Michael S. Duffy

Ph.D., Film Scholar/Media Historian, Special/Visual Effects, University of Nottingham and #NYU Alum

[Scott McCrea Adventures @ScottMcCreaWest]

This is going to sound silly, but The Incredible Hulk was GREAT television. Yeah, one third of them were stupid disco-trucker stories, and one third watered down The Fugitive. But the remaining third was often brilliant; a better ratio than most people realize. Bixby was great.

[Laurens Grant @LaurensGrant]

I didn't create this but will continue to share....just SO enraging. They own it all!

[NBC News @NBCNews]

Toy sales among adult-only households have now outpaced households with children for toy sales, growing 16% through June, according to a market research group. https://t.co/YwhOhieyrZ

[Iran International English @IranIntl_En]

A digital traffic sign on Los Angeles’ 405 Freeway was hacked to display the address of a website targeting Iranian dissidents, the New York Post reported.

The sign, near Persian Square in Westwood, displayed https://t.co/2zPLTB35uF, a website that described itself as part of a campaign to identify and punish people it called “traitors to the homeland.”

Caltrans confirmed that an unauthorized message had appeared on the sign and said it alerted the contractor on Sept. 15 to restore normal operations. The agency said a review of the message and access history was ongoing, the Post reported.

The report said the website has been linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iranian-born critic Emel Karsaz said her name, photograph and personal details appeared on the site and that she filed a report with the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.

According to the report, the FBI did not confirm whether it was investigating the freeway sign breach.
https://t.co/Ulzuw4vcth

[lorenzo @vincegallodaily]

This really sums up 2026

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

New poster for Mike Flanagan's ‘CARRIE’ series.

Releasing October 7 on Prime Video.

[Marshall Herskovitz @MHerskovitz]

There is effectively no antitrust enforcement left in the US government, overturning 135 years of bipartisan policy. Blame Bonta all you want, but this death-knell merger could only have been stopped by the feds.
Billionaires - and their foreign friends - now own America.

[Kellie Meyer @KellieMeyerNews]

With CNN banned from the White House and taken off the TV pool list for today, (they were originally listed as pool for Monday and for the President’s trip to the UN General Assembly) other major TV networks are standing by the outlet and, in an astonishing move, all together deciding not to cover events designated as pool coverage of the President.

What is important for people at home to understand about how this affects all of us is that the footage taken by one of the five major TV networks in the White House pool rotation (CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS) goes out to local affiliates across the country and throughout the world.

If people don’t get this footage from the main 5 outlets, then the only footage left comes from the White House itself.

As former WHCA president Weijia Jiang
@weijia put it yesterday, “America cannot have state TV.”

Right now there is no major TV pool covering the President’s movements.

[Variety @Variety]

Paramount has reached a deal with 12 state attorneys general that removes a major obstacle to closing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

The deal comes just before the company was to begin accruing a $7 million daily “ticking fee” on Oct. 1. https://t.co/1VwaQfHHmB

[Jason Brodsky @JasonMBrodsky]

😂😂

[Mark Cousins @markcousinsfilm]

Everyone in this photo has contributed a lot to film culture. I know (and love) a few of them.
But there were lots of great female film people there that night.

[𝖍𝖊��𝖎𝖔𝖕𝖍𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖆 @sunlove]

400 years of human evolution in 1 photo

[d4doome @d4doome]

There's a lot of hostility towards A CLOCKWORK ORANGE these days because it makes people cry. It's an intelligent provocative movie and intelligent provocative movies are very much out of fashion among the "everything should have a trigger warning" brigade.

[TheIntelFrog @TheIntelFrog]

Reminder: Fuck Russia.

Happy Monday!

[The Hollywood Reporter @THR]

Before the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public on Tuesday, George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, threw an opening night celebration that will go down in the Hollywood history books. https://t.co/h8b1vz0pRp

[priscilla page @BBW_BFF]

a perfect movie. highly recommend checking out this screening (with an introduction by Isabel Sandoval!) if you can https://t.co/mjqEH6xL5A

[Alan Poirier @alan_poirier]

In case anyone is wondering what #Greenland is all about.

[Iran International English @IranIntl_En]

Iranians gathered in cities including Houston, Munich, Austin, Sacramento, Düsseldorf and Madrid on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary of the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini and the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, videos sent to Iran International showed. Demonstrators chanted in solidarity with people in Iran and in support of exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi, calling for an end to the Islamic Republic.

