• 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

12 months 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…