September, here and gone, but seen

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Teaching a film class means more films from school showing up on my list. And sometimes they inspire additional watches. I've been thinking a lot about an alternate poster for The Long Goodbye and realizing Altman was the M*A*S*H guy when he made it and they sold it like it was M*A*S*H. But is it like M*A*S*H? I'm...not so sure. And I finally saw one of the most terrifying movies I knew of back in my childhood. So how scary was it?

Anyway, those are possible reasons to read on. That, a coyote, and Scooby-Doo.

Onward!

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ELSEWHERE
our bluray

Dekalog: One (1989)

Starts cute, ends sad.

I've been wanting to watch these movies for a long, long time.

The first has left me...uncertain what to think next. I can't decide if my reaction is evidence of its greatness or of it's onetenthness.

This is the only one on the Film & Philosophy curriculum, but now that I have them on bluray, naturally I gotta get through'm all.

Wish me luck!

HOME
our dvd

Key Largo (1948)

I have this bad habit of watching movie based on plays and trying to figure them out. I'm guessing there was an intermission between the hotel and the boat? But those were the only two sets? Could be.

It's hard to believe but I'm not certain I've ever seen an Edward G. Robinson movie before, nor a Boge-and-Bacall. I don't want to believe it. But I'm not checking because I don't want to confirm it.

Sadly this viewing included multiple interruptions, one lasting about an hour, right before the final thirteen minutes. That shows no respect to a classic.

Anyway. this is a very Casablancaesque film for Bogie. He plays a character much like Rick only it's postwar now and he's put into a rather different tough situation, but the inner conflicts echo. The film's quite restrained on the romance angle. As is Bacall's blouse. I'm uncertain whether it stays closed due to movie magic or some 40s button technology I'm unfamiliar with.

This is a great use of weather and confined spaces. And I had no idea Robinson does fearful as well as he does frightening.

Classic for a reason. I'll hope to watch it again sooner rather than later.

ELSEWHERE
our bluray

Dekalog: Two (1989)

Oh wow.

Those were incredible closing seconds. I literally spoke out loud what I felt.

And the choices before (the bee, the lie), also incredible.

These movies are gentle and nonabrasive but they are not light.

Terrific ethical dilemma.

But I'm surprised the Ten Commandments are not the Catholic version. This is Poland!

Anyway, be careful how many people you fall in love with, mkay?

[that was not a funny thing to say in this review]

THEATER
Century Cinemark Hilltop 16

Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

So yes, it's great. I laughed a lot. I got choked up. I have a few minor beefs regarding execution, but they are entirely negated by the loving use of old cartoons without debasing the film with cheap fan service. Really, it's a remarkable accomplishment. Praise be it made it to theaters. (The still-present copyright date in the credits is 2023.)

This isn't a fresh insight, but the battle couldn't have happened to a more appropriate movie. This isn't quite a burn-it-all-down anti-corporate rabblerouser, but it is a try-and-fail-again underdog friendbuilder with Bugs as Deep Throat (now we know why he's always headed through Albequeque) and a willingness to let major characters barely appear and a sorta Batman Lego take on the movie's founding relationship.

Anyway, I really liked it. Happy to spend my money on this.

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library dvd

Thunderbolts* (2025)

This is the rare Marvel movie that just improved on a second veiwing. I liked it the first time, but this is the sort of movie that works better when you know what it's up to. Which, again, is not always the case with Marvel movies.

Marvel is running out of imagery. Manhattan getting sucked into some magical (but reversible!) disaster? We just saw that again in the new Spider-Man movie. And while this one got over the default sense of violence-as-a-metaphor-for-every-sort-of-problem-solving, it spent most of the movie in that mode. (But that it does move past it is part of what makes this movie great.

The setups at the end of this movie really emphasize what a disaster Fantastic Four was but also how disjointed the movies progress one to another. Seeing Yelena in the new Spider-Man helped I suppose but still. The quality of this movie and the mess of FF really makes one assume this years Avengers film will be an utter disaster. I honestly don't see how it's possible to do all the things their teasing and all the stuff they've promised into a coherent whole. No wonder they're assigning homework. Avengers: Doomsday is like a test. And if it fails, that's on you, they're saying—not poor test design. As a teacher, let me respectfully suggest otherwise.

But who knows. Maybe it'll be great.

◔̯◔

ELSEWHERE
Hoopla

Stories We Tell (2012)

I remember reading about this documentary what felt like all the time when it came out. Everyone was gaga over it. Just as they had been over her feature directorial debut, Away from Her.

I'm slow getting around to things (he said needlessly) but I'm happy to've finally watched this tale of what truth looks like from within a family, a dozen different perspectives triangulating but never quite nailing down what happened or why or what it meant to people we never fully know.

We watched this as part of my Film & Philosophy class and we started by discussing metahistory (simply, how the ordering of facts turns them from facts into a story) and metafiction (in short, "Duck Amuck").

This is a good movie.

And it seems a lot of the documentaries we call great deal with these meta elements (and rightly so?).

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library dvd

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Honestly, I never wanted to see this. I hated the '90s film, for one thing. And although people spoke of liking these and although they've all three had hilarious trailers, I figured it would just be a passable entertainment and no more.

But then the daughter watched the first ten minutes with a friend and wanted to finish it so here we are.

And I was right: passable entertainment.

The leads are great, yes, great at being piloted by teenagers. And that's reason enough to blow two hours in Jumanji. But in the end this is pretty disposable stuff.

But.

Now that I've seen one....

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Peacock

The Addams Family (2019)

It's pretty funny with some excellent voice work and no bad voice work. It's going to age . . . less well than some other Addams properties, but it's fun enough.

