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Eric Beltmann

@ericbeltmann

My day job is teaching film, literature and journalism in Southeast Wisconsin. I've casually written about movies for various print and web outlets since 1991. Wilco evangelist.

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16.11.2024
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Latest posts by Eric Beltmann @ericbeltmann

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The martial arts scenes in It’s A Wonderful Life were a key influence on The Matrix

06.03.2026 19:35 πŸ‘ 577 πŸ” 90 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 6
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Netflix ditches deal for Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount’s offer is deemed superior Netflix is ditching a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets after the WBD board deemed a revised bid by Paramount to be superior.

This really feels like an Orban/Erdogan situation in which the aspiring dictator is making sure his friendly oligarchs control as much media as possible

www.cnbc.com/2026/02/26/w...

26.02.2026 23:01 πŸ‘ 5053 πŸ” 1481 πŸ’¬ 267 πŸ“Œ 105
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Paramount getting rid of Warner Brothers’ woke movies

27.02.2026 00:04 πŸ‘ 263 πŸ” 66 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 4
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Look at the mask on the far right. Kubrick knew.

25.02.2026 02:32 πŸ‘ 53 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 2
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β€˜Diane, 11:30 a.m., February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks. Move out of the way of my gun, Diane.’

24.02.2026 21:49 πŸ‘ 59 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Incredible opinion. It holds that the common ICE tactic of jumping out of an unidentified rental vehicle and seizing suspected noncitizens while masked violates the Fourth Amendment because the *manner* of the seizure is incompatible with a free society governed by the rule of law.

21.02.2026 00:51 πŸ‘ 11818 πŸ” 3925 πŸ’¬ 107 πŸ“Œ 128

I think i'm a book snob.

I have a lit degree, read the classics and settled on a modern american lit focus. Most of the books I read and loved for my degree were old, tightly written and well told.

Every time I try to read current fiction, my brain spends the entire experience rewriting the book.

19.02.2026 13:21 πŸ‘ 791 πŸ” 49 πŸ’¬ 148 πŸ“Œ 6

Sometimes very hard not to feel like the rest of the country has abandoned Minnesota. We STILL have ICE everywhere. Our schools, businesses, and economy are in profound crisis. But without Bovino here throwing tear gas, much of the country seems to not care at all what’s being done to us.

11.02.2026 11:03 πŸ‘ 6148 πŸ” 2238 πŸ’¬ 293 πŸ“Œ 130

Listen, it's not my favorite genre, either. But imagine being so myopic that you can't set aside your personal music preferences for a mere 15 minutes and find a way to recognize the joy, pageantry, artistry and patriotism in a superstar's labor-of-love performance. That sounds so... miserable.

09.02.2026 02:52 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Father confronts ICE after they chase his daughter home…

27.01.2026 02:23 πŸ‘ 89 πŸ” 51 πŸ’¬ 13 πŸ“Œ 4

The execution of Alex Pretti is playing so badly because you can look at his actions and life story - his last act was helping, boy scout, athlete, health care worker to veterans - and compare those to the men who killed him and know which you would want to be your son, brother, father, uncle.

26.01.2026 16:18 πŸ‘ 7833 πŸ” 1539 πŸ’¬ 79 πŸ“Œ 52
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Wouldn’t have made it out of the VEEP writers room

26.01.2026 16:58 πŸ‘ 8666 πŸ” 1484 πŸ’¬ 125 πŸ“Œ 52

Alex Pretti was a great American.

The people defending his killers are not.

25.01.2026 03:00 πŸ‘ 12239 πŸ” 2351 πŸ’¬ 247 πŸ“Œ 47
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TincherSealedWitnessDec012426.PDF

This witness to Alex Pretti's murder not only refutes the governmen't story, but says she is afraid to go home because federal agents might arrest her. This is what it feels like to live under state terror.
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

25.01.2026 14:43 πŸ‘ 7527 πŸ” 3188 πŸ’¬ 205 πŸ“Œ 194

It is fun when you’re heading for a screening of a movie called THE SHITHEADS and the volunteers directing people to the correct theater have to keep asking everyone: β€œShitheads? Shitheads?”

I’m just as God made me, sir.

24.01.2026 18:57 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

ICE is now responsible for 66% of the homicides in Minneapolis this year.

24.01.2026 16:51 πŸ‘ 20905 πŸ” 7979 πŸ’¬ 144 πŸ“Œ 137
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Newly unsealed evidence makes it even clearer that Rubio and Noem knew they were targeting students based solely on their political speech and that they knew this policy was unconstitutional. They just didn’t care. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...

