The number of events occurring that were not Xmas during December meant that less was consumed/read/viewed. Ça y est!
Greatest hits: George Eliot’s Silas Marner, Astaire and Rogers in Carefree, Geology Bites on sedimentary bias, and The Cheese and the Worms (very sexy stuff)
12/1
— Adrian Johns, Science of Reading: Information, Media, and the Mind in Modern America, 25 pp. UChicago Press.
— George Eliot, Silas Marner, 15 pp.
12/2-3
— Silas Marner, Finished Part 1
12/5
— Die Hard (1988)
Directed by John McTiernan, written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza; starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, William Atherton, James Shigeta, and De’voreaux White.
Noticed a joke that I’d never seen before. One of the sub-themes of this film is that the black buddy cop has never been able to draw his gun again after accidentally killing a young man with a cap gun. At the end of the film, he’s offered the chance to redeem himself by killing the somehow undead Karl. After Karl has been dispatched, Argyle drives the limo through the security gating in a way that looks like another threat. But McClane stops buddy cop before he makes the same mistake a second time and kills another kid. It’s actually hilarious.
— Silas Marner, 25 pp.
12/6
— The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Directed by Jonathan Demme, written by Ted Tally (based on the novel by Thomas Harris); starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Danny Darst, and Frankie Faison.
Did you notice all of the close-up/medium close-up shots? I mean the film is silly with them.
12/7: Saturday Night Lucian Film Festival
— Finished Silas Marner
— Happy Gilmore (1996)
Directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Tim Herlihy; starring Adam Sandler, Christopher McDonald, Julie Bowen, Frances Bay, Carl Weathers, Bob Barker, Richard Kiel, and Kevin Nealon.
Meh.
— Dodgeball (2004)
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, written by Rawson Marshall Thurber; starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Justin Long, Stephen Root, Rip Torn, Alan Tudyk, and Gary Cole.
Parts of this are hilarious. Others … the risks of comedy, I suppose.
12/9
— Finished Powell’s Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences
Powell goes through the history of the acceptance of plate tectonics, meteorites as the cause of geological phenomena, deep time, and global warming.
For whatever reason, I find myself shocked at how contemporary some of these geological ideas are.
12/16
— Serial Mom (1994)
Directed by John Waters, written by John Waters; starring Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard, Suzanne Somers, Traci Lords, Jeffrey Combs, and Patrick McKenna.
May I respect John Waters but not really like his movies?
ChatGPT: This dark comedy follows a seemingly perfect suburban housewife who, beneath her veneer of politeness and domesticity, embarks on a spree of murders to protect her family’s reputation, all while maintaining a facade of normalcy.
12/17-21
— Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, 50 pp.
12/22
— Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
Directed by Les Mayfield, written by Valerie Breiman (based on the original story by George Seaton); starring Richard Attenborough, Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott, Mara Wilson, James Rebhorn, J.T. Walsh, Bill Macy, and Robert Prosky.
Not memorable, even if it has Perkins (Big) and Attenborough ( … , Jurassic Park). I suspect that Mara Wilson (Danny DeVito’s Matilda!) was a big part of the draw.
ChatGPT: This remake of the 1947 classic follows a man who claims to be the real Santa Claus and takes a job as a department store Santa, leading to a court case to determine if he truly is Santa, while spreading holiday cheer along the way.
12/23-24
— Dino Buzzati, The Singularity (also translated earlier as Larger Than Life), 50 pp.
Picked up on a lark from the Free Library.
Interesting.
12/25
— In Harm’s Way (1965), first hour
Directed by Otto Preminger, written by Wendell Mayes and James Bassett; starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Brandon deWilde, Jill Haworth, and Dana Andrews.
This is a great film, and probably the only John Wayne film I’d ever recommend. Although I kind of think he’s the least of it. It’s all Kirk Douglas and Patricia Neal.
ChatGPT: This epic war film portrays the lives of U.S. naval officers and their families during the early years of World War II, focusing on the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
— Minions (2015)
Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, written by Brian Lynch; starring the voices of Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, and Pierre Coffin as the Minions.
— Secrets of the Neanderthals (2024)
Directed by Ashley Gething; featuring Emma Pomeroy, Graeme Barker (Shanidar Cave Project Director), and Abdullah Barzani.
This is one of those Netflix films that Will Tavlin discusses in his essay “Casual Viewing” in the newest N+1 (49). Made to be watched in the background, like I’m watching the Commanders/Buccaneers playoff game.
12/26
— Finished The Singularity
— Barbie (2023)
Directed by Greta Gerwig, written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach; starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell, and Michael Cera.