Which is to say I guess my opinion from last time has held pretty steady.

ELSEWHERE
Kanopy

Memento (2000)

Feels like I've seen this before?

Have I?

It's possible

HOME
library dvd

Return to Oz (1985)

Not only have I never seen this before, but my memories of not having seen it are wrong. It came out in 1985, two years before my family moved to California, which means my memory of seeing a COMING SOON poster in Fresno ain't true. So maybe my not wanting to watch it as a kid because the couple kids I knew who'd seen it said it was scary might not be based on real memories.

The movie was, of course, an enormous flop. I think everyone in America felt the same way about it Siskel and Ebert did. No one could separate it from the almost 50yrold musical. Every difference was an offense.

I'm not sure I knew that anyone had seen it until my mid-twenties when I was working at a job in Sandy, Utah and the high-school kids there had their own little meme about the Wheelers (whom I'd never heard of before).

The only thing that's made me want to watch the film happened almost two decades ago when the excellent musician Eliza Wren crafted a fresh soundscape to accompany the film. (Here's a review of the album. And here are links to my reviews of her band Haun's Mill's albums.) I'm excited to watch it again with her music and probably fall in love with the album and then buy it. I wonder if the actual cd with her Oz illustrations is findable....

Anyway, the thing that made us finally watch it was watching The Wizard of Oz with the 9yrold. Lady Steed then wanted to share Return to Oz with her a movie that, to my amazement, she thinks she's seen more than 1939's. That and a making-of feature that was her introduction to the incredible craft behind movies.

And with the exception of a pretty lame Emerald City, there is a lot of very cool craft in Return to Oz. The gnome king and his minions stand out, but most the effects look terrific. Sort of a Labyrinth / Neverending Story / Quay-or-Czech look to everything. It just delves deeper into the weird and the surreal and the threatening as it goes on. So, yeah, different from 1939. But interesting as its own thing. (The asylum scenes are like Baby's First Scary Movie, teaching kids how to read horror.)

In the end, I'm not sure how "good" it is, but it's interesting and very cool to look at and completely worth the 90 minutes it takes to watch. Here's to watching it again with Eliza Wren in our ears.

ELSEWHERE
Hoopla

Days of Heaven (1978)

Leisurely but not genuinely slow.

Easy to see this is the filmmaker who will someday make Tree of Life.

Exactly as long as class and we have a guestspeaker tomorrow so I won't learn what they think for two whole days! Torture!

I was told as they went out the door that reading Genesis 20 and Exodus 10 was helpful, and was asked a bit about my take on the Brooke Adams character. Hope they remember their thoughts!

ELSEWHERE
Hoopla

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Fun to watch things pop up in this movie. Of course I knew Raymond Chandler and I knew Elliot Gould, but as the opening credits rolled, I was surprised to see Robert Altman direct and, a day after an hour thinking about him, John Williams as well. Williams's score is pretty minimalist, a bit jazzy. Most of the music is dietetic, a wide variety of the theme song in different genres.

Having recently read the novel, I was impressed by the quality of the adaptation. Marlowe's apartment is exactly what it should look like, just moved to the 1970s. The plot is simplified, but it doesn't feel like it. The change to the ending came as a surprise (and a weird one), but, largely, solid adaptation.

Having Arnold Schwarzenegger show up in an uncredited role caught me off guard. This is now my earliest Arnold film, predating Scavenger Hunt by six years.

I read once that you either have a naked neighbor or you are the naked neighbor. Marlowe's definitely the former.

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friend's dvd

The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

I'm glad that Wikipedia says the movie's a big departure from the novel because I've liked Karen Joy Fowler in the past. That said, Lady Steed just found her notes on having read the book in 2020 which basically said good writing but did not enjoy, disliked all the characters.

The soundtrack is some nice Oughts stuff, but weird choices. The most bizarre was using "Save Me" less than a decade after it got an Oscar nomination. You can't do that!

I know Robin Swicord has written some good movies but woof. This movie is pretty not great. The direction of the actors is mid, the weird injection of golden-hour shots doesn't make sense, the implication of full-on taboo romances (most egregiously high-school teacher/student) are left ungrappled with, the pacing is off, the editing is subpar, it's weirdly pleased with itself for being horny for lesbians.... I mean, hey—making a movie about reading books is a challenge.

ELSEWHERE
Hoopla

Time Travel Is Dangerous (2024)

Basically a science-fiction The Office. Even at a reasonably tight sub-100 minutes, it drags a bit in the third act. The aesthetic is similar to my beloved Molli and Max in the Future.

It has the feel of a lot of friends a-putting on a show, with lots of British That Guys filling up the roster.

I didn't love it but it was a fun way to spend some time multitasking.

HOME
library dvd

Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! (2022)

This is a pretty consistently hilarious movie. It incorporates post-Ren&Stimpy technique and makes everyone more sexy (especially the villain whose body jiggles Betty Boop could only dream of) and leans on the Velma's-a-lesbian thing, all of which made me skeptical, but it really came together. It's one of the funniest Scooby-Doo things I've seen and is obeys the primary rule of the world. The first Scooby-Doo movie I saw circa 2004 had "real" zombies to which all I can say no no no, not canon, no.

New characters are great, an enormous number of old characters making deserved cameos, hearkening back to earlier shows' opening credits!

The music's great too. You might not guess from his Bandcamp selection, but this guy's Scooby songs sound more like Magnetic Fields and are excellent. A soundtrack worth pulling out at Halloween if it's available. (I think only the score is?)

