Offscreen Shaman
@offscreenshaman.bsky.social
Film essays that expose the hidden machinery.
From Inception to Jaws
what cinema teaches us to believe.
offscreenobservations.substack.com
From Inception to Jaws
what cinema teaches us to believe.
offscreenobservations.substack.com
Pinned
Tommy Boy
The Moral Economy of a Company Town
offscreenobservations.substack.com
Revisited Tommy Boy as more than slapstick: a story of Sandusky's emotional economy, miscalibrated sons, and a dialect that cracks outside its borders. From Big Tom's mask to the audience as factory. #TommyBoy
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/tommy-boy?...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/tommy-boy?...
Bodies move through shadow like inventory. The streets are instructional. A forensic reading of Sin City’s order. #FilmCriticism
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
Sin City
A Maintenance Economy
open.substack.com
January 6, 2026 at 8:13 PM
Bodies move through shadow like inventory. The streets are instructional. A forensic reading of Sin City’s order. #FilmCriticism
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
What if Avatar’s paradise isn’t saved, it’s just running the next version? Jake as upgrade, Neytiri as deprecated, Eywa as the god that keeps the system stable. Systems reading of Cameron’s epic: #Avatar
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/avatar?r=a...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/avatar?r=a...
Avatar (2009)
Upgrade, Extraction, and the God That Keeps the System Running
offscreenobservations.substack.com
December 31, 2025 at 1:50 PM
What if Avatar’s paradise isn’t saved, it’s just running the next version? Jake as upgrade, Neytiri as deprecated, Eywa as the god that keeps the system stable. Systems reading of Cameron’s epic: #Avatar
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/avatar?r=a...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/avatar?r=a...
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
Diving back into Gotham: My new essay unpacks The Batman not as hero myth, but as diagnostic symptom, fear behaving like weather, symbols losing grip. What stops working when a vigilante thinks the city’s speaking to him?
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
The Batman
Fear Without a Center
open.substack.com
December 16, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Diving back into Gotham: My new essay unpacks The Batman not as hero myth, but as diagnostic symptom, fear behaving like weather, symbols losing grip. What stops working when a vigilante thinks the city’s speaking to him?
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
Revisited Tommy Boy as more than slapstick: a story of Sandusky's emotional economy, miscalibrated sons, and a dialect that cracks outside its borders. From Big Tom's mask to the audience as factory. #TommyBoy
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/tommy-boy?...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/tommy-boy?...
Tommy Boy
The Moral Economy of a Company Town
offscreenobservations.substack.com
December 3, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Revisited Tommy Boy as more than slapstick: a story of Sandusky's emotional economy, miscalibrated sons, and a dialect that cracks outside its borders. From Big Tom's mask to the audience as factory. #TommyBoy
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/tommy-boy?...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/tommy-boy?...
Badlands flips the script: a Predator learns to adapt. In my essay, I break down the themes of language, creed, and evolution. #Predator
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
Predator Badlands
Creed, Mutation, and the Collapse of Apex Logic
open.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Badlands flips the script: a Predator learns to adapt. In my essay, I break down the themes of language, creed, and evolution. #Predator
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
Every game begins with a coin in the air.
It’s the neatest lie we tell ourselves.
New essay.
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
It’s the neatest lie we tell ourselves.
New essay.
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
HIM (2025)
The Gospel of Flesh and Memory Loss
open.substack.com
November 22, 2025 at 4:09 AM
Every game begins with a coin in the air.
It’s the neatest lie we tell ourselves.
New essay.
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
It’s the neatest lie we tell ourselves.
New essay.
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
Paddington’s paw circles the pot like breath. Forrest’s shrimp line up like soldiers.
Between them: empire’s oldest recipe, erase the hands, praise the flavor.
My new essay tastes the bitterness we pretend isn’t there.
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/paddington...
Between them: empire’s oldest recipe, erase the hands, praise the flavor.
My new essay tastes the bitterness we pretend isn’t there.
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/paddington...
Paddington x Gump
And the Inheritance of Goodness
offscreenobservations.substack.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Paddington’s paw circles the pot like breath. Forrest’s shrimp line up like soldiers.
Between them: empire’s oldest recipe, erase the hands, praise the flavor.
My new essay tastes the bitterness we pretend isn’t there.
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/paddington...
Between them: empire’s oldest recipe, erase the hands, praise the flavor.
My new essay tastes the bitterness we pretend isn’t there.
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/paddington...
Falling Down: the briefcase was empty long before the gun.
Grievance doesn’t repent. It respawns.
Walk the ruins: open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
#FallingDown #AmericanCollapse #BlackPill
Grievance doesn’t repent. It respawns.
Walk the ruins: open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
#FallingDown #AmericanCollapse #BlackPill
Falling Down
The Black-Pilled Nostalgia of American Collapse
open.substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Falling Down: the briefcase was empty long before the gun.
Grievance doesn’t repent. It respawns.
