• Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

July 2024: Reading, Watching

8 months ago

Greatest hits: the Netflix Ripley series, "Blood and Wine" with Jack Nicholson, "Geology: A Very Short Introduction." Lowest lows: "The…

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

June 2024 Reading, Viewing

9 months ago

Greatest Hits: Everett's "Erasure," Zweig's "Mary, Queen of Scots," "Code Inconnu." Lowest Lows: "S.W.A.T." (2003). Ouch.

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

May 2024 Reading and Viewing

10 months ago

During May I consumed so much Stefan Zweig, Nikolai Gogol, but also "Crime Wave" and "The Insider" and even "La…

  • Idle Reflections

The Limey (1999): Mise-en-Scène and Glib Dialogue

10 months ago

"The Limey" is essentially a father-daughter story of a very strange sort, in at least two discrete dimensions. Masterful in…

  • On Literature, Books

Mary Stuart. The Maid of Orleans. Two Historical Plays By Schiller

11 months ago

Not so recently acquired: Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart and The Maid of Orleans. Two Historical Plays in One Volume!

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

April Absolutions: Reading, Watching

11 months ago

The highnotes: The Letter (1940), Hobson's Choice (1954), Stefan Zweig, Henrik Ibsen. The lownotes: The Matrix (1999) and its progency,…

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Manic March 2024 Reading, Writing

1 year ago

David Graeber's "The Utopia of Rules," Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," Ida Lupino in "Women's Prison." Is it too late to…

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Frigid February 2024 Reading & Watching

1 year ago

The so-called Glaciation Trilogy and the only Hamaguchi film I hadn't seen, as well as David Graeber's "Utopia of Rules"

  • On Film, Movies, Cinema

“71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance” (1994): Is Michael Haneke Anti-Narrative?

1 year ago

Elsewhere Haneke has described some of his films as anti-narrative. Is it true of "71 Fragments of a Chronology of…

  • On Film, Movies, Cinema

Reflections on “Benny’s Video” (1992): Image, Sound, Reality, Parental Neglect

1 year ago

The televisual void has sucked away all vestiges of reality from lived experience: Benny makes videos to capture what is…