Jen Yamato's Avatar

Jen Yamato

@jenyamato.bsky.social

journalist | film critic movies, karaoke, repeat

3,259 Followers  |  323 Following  |  70 Posts  |  Joined: 24.11.2024  |  2.2349

Latest posts by jenyamato.bsky.social on Bluesky

Preview
two men are talking in front of a crowd and one of them says that 's a bold strategy ALT: two men are talking in front of a crowd and one of them says that 's a bold strategy

And coming August...

2000s SPORTS mini-MEGA with @sepinwall.bsky.social, @thefienprint.bsky.social, @lindaholmes.bsky.social, & @jenyamato.bsky.social

20.06.2025 18:36 — 👍 18    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 2
Post image Post image Post image

Watched OVERCOMPENSATING and had an unexpected existential crisis. Read about how Benny’s own journey is such a familiar story for any queer person going to college — no matter what generation you’re in. Read via new issue of the DIASPORA newsletter! thisisdiaspora.substack.com/p/overcompen...

23.05.2025 18:06 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Fantastic #BleakWeek selection 👏

03.06.2025 18:04 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
Review | ‘Lilo & Stitch’: An adorable alien remake with no new tricks Newcomer Maia Kealoha shines in Disney’s now-familiar tale of a Hawaiian girl and her extraterrestrial “dog.”

Disney’s latest live-action remake recycles several of the same gags, camera shots & needle drops from 2002’s animated LILO & STITCH without adding enough new to the mix. Newcomer Maia Kealoha is the biggest reason to give this far less nuanced rework a spin: www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

23.05.2025 19:56 — 👍 8    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Such a brilliant conceit at the heart of this film. I too am still mulling over the heady brew of fucking, despair, paranoia and growing old. #Cronenberg #TheShrouds #filmsky

07.05.2025 22:16 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
Review | Got grief? David Cronenberg has an app for that in ‘The Shrouds.’ Vincent Cassel stars as a grieving tech magnate uncovering a conspiracy in the filmmaker’s latest creepy thriller.

Death and how we live with loss is such a personal, nebulous, tricky thing. Cronenberg’s The Shrouds manages to be at once haunting and erotic, a morbidly funny meditation on grief that burrows deep and stays there. Still thinking about it weeks later.

www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

07.05.2025 21:56 — 👍 20    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 1
Video thumbnail

nightmare fuel courtesy of #BringHerBack 📹 ▶️

06.05.2025 22:46 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I did….. 👀

06.05.2025 22:40 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
How BookTok sensation Ana Huang brings the spice Ahead of the release of her 15th novel, “King of Envy,” the author looks back at a whirlwind five years.

She’s sold millions of books, amassed 1M TikTok followers, and is about to release her 14th novel #KingofEnvy, all just 5 years after making her publishing debut. Still, bestselling romance author Ana Huang tells me: “If my mother ever read one of my spicy scenes, I don’t think I’d ever recover” 🌶️🧨📚

26.04.2025 19:49 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Post image Post image

What in the cursed camcorder just showed up at my door (and should I hit play)? #BringHerBack #A24

25.04.2025 01:56 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0
Preview
Japanese American National Museum takes a stand against DOGE cuts to NEH The National Endowment for the Humanities warned museums across the country that it was slashing funding, including money previously pledged to places such as LACMA and the Japanese American National ...

“Facing pressure to scrub its website of diversity and inclusion references, a Japanese American National Museum leader says the museum will ‘scrub nothing.’” 🔥

06.04.2025 04:18 — 👍 7393    🔁 1876    💬 86    📌 190

A reminder that if the government can send migrants to a prison camp without any due process, it can send U.S. citizens there, too. I know because this happened to me and my family in 1942.

07.04.2025 20:30 — 👍 42880    🔁 12848    💬 519    📌 296

All-in for the Bernthalaissance

11.04.2025 20:18 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
Review | Rami Malek steps out in techno spy thriller ‘The Amateur’ A CIA analyst goes rogue for revenge in a by-the-numbers action film.

