The telos of this website, its abiding purpose, is a record of the things that I have read and watched. For the reasons undergirding this project see comments on cultural consumption.
June 4
— Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, 15 pp.
June 6
— Iron Man 3 (2013)
Directed by Shane Black; screenplay by Shane Black and Drew Pearce based on characters created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck, and Jack Kirby .
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, and Ben Fucking Kingsley.
Premiered in Paris on April 14, 2013; released in the United States on May 3, 2013.
Kingsley probably said, why the hell can’t I take a bite of this sandwich?
There is money to be made in the service of more entertainment for children! I am a child … I guess.
This film was undoubtedly better than 2, and perhaps the second boring part of 1. The bar still seems rather low.
June 7
— The War (2007), “When Things Get Tough“, airing on Sep. 24, 2007 on PBS.
Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, written by Geoffrey Ward, and narrated primarily by Keith David.
Many salient scenes, but especially the initial failure of American troops in North Africa.
— NYRB on Russian dissidents and Schoenberg
June 8
— NYRB on freedom vs choice and on the Trump’s silencing of dissidents
June 9
— Parasite (2019)
Directed by Bong Joon-ho; screenplay written by Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won; starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, Lee Jung-eun, and Park Myung-hoon.
Premiered at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2019, where it won the Palme d’Or; released in South Korea on May 30, 2019.
June 10
— National Treasure (2004)
Directed by Jon Turteltaub; screenplay written by Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley, and Marianne Wibberley; starring Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, and Christopher Plummer.
Premiered in New York City on November 8, 2004; released in the United States on November 19, 2004.
— Woolf, 5 pp.
June 11
— Logan (2017)
Directed by James Mangold; screenplay written by James Mangold, Scott Frank, and Michael Green; starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, and Richard E. Grant.
Premiered at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival on February 17, 2017; released in the United States on March 3, 2017.
It is funny that it took Logan’s death in order to accurately describe the effects of his fighting style.
June 12
— The Damned Don’t Cry (1950)
Directed by Vincent Sherman; screenplay written by Harold Medford and Jerome Weidman, based on the story “Case History” by Gertrude Walker.
Starring Joan Crawford, David Brian, Steve Cochran, Kent Smith, Richard Egan, Strother Martin, Edith Evanson, and Morris Ankrum.
Premiered in New York City on January 12, 1950; released in the United States shortly thereafter.
June 14
— The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
Directed by Wes Anderson; screenplay written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola; starring Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Riz Ahmed, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2025; released in the United States on May 30, 2025 (limited) and June 6, 2025 (wide).
June 17-20
— Charles Soule, Light of the Jedi, 225 pp.
— Woolf, Lighthouse, 10 pp.
June 21
— Law & Order (1990-2010), Season 8, Episode 22 “Damaged,” aired May 6, 1998 on NBC.
Directed by Constantine Makris; written by Janis Diamond.
Starring Jerry Orbach, Benjamin Bratt, S. Epatha Merkerson, Sam Waterston, and guest starring Lauren Ambrose.
I confess that I watch old episodes of Law & Order with more regularity than this consumption journal suggests. I decided I needed to write about “Damaged” because of the questions of sexual consent.
— Sexy Beast (2000)
Directed by Jonathan Glazer; written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto; starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane, Amanda Redman, Cavan Kendall, Julianne White, Álvaro Monje, and James Fox.
Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 2000; released in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2000 and in the United States on June 15, 2001.
This is one of my absolutely favorite all time films.
Part of the Criterion Channel’s “In the Deep End” collection.
June 24
— The Deep (1977)
Directed by Peter Yates; screenplay written by Peter Benchley and Tracy Keenan Wynn, based on Benchley’s novel; starring Nick Nolte, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Shaw, Louis Gossett Jr., Eli Wallach, Dick Anthony Williams, Earl Maynard, and Robert Tessier.
Premiered in the United States on June 17, 1977
Robert Shaw got to be the same character from Jaws (1975), Louis Gossett Jr. got to be a Haitian drug dealer (what?!), Jacqueline Bissett got to be a wet t-shirt, and Nick Nolte got to be Nick Nolte. All in all, underwhelming. Part of the Criterion Channel’s “Coastal Thrillers” collection.
The racial tension in this film was pretty intense. It isn’t only a question of the good guys (Shaw, Nolte, and Bissett) against the bad guys (Gossett Jr.) and his black thugs. There was also a scene where Bissett is attacked by Gossett’s crew dressed in voodoo … costumes? ceremonial garb? Essentially masks and a chicken foot that is used to paint blood on her naked midsection.
She is not raped, as far as we can tell, but the traumatic effect seems to be similar. She was held down, touched against her will, felt powerless. And by a gang of masked black men.
Draw your own conclusions? Isn’t the intention the same? Produce a scene in which a white woman is sexually dehumanized by a group of black men concealing their personhood and humanity. It’s a clever way to have a rape scene without having a rape scene?
The diegetic effect is equivocal. After a glass of rum she seems basically fine and is ready to help the good guys successfully complete the same treasure hunting that she complained was interrupting her vacation with her boyfriend (Nolte). You know, so’s to get her revenge against those Haitians.
— The Beach (2000)
Directed by Danny Boyle; screenplay written by John Hodge, based on the novel by Alex Garland.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet, Robert Carlyle, Paterson Joseph, Peter Youngblood Hills, and Lars Arentz-Hansen.
Premiered in Los Angeles on February 2, 2000; released in the United States on February 11, 2000.
I really liked Trainspotting (1998) a great deal; have also seen Shallow Grave (1994) [back in the 1990s mind you], Sunshine (2007), and 28 Days Later (2002); but never Slumdog Millionaire (2008) nor 127 Hours (2014), etc. Nor The Beach.
Here is one point where my intuitions were basically right on target.
Concerns: (1) the Apocalyse Now theme is unwarranted, silly; (2) the voiceover …; (3) isn’t this just Lord of the Flies, Part Deux?; (4) he kills Christo and then hangs out at an internet cafe later, blithely?; (5) do we really need to revisit the apathetic travails of 1990s 20-somethings traveling the Orient after college but before “adulthood”?
Also part of the Criterion Channel’s “Coastal Thrillers” collection.