Enervating Enero 2025, Reading and Writing

January 2025 does seem like an enervating month, given the political winds blowing. In such a short span of time we’ve gone from normal to some fascist dream.

Few of the things that I read and watched eclipsed the dread of this contemporary American life.

1/1
— Miller’s Crossing (1990)
Directed by Joel Coen, written by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; starring Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, John Turturro, Jon Polito, J. E. Freeman, Albert Finney, Mike Starr, and Al Mancini.

1/3
— Will Tavlin, “Casual Viewing”, N+1
Two thoughts: 1. Advertisements in SoCal solely for the film producers; 2. Films that include dialogue to make the film easier to follow if you are not paying attention
— Mina Tavakoli, “Planet Puppet”, N+1
— Despicable Me 3 (2017)
Directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, written by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio; starring Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Coogan, Jenny Slate, Dana Gaier, and Julie Andrews.
— Heat (1995)
Directed and written by Michael Mann; starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, Danny Trejo, Kevin Gage, Hank Azaria, Ted Levine, Dennis Haysbert, and William Fichtner. And don’t forget about Henry Fucking Rollins! And Tone Loc!

1/4
— Ian Buruma, Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah, 26 pp.
I really enjoyed reading about Spinoza as a person. He sounds so fascinating. I actually hesitated before finishing the book because I didn’t want him to die. Buruma, for what it’s worth, does some good work to contextualize him …
— Ted (2012)
Directed by Seth MacFarlane, written by Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild; starring Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Seth MacFarlane (voice of Ted), Joel McHale, Giovanni Ribisi, Patrick Warburton, Matt Walsh, Jessica Barth, Aedin Mincks, Bill Smitrovich, Patrick Stewart (narrator), Norah Jones, Sam J. Jones, and Tom Skerritt.
Pretty sure that I’m going to parenting hell because I permitted my son, 14, who asked to see this, to see this. But I did stop it a couple of times and say, these guys are bros and beware.
This film is so puerile, so dumb.

1/5
— City of Fear (1959)
Directed by Irving Lerner, written by Robert Dillon and Steven Ritch; starring Vince Edwards, Lyle Talbot, John Archer, Steven Ritch, Patricia Blair, Kelly Thordsen, Joseph Mell, Sherwood Price, and Kathie Browne.
This was actually really good, in the sense that it started with Vince Edwards and you think he’s just a psychopath and what’s going to happen, but what happens is that he’s confused a lion’s share of heroin with a city-poisoning vat of Cobalt-60.
Which led to thinking about isotopes, for Cobalt-60 is a
— Spinoza, 30 pp.

1/6
— Finished Spinoza. See review in December. Basically, Buruma wants to get Spinoza back on the team.

1/8
— Carlo Ginzburg, Cheese and Worms, 12 pp.
— Rushmore (1998)
Directed by Wes Anderson, co-written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson; starring Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Seymour Cassel, Brian Cox, Mason Gamble, Sara Tanaka, Stephen McCole, Connie Nielsen, Luke Wilson, Kumar Pallana, Andrew Wilson, Marietta Marich, Alexis Bledel, and Wallace Wolodarsky.
I’d forgotten how stunning is Olivia Williams.

1/9
— Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
Directed by Chris Columbus, with a screenplay by Steve Kloves, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling; starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Tom Felton, Ian Hart, John Hurt, Fiona Shaw, Richard Griffiths, Harry Melling, Warwick Davis, and John Cleese.
— Ginzburg, Cheese and Worms, 15 pp.
— Vicki (1953)
Directed by Harry Horner, written by Elliott Arnold, based on the novel I Wake Up Screaming by Steve Fisher. Starring Jean Peters, Richard Boone, Paul Douglas, Max Showalter, Cecil Kellaway, Sara Allgood, Elisabeth Fraser, Ralph Dumke, and Regis Toomey.
Sort of a funny, perhaps unmemorable movie. I only saw the last half, after the murder and during the investigation and everyone’s gaga about Vicki.

1/10
— Quantum of Solace (2008), first hour.
Directed by Marc Forster, with a screenplay by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade, based on characters created by Ian Fleming; starring Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Gemma Arterton, Jesper Christensen, Giancarlo Giannini, David Harbour, Joaquín Cosío.
Watched this on the trainer, which meant that I couldn’t really hear it that well.
Not sure I understand why he put Mathis’ body in the dumpster. He hadn’t really forgiven him, despite what he said? Kurylenko as a Bolivian? I mean, come the fuck on. Please. She had a really good agent, that’s for sure.

