tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28565471515234234742024-03-15T21:10:54.267-04:00The Kind of Face You Hatebill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comBlogger1016125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-79853672661667795032022-01-18T16:46:00.002-05:002022-01-18T16:46:13.790-05:00Carpenter<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwXjasNxFccbNrlhN8kuisd0glcyDuzv0PvMyJWNSgweOyZvflS0OHXICqNzoayZLsy47QS9q8A4Ja8lYTh4jftXRTptG-RQMH4X9Mfzmlb2LFId9txbFso4FsXk5Bx_-r3NEdW7mkT-4/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="1100" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwXjasNxFccbNrlhN8kuisd0glcyDuzv0PvMyJWNSgweOyZvflS0OHXICqNzoayZLsy47QS9q8A4Ja8lYTh4jftXRTptG-RQMH4X9Mfzmlb2LFId9txbFso4FsXk5Bx_-r3NEdW7mkT-4/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><p>Today for <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>, I wrote about the great <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/john-carpenter-genre-genius/?fbclid=IwAR3A0FQwODdHRP86YoThRTEX0I-P1_TuBPuBzq66g8xw4DeCj3c36OeH4Oo">John Carpenter</a>. Check 'er out!</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-88242811848626780062022-01-06T20:37:00.002-05:002022-01-06T20:51:11.932-05:00Bogdanovich<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqVpR4lCObj0WDQk7eFMISOzLCZ0KnRwHxdwEj_C2FoUOzdFsVKM7Vn1T8myvTThOKe-n-6hq-JSn-MWe3SVJpIaSuViMB8VfFbaOosO9knD9mAmyldrUOuyH8wqVBsF3DVFFN8aodkrM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="773" height="627" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqVpR4lCObj0WDQk7eFMISOzLCZ0KnRwHxdwEj_C2FoUOzdFsVKM7Vn1T8myvTThOKe-n-6hq-JSn-MWe3SVJpIaSuViMB8VfFbaOosO9knD9mAmyldrUOuyH8wqVBsF3DVFFN8aodkrM/w640-h627/image.png" width="640" /></a></div> <div>Today for The Bulwark I <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/peter-bogdanovich-1939-2022/">wrote about</a> the late Peter Bogdanovich. RIP.</div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-14590131525424300122021-12-26T16:14:00.002-05:002021-12-26T16:14:17.836-05:00Ho Ho Ho<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjvKvcl-q8MPvVooL8PBw48zxVfPblpDlId3MjgMr_goiHaWDq6M7NjuT8rC3YI830lNalZoTBNGn5BnY0Bn_Z-3dmmHjxnLIZSrxZg57hIdf2lW_2dVzAFTUrQbIfkN5LavxLs1BVP9s/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="853" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjvKvcl-q8MPvVooL8PBw48zxVfPblpDlId3MjgMr_goiHaWDq6M7NjuT8rC3YI830lNalZoTBNGn5BnY0Bn_Z-3dmmHjxnLIZSrxZg57hIdf2lW_2dVzAFTUrQbIfkN5LavxLs1BVP9s/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>I should have posted this at least two days ago, and doing so now seems almost perverse. Nevertheless, for <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a> I <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/the-ice-harvest-is-a-christmas-movie/">wrote about</a> one of my favorite Christmas movies, Harold Ramis's <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Ice Harvest</i>. Check it out, can't you?</div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-57102945341547010902021-10-29T12:45:00.001-04:002021-10-29T12:45:12.522-04:00Aickman and Karloff<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJr5Li-xyX_38ZXQcTguRq5H-Qwyp1KBVdHX9fpO-oe_ab1ot9efAGiqoLIBSI0bH_mWRTyYaYgo8yDYKEQcyA0-MZnk6gYY_wtbcXyGsQkloCnIkTdoSFUJq7ujn8Nn6ylnW_dak01xM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="726" data-original-width="982" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJr5Li-xyX_38ZXQcTguRq5H-Qwyp1KBVdHX9fpO-oe_ab1ot9efAGiqoLIBSI0bH_mWRTyYaYgo8yDYKEQcyA0-MZnk6gYY_wtbcXyGsQkloCnIkTdoSFUJq7ujn8Nn6ylnW_dak01xM/w640-h474/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This week, I have two new pieces up. For <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>, I <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/the-strange-writing-of-robert-aickman/">wrote about</a> the greatest of all horror writers, Robert Aickman. And elsewhere...