Movies The Return (2003), Leviathan (2014), and Loveless (2017) These are all Russian movies by director Andrey Zvyagintsev. These films are bleak, but it’s hard to take your eyes off of them, both for their stark beauty and their nightmarish fairy-tale feel. One theme tying all these films together is the “rot” at the core of the Russian family: submissive and materialistic mothers; negligent and violent fathers; a crazy grandma... The kids are the only pure ones. Russia’s youth (if they only got to healthfully pass into adulthood) would be Russia’s salvation. But the kids will inevitably be swept into the vortex of generational dysfunction. One of these movies ends with a scene of a mother, wearing an Olympic "Russia" shirt, walking on a treadmill. It’s as if Zvyagintsev is saying the country is going nowhere. A- How to Blow up a Pipeline (2022) I was impressed with how unequivocal the film was. The script doesn’t condescend to its environmentalists or their high-minded ambitions. It’s a movie about an act of violence that doesn’t apologize for the violence. You could say it's almost endorsing the violence. I'm not saying I'm endorsing it (here I go equivocating), but I respect their choice to say, "the hell with it, let's say something bold." B+ Limbo (2020) I watched this film, along with the 1949 film, Whisky Galore!, in cultural preparation for my late-summer trip to the Outer Hebrides, where these films were filmed. This one is about a group of refugees who wait in a state of limbo — on a bleak and windy Scottish island — while their refugee status is determined. It’s a nice mixture of comedy and somber drama. B Night of the Hunter (1955) This movie ultimately feels dated and does not stand the test of time, which may be the case with all movies before 1970. Halfway through, I could no longer suspend disbelief and my emotions left the room. But a dated film can still be a worthwhile watch if watched analytically: perhaps to get a glimpse of a bygone culture, to see how types of people were depicted, or to take note of, what must have been, cinematic breakthroughs. In this one, I noted how the cinematography was inspired, whimsical, magical. (See the haunting image at the top of this newsletter.) And the story of a religious nutter with a repressed sexuality, who wishes to delude the simpleminded and make their lives equally miserable, retains its relevance. C Disappointments: I had high hopes for the 2022 indie sci-fi Lola (about a machine that helps the British see into the future during WWII). Great idea, but it ultimately felt artificial and frivolous. I was equally disappointed with David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, which had the potential to say profound things about our changing bodies, environmental defects, and transhumanism, but the parts that may have been worthwhile were lost in silly scenes of people poking themselves with knives and having sex with wounds, all wrapped in a convoluted and dissatisfying noir plot. Like Wes Anderson, I fear Cronenberg cares more for exercising his style than telling a worthwhile story. TV The Bear (Season 2) - Enough praise has been showered on "The Bear," but I wish to add my own. I thought it was superb, with brilliant editing and a soundtrack worth re-streaming. I was half-disappointed with the decision to cast well-known actors for episode six, “Fishes,” but I thought every celebrity actor hit it out of the park and I consider the episode to be one of the most mesmerizing hours of television I’ve ever watched. Poldark (1975) - I adore Winston Graham's Poldark book series, as well as this 1970’s BBC adaptation. There’s no one in literature, who I (aspiringly) identify with more than Ross Poldark. I’m nowhere near as bold, but I am equally irritable and I have the same “I don’t need to smile for you” disagreeability. Plus, those first few Poldark books — when Ross’s life implodes due to a failing mine, impending bankruptcy, family betrayal, medical mishaps — somehow capture the difficulties of mid-adulthood, when you’re suddenly loaded with responsibilities and don’t have all the answers. Anywho, the actor, Robin Ellis, who plays Ross, and Angharad Rees, who plays Demelza, are outstanding and perfectly cast.
Podcasts “What can a man do?” on The Unspeakable Podcast - Meghan Daum and writer Christine Embe talk about the “crisis of masculinity.” WTF with Marc Maron - Maron has had on some spectacular guests recently:
Naomi Klein on her book Doppelganger, about the strange left-to-right slide a lot of yoga teachers and massage therapists have taken.
Jeff Sharlat on his book Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, about how fascists on the right are arming up for a civil war of sorts.
Comedian Maria Bamford talks about group therapy and her mental health.
