Alex Billington
Cinema lover, dog lover, photographer, life-long geek, citizen of the world. I run the movie site FirstShowing.net + live in Berlin. Hackers, Sneakers, WarGames are 1337. 💾📡 Follow FS posts only here -> https://bsky.app/profile/firstshowing.bsky.social
- No one can deny that the opening 1.5 hours of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is a hilariously bad exposition dump that goes on and on. But, unlike my fellow critics, I think the second half MORE than makes up for it with a truly entertaining, grandiose, gripping finale. I enjoyed it.
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- One of the scariest scenes in cinema history. 😷
- Picked up my badge and ready to rock #Cannes2025. 🤘🏻📽️ Always happy to be back here - bright and sunny and beautiful days on the Mediterranean. Sooooo many films I'm excited to watch this year in Cannes. Two weeks of cinema mania begins again. 🔥🔥
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- Merci!
- This always makes me smile and laugh when I arrive in Cannes, France every year. The official emblems of the Côte d'Azur region are a very pissed off fish with eyebrows and a funky hairdo - and an angry eagle that I imagine is yelling "caawwwwww no more tourists sil vous plait!!" 🤣🤣
- I always feel so refresh after hiking in Italy along the Mediterranean. My annual pre-Cannes prep - getting in some exercise and fresh sea air in Liguria before spending 2 weeks in dark cinemas watching amazing films. I love Italy so much. 🇮🇹🌳
- *so refreshed 😅
- DAMN! This looks great. And brutal. At least two Stephen King movies this year looking like some of the best movies of 2025! I will be there on opening night for #TheLongWalk. Who else? onfs.net/4iMHE0N
- I'm noticing that nowadays a lot of people are doubling-down on their bullshit because they're afraid of admitting they were wrong & dealing with the "whoops I fucked up" guilt. It's insanely scary. We're all going to have to deal with TONS of people being wrong in a MAJOR way.
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- Ahhh yes but no one is taught that anymore. And those who remember are afraid to follow these rules. Crazy times.
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- It's a huge problem that I don't think anyone wants to address. Mostly because everyone is afraid of what happens when you're wrong. Which is also something we need to deal with so that people can grow from their mistakes.
- I actually think this epidemic of people being unable to ever be wrong about anything anymore is the root of the world's problems and something that MUST be addressed and solved on a mass scale. Yes, you're wrong (vaccines ARE safe, etc) but that's okay! It happens. Roll with it.
- Cyclist people: what’s a good helmet these days? I’m riding citibike most days and need a new one. Constraints: I have a big ol’ noggin, and would like to not look 100% dorky.
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- They're not so bad. All helmets are hot in summer! But that's also the time when accidents are most common.
- I'm a big fan of any of the Bern helmets but up to you if you like the design/look of it.
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- Well sadly the only thing they find meaning in right now is performative machoism, whether it's podcasts or social media or anything where they can show off that they are indeed men. And it's really, really bad...
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- dropped my egg & kimchi breakfast taco and accidentally made a michelin star plating?
- Wow. This makes me extra hungry.
- I loveee the extra image that came inside the original classic Gojira 1954 score vinyl from Waxwork Records. So I put it in a frame and hung it on the wall in my entrance hallway. So now everyone has to say Hallo to chompy train-eating Godzilla whenever they visit my place. 🖼️🇯🇵 #Godzilla
- Good film
- For those who missed it and for anyone who wants to go watch it again - Ryan Coogler's Sinners is returning for an additional run in 70mm IMAX in two weeks. In only a handful of theaters, but at least there's somewhere to go watch it in this special format. Full list in the image via #IMAX. #Sinners
- Sometimes I wish I could tell people how many crazy things are going on in my personal life at home and in my neighborhood. I'm so behind on work today, and really out of it, and not on top of things as usual. But it's because I'm doing this & doing this! But I also want to remain humble. Anyway...
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- Thank you. It's not so much big struggles as it is all of the effort - the amount of work and effort I put in to make sure I enjoy my life and get to live it my way. And I know that it will forever be thankless and I don't need validation. But sometimes feelings do hit hard and yeah... All good.
- It's a good one! Definitely worth a watch IMO - the final segment is dope.
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- I got you! Just followed (don't know why I wasn't before). 📼
- Easily my most anticipated horror movie of 2025!! Cannot wait to find out WTF is going on in here. 🤔🫣
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- Yep. Same. And find out where all these kids went...