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghdgWzARIJUSx1-plfF6QWzYC1UZKDSC6U1FW8JqT4xlJCxgXWgwUIOEBIekDmqjdk0okRfl9YxtGfkY2kQjt8nTxcmMGRsbLKjVLbxnlFkbmN83efbdNX3rzQQf5M2aqvxoD4E-fFxDQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="1198" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghdgWzARIJUSx1-plfF6QWzYC1UZKDSC6U1FW8JqT4xlJCxgXWgwUIOEBIekDmqjdk0okRfl9YxtGfkY2kQjt8nTxcmMGRsbLKjVLbxnlFkbmN83efbdNX3rzQQf5M2aqvxoD4E-fFxDQ/w640-h480/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />...for <a href="https://decider.com/">Decider</a>, I <a href="https://decider.com/2021/10/24/boris-karloff-criterion-channel/">wrote about</a> who I believe is the most important actor in the horror genre, Boris Karloff. I realize this isn't a new thought, but still, read it!</div><p></p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-18189668798671856662021-10-21T18:37:00.001-04:002021-10-21T18:37:18.155-04:00Two New Things!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAf0MYuLBhNbLSEzET9PBMqsaK0W9KtF4fFib3venuuAXcNHQxpR-DYOapHl_UrUWyARSgh8I28r1sTw0Fj4xaIHlr0oUFd6re_77X34E8koyBKtHnDvZkBXzpZbNTtBKCY_DOYgh3AU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPAf0MYuLBhNbLSEzET9PBMqsaK0W9KtF4fFib3venuuAXcNHQxpR-DYOapHl_UrUWyARSgh8I28r1sTw0Fj4xaIHlr0oUFd6re_77X34E8koyBKtHnDvZkBXzpZbNTtBKCY_DOYgh3AU/w640-h426/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Today at <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>, I wrote about the great <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/shirley-jackson-and-the-unsettled-mystery-of-life/">Shirley Jackson</a>, and it is a piece which in my opinion you should read.</p><p>But <i>also</i>...</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhTJ-YmxZ1jK68yIWMoGnRUI4OMntl6eMgIRoxTSSax5KlgWEhYL6VHO9U7eYiY_NGuQx73YTh9hYGUN58wHOLP9o0kvzWTLzjcQVuD_FJ0NxIQA0OCasFUsrk0STXJ_sGjSPodFEQvY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhTJ-YmxZ1jK68yIWMoGnRUI4OMntl6eMgIRoxTSSax5KlgWEhYL6VHO9U7eYiY_NGuQx73YTh9hYGUN58wHOLP9o0kvzWTLzjcQVuD_FJ0NxIQA0OCasFUsrk0STXJ_sGjSPodFEQvY/w640-h400/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>...I recently spoke with Aaron and Carlee of the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2bwSvn4H3airk00IYCwaoa">Hit Factory</a> podcast about <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Exorcist III</i>, and the episode posted today. This episode is available only through their <a href="https://www.patreon.com/hitfactorypod">Patreon</a>, but it's only five bucks to subscribe, and it's very much worth it, if I do say so myself. Check it out!</p><br /><p></p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-38710594207280927212021-10-19T19:06:00.000-04:002021-10-19T19:06:00.896-04:00Val Lewton<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBoj9X8qa6G9b2Iq_837oIlXvBr9E5WmmWmXLbP33wjaduHFjAhFamM7Uhthna_XqZO3Vn8jwDoDZa1MckqrbAJmQTB0U8LxpJwTGXcpv6tE1PMNPh2FqXqjYOvzps_1dcr4uPhjsUei8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBoj9X8qa6G9b2Iq_837oIlXvBr9E5WmmWmXLbP33wjaduHFjAhFamM7Uhthna_XqZO3Vn8jwDoDZa1MckqrbAJmQTB0U8LxpJwTGXcpv6tE1PMNPh2FqXqjYOvzps_1dcr4uPhjsUei8/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Today for <a href="http://RogerEbert.com">RogerEbert.com</a>, I wrote about the horror films of Val Lewton. I would like you to <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/features/death-is-good-the-horror-films-of-val-lewton">read it</a>.</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-62339785613300043522021-10-14T17:48:00.003-04:002021-10-14T17:48:58.632-04:00King<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJus9T7Q3dDXcsSSqk3K4gLVxYbsD9W8g1Q_sPbbTYjHJrUzBEhSzPoIXGr6jqnTHHEmtuG5ouZBBwHK3TBrRYTNpDYMoB-CTUSBIzN4NHwViCCrXCUa3tBhBN0_bKcosdtJ5RaCxXOqY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1400" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJus9T7Q3dDXcsSSqk3K4gLVxYbsD9W8g1Q_sPbbTYjHJrUzBEhSzPoIXGr6jqnTHHEmtuG5ouZBBwHK3TBrRYTNpDYMoB-CTUSBIzN4NHwViCCrXCUa3tBhBN0_bKcosdtJ5RaCxXOqY/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Today at <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>, I wrote about when I think Stephen King's writing is at its best. <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/stephen-kings-darker-half/?fbclid=IwAR3t9yUpT29PqWIosUAwIS-OCpRjNGCBZmUciDz4UKz5qlh-P79f2BW_1gg">READ IT NOW!