Ashley Vaught | Erstwhile Flâneur, Philosopher

April Absolutions: Reading, Watching

The highnotes: The Letter (1940), Hobson’s Choice (1954), Stefan Zweig, Henrik Ibsen.
The lownotes: The Matrix (1999) and its progency, Ender’s Game (2013), 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), The Bounty Hunter (1965).

2024-05-01
Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Manic March 2024 Reading, Writing

David Graeber’s “The Utopia of Rules,” Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games,” Ida Lupino in “Women’s Prison.” Is it too late to punish the writers of “Road House”?

2024-04-03
Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Frigid February 2024 Reading & Watching

The so-called Glaciation Trilogy and the only Hamaguchi film I hadn’t seen, as well as David Graeber’s “Utopia of Rules”

2024-03-06
Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

“71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance” (1994): Is Michael Haneke Anti-Narrative?

Elsewhere Haneke has described some of his films as anti-narrative. Is it true of “71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance”?

2024-02-23
On Film, Movies, Cinema Michael Haneke Film Festival

Reflections on “Benny’s Video” (1992): Image, Sound, Reality, Parental Neglect

The televisual void has sucked away all vestiges of reality from lived experience: Benny makes videos to capture what is missing.

2024-02-18
On Film, Movies, Cinema Michael Haneke Film Festival Viewing Journal

“The Seventh Continent” (1989) by Michael Haneke

“The Seventh Continent” is Australia, where Georges, Anna, and Eva are going to live, right after they annihilate all vestiges of their material existences.

2024-02-17
On Film, Movies, Cinema Michael Haneke Film Festival Viewing Journal

Cold January 2024: Reading and Writing

Greatest hits of January 2023: The Manchurian Candidate, Austerlitz, Blood Meridian, King Lear, and The Long Good Friday

2024-02-03
Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

The Arden Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra

On the second series edition of the Arden Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra”, both this particular 1991 printing as well as on the content more generally

2024-01-07
Idle Reflections New Acquisitions

Delicious December 2023: Read, Watched

The greatest hits of the last month of December: Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Broken Code by Jeff Horwitz, My Darling Clementine by John Ford and Memories of Murder by Bong Joon-Ho.