Rami Malek is a STEM vigilante Bourne out for justice in The Amateur, the latest in a current run of “men at work” action yarns. By-the-numbers with a few fun surprises, but between this and The Accountant 2, at least, we get 2x the Jon Bernthal this month www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

11.04.2025 20:16 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
U.S. FILM CRITICS’ GROUPS 
CONDEMN VIOLENCE AGAINST HAMDAN BALLAL

We, the members of the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Boston Society of Film Critics, express our support for the Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal and condemn, in the strongest terms, the brutal and unlawful attack he suffered this week at the hands of Israeli settlers, as well as his detainment by Israeli authorities. We are gravely concerned for Mr. Ballal’s health and safety, as well as the safety of his loved ones, and, now that he has been released, extend our hopes for his full recovery from his injuries.

Mr. Ballal was assaulted near his home in Khirbet Susya, a village in the Masafer Yatta region of the occupied West Bank. Attacks on the residents of Masafer Yatta are nothing new, as we have seen from “No Other Land,” the Academy Award-winning documentary that Mr. Ballal co-directed with Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. As critics representing four of the numerous organizations that honored “No Other Land” as the best documentary of 2024, we are infuriated that a filmmaker’s brave and principled advocacy has made him even more of a target in a community where Palestinians already exist under continual threat of displacement and violence.

One of the most powerful aspects of “No Other Land” — and the reason so many have tried, in vain, to limit its reach and silence its message — is that it is itself a rare feat of collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and artists, united by their belief in dignity and equality for all. By the very nature of its form and creation, the film represents, and dares to imagine, a more peaceful future. We applaud Mr. Ballal and his colleagues for the courage and artistry with which they have advanced that vision and affirm that it will never be forgotten.

U.S. FILM CRITICS’ GROUPS 
CONDEMN VIOLENCE AGAINST HAMDAN BALLAL We, the members of the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Boston Society of Film Critics, express our support for the Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal and condemn, in the strongest terms, the brutal and unlawful attack he suffered this week at the hands of Israeli settlers, as well as his detainment by Israeli authorities. We are gravely concerned for Mr. Ballal’s health and safety, as well as the safety of his loved ones, and, now that he has been released, extend our hopes for his full recovery from his injuries. Mr. Ballal was assaulted near his home in Khirbet Susya, a village in the Masafer Yatta region of the occupied West Bank. Attacks on the residents of Masafer Yatta are nothing new, as we have seen from “No Other Land,” the Academy Award-winning documentary that Mr. Ballal co-directed with Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. As critics representing four of the numerous organizations that honored “No Other Land” as the best documentary of 2024, we are infuriated that a filmmaker’s brave and principled advocacy has made him even more of a target in a community where Palestinians already exist under continual threat of displacement and violence. One of the most powerful aspects of “No Other Land” — and the reason so many have tried, in vain, to limit its reach and silence its message — is that it is itself a rare feat of collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and artists, united by their belief in dignity and equality for all. By the very nature of its form and creation, the film represents, and dares to imagine, a more peaceful future. We applaud Mr. Ballal and his colleagues for the courage and artistry with which they have advanced that vision and affirm that it will never be forgotten.

We join our colleagues in @nsfc.bsky.social, @nyfcc.bsky.social and @bsfc.bsky.social in condemning the attack on NO OTHER LAND co-director Hamdan Ballal.

27.03.2025 13:00 — 👍 118    🔁 47    💬 0    📌 3

I too feel betrayed. Thank you for bringing this important matter to my attention @karajwarner.bsky.social!

26.03.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Post image

Finally (finally!!) watching this terrific show and NONE of y'all told me Gambit is just hanging out in crop tops all the time?! Wtf is up w/ my algorithm and also how dare @jowrotethis.bsky.social @jenyamato.bsky.social @marcbernardin.bsky.social @germainlussier.bsky.social not tell me about it

26.03.2025 01:04 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 2    📌 0

Great film writing is essential for film lovers to better understand the films they love so much. And great film writing should be well compensated. You can't have a stable of brilliant minds on gig-economy salaries. You can exploit talent only so long before it leaves.

Pay. The. Writers.