</a></div> <br /><p></p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-13794423114590944192021-10-07T12:56:00.003-04:002021-10-07T12:56:52.114-04:00Thomas Ligotti<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17-KSWRxCdPKSeki_IPCXz4ixn2DFZ7xAyqt1CEVF9UmB-0wjrwcarrjz44pNA6cgSyZpvLv4zCt0GFHLVQfeGfjOpKq0oZTOy0uMaxWl3EFMTikqyXpsvZFItAfljhy3XJsv_Eku_n4/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="262" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17-KSWRxCdPKSeki_IPCXz4ixn2DFZ7xAyqt1CEVF9UmB-0wjrwcarrjz44pNA6cgSyZpvLv4zCt0GFHLVQfeGfjOpKq0oZTOy0uMaxWl3EFMTikqyXpsvZFItAfljhy3XJsv_Eku_n4/w427-h640/image.png" width="427" /></a></div><p></p><p>My new <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/thomas-ligotti-and-the-horror-of-existence/">piece</a> for <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a> is about the great horror writer Thomas Ligotti. Check it out.</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-3556348201956029182021-09-27T18:48:00.001-04:002021-09-27T18:49:30.196-04:00Steve Martin and Chris Elliott<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhR_yEn7kc37OlB5l_OFf5nWu7Prq6rBrUc27BedfXf9PiDNoc4UH-nKFWPSxDNqVJtuqWe3ktqZWK4l9Z6vcKEHIf_w2VLJVOmKlrGhiyasA6LPYW9AdP2epcu-3MOwwGJ9g0d-fXESY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="534" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhR_yEn7kc37OlB5l_OFf5nWu7Prq6rBrUc27BedfXf9PiDNoc4UH-nKFWPSxDNqVJtuqWe3ktqZWK4l9Z6vcKEHIf_w2VLJVOmKlrGhiyasA6LPYW9AdP2epcu-3MOwwGJ9g0d-fXESY/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div>Hello, I have a couple of new pieces up. <a href="https://decider.com/2021/09/20/eagleheart-hbo-max/">One</a>, at <a href="https://decider.com/">Decider</a>, is about the great Adult Swim series <i style="font-weight: bold;">Eagleheart</i>...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnebocOaqEhn9XPVigAo7aio3w5E7hraXzWBzSoorx9qdIx6hQRN-6GxQDt5dKr80UlU-xi3z-AmGY-WvFU6l4EDPnDyPhl_ewBvFqATR8NThnK_6Nkvi0ulA_TvHcmEviF-2WNKucJOw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnebocOaqEhn9XPVigAo7aio3w5E7hraXzWBzSoorx9qdIx6hQRN-6GxQDt5dKr80UlU-xi3z-AmGY-WvFU6l4EDPnDyPhl_ewBvFqATR8NThnK_6Nkvi0ulA_TvHcmEviF-2WNKucJOw/w640-h426/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />and <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/steve-martins-next-step/">the other</a>, for <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>, is about Steve Martin, by way of his new TV show <i style="font-weight: bold;">Only Murders in the Building</i>. I demand that you read both.</div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-83549134826382286432021-09-13T09:40:00.004-04:002021-09-13T09:40:25.237-04:00Westlake<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh51ycFAIhTpX7fhBmUzlKJuXMiFYN4MEVTJjm6qJ3zjUYYej2GjjLCAwatW0fUhaG8TKsqGceoNKYcMySVWUKdAWqL9MqNZbMitgBOHgrrMW3tV74jwjYgukDr69UobeWJC0iktjes2TE/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="650" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh51ycFAIhTpX7fhBmUzlKJuXMiFYN4MEVTJjm6qJ3zjUYYej2GjjLCAwatW0fUhaG8TKsqGceoNKYcMySVWUKdAWqL9MqNZbMitgBOHgrrMW3tV74jwjYgukDr69UobeWJC0iktjes2TE/w640-h444/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>I wrote <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/donald-westlake-criminal-mastermind/">a little bit</a> about Donald E. Westlake for <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>. Check it out, if you please.