[Radu Hossu 🇹🇩🇺🇦 @RaduHossu]

Over the last 72 hours, several events and announcements have overlapped in such a way that our minds, which are built to detect patterns, have started linking them into a single scenario: the imminence of a Russian attack on NATO. I can “boast” that I was among the first, and remain among the few people in Romania, who spoke about Russia testing NATO’s Article 5.

At the end of the Second World War, a new World Order was built. The Western civilization part of this World Order was built on the foundations of economic liberalization. Economic liberalization had, as both its foundation and the shield that allowed it to exist, a security pillar called NATO. NATO is an alliance between states whose mission is founded on Article 5. Article 5 is based on trust.

At the beginning of 2025, I was trying to warn about how Russia would attempt to test this through attacks below the threshold of a casus belli/an act of war, meaning below the level that would trigger a coordinated response from the Allies, but which would publicly be perceived as an attack on a state. The concept of hybrid warfare is an old one, decades old, and the Russians have refined it without ever hiding from us what it means: erasing the line between war and the absence of war (let us call it peace) through a series of hostile actions, kinetic or otherwise, that destabilize the adversary, freeze its ability to react or slow it down considerably, helping Russia achieve its objective without being drawn into a war. Active Measures, Ideological Subversion, the Little Green Men in Crimea, false-flag operations, etc.

The adversary in this case is not Estonia or any other Baltic country, nor is it Romania; it is NATO. The actions are not limited to launching drones that appear to have accidentally entered Allied countries, but also include what I listed above: disinformation campaigns, flooding the information space with falsehoods, creating fractures within the societies of Allied states and directly targeting the “social contract,” citizens’ trust in their institutions. Assassinations, sabotage, kompromat campaigns, cyberattacks, economic and political warfare. The construction of a parallel reality to the one represented by facts and factual truth. If you think I am exaggerating, please consider that there are an extremely large number of people in Romania who do not believe that the war in Ukraine exists. Very many who believe that Putin is justified in doing what he is doing. I am not discussing here how such a reality is constructed; I am merely saying that it is constructed over time and intentionally, through deliberate effort; it does not simply happen because “people don’t believe.”

What I have been seeing over the last few days on Twitter, Facebook, and what is beginning to make its way into the mass media looks to me somewhat like a campaign that is creating panic among the population, although the people posting about the various events do not intend to do this; they believe they are merely informing and warning people. Why do I say this? Some of the points presented in lists of alarming events that have gone viral online are either impossible to prove, or they are old and therefore unrelated to the here and now, or they are taken out of context. Examples:

E1: “The Russians are preparing 20,000 hospital beds on their northwestern front (their own, meaning in the area bordering the Baltic countries/Finland).”

The information comes from Volya, an independent Russian Telegram channel made up of journalists and anti-war activists who are respected and recognized as reliable in most cases.

However, if you read their article, you will see very clearly that it is about increasing the capacity of civilian hospitals because the Russians can no longer cope with the wounded coming from Ukraine, something that has been happening for years, while in 2026 alone the Russians built six large hospitals, five of which are already operational, three of them being in European Russia.

This news, however, is being associated with a possible invasion of the Baltic countries because the increase in bed capacity will take place in the regions of Karelia, Saint Petersburg, Leningrad, and Novgorod. Where others see imminence, I see continuity with previous projects and anticipation of an increase in the number of wounded coming from Ukraine.

E2: “Sweden is warning its citizens about a potential crisis and educating them on how to survive in the event of war.”

It is true that this is happening. I looked into whether this is something new, whether it has anything to do with the here and now. Whether it can indicate any imminent Russian action. “In Case of Crisis or War” is a brochure that was delivered by the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces to every household in Sweden from 1943 until 1991. New editions were subsequently printed and distributed in 2018. This happened again in 2024.

Again, we are talking about a completely normal civic education program in Sweden, something that is entirely absent in Romania, which is precisely what makes the news seem shocking. Almost all Nordic countries do this consistently, because they have programs to educate the population in the event of crisis and war. The fact that Finland has civilian bunker capacity for 4.8 million citizens and a population of 5.6 million (of whom approximately 1 million are reservists) does not mean that war is imminent, but that it is considered possible and that it is better to be prepared. I know this sounds shocking to Romanian politicians, but it is completely normal in Finland.

