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Oh, Brother
It should not have taken me twenty years to get around to seeing Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, especially since I have always loved the music in it and, unlike what rumor and Wikipedia say about the...
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A Version of Women
I texted my sister to ask if she had seen the newest version of Little Women. I wanted her opinion, as it’s a habit of mine to review movies I haven’t seen, based on my biases and the biases of others,...
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Small Towns and the Oscars
Both are on my mind as I walk through the neighborhood on a weirdly warm, sunny day in February. Albany, Oregon is a great walking town and generally quite chilly and damp at this time of year. Icy,...
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I Want Better Movies!
I went to see Birds of Prey last weekend, drawn by some good recommendations and the argument that it was really a feminist movie. And while I enjoyed bits and pieces of it — the fight scenes really...
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Week—no, Month—at the Movies
I’ve been “at the movies” my entire life. It’s a terminal obsession, rather and eternal obsession of which I will never be free nor do I want to be. Funny, though during our plague isolation I haven’t...
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A House of Women
I have a thing for fiction about nuns, and a quiet admiration mixed with puzzlement. I can only imagine the shape of what drives a woman to devote her life to God. A caveat before I wander off into...
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The Moon and the Sun, the Movie
Book View Cafe co-founder Vonda McIntyre was the author of The Moon and the Sun, a novel that won the World Fantasy Award. Did you know it was going to be a movie? Shooting took place in 2014, and the...
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The Flying Horse
I’ve introduced a winged horse into my online series, The Memory Book. Like so many characters in any writer’s work, she just showed up, more or less. Who can’t adore the thought of a horse with...
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What They Did
I am watching “Death in Venice” (Luchino Visconti, 1971). Dirk Bogarde is enjoying a feature spot on the Criterion Channel—11 movies, including those of his stunningly dark characters in “The Servant”...
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Consideration of Works Past: Hancock and the Superhero Trope
(Picture from here.) A little context. Iron Man, the first entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, came out in the USA in May. Hancock, Will Smith’s superhero movie, came out in July that same year....
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Consideration of Works Past: The Manchurian Candidate
(Picture from here.) This is regarding the original 1962 film with Angela Lansbury and Frank Sinatra. The later remake sort of answers the question, “what if we rebooted The Manchurian Candidate...
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Welcome to the Twentieth Century
This morning I am immersed in the Twentieth century, during which I have spent more than half of my life (so far). A part of me wishes I knew more about (and cared more about) current popular culture,...
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Working (and Playing) from Home
You can’t tell me that the smoke from our Oregon fires that spread to New York City didn’t circumnavigate the globe and return to Oregon! Sunset last night was the color of a neon tomato. A melange of...
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Consideration of Works Past: Some Like It Hot
(Picture from here.) Television was different when I was a kid growing up in California. It was early days. There wasn’t the vast backlog of material available that there is now. But there was the...
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Dip a Toe into the Stream
Often when I sit down to write my blog, I have no clue about what I am going to say in 600 or so words. Waiting for the biscuits and the duck egg omelet to be made by the husband, el Jefe of the...
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Crossword Puzzlements and How Did I Get Jam on my iPad?
I have a number of thing to say today. One, before I lay out my crossword frustrations, I want to do a modified “Six Degrees …” of my background films (that is, films and TV series I run while I am...
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