</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-89621824997400892602021-07-29T12:02:00.000-04:002021-07-29T12:02:01.637-04:00Legion<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe_mfTfkpQO6dCE-clpT27jd7bKQXakp8wZEg2-J-xNWTBe5UxYIDAS55zc8O6bDL0bhCIlWyKz8evc6UqfPA_4xFtfcVF5jzoU0ORykExSvHbqbzlvSAK9M-2_F7ADVOlqqH1anVWug/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="948" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe_mfTfkpQO6dCE-clpT27jd7bKQXakp8wZEg2-J-xNWTBe5UxYIDAS55zc8O6bDL0bhCIlWyKz8evc6UqfPA_4xFtfcVF5jzoU0ORykExSvHbqbzlvSAK9M-2_F7ADVOlqqH1anVWug/w640-h294/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>I wrote about <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Exorcist III</i> for <a href="https://thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>. I would like for you to <a href="https://thebulwark.com/universals-exorcist-sequels-have-a-high-bar-to-clear/">read it</a>!</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-1414640249825570612021-07-13T11:17:00.004-04:002021-07-13T11:19:41.926-04:00Ford<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5PFEi6WS7wKyGsbJpnbkRgE5E8jLsFIW2Jm_jZCCjmx9T6gz0Qi8EiJ7Vrkyoeyh8GuHYwVSQ6kQvuVChbyCftLReUqDgtC8ONp8bwSPiZh32xlYsjbOHTYaGOjC78Og9sUOn7Sn-nw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5PFEi6WS7wKyGsbJpnbkRgE5E8jLsFIW2Jm_jZCCjmx9T6gz0Qi8EiJ7Vrkyoeyh8GuHYwVSQ6kQvuVChbyCftLReUqDgtC8ONp8bwSPiZh32xlYsjbOHTYaGOjC78Og9sUOn7Sn-nw/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div> <div>Today for <a href="https://thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>, I wrote about <a href="https://thebulwark.com/why-harrison-fords-best-roles-are-neither-han-nor-indy/">Harrison Ford's best</a> (and maybe one or two less-than-best) non-blockbuster performances. Read it now! It's his birtdhay!</div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-85907226488927200872021-06-04T12:51:00.004-04:002021-06-04T12:51:46.516-04:00Uncle Harlan<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn49jOJZazoMYMFc_1Xqq8VU6IX06mqjsa8nTmUR2q-Cm6rNEnWOvsoA4qrLiHnGLZ_t_3lqXtdryB7duO8iPzvWIZiENtUNnbkKJEicWL1ZtVNsgwtEOHYnugiAjPBOfkAyVQIbAcZk0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="628" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn49jOJZazoMYMFc_1Xqq8VU6IX06mqjsa8nTmUR2q-Cm6rNEnWOvsoA4qrLiHnGLZ_t_3lqXtdryB7duO8iPzvWIZiENtUNnbkKJEicWL1ZtVNsgwtEOHYnugiAjPBOfkAyVQIbAcZk0/w640-h510/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>I'm extremely happy to report that <a href="https://thebulwark.com/a-man-and-his-stories/">my piece</a> about Harlan Ellison is now live over at <a href="https://thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a>! Please check it out!</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-81111811133139519532021-05-09T10:52:00.003-04:002021-05-09T10:54:38.055-04:00Aries<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4k0zRdosE_xLRA8FE6Zfg1-6A9TSnMz25h5abChQBy6FnpurXXXCkLzWWAxYIsHG5TJHq1pR3AN0NsuYBuRWF-ON0KO0k1MDLXpb0b55CL5fzDrye1EI5ZmugDkQ7Nw90XxyUNVkc04/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="640" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4k0zRdosE_xLRA8FE6Zfg1-6A9TSnMz25h5abChQBy6FnpurXXXCkLzWWAxYIsHG5TJHq1pR3AN0NsuYBuRWF-ON0KO0k1MDLXpb0b55CL5fzDrye1EI5ZmugDkQ7Nw90XxyUNVkc04/w641-h427/image.png" width="641" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Today I make my second appearance on Blake Howard's wonderful <a href="https://oneheatminute.com/zodiac-chronicle">podcast</a> about David Fincher's <i style="font-weight: bold;">Zodiac</i>. I am one of several guests, all of whom but me are great. <a href="https://oneheatminute.com/zodiac-chronicle/ariespt2">Please listen</a>!