Started reading The Science of Reading during November, but then put it down while amid several other books, including The Skin and Silas Marner. But really a lot of films. Why am I watching so many films? Movies.
11/1
— Finished Douglas Palmer’s Earth Time
An entertaining, time-traveling reading. This diagram was worth reading the entire thing:
11/2
— Curzio Malaparte, The Skin, 10 pp.
— Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War (2024), “The Sun Came Up Tremendous“
Directed by Brian Knappenberger …
11/3
— The Skin, 10 pp.
11/6
— Legally Blonde (2001)
Directed by Robert Luketic, written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, based on Amanda Brown‘s 2001 novel of the same name; starring Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, Matthew Davis, Victor Garber, and Jennifer Coolidge.
I had never seen this film because I am so serious and sophisticated. Mostly, I think that was right.
11/7
— Film (1965)
Directed by Alan Schneider, written by Samuel Beckett, his only screenplay, and commissioned by Barney Rosset of Grove Press; starring Buster Keaton.
— Raising Arizona (1987)
Directed, written and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen; starring Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson, William Forsythe, John Goodman, Frances McDormand, Sam McMurray, and Randall “Tex” Cobb.
Not as enchanting on this nth viewing. I do still love the Polish Polish joke: “cuz they’re so darned stupid!”
— The Big Lebowski (1998)
Directed, written, produced and co-edited by Joel and Ethan Coen; starring Jeff Bridges, David Huddleston, John Goodman, Sam Elliott, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, David Thewlis, Peter Stormare, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Jon Polito and Ben Gazzara.
“Lots of ins, lots of outs, in the ole Duder’s head, man.
“Obviously you are not a golfer!
“This aggression will not stand!
“Bush league psycho stuff!
“You got a date Wednesday, baby!”
Of puerile pleasures this scholar admits the occasional excess.
11/8
— The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinkner, based on a story conceived by the three alongside James Vanderbilt; starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti, and Sally Field.
Others have commented on the Invisible Man shout out [no, not that invisible man, you dolt!]. Undoubtedly the only thing redeeming about this boring, stupid film.
11/10
— The Fugitive (1993)
Directed by Andrew Davis with a script co-written by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy; starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas and Jeroen Krabbé.
— White Heat (1949), last hour
Directed by Raoul Walsh, written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts and based on a story by Virginia Kellogg; starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo and Edmond O’Brien.
— Powell, Four Revolutions, 10 pp.
11/11
— Knives Out (2019)
Directed and written by Rian Johnson; starring Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, and Katherine Langford.
— Four Revolutions, 10 pp.
11/12
— The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Directed, co-written, produced, and directed by the Coen brothers, co-written by Sam Raimi; starring Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Paul Newman.
— A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
directed by Charles Crichton and written by Crichton and John Cleese. It stars Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin.
— Four Revolutions, 20 pp.
11/15
— Pickup Alley (1957)
Directed by John Gilling, written by John Paxton, based on the 1955 non-fiction book Interpol, about the agency, by A.J. Forrest; starring Victor Mature, Anita Ekberg, Trevor Howard, Bonar Colleano, and Sidney James.
11/16
— The Big Clock (1948)
Directed by John Farrow and adapted by novelist-screenwriter Jonathan Latimer from the 1946 novel of the same title by Kenneth Fearing; starring stars Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Sullivan, Elsa Lanchester, and Harry Morgan.
Sort of a funny title for anything other than a children’s book. But I’m a fan of anything starring Charles Laughton (and freaking Harry Morgan!, a vestige from my childhood watching the the television show M*A*S*H, but in this film essentially a non-verbal henchman) and even Ray Milland (Dial M For Murder) is worth consideration …
11/17
— The Big Heat (1953)
Directed by Fritz Lang, written by Sydney Boehm, based on William P. McGivern‘s serial in The Saturday Evening Post; starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin, and Jocelyn Brando.
The more I watch with Glenn Ford, the more impressed I am with him. This is a great film and everyone in the film is good, but especially Grahame and Ford.
11/18
— Hell Drivers (1957)
Directed by Cy Endfield, written by Endfield and John Kruse; starring Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins and Patrick McGoohan.
Had I never seen Accident (1967) I would l probably be ignorant of Stanley Baker. This isn’t a great film as the resolution of the film concerns an employment plot that the viewers are only made aware of in the last 20 minutes or so. In other words, a kind of deus ex machina. Mainly it’s about Baker’s character and his enemy/fellow driver.
11/19
— Italo Calvino, “The One-Handed Murderer”
— Isaac Asimov, “The Cross of Lorraine”
— Four Revolutions, 10 pp.
11/20
— Brewster’s Millions (1986)
Directed by Walter Hill, written by Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris was based on the 1902 novel of the same name by George Barr McCutcheon; starring Richard Pryor, John Candy, Lonette McKee, Stephen Collins, and Hume Cronyn.
I only knew of this film being a remake, but not one of a series of remakes (which I learned recently).