E3: “The European Union is warning citizens to stock up for 72 hours, including canned food, water supplies, etc.”

It is true that the European Union called for this, except it did not happen here and now, but in March 2025, yet the story is now being recirculated in lists of events supposedly indicating the imminence of war with Russia. In the March announcement, the Commission explained that Europe needs to be prepared for every type of crisis, from natural disasters to cyberattacks and geopolitical crises, including military aggression against EU countries.

E4: “The UK Government wants all its citizens to start preparing for severe disruptions to their lives. It wants them to start stockpiling canned food and drinking water, strengthen our civil resilience, and plan for the possibility of war.”

Again, it is true that this happened. Except it happened last month, not now, and the authorities explained that this was a normal measure. My opinion is that they are implementing policies in coordination with the European Union in order to increase the resilience of all European states.

Aha, so I have nothing to be afraid of, right? Everything is fine, I can live my life just as I have until now, right?

No. My theory is that Russia cannot possibly miss the opportunity to attempt the total destabilization of NATO Allied countries. How? I explained it above. When? Fairly soon. At the beginning of 2025, I estimated that it would happen within 18 months. We are roughly there now, but based on everything I read and analyze, nothing makes me believe that something will happen in the Baltic countries in the next few weeks.

In recent months, this scenario has been supported by the intelligence services of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the United States. The reactions of Baltic politicians, of Stubb—the President of Finland—of Donald Tusk—the Prime Minister of Poland—and CIA Director Ratcliffe’s visit last month reinforce my conviction. Macron’s and Merz’s reactions in recent days, as well as Marine Le Pen’s statement today, do the same.

I am almost convinced that Russia will attack NATO in one way or another and no, NOT in the way everyone is thinking, meaning an invasion of Narva, Estonia, all the way to the Baltic Sea in order to annex territory. It could happen in Narva, it could be a maneuver operation, but not with the objective of annexing territory. This means that it does NOT require major resources for such an operation. And Russia has the resources it would need for such a brutal test. Just as an example, between 2024 and today, Russia has increased its production of ballistic missiles from 50–70 per year to 1,200. And Shahed drone production has increased from 10,000 per year to 130,000. There is no air-defense system in Europe that can protect you against numbers like these.

So they have the resources, but Russia does not need territory; it needs the expansion of its power and influence, the destruction of what they see as the evil empire (NATO led by the United States), and a seat at the table of the superpowers from an advantageous position.

Through an incursion limited in time, space, and objectives into the Baltic countries, Poland, or Romania, Russia can destabilize the entire alliance, regardless of how many aircraft, missiles, and submarines we have. There are many possible scenarios: an incursion, or simply sabotage strikes. Political assassinations. Cyberattacks against critical infrastructure. Or all of them at once, with the possibility of denying involvement (“not us, terrorists, hackers, criminals, Ukrainians, others”).

Because NATO is a social construct, an agreement between people, an agreement that stands as long as there is trust that it will be honored. If Article 5 is activated and major Allies fumble their response or send their “thoughts and prayers,” then the entire social construct—from trust in Article 5 all the way to the World Order of Western civilization—will collapse like a house of cards. Other social constructs, other arrangements, other alliances, other treaties will take their place.

But it will no longer be the same World Order. And a country like Romania, in the absence of this existing architecture, is “destined” for chaos and collapse. Foreign investments in Romania, after the 2022 invasion near our borders, were not made because we have defenses and because we are capable of defending ourselves, but despite our lack of preparedness. They were made because investors know that we are a member of NATO and the EU. That is the only guarantee. If that disappears, the investments disappear as well. And that means economic collapse. Social collapse. Political collapse.

These are the issues we need to discuss, and we cannot do so because of the influx of disinformation and manipulation in our information space. These are the issues that should keep us awake at night, not margarine or butter. These, and the related subjects that lead us toward greater resistance and resilience: the rule of law (Justice), education (including civilian preparedness for horrific scenarios), military defense and civil defense (the fight against hybrid warfare, STRATCOM, CNA, ANCOM, DNSC, etc.).

The conclusion is that the Russians are not invading this week, nor next week. But they will test us brutally, and soon.