20.03.2025 18:34 — 👍 467    🔁 82    💬 11    📌 3
A still from Benjamin Flaherty’s “Shuffle,” winner of the 2025 SXSW Documentary Feature Jury Prize

A still from Benjamin Flaherty’s “Shuffle,” winner of the 2025 SXSW Documentary Feature Jury Prize

SXSW 2025 Documentary Feature Jury Prize awarded to “Shuffle”

SXSW 2025 Documentary Feature Jury Prize awarded to “Shuffle”

A snake hunter on the hunt in Xander Robin’s SXSW 2025 special jury award winning documentary “The Python Hunt”

A snake hunter on the hunt in Xander Robin’s SXSW 2025 special jury award winning documentary “The Python Hunt”

Kutoven Stevens runs in Paige Bethmann’s special jury award-winning SXSW 2025 documentary “Remaining Native”

Kutoven Stevens runs in Paige Bethmann’s special jury award-winning SXSW 2025 documentary “Remaining Native”

Belated SXSW appreciation post! It was an honor to join @aishaharris.bsky.social & @timgrierson.bsky.social on the 2025 Documentary Feature jury, awarding our jury prize to Benjamin Flaherty’s SHUFFLE and special jury awards to THE PYTHON HUNT & REMAINING NATIVE. Great films, fascinating subjects.

18.03.2025 20:17 — 👍 12    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival Awards Winners Announcing the 2025 Jury and Special Award winners of the 32nd SXSW Film & TV Festival.

Part 2: Our winners have now been announced. It was a very fun deliberation discussing some very good documentaries.

13.03.2025 16:45 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
Post image

A nice SXSW story from 10 years ago today. I was wandering by the “Bates Motel” pop-up and spotted @jenyamato.bsky.social, whom I only knew of from Twitter. “Hey, are you Jen Yamato?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied, and asked who I was. I introduced myself, that I was up from San Antonio. 1/

15.03.2025 15:12 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

I remember that day! What a solid crate. So glad it’s served you well and glad you stopped to chat way back when!

16.03.2025 18:18 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Very sad to hear of David Ehrenstein’s passing. He was always a delight to chat with, and erudite indeed.

13.03.2025 19:21 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yessss it was such a pleasure watching some really interesting docs and serving with Tim and Jen on the Documentary Feature jury.

Catch me on the ground this weekend at my first SXSW in quite some time!

05.03.2025 15:45 — 👍 16    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival Jury Announced Discover the jurors for the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Awards and what to expect from this exciting lineup of film and tv premieres.

Happy to say I'll be serving on the Documentary Feature jury at @sxsw.com with @aishaharris.bsky.social and @jenyamato.bsky.social. (Also, it's my first SXSW: If you see me around Austin, say hi.)

05.03.2025 15:23 — 👍 13    🔁 1    💬 3    📌 1

JUSTIN YOU ABSOLUTE MANIAC

best Oscars menu to date 10/10 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ @justincchang.bsky.social

02.03.2025 18:20 — 👍 5    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
“Jesus saves / The Monkey kills” billboards in Los Angeles

“Jesus saves / The Monkey kills” billboards in Los Angeles

Give The Monkey marketing team a raise

20.02.2025 21:28 — 👍 11    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Jaw-dropping Screen Drafts drama… someone add it to the wiki

19.02.2025 22:13 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
The co-directors of 'No Other Land' on Trump's Gaza plan, the Oscars and the fight ahead Made by a team of Palestinian and Israeli activist filmmakers, the Academy Award-nominated documentary is a look at life under occupation in a small West Bank village.

"I mean, it’s insane what he’s saying." Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, the co-directors of NO OTHER LAND, have thoughts about Trump's Gaza plan. @indiefocus.bsky.social spoke to them about the Oscars, self-distribution and what they see as a longer project of activism. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

13.02.2025 20:19 — 👍 16    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
Oscar-nominated documentary exposes horrifying truths about Indigenous residential schools in Canada The discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school in Canada in 2021 was just the catalyst for “Sugarcane."

apnews.com/article/suga... Oscar-nominated documentary exposes horrifying truths about Indigenous residential schools in Canada

14.02.2025 17:34 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

@jenyamato is following 20 prominent accounts