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I Got it at the Library: “By Gaslight”

That Stephen Price is a helluva storyteller. Steven Price At over 700 pages, By Gaslight, the second novel by the Victoria, British Columbia-based poet and fiction writer might have been a doorstopper. But like many of the lengthier films I have enjoyed over the years, I was never bored or visually fatigued thanks to the author’s vividly realized prose and memorable characters. The novel is set…

I Got it at the Library: “Certain Women”

Film-maker/Professor Kelly Reichardt Kelly Reichardt refuses to be rushed. But you already know that if you have seen Wendy and Lucy and Meek’s Cut-Off. If you are a newcomer to her highly personal and (some might say) idiosyncratic art Certain Women may not be the best introduction. See the two films above first and then see Certain Women and you should feel right at home. You may have read…

More WWTF: “The Duke of Burgundy”

Mainstream websites such as philly.com, the online division of the  “Philadelphia Inquirer” describes The Duke of Burgundy as “a straight-faced homage to 1970s European erotica, full of soft-focus nudity and soft-core kink.” Stephen Rea, in his review of UK auteur Peter Strickland’s film goes on to mention Italian soft-core king Jesus Franco and America’s Radley Metzger as influences on…

WWTF (Wassup With This Flick): SUN CHOKE

We know Janie (Sarah Hagan) has severe mental health issues, Irma (Barbara Crampton), the housekeeper/stepmother, may be trying to cure her with yoga, holistic exercises and New Age babble and that, in one of her rare forays out of doors (most of the film takes place in a lavish yet sterile Beverly Hills home complete with swimming pool) Janie becomes obsessed with a young woman named Savannah…

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. I read an ad in a newspaper for a David Bowie impersonator. He was described as having the looks, the moves and the sound of the late rock icon.  I saw the real David Bowie at a rock festival in the California desert a number of years ago. The temperature had crested over one hundred degrees that day, the water taps were on the fritz and the first aid…

Notes from a Screwed-Up Romantic

“Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all” says the poet. Like I had a choice.

Thoughts While Watching the Screen (I Couldn’t Think of a Better Title)

Ever notice the cops/detectives in movie and TV chase scenes always seem to be in preternaturally good shape? I mean, these folks can run for blocks without showing any signs of getting winded. (I know. I’m familiar with the miracle of screen editing … but these kind of shows are supposed to be realistic.) I was thinking of this while watching Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle in French Connection…

We all gotta go sometime. From something. So, like Tim McGraw sang,  “Someday I hope you get the chance To live like you were dying Like tomorrow was a gift And you’ve got eternity To think about.” Or, to quote Willie Nelson “…. woke up still not dead again today The news said I was gone to my dismay Don’t bury me, I’ve got a show to play …. “

Whatever ….

I noted with misplaced envy that a woman poster with an unconventional name had complained on my Facebook feed about a troll who had prefaced his diatribe to her page by making fun of her name.  It should have been rather flattering, in a perverse way.  At least he read her post and had taken the time to think of a nickname and a reply. I get little response to my entries. Of course, I write…

I Rented It on DVD: “Edge of Seventeen”

Yawn! Another coming-of-age tale about privileged white teen-aged suburbanites who drive  gleaming new cars and vans to school (no second hand jalopies in this crowd), have pools in their backyard and all the latest technological gear at their disposal. As usual, most of the actors in these films are too old to play high school students. 20 year old Hailee Steinfeld plays a high school junior!…

A Dark Twist on an Old Story? Not Even Close

Okay, I know how I started writing about a 2010 movie based on a 2001 novel but I am not sure why I am posting an entry in my blog about them. I guess it all started when I watched the Brit TV series based on the Jack Taylor novels by Irish writer Ken Bruen (an appreciation of Mr. Bruen’s unique – to me – prose style appears elsewhere in this blog.) I noticed a second hand copy of London…

I Got It at the Library: CUL-DE-SAC

I’m not saying it’s dated. I just got the feeling  director Roman Polanski read Beckett (I’m thinking here of Waiting for Godot) and watched a lot of Harold Pinter theatre pieces while co-writing the screenplay with Gerard Brach. (There were times when I felt I was back in my Film Studies class again. This film, by the way. was made prior to Mr. Polanski’s exposure to temptation and tragedy in…

KWIK KWOTES: I Wish I’d Written That …

Into the Badlands shamelessly borrows from so many sources, I began to respect its diligence. A lazier show would have been satisfied with swiping far less ….” Willa Paskin SLATE I knew it was a strange hybrid.  I figured maybe it was created to cash in on the popularity of Hong Kong-style action pics (thus the many -almost balletic and certainly athletic – fight scenes) and the royal intrigue of…

Jemaine Clement – Straight Outta N.Z.

With his blocky features and dorky glasses, Jemaine Clement reminds me of my Grade Eleven Physics teacher, Mr. Prokopetz (Y’know, the one that had a nervous breakdown midway through the term.) And yet, this most unlikely of media personalities has carved out a career with the most. um, unlikely kind of material. Mr. Clement swam into the North American pop cultural consciousness as one-half of…

So That’s Where He Got the Title ….

There have been numerous speculations as to where and why creator Charlie Brooker named his dystopian TV series BLACK MIRROR. Obviously the speculators are not Neil Gaiman readers and/or have never seen the SANDMAN graphic novels written by Mr. Gaiman. Cuz in the SANDMAN graphic novel “A Doll’s House” I found the following quote: … “a black mirror, made to reflect everything about itself that…

Random Bitz – A Shadow of His Former Self?

If the young snotty Bob Dylan of the Sixties was told that his 73 year old self would be  crooning songs from Tin Pan Alley popularized by Frank Sinatra he probably would have laughed sarcastically and assumed the speaker was out of his head on something illegal. And yet there was the onetime anti-Establishment icon warbling through ten Sinatra classics from what is often referred to as The Great…

Alison Krauss is singing “All Alone Am I”.  The song drifts out of my laptop on a Monday evening like smoke rings in the dark. From her new CD. The old Brenda Lee hit. Oh well, I guess we all have our problems.