Walk the ruins: open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
#FallingDown #AmericanCollapse #BlackPill
Grievance doesn’t repent. It respawns.
Walk the ruins: open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
#FallingDown #AmericanCollapse #BlackPill
The hum came first: a metallic whisper behind every broadcast, waiting for the ear to yield. In Videodrome, Cronenberg's signal infects through screens; today, it loops in podcasts, X rants, earbuds that never sleep.
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/videodrome...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/videodrome...
Videodrome
THE SIGNAL THAT EATS ITS HOST
offscreenobservations.substack.com
October 19, 2025 at 7:36 PM
The hum came first: a metallic whisper behind every broadcast, waiting for the ear to yield. In Videodrome, Cronenberg's signal infects through screens; today, it loops in podcasts, X rants, earbuds that never sleep.
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/videodrome...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/videodrome...
Terminator 2: No Fate But What We Teach.
We keep telling ourselves there’s no fate but what we make. But what if fate is the system's illusion, a loop designed to make refusal look like authorship?
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/terminator...
We keep telling ourselves there’s no fate but what we make. But what if fate is the system's illusion, a loop designed to make refusal look like authorship?
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/terminator...
Terminator 2: No Fate But What We Teach
Authority cloaked in a uniform. Fragility sinking in steel. What our machines inherit is never neutral.
offscreenobservations.substack.com
October 2, 2025 at 12:51 AM
Terminator 2: No Fate But What We Teach.
We keep telling ourselves there’s no fate but what we make. But what if fate is the system's illusion, a loop designed to make refusal look like authorship?
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/terminator...
We keep telling ourselves there’s no fate but what we make. But what if fate is the system's illusion, a loop designed to make refusal look like authorship?
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/terminator...
Sherlock Holmes: A Board of Shadows. Exploring the chess of sacrifice, where lives are moves and myths adapt. From pawns to kings, how does the game erase its own? #FilmAnalysis
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/sherlock-h...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/sherlock-h...
Sherlock Holmes: A Board of Shadows
A Study in Sacrifice
offscreenobservations.substack.com
September 24, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Sherlock Holmes: A Board of Shadows. Exploring the chess of sacrifice, where lives are moves and myths adapt. From pawns to kings, how does the game erase its own? #FilmAnalysis
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/sherlock-h...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/sherlock-h...
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
Going to need a bigger boat.
September 16, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Going to need a bigger boat.
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
I’ve been clawing at sheets,
frantic,
losing sleep.
It takes a big, big god
to fill me—
with love bold enough,
vast enough,
to fill my Queen
of Cups.
#Poetry #Poem #NSFWLines
#NSFWPoetry #Erotica #EroticPoetry
frantic,
losing sleep.
It takes a big, big god
to fill me—
with love bold enough,
vast enough,
to fill my Queen
of Cups.
#Poetry #Poem #NSFWLines
#NSFWPoetry #Erotica #EroticPoetry
September 16, 2025 at 10:58 PM
I’ve been clawing at sheets,
frantic,
losing sleep.
It takes a big, big god
to fill me—
with love bold enough,
vast enough,
to fill my Queen
of Cups.
#Poetry #Poem #NSFWLines
#NSFWPoetry #Erotica #EroticPoetry
frantic,
losing sleep.
It takes a big, big god
to fill me—
with love bold enough,
vast enough,
to fill my Queen
of Cups.
#Poetry #Poem #NSFWLines
#NSFWPoetry #Erotica #EroticPoetry
The film doesn't ask how we survive. It asks how we go, and who notices when we do. A Quiet Place: Day One is a study of how grief and ritual turn a city into a dying organism. It's a story that finds its rhythm in the hush.
A Quiet Place Day One
Her Silence, Her City: Dying at the End of the World
offscreenobservations.substack.com
September 16, 2025 at 11:15 PM
The film doesn't ask how we survive. It asks how we go, and who notices when we do. A Quiet Place: Day One is a study of how grief and ritual turn a city into a dying organism. It's a story that finds its rhythm in the hush.
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
I am the brackish tumbling
that tickled your shores—
welcome, witnessed,
a change of pace.
Barren of footprints
as the season turned.
I’m pulled back
by the gravity of your darkness,
drawn deeper
into myself—
to remember
I am more
than any high tide.
#Poetry #Poem #SkyPoet
#BlueskyPoetry
that tickled your shores—
welcome, witnessed,
a change of pace.
Barren of footprints
as the season turned.
I’m pulled back
by the gravity of your darkness,
drawn deeper
into myself—
to remember
I am more
than any high tide.
#Poetry #Poem #SkyPoet
#BlueskyPoetry
September 11, 2025 at 1:52 PM
I am the brackish tumbling
that tickled your shores—
welcome, witnessed,
a change of pace.
Barren of footprints
as the season turned.
I’m pulled back
by the gravity of your darkness,
drawn deeper
into myself—
to remember
I am more
than any high tide.