Much lauded and fun. But I came away thinking, for all of their effort, this film was really about Ken. The cognitive dissonance therapy part should have been hilarious, but films were made for seeing, not reading.
ChatGPT: This comedy follows Barbie as she ventures from the fantastical world of Barbie Land into the real world, embarking on a journey of self-discovery and confronting the complexities of human existence.
— Ian Buruma, Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah, 15 pp.
Picked this up at the library, on a lark. I guess I’m a little skeptical about why a “Jewish Lives” series from Princeton Univ. Press would include Spinoza. Especially as I’ve come to start thinking that Spinoza was probably a closet Christian of sorts. To Buruma’s credit, he addresses this. But there are other issues.
For a great review of this, see Joe Moeshenka’s comments from the Guardian.
12/27: Driving from New Market, Virginia to Charlottle, North Carolina and back
— Geology Bites, “Sedimentary Bias,” “Rivers, Part 1”
— The Rest is History, “Charlemagne: Return of the Kings (Part 1)“
In this episode, historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook delve into the life and legacy of Charlemagne, exploring his rise to power and his impact on European history.
— History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps,”Cardinal Rule: Robert Bellarmine“
What I heard here was — no, not an apologist for an Inquisitor — but a fascinating treatment of the separation of church and state that can be made both to the benefit and detriment of those seeking religious freedom.
— — “The Dark Night Rises: Spanish Mysticism“
(on Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross)
— — “Dürer and Michelangelo“
Here Adamson is aping his very-probably-equally-talented art historian twin by addressing these heavy hitters. I was more interested in Dürer than in Michelangelo.
— The Verdict (1946)
Directed by Don Siegel, written by Philip MacDonald and Jonathan Latimer; starring Humphrey Bogart, June Allyson, Edward Binns, Betty Garde, Eve Arden, Leo G. Carroll, William Campbell, and Arthur Kennedy.
Pretty forgettable. By which I mean, I simply cannot remember this film right now … actually, now I think I do. The DA (Bogart) is trying to get a stoolie to squawk on a dangerous underworld figure. Stoolie gets killed? Has to find another piece of evidence to convict …
— Le Samouraï (1967)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, written by Jean-Pierre Melville; starring Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Michel Bozzuffi, Ralph Hermann, and Robert Dalban.
I’ve seen this before, and really don’t think much of it. It’s not bad, but not really anyone is good in it and it’s mostly the fault of the script, I suspect. I’m not sure why it’s celebrated. It’s the least of Melville’s film, of which Army of Shadows (1969) is the first. Delon is wooden. Does anyone care that much about anything? I’m sure that I’ve missed something vital here [wooden?! That’s the point!].
ChatGPT: This stylish and minimalist French crime thriller follows a hitman as he navigates the complex world of professional crime while dealing with betrayal and his own code of honor.
— Carlos Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms, 15 pp.
— Ian Buruma, Spinoza, 10 pp.
12/28
— Geology Bites, “Rivers, Part 2,” “Aeolian rock formations,” “Plate tectonics?”
— Pusher II (2004)
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, written by Nicolas Winding Refn; starring Mads Mikkelsen, Leif Sylvester, Kurt Nielsen, and Anne Sørensen.
Idle watching. Mikkelson was good here. And the ending was excellent. But it’s a little bit of Jeanne Diehlman, but without the integrity and resignation.
— Buruma, Spinoza
12/30
— Oppenheimer (2023)
Directed by Christopher Nolan, written by Christopher Nolan; starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, and Rami Malek.
I liked this better than Barbie.
Especially the scene where Oppy is bawling at Truman that he killed all those Japs, and Truman tells him that the Japs aren’t blaming him. That’s hilarious.
I need to see this film again before I can say anything meaningful about it. Was distracted during the watching.
12/31
— The Gay Divorcee (1934), first half hour
Directed by Mark Sandrich, and written by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde; starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Alice Brady.
I’ve seen this a few times. Rogers’ character is divorcing her husband geologist who she never sees. She has all of the money, so why she is willing to admit fault just to be divorced?
— Shall We Dance (1937), an hour
Directed by Mark Sandrich, written by Leo Loeb and Harry Buchman; starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Edward Everett Horton.
— Carefree (1938)
Directed by Mark Sandrich, written by Allen Boretz and Norman Krasna; starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Jack Carson, Ralph Bellamy, Frances Mercer, Edward Arnold, Harry Davenport, and Leonid Kinskey.
Has enough ever been said about Hollywood’s dalliance with psychoanalysis?
ChatGPT: This romantic musical comedy follows a psychiatrist who uses unconventional methods to help a young woman with her romantic issues, all while falling for her himself in the process, set to a lively, jazzy soundtrack.