- In a few years (max) when people start asking why we thought AI was a good idea I am creating a record that we did NOT think it was a good idea and the main reason people were ever convinced was billions of dollars of propaganda
- Hear hear. Add me to this list too, please and thank you.
- Question for Bluesky people - if I want to setup a custom domain name for one of my handles on here, will the previous handle and URL still work? Or can it be redirected? I have so many links pointing to the previous URL to find & follow. But if I change it, that URL won't work anymore right?
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- Fair enough. Really appreciate the candid convo on this. Will try and figure out what to do for now.
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- Right but my point is that verification shouldn't be based simply on using your own domain. That's as much of a vanity handle (on here) as choosing whatever handle you want in the BSky network. I want quick & easy verification but not like this. It just doesn't work. First big mistake they've made.
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- Not really. I'm just saying it's a bad way to verify right now - especially when I have to give up the old account. Then anyone could get that account and pretend it's me and gain the followers from anyone who clicks the old links. It's actually way worse this way (for verification).
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- Well right I'm "saving" the old handle from being used by someone else. And all external links and everything will still point to this old handle. They really need to setup some way to have the domain be a mask over an existing handle so you keep both but also can still use a specific domain anyway.
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- Yeah this is what I was thinking - save the old handle as backup and change the current one. Frustrating because of course everything is already pointing to the current page and yet it won't work anymore after - and they want everyone to use their own domains for verification. Ugh.
- Finally finished watching all of this White House whodunit series titled The Residence on Netflix - starring Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp. Gotta admit I kinda loved it. A few boring eps in the middle, but the finale hits hard. Aduba is fantastic (really!). Better than most other recent whodunits...
- We just clicked play & started watching one night and I got wrapped up in it. The dynamic between the entire very diverse cast of people who work in the "House" and how the murder plot plays out, the intricacies, what it all means, the various twists & turns. This whodunit series is damn good.
- I don’t think a nation of 340 million people should be turned into a terrarium for bitter misogynists who will collapse like a fainting goat if they see a black person, no
- Hear hear.
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- Ah thanks. This happens all the time - these stupid sites just scrape articles and steal them. I'll file a complaint now.
- Same. This is going to be very cool.
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- Yep this makes sense. I'm excited to see this play out.
- Yes!!!! onfs.net/4lJ7ZzB
- Noticing more & more how one of the dominant aspects of society right now is that everyone refuses to ever be wrong or admit they did something incorrect/bad/whatever. I think it's obvious why: a fear of being ostracized and ruined for it, but still, it's scary how NOTHING is wrong anymore. Nothing.
- I believe it comes from also being afraid of / not wanting to deal with guilt. It's a very heavy emotion, but something we all must deal with. This is the ultimate lesson of "Why do we fall, Bruce? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up." (From Batman Begins) There is much to learn from failure.
- I also believe it's important that, aside from harmful examples of being very wrong (world is flat, vaccines are bad, etc) when someone is wrong they need to be given a chance to learn & grow from that, without being ostracized. Social media makes it worse. But still important for evolving society.
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- Both... ahahaha. But yeah, seriously, like WTF. Just glad it's a real rule now.
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- Yes!! So glad you enjoyed it, too. Yep to all of this. Canton is such a find, what an unforgettable performance.
- Brilliant brilliant brilliant 🔥🔥 #Sinners
- the american electoral system is basically 500,000 information-resistant people across a handful of states taking a guess and then going "haha! oops!" every two years. this process takes 18 months and costs four trillion dollars every time
[This account is deactivated/deleted, or was taken down by their PDS (Bluesky PBC)]- I do think it will take way, way, way more than that... I also think the way South Korea deprograms North Koreans (who escape & make it safely down there) is something we should be looking into as well. But that first involves actually acknowledging these people are brainwashed, which is tricky.
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- It's a very good question and the actual answers... really involve a lot of intellectual work and a lot of tactics that too many idiots will claim involves "censorship" when that's not really the case, etc.
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- Fair points. Yeah I think no one wants to actually discuss it, but if the "informed voting public" can be coerced & manipulated (quite easily tbh) then maybe this isn't the best way to govern a country. But hey what other good options do we really have...
- Almost as if there's a big flaw in that there democracy concept...