</div> <br /><p></p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-15421580665770144552021-05-06T12:41:00.002-04:002021-05-06T13:00:11.970-04:00Mirabile Dictu<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGL39g3aTbNoCpM-aw3jI2I1lcfBMMNVaBYvBQiM6Sj0WeUfXscFipX9KR0nft1_P2KVsnSI1rZxPVeLoJZOGWCOVE9a-SASZdSSUPUYy3xBXwKdEtaaLBrv9Mboj7VNjvmZxJg7lDi4/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="854" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrGL39g3aTbNoCpM-aw3jI2I1lcfBMMNVaBYvBQiM6Sj0WeUfXscFipX9KR0nft1_P2KVsnSI1rZxPVeLoJZOGWCOVE9a-SASZdSSUPUYy3xBXwKdEtaaLBrv9Mboj7VNjvmZxJg7lDi4/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div> <div>Another debut for me, professional writer! Today it's for <a href="https://www.oscilloscope.net/">Oscilloscope</a>'s <a href="https://musings.oscilloscope.net/">Musings blog</a>, where I "go long," as they say, on one of my favorite directors, William Friedkin. <a href="https://musings.oscilloscope.net/post/650448594854379521/this-is-serious-business-youre-fucking-with-here">So read it</a>! DO IT!</div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-87219476058505868442021-05-01T18:36:00.002-04:002021-05-01T18:54:47.528-04:00You Know I'm Not Big on Apologizing
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWShysCmN4ZCA2xVJwTfcLj986SsUawjjDY_cm9LTrX1tMiRU5nrpi2rExMJkC2fjWt_I59F8LKRt1iFnupkHDVkx2cVkoXcxrEHd2oDEjq6R3WsZcRI8nICtr9XyOb0G3NIVNBWXHz8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="1024" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWShysCmN4ZCA2xVJwTfcLj986SsUawjjDY_cm9LTrX1tMiRU5nrpi2rExMJkC2fjWt_I59F8LKRt1iFnupkHDVkx2cVkoXcxrEHd2oDEjq6R3WsZcRI8nICtr9XyOb0G3NIVNBWXHz8/w640-h268/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />
At some point in my relationship with Wes Anderson, his films, and his critics, I was moved to look up the word “twee,” that I
might remind myself what, exactly, it means. This is the definition: affectedly
or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint. The word is “chiefly
British,” as well. Possibly more than any other word in the English language,
“twee” has been applied, pejoratively, to the films of Wes Anderson by his
many, and quite loud, detractors. Anderson’s films, they insist (usually just
before a new one is about to come out, after months or years of simmering
dormancy) are fussy, cute, visually over-designed, emotionless dollhouses that
are exceedingly repetitive from one to the next, never serious, never about
anything. This is all happening again in the lead-up to the release of <b><i>The
French Dispatch</i></b>, Anderson’s latest, and, as with every past example, it’s a
deeply frustrating thing to witness, because the perception of Anderson’s
films, as they’re described by his critics, does not jibe in the least with
what his films actually are, according to, I’m tempted to come right out and
say, those who have actually watched the fucking things. <br />
<br />On the occasion of Anderson's birthday, I'm moved to revisit all of this. A year or so ago, this <a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/wes-anderson-im-begging-you-to-get-a-new-gimmick">piece</a> by Matthew
Klee imploring Wes Anderson to “get a new gimmick,” kicked off another round
of this silliness. Klee begins by praising Anderson’s first three films for being
“sweet and prickly,” before going on to bemoan that 2004’s <b><i>The Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou</i></b> is a step back for being “aggressively twee” (there, you
see?). So. <b><i>Bottle Rocket</i></b> — Anderson’s debut film from 1996 about a sweetly
mentally unstable man (Luke Wilson) who takes straight-shooting advice from his
pre-teen sister and gets involved in the heist of a bookstore with his goofily
serious best friend Dignan (Owen Wilson) while also falling in love with a
motel maid (Lumi Cavazos) — is “sweet and prickly,” while <b><i>The Life Aquatic</i></b> —
which is about Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), a negligent, aggressive, mean, and
very American version of Jacques Cousteau, setting out to avenge the violent
death of his best friend Esteban (Seymour Cassell) during an attack by the
elusive jaguar shark, a journey that will include Zissou pulling a gun on a