Anyway, we laughed a lot. That's gotta count for something. (As should falling under 80 minutes.)

ELSEWHERE
YouTube

The Wave (1981)

Never fails to engender excellent conversation. Fitting it into Nietzsche week was kinda great. Especially when the accused the kids of being dumb because they didn't realize the connection to what they were studying while simultaneously missing the connection to what we we studying.

Classic for a reason. Long overdue for a remastering. Surely it's possible? Maybe?

Previous films watched. . . .

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and strangers, fools and gurus: Honeymoon in Copper

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As of today, Honeymoon in Copper is completed. That doesn’t mean it will stay complete. After I get feedback and move into working with professionals, any number of changes could be made. But if I were self-publishing, I could go to press today. It’s as good as I can make it without stepping gently into insanity.

I don’t want to say much more about it today, but I will share that the book is broken down into seven days, and here are some stats on that breakdown:

火

Tuesday

3 chapters, 15 pages

水

Wednesday

12 chapters, 62 pages

木

Thursday

5 chapters, 22 pages

金

Friday

11 chapters, 54 pages

土

Saturday

14 chapters, 87 pages

日

Sunday

12 chapters, 48 pages

月

Monday

This one’s . . . a little bit complicated. If we count everything, that’s 39 chapters, 154 pages. But if we stick with Monday proper: 21 chapters, 86 pages. The other stuff can be treated as one, two, three, or four units; if four, that comes to one, one, fifteen, and one chapter(s) per unit.

Guess you’ll just have to read the book.

"Remember you can trust me / I am not as evil as you think"(Snocaps)

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This is a wild ride of books here. Holy smokes. I'm so eclectic!

I need to feel that way after earlier today..... 

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047) Resolution by Robert B. Parker, finished August 8

Picked this up from a Little Free Library when I had an hour to kill. Sat near a streetlight under the BART tracks. Logged a hundred pages right there. Every time I sat to read from it, seemed like the pages flew by. Still took a week to notch 321 pages. That's how it goes sometimes.

Parker has a plain style that makes Hemingway look wordy and and McCarthy logorrheic. But it's deep into character. And memorable. Surprised such simplicity works. But work it does.

Probably a lot to learn from reading Parker.

This is the second of four novels in this series about Cole and Hitch. Violent stuff. And thoughtful on questions of morality. But most of what it may be saying goes unsaid.

That's just how they talk 

seven days 

☞

048) American Zion: A New History of Mormonism by Benjamin E. Park, finished August 23

Given that Aaron and I have spent hours (and hours) discussing this book over the last couple years, I don't feel a great need to spill at length here, other than to say that it is excellent. It it tough and steely, honest and true, generous and enfolding. It puts things I know into freshly sketched context and provides new information as well. It's well written and endlessly fascinating. Really, it's everything you might want from a one-volume history on a massive topic.

That topic is the long relationship between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the United States of America. Which has ranged from fraught to bemused to cozy to dangerous.

As he points out in the final chapter, the current tenions arrive during a unique moment: "The battle they  ['Latter-day Saint authorities'] are waging is not between Mormons and America, as the dividing lines are now within America."

Yeah. So...is that good or bad?

Tomorrow, the two-year anniversary of my beginning to read American Zion, Aaron and I are getting online with Ben to discuss his book and some other shared interests. I'll come back and turn this paragraph linkcolor when that's available online. 

exactly two years to the day 

☞

049) The Candy House by Jennifer Egan, finished September 1

An absolutely brilliant book. My first Egan and I think it's playing similar games to her famousest one? but this fractured series of barely-related stories is absolutely appropriate for the ideas the novel is playing with. Among the stories is perhaps the best second-person story I've read (I can't remember the other couple great ones I know I've read, so who can say for sure).

Up until the last twenty-some pages, I suspected I would be telling you about how great the book was, every element truly excellent, yet not really a very good book because, connected or not, what, really, did these stories have to do with each other? But the last couple stories worked it out. Especially the penultimate one.

I remember reading somewhere, Orson Scott Card saying that he'd rather write novels that short stories because he spends the same amount of creative capital on either and novels pay better so why waste all that effort on a mere story? By that reasoning, this novel required the creative capital of any dozen other novels. Each section is fantastic. It took me awhile to understand/accept that characters that had been so richly drawn might ne'er return. It seemed . . . spendthrift.

The novel takes place in the recent past and the recent future in a world much like but not identical to our own. It's fair to call it science fiction but as it feels more like a world just to the edge of our own that "science fiction" seems like an exaggeration.

But isn't that often the very best science fiction of all?

three weeks more or less 

☞

050) Juliet: The Lives and Afterlives of Shakespeare's First Tragic Heroine by Sophie Duncan, finished September 7

I absolutely tore through the first half of this book (title Searching for Juliet according to the acknowledgments and in Britain—but I like our cover much better*) but slowed way down in the second half where it felt like Duncan was sometimes stretching to fill pages with interesting things she'd found even if there wasn't much to say about them. Occasionally she devolved into overly online liberal cliche in order to glue it all together. That said, I still really dug the book.

The British cover looks like it's meant to attract a YA audience. The American cover is just amazing. I wish you were holding it in your hands.

And this image of Juliet is perfect. She's the right age (not quite fourteen), lovely, thoughtful. I've probably seen it before (I married a huge Waterman fan), but I didn't remember it. It's great.

My other complaint (of this book, remember, that I actually really really like) is that they didn't pony up for a couple twenty-page glossy sections filled with images. Her section on the art of Juliet filled me with a desire to see what the heck she was talking about. And I'd love to see images from various productions she discusses. I care less about images from Verona or tragic couples labeled Romeo and Juliet but you know that other reader want to see that stuff. Not sure how much more expensive that would have made the book but it would (likely) have been worth it.