#Poetry #Poem #SkyPoet
#BlueskyPoetry
that tickled your shores—
welcome, witnessed,
a change of pace.
Barren of footprints
as the season turned.
I’m pulled back
by the gravity of your darkness,
drawn deeper
into myself—
to remember
I am more
than any high tide.
#Poetry #Poem #SkyPoet
#BlueskyPoetry
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
A broken will at a rainy day’s dawn
Still wants to see the sunlight illuminate nature’s beauty
Unfairness at life hypocrisies
Still doesn’t change the wide open field’s almost #unbearable grace
As new days rise, their wonders at least won’t be defeated
#vss365 #poetry
Still wants to see the sunlight illuminate nature’s beauty
Unfairness at life hypocrisies
Still doesn’t change the wide open field’s almost #unbearable grace
As new days rise, their wonders at least won’t be defeated
#vss365 #poetry
September 10, 2025 at 11:15 AM
A broken will at a rainy day’s dawn
Still wants to see the sunlight illuminate nature’s beauty
Unfairness at life hypocrisies
Still doesn’t change the wide open field’s almost #unbearable grace
As new days rise, their wonders at least won’t be defeated
#vss365 #poetry
Still wants to see the sunlight illuminate nature’s beauty
Unfairness at life hypocrisies
Still doesn’t change the wide open field’s almost #unbearable grace
As new days rise, their wonders at least won’t be defeated
#vss365 #poetry
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
The cultural landscape of Anthropocene
September 3, 2025 at 2:44 AM
The cultural landscape of Anthropocene
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
Superman has always been less about flight than about weight:
the lies he tells, the flags he’s forced under, the labor he’s squeezed into.
My new essay asks: what happens when even hope is branded? #Superman
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
the lies he tells, the flags he’s forced under, the labor he’s squeezed into.
My new essay asks: what happens when even hope is branded? #Superman
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
Superman 2025
The Sound of Compromise, The Refusal That Remains
open.substack.com
September 3, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Superman has always been less about flight than about weight:
the lies he tells, the flags he’s forced under, the labor he’s squeezed into.
My new essay asks: what happens when even hope is branded? #Superman
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
the lies he tells, the flags he’s forced under, the labor he’s squeezed into.
My new essay asks: what happens when even hope is branded? #Superman
open.substack.com/pub/offscree...
Reposted by Offscreen Shaman
I make it a point to notice how often I’m asked to disarm myself with self-deprecating jokes, just to make others more comfortable with my energy.
What other people need to believe about you, and what you need to believe about you, are often different.
#ThoughtJournal
What other people need to believe about you, and what you need to believe about you, are often different.
#ThoughtJournal
August 27, 2025 at 8:20 PM
I make it a point to notice how often I’m asked to disarm myself with self-deprecating jokes, just to make others more comfortable with my energy.
What other people need to believe about you, and what you need to believe about you, are often different.
#ThoughtJournal
What other people need to believe about you, and what you need to believe about you, are often different.
#ThoughtJournal
Framing Monsters: Wednesday. From 1964 black-and-white crypts to headless dolls & dragon tears, explore how the Addams Family's vigil for the strange endures.
#Wednesday #Gothic
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/framing-mo...
#Wednesday #Gothic
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/framing-mo...
Framing Monsters: Wednesday
Elegy tolls in laughter, irony, and brand
offscreenobservations.substack.com
August 28, 2025 at 1:46 AM
Framing Monsters: Wednesday. From 1964 black-and-white crypts to headless dolls & dragon tears, explore how the Addams Family's vigil for the strange endures.
#Wednesday #Gothic
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/framing-mo...
#Wednesday #Gothic
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/framing-mo...
Interstellar and the Inheritance of Gravity. From Cooper’s earthbound chase to the moon’s erased wonder, it’s a test of survival’s cost. Does gravity forgive?
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/interstell...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/interstell...
Interstellar and the Inheritance of Gravity
The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning
offscreenobservations.substack.com
August 19, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Interstellar and the Inheritance of Gravity. From Cooper’s earthbound chase to the moon’s erased wonder, it’s a test of survival’s cost. Does gravity forgive?
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/interstell...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/interstell...
RoboCop's myth: man inside the machine, but consent's the real glitch. Explored the 1987 & 2014 films in my new Substack series, 'Satire Meets Predictive Policing.' What haunts you more: the body horror or the system? #RoboCop #Dystopia
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/robocops-a...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/robocops-a...
Robocops: And the City That Sold Its Soul
The satire, the spectacle, and the systems that survived the credits.
offscreenobservations.substack.com
August 12, 2025 at 10:07 PM
RoboCop's myth: man inside the machine, but consent's the real glitch. Explored the 1987 & 2014 films in my new Substack series, 'Satire Meets Predictive Policing.' What haunts you more: the body horror or the system? #RoboCop #Dystopia
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/robocops-a...
offscreenobservations.substack.com/p/robocops-a...