pregnant woman, a pirate attack involving fatal neck wounds, tragic helicopter
crashes, deep, endless grief, and bottomless regret — is the one that’s
“aggressively twee.” Not <b><i>Bottle Rocket</i></b>. <br />
<br />
What, exactly, is going on here?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMt3Ogtrsv68j2xWCI3qcnS8znm_SJmE9WVf5SVTGGjQCFqgo_S_qjdQ7EQeYX2o4WBPcTvAlCrEsCEtduFs2-Ko1_Kvyl7tM0UWIILh23ewmZFkM785ng0aCMV0T0moHUfSxL8rCwkog/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="576" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMt3Ogtrsv68j2xWCI3qcnS8znm_SJmE9WVf5SVTGGjQCFqgo_S_qjdQ7EQeYX2o4WBPcTvAlCrEsCEtduFs2-Ko1_Kvyl7tM0UWIILh23ewmZFkM785ng0aCMV0T0moHUfSxL8rCwkog/w640-h290/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />
Late in the article, after he accuses Wes Anderson of being
from Texas, Klee writes this astonishing sentence: “It’s a schtick [<i>sic</i>] so
severe, you won’t need to see his name at the end of a trailer for <b><i>The French
Dispatch</i></b> to know he made it.” A film director having an instantly recognizable
style is, evidently, a bad thing. Filmmaking, Klee implies, should be
indistinct, unnoticeable, a matter simply of pointing the camera at actors
speaking dialogue. The image within the frame should not be designed, or
thought about in any way — to do so would be “fussy,” that terrible thing. Or,
at minimum, if a director must have a style, he or she should, at least, change
it up from film to film, creating a new personality every time so that,
ideally, in the great mélange of cinema there will finally be no way of knowing
who made what, save for IMDb. It is in this environment that a perfectly
pleasant, entirely bland film such as <b><i>The Big Sick</i></b> becomes a Great Film.<br />
<br />
And what, dare I ask, is this shtick that Anderson
desperately needs to move on from? It can only be that dreaded style. Of
course, it’s this that leads Anderson’s critics (or anyway, those who criticize
in bad faith; surely there are some who can make intelligent points against
these films) to act as though his career has been spent making the same film
over and over again. On top of that, it can only be the surface of that
aesthetic: Anderson’s penchant for inventing books for his characters to read
(or to have written); to run wild with the set design; to write dialogue and
narration that is almost hyper-literate (at least compared to most); to give
his characters unique professions and hobbies, such as aquatic explorer and falconry.
But to claim that the mountains of detail that can be found in each film all
amount to the same thing, one mountain indistinguishable from the next, is to
do nothing but reveal an inability to pay attention. The peak of this very
specific kind of blindness can be found in an inexplicably popular <b><i>Saturday
Night Live </i></b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfDIAZCwHQE">sketch</a>, which imagines what <b><i>The Strangers</i></b> would be like if it was
directed by Wes Anderson, but only manages to show what such a sketch would be
like if the person who wrote it had only seen <b><i>The Royal Tenenbaums</i></b>. One of the
“jokes” is, quite literally “It’s Danny Glover!” as if Glover does nothing but
appear in Anderson films, rather than just the one.<br />
<br />
Which is another thing. In 2007, Anderson released what must
count as his most controversial film, <b><i>The Darjeeling Limited</i></b>, about three
brothers (played by Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, and Adrien Brody) on a trip
through India following the death of their father. Upon its release, Jonah
Weiner, writing for Slate, published an <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2007/09/how-wes-anderson-mishandles-race.html">article</a> detailing what he perceived as
Anderson’s many racial sins. He gets things wrong almost immediately by
describing the film’s Indian characters as “foils” to the white protagonists.