I want to go back to my first complaint and flesh it out a little. Duncan's at her best when discussing Juliet as an artistic phenomenon. How the story is told and retold in various media (the stage, oils, novels, movies) and her cultural and literary criticism is excellent. She has a harder time when she wants to talk about Juliet's influence on the real world. The stuff about fascists was fascinating but kept losing track of Shakespeare's Juliet. And when we get to topics like real-world people dying under a Juliet label, or diversity in casting, she keeps getting distracted, talking more about contemporary concerns and trying to shove Juliet into the conversation. It's awkward. The information is often interesting but the application to her new arguments read more like a string of tweets fueled by barely contained liberal rage. And hey—I'm pro–liberal rage! I got plenty myself!) but instead of Juliet taking the lead, current worries do, and the book suffers as a result.

But, once again, I loved this book. Through the first half of the book I was constantly interrupting people to tell them cool factoids I was learning. In the second half this rarely happened even though there was still tons of cool stuff. Juliet is the kind of book that makes me wish it was a thing, that writers of nonfiction would create an online repository of all the cool stuff they'd collected. The closest I found for Juliet was its author's Instagram (it's not very close). It's the 2020s! You're allowed a website!

Sigh.

Anyway, if you're at all into this stuff, definitely read Juliet. It's terrific.

(Also, if anyone wants to push back on my first complaint, let me just say you're absolutely correct. It may be a bit sideways, but the naming patters of slaves is important and belongs in the book. I suppose my real issue is rhetoric, not tangents.) 

under two months 

☞

051) Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, finished September 12

I kind of want to write a long essay on this book and publish it somewhere but I probably won't because I'm already annoyed with myself for even reading it. But best I can tell, no one's written about Lost Girls with the goal of interrogating its self-serving and redundant and contradictory, built-in, redundant rhetoric. In short . . . it really only works if you ignore what it's saying. But I suppose a work like this that is, ah, meant to be enjoyed an image at a time, can get away with such crap. Especially when it's done by a pair of arteests. And, in this case, if you say the emperor has no clothes on, people might miss the metaphor.

As long as I'm complaining, let me give one to each of the creators. 1) Moore is doing the same thing he's done a dozen times before. 2) Gebbie has a solid sense of anatomy but I'm not sure she's ever seen a human face before. 

nine months 

☞

052) Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, finished September 12

Man, does this novel end powerfully. While at times I'd really had enough of Moby-Dick, here at the last, oh, thirty pages, it is absolute storytelling fireworks and thematic explosions. 100% successful. Amazing.

I suspect every time I read this book (this is only time two) different parts of the story will appeal to me No doubt the beginning will always charm and the ending will always thrill, but what parts from the middle will stick and which will feel disposable?

Part of my wishes Melville had edited a bit more, hadn't felt a need to include everything. But any cut would be a loss to some reader. Some of my favorites this time that may or may have not thrilled me last time include the treatise on white and the Spirit-Spout. The Spirit-Spout got me thinking about how to properly adapt Moby-Dick to film and I decided the best way is twenty or so hourish-long episodes, with the same cast, but delivered by differing behind-camera crews with visions unique to each story. The Spirit-Spout is likely animated. Taika Waititi can have the meeting-Queequeg episode. And so on.

I listened to perhaps as much as a third of this. When I was sick. Driving the length of California alone. I liked the experience well enough.

Of course the real question is will I read Moby-Dick again—truthfully, I do not know.

But even though I'm ambivalent to some measure, it's not a book that will leave me.

I don't think it's unfair to call it a masterpiece. 

five months 

☞☞☞

INTERRUPTION: Usually I forget things I want to stay about books and usually I let it be. But I'm making an exception and am now at 10:02 adding a couple thoughts about these two books finished today.

First, reading the conclusion of Moby-Dick so close upon having read Job twice in two translations is to make the great white whales mythic resemblance to Leviathan, Yamm, the great Canaanite god of the sea plain. And to make Moby Dick all the more frightening.

Job is incredible.

Second, I feel a need to attack Lost Girls a little more directly. The big problem with it is an inherent dishonesty in its project. Explicitly, it argues for pornography as a harmless hustle. Implicitly (and thus more honestly), it argues over and over again that pornography has a grotesque and destructive power. But those regular explicit whitewashes are pointed to as being Clever or Thoughtful and thus sufficient to cover up its deeper gross and sinful truths.

Which is kind of a shame. Because if you set aside the book's fixations on incest and child abuse and the like (which you most certainly should not do) it does have interesting things to say about human physicality and the connections between body and mind, body and spirit. Unfortunately, those things can never be focused on for long as it has to dive back into the merely depraved. Such a waste.

Perhaps the best evidence of what I speak is in Lost Girls' denouement in which it presents, as its moral coup de grace, the stunning and bold claim that nasty German soldiers consumed with a lust to destroy are the bad guys. Astonishing take. A real revelation. They break a mirror and burn a building. That's bad. Sorta puts the raping-children thing in perspective, doesn't it?

Yes. The story thinks that by occasionally (but explicitly!) saying that incest and child abuse are not ideal and should be avoided or by occasionally (but explicitly!) saying that incest and child abuse are fine when mere harmless fantasy, it negates the need for anyone to question its constant and deeply embedded implicit (but, ah, sometimes explicit) arguments to the contrary. But remember! soldiers break mirrors! philistines hate Stravinsky! and so, you know, incest, child abuse...not so bad, right?

Don't forget how on the last page we said war is bad!

