October 2024: Reading, Viewing?

October is a good enough reason to watch scary movies. Like the vice presidential debate … or the movie Terrifier, the movie Cannibal Holocaust, or even Audition.

10/1
— Vice Presidential Debate
Don’t tell me about sacrifice, goddamn it: I watched the entirety of this!
At the beginning I was impressed by Vance and worried about Walz, but that proved to be a mainly baseless worry. Vance had a single strategy and we had to watch that for the rest of the debate. Tellingly, the one point he insisted on returning to was arguing that legal residents from Haiti were actually illegal aliens. He would not admit this and just kept it up. In other words, he just really hates black folks, especially the ones that weren’t born here (but you can fucking bet he would be up for redefining nativist citizenship rules).
TL;DW: Vance is the scumbag you thought he was. Walz was actually interesting, but only if you have a brain. If you don’t or are a juvenile, you were bored. He said a lot more than Kamala has. But equally avoided a lot of questions. He deftly handled the question of a “misspeaking” about being present for Tienanmen Square. Or so I thought. Imagine hearing that from a post-Trump Republican. They never misspeak.

10/2
— Finished “The Epic and the Novel” in Lukǎcs.
I really need to read Ariosto and Walter Scott.

10/5
— 3:10 to Yuma (2017)
Directed by James Mangold, written by Halsted Welles, Michael Brandt, and Derek Haasand; starring Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol, Ben Foster, Dallas Roberts, Alan Tudyk, Vinessa Shaw, and Logan Lerman.
Not at all a bad film; even a good film. I thought th escene where Wade (Crowe) had just shot Prince Charlie (Foster) and then speaks to him before killing him was probably more touching than the death of Evans (Bale).
This film was released a month before No Country for Old Men, apparently. Which is a little funny.
— Kremlin Ball, 40 pp.

10/6
— The Eyes of Laura Mars (1979)
Directed by Irvin Kershner, written by John Carpenter; starring Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif, René Auberjonois, and Raul Julia.
This film is a laugh riot. Not so much in watching, although it is mildly interesting. But in retrospect, it’s a laugh riot.
Still, there is something interesting about the spectacle of violence and the way that it disembodies us (ha!). And Brad Dourif is so freaking beautiful.

10/7-10
— Ripley (2024), VI
Introducing Detective Ravini
— Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers, 100 pp.
— Finished Kremlin Ball

10/11
— The Ezra Klein Show: “Te-Nihisi Coates on Israel”
The emphasis on time was really important. I thought it was interesting when Coates said that he didn’t want to hear, wouldn’t hear, defenses of Zionism. At first I was repelled, but then I had to admit that I was probably in agreement. Eh, maybe not.
For me it’s the want to avoid people to incriminate themselves through saying stupid things. That’s how I feel about Vance defending his statements about Springfield, Ohio. It’s just embarrassing.
— Flamethrowers, 30 pp.
— Ripley, VI-VIII

10/12
— Carol (2015)
Directed by Todd Haynes, written by Phyllis Nagy, based on the 1952 romance novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith; starring Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy, and Kyle Chandler.
Watched because I have ended my Netflix membership and am trying to make sure that I watch some of that vaunted “My List” …
I wish that I hadn’t waited to watch it.
Carol is an interesting character, being a kind of housewife, if you want to call her that. But she’s a mother with the resources not to be wholly beset by motherhood. She has help and so her identity is not completely bound up with being a mother. Therese is lovely.
— Flamethrowers, 25 pp.

10/13
— White Noise (2022)
Directed and written by Noah Baumbach, adapted from the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo; starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle.
This movie is so funny. Driver and Gerwig and Cheadle and the Nivolas and everyone are so, so good in this. But I do admit being disappointed with Gladney hunting down Mr. Gray and then the latter being shot and then the reconciliation in the light of the nuns’ emergency room. I do not recall any of that from the book. But I also haven’t read the book since the 20th century …

10/15-16
— The Flamethrowers, 50 pp.

10/19
— Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2006)
Directed and written (he should be embarrassed in both instances) by George Lucas; starring Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Frank Oz.
R2D2 and C-3PO had their memories wiped at the end of the movie.

10/20
— Finished Flamethrowers
The ending of this novel was its saving grace. While many of the chapters were interesting, they were interesting in an idle way. The main character, Reno, was as compelling as she could have been, as a spectator in the New York art world, attached to a well-known artist, having not developed any program of her own.
The most interesting section was about “The Motherfuckers,” but it was not the section on the Red Brigades or the 1977 protests, that was not really meaningful.
— Cry Terror! (1958), last 30 minutes
Directed and written by Andrew L. Stone; starring starring James Mason, Inger Stevens, and Rod Steiger, Neville Brand, Jack Klugman, and Angie Dickinson.
Klugman as an Italian tough guy? Seems like Steiger stole the show.

10/21
— Theory of the Novel, 5 pp.

10/22-3
— Jean-Patrick Manchette, 3 to Kill
A potboiler, I think, which is a quick, mostly compelling read. I read 100 pages the first night and then finished it immediately on the second. But in the end, I’m not sure that I would want to read anything else by Manchette.
The novel is really a movie: it’s not a novel. The crucial moments are directed by kinetic movement. Almost nothing requires or receives reflection.

10/25
— The Age of Innocence (1994)
Directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Scorsese and Jay Cocks as an adaptation of the 1920 novel of the same name by Edith Wharton; starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, and Miriam Margolyes.
Had not before seen this, nor had I read Wharton’s book. Woefully under-read in Wharton. Viewed in part because this was part of a collection of Winona Ryder films. She was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role.
Critics were kind to this film, says Wikipedia. I found the film disappointing. Day-Lewis’ character seemed compelling, but his resistance to social mores seems immaterial after he pursues the Countess.
Second, the aging of the central character to present the passage of time was a gross mistake. Our contemporary digital resources might have done this more convincingly, but I’m not sure that this would have solved the problem. The final chapter is merely an afterward to the central narrative. It should probably have been completely deleted. Archer commits himself to his marriage, c’est fini.

10/26-27
— Terrifier (2013)
Directed and written by Damien Leone; starring Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, Catherine Corcoran, and David Howard Thornton.
This movie spawned a series, as they are wont to do. I have known about this film for a while but hadn’t seen it for different reasons.
— Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Directed by Ruggero Deodato, written by Gianfranco Clerici; starring Robert Kerman, Carl Gabriel Yorke, Luca Giorgio Barbareschi, Francesca Ciardi, and Perry Pirkkanen.
For nearly twenty years I’ve known about this film, but always second hand. Had never watched it because of the lore, history. Like all instruments of the imagination, the trailer was better. By which I do not mean the actual trailer, but what narrative my mind had scripted.

10/31
— Audition (1995)
Directed by Takashi Miike, written by Daisuke Tengan; starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Jun Kunimura, Tetsu Sawaki, and Miyuki Matsuda.