Is it the fantasy of being forced to spend so much money, so recklessly, that piques our interest? This film is about 1/3 about race, albeit not in very interesting ways. Is there any consciousness of the difference between the skin tones of Angela Drake (McKee) and Monty (Pryor)? Not really. But there are definitely other nods here and there, like the overtly white boyfriend of Drake and his exe vis-a-vis Drake and Monty.
Another film, not wholly unlike this, is Trading Places: namely, a very Hollywood film starred by a famous black comedian. But that is explicitly about race in so many hilarious and disturbing ways.
One of the things that has always stuck with me is the None of the Above campaign. Essentially a no confidence vote, except in all candidates running not merely the current administration. How manifestly timely! I do not feel that way about this 2024 election, exactly. I desperately believe that our country needs a female president and even if Kamala was not as gifted as Hillary was — and neither of which do I find wholly consonant with my only political leanings — she was an easy choice before the president elect. I still believe that a vote for the president elect is a sign that the voter is not really competent to be electing a president (despite having relatives who have done so, who I respect and care for …)
None of the Above is the do-over. One can imagine a political system in which it could be a fail-safe in a situation where the major candidates have disappointed the public. Of course, this imagines a public fully competent to choose between those candidates …
11/22
— Over The Top (1987)
Directed by Menahem Golan, written by Stirling Silliphant and Stallone; starring Sylvester Stallone, Robert Loggia, et al.
This film is so hilarious, although I’m really impressed that someone like Silliphant co-wrote it. You could not tell. But in 1987 the Stallone machine was going strong (that sounds pretty funny as I write it). He was in everything because Hollywood would throw anything Stallone that would stick at the wall: Rhinestone (1984) [which I have not seen, actually] and Cobra (1986) and … Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) [which I also have not seen!].
— First Blood (1982)
Directed by Ted Kotcheff and co-written by Sylvester Stallone based on the 1972 novel First Blood by David Morrell; starring, Stallone, Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy.
Need I say that this film produced others? I did not actually see this film until after the 1980s. In fact, perhaps not even during the 20th century. But as Deleuze said of Heideggerianism, there was a certain Ramboism in the air during those formative years of my youth, the 1980s. I say formative, but this did not shape me.
Of course, there was the heavy shadow of Vietnam. Even today that remains in the occasional MIA flags still visible in public places.
This time the emotional explosion of John at the end of the film stood out more than most of the rest of it. It’s interesting because it is NOT machismo. To the contrary. I would be willing to bet that Stallone had to fight for that scene to remain … or at least that studio didn’t want it.
Perhaps more interesting is the intersection between Rambo and its not-yet-over-Vietnam-but-at-least-confronting-it-complexly (although this is not true for its sequels) and the Hollywood rage for cops-who-didn’t-want-to-be-police-anymore, i.e. Dirty Harry, -because-of-those-pinko-liberals-keeping-them-down (with that said, even the Dirty Harry sequels were conscious of the consequences and dangers of this trope, i.e. Magnum Force (1973).
— Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 10 pp.
Cute vestige of the past, Charles Lyell, uniformitarian. Right?
I sort of think that geology debate between uniformitarianism and catastrophism is science on the verge of self-consciousness. But in the defense of Lyell and others, uniformitarianism is a sort of sine qua non of scientific rationality, even if it will necessarily be wrong at certain moments. I think this is what makes geology so interesting to me. First, admittedly, deep time and all of the consequences of that. But second, that geology is a science that is going through puberty (some wise person will interject that this is true of all science!) …
11/23
— Four Revolutions, 35 pp.
11/26
— George Eliot, Silas Marner, Chap 1
Talk about a great first chapter. Dang!
— The Skin, 10 pp.
11/27
— Short Circuit (1986)
Directed by John Badham, written by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock; starring Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, and G. W. Bailey.
What a bad, bad film. This was a moment of sharing 1980s VHS culture with Lucian.
— Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
Directed by Dominic Sena, written by Scott Rosenberg; starring Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Christopher Eccleston, Robert Duvall, Vinnie Jones, Delroy Lindo, Chi McBride, and Will Patton.
Lucian’s choice. Honestly, worse than the original, even though the original was not really a film in most charitable senses.
— Silas Marner, Chap 2
11/28
— Adrian Johns, The Science of Reading, Introduction
I think I’m in love?
11/29
— Pusher (1996)
Directed and written by Nicolas Winding Refn; starring Mads Mikkelsen, Kim Bodnia, Laura Drasbæk, and Zlatko Burić.
— Desert Fury (1947)
directed by Lewis Allen, written by Robert Rossen and A. I. Bezzerides (uncredited), adapted from the 1947 novel of the same name by Ramona Stewart; starring Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak, Wendell Corey, Mary Astor, and Burt Lancaster.
Am I the only person that thinks Lizabeth Scott just looks strange?
— Silas Marner, Ch 3-7
11/30
— Django Unchained (2012)
Directed and written by Quentin Tarantino; starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson.
This time: I think there’s a little bit of torture porn here. I never needed to see the mandingo fighting. I mean, this is a kind of exploitation film, so it’s total Tarantino. But there are limits.
— Marner, 40 pp