☞ ☞☞

053) Apos by Anna M. Wright, finished September 14

First, no question this book is a thing of beauty. Even how it was packed when it arrived in the mail took my breath away. The book itself is printed gorgeously. A terrific use of paper and colors. When you hold it in your hands you'll be surprised you paid so little for it.

The book consists of stories Anna collected over many, many interviews with former missionaries. These former missionaries have a range of attitudes toward and relationships with the Church now that some years have passed. Anna collects their stories and shares them as is, without any judgment. It's almost unsettling how fairly she treats each person without ever inserted her own opinions regarding whether the person is right about this or wrong about that. She just accepts them as they are. In this way, the book is an awesome act of charity. And a bit of a fingerwag at those of us who want to fix people. I don't think of myself that way, but many times when reading this book I wanted to jump in and set folks straight. Even though, time and again, the stories demonstrate that is rarely a helpful coarse of action.

The book also makes me feel old. Stories of pandemic and online missionary work are so alien from my experience thirty years ago. And yet these kids (and they do feel like kids to me, now) are terribly, terribly familiar.

Lately, I've been developing a (hubristic?) desire to serve as a mission president, to serve young missionaries with generosity and kindness, empowering them through patience and listening and demonstrated forgiveness. Don't know why I've been feeling this way (such a call is ludicrously unlikely), but Apos confirmed both the value and difficulty of such service.

Good luck to all the mission leaders out there. Missionaries need your love and your kindness and a certain amount of nobility and goofiness to demonstrate what being a fail-and-try-and-fail-and-try again Saint may be.

a couple months i guess 

☞

 

previous books

T minus 70 minutes

 

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I have a story in a book that is being Kickstarted RIGHT NOW and at 5 pm Pacific I will be joining the editors for a live chat.

Here’s a link to the chat on YouTube.

Here’s a link to the chat on Facebook.

And here’s a soundtrack to my story if you need time to prep.

A gust of movies flings itself upon us

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The end of summer and the start of a new school year. Blow in, blow out, blow on.

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HOME
our dvd

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Motivated to finally watch this because of Disclosure Day and I'm happy to say I liked this waaaaaay more. Close Encounters is a pretty great movie. I really loved the sound design and I loved how mundanely it approaches the material. This is just a bunch of normal people stumbling around not really sure of what they're doing but moving forward anyway.

This film has a lot of elements from other Spielberg movies. The family here is similar to that in E.T. (though I like this family better; I believe in them more as people and I believe in their pain).

Ends up Close Encounters was an even bigger gap in my film education than I realized—I saw references to so many other movies...that came out in years later and that I never knew were referring to this movie. Not just alien movies (though No One Will Save You and Nope were the highest on my mind, but comparing it to something like Nope which took Close Encounters's clouds and did knew things with them. But you know what? Nope's clouds aren't any better. Close Encounters still looks great.

And...I just really liked it.

ps: I like Bob Balaban's interpretation of Richard Dreyfuss ala Jaws.

THEATER
Century Cinemark Hilltop 16

The Odyssey (2020)

Not as loud this time, which I really missed, but huge upside: I understood all the dialogue.

Samantha Morton and Anne Hathaway deserve acting nominations, but Matt Damon carries the movie. As Conor said, "i’ve been a matt damon-odysseus skeptic since the casting was first announced, but man, he is used to great effect here! his like ‘everyman’ vibes and general, you-wanna-root-for-him energy really helps bring the audience along emotionally with his whole grief/mourning/regret/i’m lost arc" (he also recommends reading this which I expect I will).

I get why people cringe at Nolan's dialogue (looking at you, "dad," "age of bronze") but it really doesn't bother me for some reason. And let's not forget that Nolan occasionally delivers iconic lines. It'll be intersting to see how The Odyssey's words settle into the broader culture.

In fun facts, Damon as the same problem with his lower teeth that I do. So maybe I should stop daydreaming about invisalign.

Something that has struck me in both viewings is how excellent a film this is about a long marriage. I wouldn't have thought it as, you know, they're apart almost the entire time, but the scenes Odysseus and Penlope get together make it work as a work about the whole.

ADDENDUM ADDED ABOUT THIRTY HOURS LATER

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Tenet (2020)

Watched it with Lady Steed and Son3 and they're both complaining how confusing it was. I didn't find it confusing. The repeat of the one fight scene was projected far ahead of time and the plot is a basic macguffin deal not much different from the final Mission:Impossible. The structure ofthe movie itself is straightforward. It seems more complicated thanks to its speed, alternate time directions, etc; butit's loaded with expository dialogue that explains things just as well for the audience as the characters.

So it's a fun excercise but a pretty basic action thriller. I imagine Nolan wrote this one just to create interesting problems for him to them solve in-camera and boy oh boy but did he succeed. The movie looks great. The library dvd came with a whole disc of special features. I don't think I'll have time to get to them, but I'l love to learn how he pulled off the time-altered aspects of the storyline.

THEATER
Century Cinemark Hilltop 16

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

This was a long (but consistently entertaining!) movie. I have a few negative comments (look: it was cool in Thor: Ragnarok but enough with the slomo diagonals!) but honestly on first watch, they didn't matter. The redundancies might grate on a second watch but who knows if there'll ever be one? Not me!

Leaving, Son2 noted that the great strength of the first two movies was the banter between friends. Movie three (in a lazy solution to the interesting problem they ended two with only to basically ignore in three) left Peter Parker unknown to the universe and so he has no friends. But there are a couple moments where that dynamic is almost returned and it's great. The credits promised that SPIDER-MAN WILL RETURN so maybe that will return. Or maybe not. Who knows.