1/14
— Prey (2022)
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg, with a screenplay by Patrick Aison, based on characters created by Jim Thomas and JohnThomas; starring Amber Midthunder,  Dakota Beavers, Dane DiLiegro, Michelle Thrush, and Julian Black Antelope.
— Cheese and Worms, 5 pp.

1/16
— Dawn Lundy Martin, “Dancing Inside The Box”, N+1, 49

1/18
— Spinoza, Letters, #18-20
These letters include Blyenburgh’s first letter to Spinoza in which he gives every indication of being an ardent seeker of truth but perplexed by the pantheistic implications of the Theological-Political Treatise; Spinoza’s encouraging response, assuming some ideological common ground; and Blyenburgh’s tendentious second letter both expressing agreement and very strong disagreement about the theological implications … [tl;dr: Spinoza’s view makes God responsible for evil, no?]
— Raymond Williams, Television, 15 pp.
Technological determinism is a form of critical blindness.
— The Godfather (1972), 20 m.
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, with a screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, based on the novel by Mario Puzo; starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton.
Thought maybe Lucian might be up for this … nope.

1/19
— Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Directed by Sergio Leone, with a screenplay by Sergio Donati and Sergio Leone, based on a story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Sergio Leone; starring Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, and Gabriele Ferzetti.

Lucian asked to watch this film, and of course I assented, but with the proviso that once we started we would watch the entire thing (it’s freaking long, y’know).

The way I see it now is quite different from how I saw the first and other times … Then “spaghetti Western” as some mysterious, fascinating chapter of film history, whereas now “spaghetti Western” as this sort of tawdry, tired chapter of film history, owing more to Kurosawa than anyone else.

But in Once Upon A Time in the West there is also a sort of funny relation between the narrative and the sound/musical track in which they are not a single thing, but two distinct entities acting and reacting to each other and not always in concert. Admittedly, not in really interesting ways. But for 1968, short of Goddard, this was something.

The Criterion Channel is offering this as an example of “Cast Against Type: Heroes as Villains” and in this instance, Henry Fonda as the bad guy.

1/20
— The Godfather (1972), 50 m.
Episode #99 of Stupid Parent Tricks: namely, the one in which the father’s desire to share this experience with his son overlooks the fact that only a couple of days prior the son had expressed anxieties about watching violence on screen.

1/21
— American Fiction (2023)
Directed by Cord Jefferson, with a screenplay by Cord Jefferson, based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett; starring Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody, and Issa Rae.

The film adaptation of the Percival Everett novel Erasure, which I read earlier this year, starting back early in 2024.

1/22
— Tankers (2018)
Directed by Konstantin Maksimov, with a screenplay by Ivan Naumov and Konstantin Maksimov; starring Andrey Chernyshov, Vladimir Epifantsev, and Oleg Fomin.
A second viewing, following a first viewing months before. Lucian’s selection.

— The Man from Laramie (1955)
Directed by Anthony Mann, with a screenplay by Philip Yordan and Frank Burt, based on a story by Thomas T. Flynn; starring James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp, Cathy O’Donnell, and Alex Nicol.
This film was made after all of the other Mann-Stewart collaborations.

1/24
— Emilia Pérez (2024)
Directed by Jacques Audiard, with a screenplay by Jacques Audiard, Léa Mysius, and Thomas Bidegain; starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, and Édgar Ramírez.
— Finished The Cheese and the Worms

1/26
— Furiosa (2024)
Directed by George Miller, with a screenplay by George Miller and Nico Lathouris, based on characters created by George Miller, Byron Kennedy, and Brendan McCarthy; starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Burke.
Bollocks.

1/28
— David Graeber, Utopia of Rules, intro
— Claire Clairbrook, Irony in the Work of Philosophy, 25 pp.

1/29
— Clairbrook, Irony, 10 pp.
— The Boys from Brazil (1978)
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, with a screenplay by Heywood Gould, based on the novel by Ira Levin; starring Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier, James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen, and Steve Gutenberg.

1/30
— Theory of the Novel, 5 pp.

1/31
— Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)
Directed by George Lucas, with a screenplay by George Lucas; starring Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Pernilla August, Frank Oz, and Ray Park.

— Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)
Directed by George Lucas, with a screenplay by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales, based on characters by George Lucas; starring Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Christopher Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian McDiarmid, and Frank Oz.