23.01.2026 11:30 πŸ‘ 5434 πŸ” 2010 πŸ’¬ 77 πŸ“Œ 105

RAGING about SINNERS being totally shut out of Best Documentary Short. Time we called out this category's bullshit systemic bias against films that are not documentaries or shorts.

22.01.2026 15:07 πŸ‘ 29 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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SEEING IS BELIEVING

DHS claims the car being chased rammed the ICE vehicle. The video shows the opposite.

πŸ“Œ A father and son, a US citizen, are chased. The teen is beaten and seriously injured. The father is deported.

DHS lied. The video tells the truth. Excellent reporting by Antonia Hylton.

22.01.2026 04:44 πŸ‘ 16367 πŸ” 9045 πŸ’¬ 669 πŸ“Œ 654

I guess I do think if you participated in the arrest of a five-year-old you are probably just fundamentally incompatible with society. That you are not a safe person for humanity to be around, generally

22.01.2026 03:31 πŸ‘ 27751 πŸ” 6257 πŸ’¬ 299 πŸ“Œ 133
Jesse Plemmons as a paramilitary soldier in the film CIVIL WAR, with the dialogue caption, β€œWhat kind of American are you?”

Jesse Plemmons as a paramilitary soldier in the film CIVIL WAR, with the dialogue caption, β€œWhat kind of American are you?”

I didn’t love the movie at the time, and haven’t watched it in its entirety since, but this does feel like the defining scene of our American moment.

21.01.2026 20:46 πŸ‘ 23 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1
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At Davos, Trump mocked allies, rewrote WWII history, and framed gratitude as obedienceβ€”suggesting nations β€œowe” the U.S. for not being conquered. That’s not statesmanship. It’s imperial nostalgia and global embarrassment, delivered on the world stage.

21.01.2026 16:31 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 1
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An especially great book delivery day. Most looking forward to "The Warner Brothers," written by my friend (and former student) @chrisyogerst.com

18.01.2026 18:40 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

just got out of an uber. the driver was telling me how he has to work 16 hour days, seven days a week, at two different jobs to afford rent. he doesn't have healthcare and he worries about retirement. "i would feel a lot better if we owned greenland," he told me. then he cried.

17.01.2026 20:33 πŸ‘ 17348 πŸ” 1788 πŸ’¬ 783 πŸ“Œ 179
I watched it, that actually makes it much worse. He never should have been in front of the SUV. We are trained do not get in front of a vehicle like that, there’s only bad outcomes.  Also, his video clearly shows she was not surreptitiously reaching for any objects within the vehicles drivers compartment, so the only defense for the agent would be that she was trying to run him over, which clearly isn’t the case, as emphasized by the fact that his legs were out of the way. The video also shows the SUV was moving so slowly that even in icy conditions he should’ve just moved out of the way. In the department of justice we are prohibited from using deadly force purely to prevent escape. Bad shoot all around

I watched it, that actually makes it much worse. He never should have been in front of the SUV. We are trained do not get in front of a vehicle like that, there’s only bad outcomes. Also, his video clearly shows she was not surreptitiously reaching for any objects within the vehicles drivers compartment, so the only defense for the agent would be that she was trying to run him over, which clearly isn’t the case, as emphasized by the fact that his legs were out of the way. The video also shows the SUV was moving so slowly that even in icy conditions he should’ve just moved out of the way. In the department of justice we are prohibited from using deadly force purely to prevent escape. Bad shoot all around

A former federal agent after watching the New York Times breakdown of the ICE shooting:

16.01.2026 20:16 πŸ‘ 8509 πŸ” 2593 πŸ’¬ 167 πŸ“Œ 77

ICE is now behaving in such a way that even Tucker Carlson’s favorite Holocaust minimizing, Hitler-apologist β€œhistorian” is like β€œhey now guys, this is getting a little out of hand.”

12.01.2026 22:06 πŸ‘ 3954 πŸ” 1460 πŸ’¬ 108 πŸ“Œ 86

Not everything is fucking RASHOMON.

11.01.2026 23:01 πŸ‘ 27 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

When the LAPD arrests a dude at a gas station they don’t take over the gas station and use it to gas up all the cop cars tho

04.01.2026 18:45 πŸ‘ 6494 πŸ” 1295 πŸ’¬ 345 πŸ“Œ 49

Their messaging is so fucking incoherent. Maduro was an illegitimate leader who lost in 2024, which is why we're replacing him with his VP instead of the person who won in 2024. We did this to stop fentanyl, which is why he's indicted for cocaine.

We're also occupying Venezuela via Zoom call.

03.01.2026 21:18 πŸ‘ 10568 πŸ” 2632 πŸ’¬ 135 πŸ“Œ 94