Anyway, spoiler warning.

I saw a comment online about "Frank" getting dropped into the movie. I didn't think much about it until he showed up onscreen (oh.Frank.) but that didn't bother me at all. It gave someone for Spidey to banter with and that was a plus. I didn't watch his Disney+ show so I only know about this version of the Punisher from the three hours I just spent with him but I liked him. More than I usually like the Punisher. And as Jon Bernthal is also Menelaus this month, he's making a rel push to get on this list. Did you hear last weekend was the biggest in box-office history?

I'm particularly glad I didn't know Jean Grey was in the movie. I haven't seen most of the X-Men movies on none of them that are JEAN GREY stories, but it seems like they (as the comics before, during, and after them) have a real Jean Grey problem, where she becomes so enormous that everything is necessarily about her. Sort of a Superman problem only, somehow, bigger. That said, I thought she was an intriguing character in this movie and I hope it all works out (as opposed to, for instance, her being a deus ex machina to solve Doomsday).

The movie has allowed the cast to age which is great.

Um. I keep getting interruped and can't really remember what I wanted to say.

But that last word of the movie had better not negate everything they spent the entire movie insisting must be true. There's another interpretation that totally works but right now the movie left us with a schrödinger's twist and that makes me nervous. but we'll see! After all, SPIDER-MAN WILL RETURN.

(Oh! The funniest line was when MJ said that, before switching to aerospace, she'd been in biomechanics. Comic-book worlds are hilarious.)

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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Young awkward goofy Spider-Man is the best Spider-Man.

Also interesting that the Vulture has the wisest things to say in this movie, and in only the first full year of the Trump era.

A couple contradictory points of plot but while enjoying the ride they're easy to forgive.

Anyway. One of the best Spider-Man films.

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our dvd
(the bluray player won't
talk with the speaker
so for the original
dvd worked best)

The Tree of Life (2011)

Mother.

Father.

Always you wrestle inside me.

Always you will.

Sons two and three bought me the Criterion bluray for my birthday and son two had been wanting to watching it for a few months so tonight we did. (Incredibly, the 9yrold also watched it with us; color me impressed even if she "is gonna stick with regular movies from now on.")

Over the course of the movie I felt every possible and experienced every possible thought from will we be our own psychopomps to is it me, Lord? to are we all our psychosexuality poorly wrapped in skin.

Can't wait to watch the extended version.

Incidentally, it seems in none of my previous reviews did I link to Eric Samuelsen's praise of the film which is first what made me really want to see it.

I read the Book of Job in The Message in June and just started Robert Alter's comment-heavy translation this week, and so I thought Job would be the largest influence on my thinking this watch. But in fact, the book that passed through my mind most often was Wild at Heart (followed by the two Criterion essays), a book I read almost twenty years about (in part) the damage fathers due to sons and the need for Jesus.

I've been trying to give up the logic of original sin, of a fallen world, but my reading of Tree of Life this time seems to lean into them. Until you realize, no, we have been misunderstanding all along. Which brings up back to the Book of Job and to the Gospels and to the greatness of Mother.

Final comment: it's amazing that the three brothers (played by Michael Shannon, Brad Pitt, and Barry Keoghan) all look entirely like they could in fact me the genetic progeny of Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. And they're all so good, too. What casting.

THEATER
Century Cinemark Hilltop 16

The End of Oak Street (2026)

This was great. I haven't seen his calling-card film, but otherwise, David Robert Mitchell has made one of the alltimegreat horror films, a Lynch-worthy L.A. noir, and the best dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park. That is an incredible run.

I don't want to spoil anything at this early date (I WANT YOU TO GO SEE THE MOVIE) so let me just say that this is one of the greatest movies for giving you your cake and letting you eat it too. And without any cheating.

1982 looked great but I would offer the slight criticism that, as good as it might be for lighting, cars then didn't turn on their headlights just because you turned the ignition to access the tapedeck.

ELSEWHERE
YouTube

Two People Exchanging Saliva (2024)

I didn't remember this film was long enough to qualify for this list when I decided to show it to my Film & Philosophy class. We had already watched another (even according to this list's requirements) short and discussed it then I pulled up this 36-minuter with 37 seconds to go. D'oh!

Not a crime or anything but holy moly did they want to talk and yet—class was over. Weekend had arrived.

That's the way things go sometime. Even so, about a dozen kids hung out for at least a couple minutes because they couldn't just ignore it entirely.

Lesson? This is a good one. Keep it.

(Incidentally, I'm keeping track of everything I show F&P and you're welcome to follow along if you like.)

ELSEWHERE
our dvd

Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Now, granted, kids who sign up for a class called Film & Philosophy should like something like Cinema Paradiso but while I'm watching it (enjoying it thoroughly) I can't help but think, gee, what kind of a movie is this? What sorta plot's this?

But of course they loved it.

Everyone loves it.

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Keyhole (2011)

So....

After Nolan's movie I read several lists of other Odysseys and this seemed like the most interesting one.

It's probably not.

It's a, um, psychosexual riff on early Bunuel that thinks it's Eraserhead but is not. It's kinda dull and repetitive and occasionally deeply unfunny. It thinks it has a clever twist at the end, but let's just say I've rarely been less surprised. The only reason I didn't predict it is because when Ulysses finally found his wife it didn't matter so I assumed they'd run out of ideas—even cliches—to fall back on.

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Amsterdam (2022)

I understand the reviews from the time.

The film is beautifully shot. The actors are famous and beautiful and interesting and talented and well used. And yet.

