but at some point citizens have to take responsibility for it too.

We're at the 'we're very sorry we hired a trans person' stage in the UK's systematic erasure of trans people.

Congratulations, COLOURS OF TIME, you've joined the prestigious "movies that make Alan cry at the cinema because of how they deal with the vastness of history" club.