Films Daughters of the Dust (1991, USA) This is one of the most surprising movies I’ve ever watched. It's about a group of African-Americans, with a distinct culture, living on a South Carolinian island after the Civil War. The community contemplates leaving the island to integrate into conventional society. It’s about leaving home to seek opportunity. It’s about casting off institutions to embrace personal freedom. It’s about abandoning one’s culture to skinny-dip into the American melting pot. The culture felt alien to me, but the themes are as American as they can get. A The Return (2003, Russian) A father mysteriously returns after a twelve-year absence, to embark on the camping trip from hell with his two boys. It has a lot to say about the state of masculinity in Russia. The father is a brute, but the film’s central (and heartbreaking) question is whether the father is merely a brute or trying his best to prepare his boys for a brutal world. A- The Wild Pear Tree (2018, Turkey) I have developed a special weakness for slow, 3-hour-long, atmospheric Turkish movies. This is the third film I’ve watched by director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. In this one, a young writer struggles to sell his first book. B No Bears (2022, Iranian) This film is very much like Ceylan's films, where educated urbanites are marooned in rural villages. In this one, our protagonist contends with, to his eyes, bafflingly outmoded rituals and traditions. B Aftersun (2022, Scotland) A Scottish father and daughter go on holiday to a Turkish holiday resort. It sounds like a comedy, but it’s a melancholic drama about depression and the nature of memory. I will never forget this one. A Eastern Promises (2007, USA) I love pretty much everything Viggo Mortensen does, and this thriller features, hands down and briefs off, cinema's best-ever naked fight scene in a sauna. B+ Stories We Tell (2012, Canada) A moving and funny documentary from actor/director Sarah Polley. She interviews her family about a big family secret: her mother had an affair and never told Sarah who her real father was. B+ Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (2023, USA) The scene in which a train cascades down an Austrian cliff was worth the price of admission, but I just wish a film so visually amazing would weave the action with a serious plot, believable dialogue, and meaningful relationships between characters. It has neither the heart of Top Gun: Maverick nor the compelling (and realistic) plot of something like Eastern Promises. C+ TV Jury Duty (2023, Amazon) This one starts to fizzle in the final episodes, and a lot of comedic scenarios misfire, but I have a special weakness for “reality-prank comedy.” The premise — surrounding a real person with actors in a fake trial — is ingenious. I really wish there were more shows like this. Get someone to believe they’re a spy recruited by the CIA to save the world. Get someone to believe they’ve been abducted by aliens. The possibilities are endless. B The Rehearsal (2022, HBO) A somewhat innocent experiment turns dark as show-runner, Nathan Fielder, grapples with the nature of artistry: Is it okay to exploit others for the sake of one’s artistic product? B+ What I’m Listening to Drifting off with Joe Pera - Fellow Buffalo man, Joe Pera, has a new podcast with some of the best sound production I’ve heard. I found this episode, in which he interviews a video game voice actor, touching. The Unspeakable with Meghan Daum - My favorite essayist, Tim Kreider, talks about the mortifying ordeal of being known, and evolutionary psychologist, Diana Fleischman, talks about human sexuality. Ezra Klein - I don’t think Klein gets credit enough for his curious mind and broad subject matter, which ranges from the here-and-now details of the Russia-Ukraine war to interviews with novelists. While the news is devoted to disposable political scandals and while much of podcastdom moans about wokism, I find that Klein is grappling with the stuff that never makes front page headlines but that matters most. Here’s a fascinating discussion with an author about how being animal could help us be better humans. Rewatchables — My favorite movie podcasters review, what they call, one of the last real comedies, This is The End. WTF — I wish Marc Maron would abandon his usual interviewing formula, which is to get a famous person to recount their professional life from the beginning to the present. Forget the autobiography; I find his discussions about ideas with thinkers far more engaging. Here’s one on the state of conspiracy theories with Robert Guffey. Bill Simmons Podcast — Behind all the NBA and NFL chatter, there's often a really interesting conversation about other stuff. Skip ahead to Chuck Klosterman talking about the woman who weirdly claimed that a man "wasn't real" on an airplane and to a good discussion on AI with Derek Thompson.
What I’ve been doing A good portion of my time is devoted to fixing my house (which is only 25 years old!). After two years of chronic respiratory problems and a curious smell coming from the kitchen (that I’d hoped would just magically waft away), I finally tore down the old countertop to find a wall full of mold. It has taken longer than expected to tear out all the moldy dry wall and insulation, cut pipes, install a new sink, and make our own homemade concrete countertop, so we’ve been without a kitchen sink for three months, hosing down our dishes in the front lawn like hill people. To pay for everything, I’m planning a Fall speaking tour — which might be my last for many years — hopefully along North America’s West Coast, where I've never given talks before. I enjoy the speaking tours, but they — and the ordeal of making money — has distracted me from my true vocation, which is being an author. Off and on, I have been working on my relationship memoir Out of the Wild for two years now. I’d say I’m about 4/5ths done with the first draft. Most times, I just edit some of the early chapters, which are far more funny and refined than the later stuff, which reads like a bad rough draft. But that’s just the nature of writing: it gets better with age.