And yet the film kind of rambles. It's not quite willing to show its cards early enough to raise the stakes and then, when it does reveal them, it just keeps revealing and revealing them.

It's kind of a mess. A beautiful mess, but a mess.

I think it could have been saved in the edit. It needed to be maybe half an hour shorter. Would've helped a lot, done right.

Ah well. So it goes.

Previous films watched. . . .

Something Herman Melville pulled off that I haven’t(of course, it probably helps to have some bestsellers out before you turn into a total weirdo)

.

Ishmael, of course, is writing about the events of Moby-Dick after they’ve all occurred. When did they happen? Hard to say. When is Ishmael writing about them? Just as hard to say. Except—

But we’ll get back to that.

I’ve published two novels: Byuck and Just Julie’s Fine. I started Byuck as a play in 1999. The novel takes place in 2000. I started on Just Julie’s Fine in 2004. It takes place in 2005. They were, respectively, published in 2012 and 2023. I finished writing them circa 2004 and 2014.

Here they are in their Matt Page–covered glory:

Anyway, as I was saying, the exact timing of Moby-Dick is challenging to ascertain. We don’t know when the Pequod sailed its fatal voyage but, in fact, we do know—to the moment—when Ishmael wrote

That’s pretty precise.

But get this: Ishmael may have been writing on 16 December 1851, but the book was published 18 October 1851 in the United Kingdom and 14 November 1851 in the United States.

He did it.

He wrote a book that happens after he wrote it, and got it published before that date rode by.

Mad props, Melville. Mad props.

(And he was only 32 to boot.)

 

I hit fifty two weeks ago. My current novel took place in April 2025 when I wrote the original novelette in late 2024. When I began rewriting it into a novel, I changed the date to April 2026. I completed the first draft before its events take place, but now we're four months later and, haha, it's definitely not published!

Well. Maybe someday I'll get a novel out before it happens. We'll keep trying.... 

At least we know it can be done. 

 

One of these things is not like the other

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If you look real closely, you'll find a masterpiece of lasting genius buried among these fresh comics for kids.

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043) Urban Legend Hunters: The Dreaded Mr. Snipe by Joel McKerrow and Wayne Bryant, finished July 23

Honestly, I didn't care for it. It's trying so hard to be funny and clever and I found it tiring. HOWEVER. The 9yrold read it and loved it and insisted I read it which is why I read it. And, honestly, if you find all the scatology and "wit" entertaining, this was a terrific series launch. So I suspect we'll be seeing these around the house for a while.

two or three days 

☞

044) The Firelight Apprentice by Bree Paulsen, finished July 23

The 9yrold finished this and declared it excellent and I thought I recognized the author's name. Sure enough I've read her Garlic books for kids and her vampire tale for adults so I figured I'd take an hour and knock this one out as well.

It's good. Paulsen does seem to have a strong need to push certain concepts forward (which is fine) and this books seems to borrow a plot choice from Frozen (which is fine) but somehow.... Little things like the child looking like a dwarf and some pacing issue kept me from really loving this one—I just couldn't settle in. Anyway, I'm sure her next one will be no less charming and maybe more satisfying. 

one night 

☞

045) The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter, finished August 4

I absolutely loved reading this version of the Torah. Although I certainly will continue reading other translations, I'm sufficiently persuaded by Alter's translation goals that I may well spend the first half of 2030 reading it again. I felt so educated in terms of literature and history and archaeology and theology by his voluminous footnotes (I'm certain they're longer than the Torah itself) and I happily shared recently read ones with all I talked to but! they were so many that I couldn't possibly hold onto them all. I must read this book again!

 

The best twenty dollars I've spent on a book? Maybe. Certainly I've zero regrets. And I heartily recommend Alter's work to each and every one of you. There's a certain magic that only someone who has spent their entire life mastering one realm of knowledge can impart, and this book offers that magic.

the year so far 

☞

046) Surfside Girls: The Mystery at the Old Rancho by Kim Dwinell, finished August 6

Daughter o' Mine continues making me read comics from the library but I really liked the first of these and I liked the second too. I hear it's now a show on Apple+, which makes sense. Could be a modern Scooby-Doo? It has sort of a utopian view of both California's rancho/mission era and modern politics, but it's okay for kids to believe the world is good. That should be part of their diet.

one sit 

☞

previous books

A bevy of Amys

The world has need of willing Amys
Who wear the worker’s seal.
Come, help the good work move along
Put your amys to the wheel.

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In a Utah Deseret Industries last month I picked up a cd just because I liked the look of it and because, let’s be frank, it was a woman.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later, enjoying the album for the first time and googling this Amy, that I learned I did know who she was. I first learned of her husband thanks to the appearance of a song of his in a beloved movie. Eventually that song went from new to me to really really liked which led me to investigating him which led to me discovering his wife which led to me discovering the albums they made together which led to consumer paralysis and sort of forgetting the whole thing.

(Incidentally, I have a known interest in married couples who make music. I have a Buddy Miller album and a Julie Miller album and a Buddy and Julie Miller album, as well as albums by music-making couple-bands Haun’s Mill, Shovels and Rope, Low—although when we count music-making couples beyond They the Couple Are the Band, we could go on and on; Tori Amos, for instance.)

My wife, as you can see, likes Tori Amos to the tune of 1,251 files. I like Tori but maybe not that much.

Anyway, back in June when I was quarantining in the woods, I spent a lot of time with our owned-music collection and one of the things I noticed is how certain names are more common than others. I mean, even three Alisons is a lot, right? (1,2,3) I already knew we had a statistically unlikely number of Kaceys (actually, just one Kacey…but also a Kacy and a Kasey), but what else? Since I had nothing else to do, I just wandered through the collection, counting.

Incidentally, whenever possible (unless I have written about a person before and am linking to that), I am linking to artists’ Bandcamp pages today because today is Bandcamp Friday. On Bandcamp Friday, Bandcamp gives its share of all proceeds to the artist. On any day they give a larger percentage to the creators than other streamers/sellers but Bandcamp Friday makes it even better. Good on this Oakland Business! (If you’re wondering, I’m thinking I’ll probably pick up work from free cake for every creature and Snocaps.)

John probably won

while Dave, I thought, underperformed

and Dan overperformed

but, as you may have guessed, Amy did very well indeed.

So lets talk about Amys!

Note: we’re just talking about acts that go as Amy, so perhaps my favorite Amy of all, Amy Gileadi, is excluded. But let’s go! Starting with the new girl, Amy Rigby.

 

This is the first track on the album and thus the first I heard. And it’s a pretty great introduction. She’s a literate and witty lyricist whose music is simple, genre-fluid, and fun. Comparing yourself to Rasputin in a positive way is a cognitive dissonance I’m not quite over but, while I may not be over it, I’m into it. Plus it’s a tight two and a half minutes, just like rock and roll was always meant to be. Welcome to the club, Amy!

Like Amy Ribgy’s album, my Amy Cooper album is vintage 2005. (Literally. Did you know many antiquers define vintage as between 20 and 100 years old?) I don’t remember exactly when I got Water/Fire, but it wasn’t vintage years ago. Yet, alas, this Amy has vanishingly little presence online in 2026. This is the ghost of her old website and happily she’s on Bandcamp, but otherwise…what?

“Hurried Steps“ is a good taste of what Amy’s up to. I quite like the Amy Cooper songs I know, but I bought so many albums from the midnineties to the midaughts and this fits so comfortably among them it could never quite stand out sufficient to move into regular rotation and thus become a go-to favorite. But listening to “Hurried Steps” is pretty solid evidence that she would hold up to closer attention. Maybe someday.

Where are you, Amy?

The Amy I own the most of is, tragically, not an Amy at all. Yes. We are discussing Aimee Mann.

 

I know it’s a little obvious to pick “Save Me” but it’s been on my mind lately because it lost the Oscar. I would be okay with it losing had it lost to the correct song, but egad, Academy voters! “Save Me” is integrated so well into Magnolia, but the entire movie is a tour-de-force of one-artist-soundtracking-a-movie. In my opinion, her take is superior to Simon and Garfunkle’s (The Graduate) or Badly Drawn Boy’s (About a Boy) and equal to Cat Stevens’s (Harold and Maude). (All four, of course, are great.)

(Incidentally, I’m fascinated by this genre. What other movies/soundtracks fit into it? Please tell!)

“Save Me” is a beautiful song and turned Aimee Mann into the icon we know and love today. Not even Red Vines and cigarettes could do that. Congrats, Aimee.

Our next Amy is an Amy my wife…does not care for. See if you can guess why.

 

Ladies and gentlemen: Amy Allison. Who—this is exciting—is not only our fourth Amy but she is also our fourth Allison! How many people get to say that?

I really dig Amy Allison. But I can understand why her voice…might not be everyone’s cup o’ tea. (Metaphor in honor her latest album, as so London it is.)

“Sad Girl” might be the most on-the-nose–possible usecase for her pipes and I recommend listening to the song three times in a row so you can adjust and thus appreciate. I know one thing I appreciate: an artist who can lean right in to self-parody and come out the other side unscathed. Well played, Amy.

 

Back to Black had five charting singles and I had no idea we owned it until I was in quarantine. Where did it come from? I honestly do not know. Maybe Lady Steed bought it? She’s why we have a Lady Gaga album from around the same time, so maybe? Dunno. Anyway, out there in the woods I listened to it for the first time and you know what? It’s really good.

I chose this particular track because it leans even deeper into pop’s past and I love that. I’ll never cease to be amazed that Amy Winehouse purely through the power of her performance brought back the Sixties (and earlier) for a brief shining moment when “Rehab” was inescapable. I’m glad to finally did a deeper dive. Requiescat in pace, Amy.

On the opposite side of Amydom we have this:

 

I liked Amy Grant’s pop music when I was in my early teens but she’d probably be nothing but a vague memory now had I not heard this Christmas album over and over on my mission, and then bought my own copy my first or second Christmas home. I’ve probably listened to this record hundreds of times. Not so often these days, but no one can tell me “Breath of Heaven“ isn’t one of the great holiday numbers.

Merry Christmas, Amy.

 

Our final Amy might be my favorite of this baker’s half dozen. Pretty sure I learned about her on NPR but neither of these two contemporaneous reviews seems to include this track which I feel certain was the hook she set to pull me in. So maybe it wasn’t NPR. Who knows.

The point is this: while I love “Damn Love Song,” the fact is this is a perfect album; I love every single song on it for related but nonidentical reasons. Her voice is incredible, running the gamut from aggressive to vulnerable, and her lyrics are easy to access but rewarding of attention.

In short, Stranger Me is one of those albums artists should never record because they are so perfect I can never tire of them or even desire more. To this date, it is the only Amy LaVere album I own. But you know what? It’s Bandcamp Friday. Maybe I should pick up another…?

Maybe that it was this essay was always about: talking me into more Amy LaVere.

Well played, Amy. Well played.

 

artists mentioned in this post and on bandcamp but not linked to in the substance of the post: Shovels & Rope, Low, John Linnell, Urge Overkill, John Prine, Dan Mangan, Dan Zanes