However, since foils are meant to emphasize the qualities of other characters,
and <b><i>The Darjeeling Limited</i></b> is a chronicle of the weaknesses shared by its three
leads, I can’t quite see where Weiner is getting this from. But going after
Anderson for supposedly problematic racial politics is a fairly popular
pastime, and if you get him going both ways — “Cast more people of color in
your films but under no circumstances make a film about them” — so much the
better. By now, it’s taken as a given that Anderson’s 2018 animated film <b><i>Isle
of Dogs</i></b> misused Japan and its culture, treating them as nothing more than
shallow exotic spice, even though there is <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-isle-of-dogs-gets-right-about-japan">strong evidence</a> that Anderson went
to great lengths to be so specific about the country that Japanese audiences
would likely get more out of the film than anyone.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjsXGcmrgwEW4V8XtO219nX41FrhxSfOhuwttarAWaeBmjsg-zTP3iZ4QpZK6jHADrz0uKZDfI8UPOfKLvxonJVJOO2VKH8lSK-ObHzeLuUq_mB_8ICbUGmriGp68AQreLW5GFZ0B8mvU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="787" data-original-width="1400" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjsXGcmrgwEW4V8XtO219nX41FrhxSfOhuwttarAWaeBmjsg-zTP3iZ4QpZK6jHADrz0uKZDfI8UPOfKLvxonJVJOO2VKH8lSK-ObHzeLuUq_mB_8ICbUGmriGp68AQreLW5GFZ0B8mvU/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />
Anyway, among the sins Weiner accuses Anderson of committing
in <b><i>The Darjeeling Limited</i></b> is treating Rita, played by Amara Karan (curiously,
Weiner chooses not to name any of the non-white actors in Anderson’s films when
writing about their characters), the stewardess Jason Schwartzman’s Jack has an
affair with on the titular train, as a “type,” a “mysterious dark-skinned
beauty,” rather than as a person. He writes: “Jack hardly exchanges a word with
her, but, reeling from a bad breakup, he begins pestering her to break up with
her Sikh boyfriend [played by Waris Ahluwalia, incidentally], convinced for no
good reason that she can turn his life around.” What Weiner crucially leaves
out of this is that she actually does not do this, and by the end of their time
together finds Jack to be foolish. Also ignored by Weiner is that “convinced
for no good reason” is actually the whole idea. That’s not your thought; that
was Anderson’s thought.<br />
<br />
These sorts of critiques often have a smug, weirdly personal
vibe to them that can be infuriating, but their most notable feature is their
thoughtlessness (Weiner tosses off Owen Wilson’s 2007 suicide attempt as “his
recent personal ordeal,” while discussing, it must be noted, the Wes Anderson
film in which Wilson portrays a man who has recently survived a suicide
attempt, a detail Weiner apparently found as insignificant as the names of the
non-white actors). Former child actor and current writer Mara Wilson recently
tweeted, “Every time I finish watching almost any Wes Anderson movie I feel
like I just hung out with a very beautiful man for two hours: I enjoyed looking
but retained nothing that was said or done,” suggesting that, for one thing,
her memory problem was his fault, but also that there is nothing beyond the
visuals worth remembering in a Wes Anderson picture. That <b><i>The Grand Budapest
Hotel</i></b>, a film about the death of Europe at the hands of fascism and the
inevitably of death and lost time, has nothing going on underneath the bright
colors and precise framing. That <b><i>Moonrise Kingdom</i></b>, for all its heartfelt exploration
of loneliness, marital strife, and the miracle of falling in love (constructed
in a way to mirror the YA fiction favored by the young female protagonist),
only has a few cute costumes going for it. That one of the most consistently
surprising American filmmakers working today is good for nothing beyond his
extraordinary visual imagination. <br />
<br />
That’s all. How twee.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-77897457651880848352021-04-25T10:09:00.005-04:002021-04-25T12:24:32.097-04:00Al Pacino<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWkED8IjeEoGRGWRRRVt4uzZ7qrncF5PBiyv6yQrCDp-jcPk9fvun_FGmnCyQPRDnNI1S6YefDDaKTsgYGiL54IzIZnpg4SNf-WOrLZpTB-B3VIs43_02WrvCIEAomobUknkqNDxmqZSM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="700" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWkED8IjeEoGRGWRRRVt4uzZ7qrncF5PBiyv6yQrCDp-jcPk9fvun_FGmnCyQPRDnNI1S6YefDDaKTsgYGiL54IzIZnpg4SNf-WOrLZpTB-B3VIs43_02WrvCIEAomobUknkqNDxmqZSM/w640-h384/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />In 1992, Al Pacino, one of the most beloved and respected
American actors of the 1970s and '80s, appeared in a film written by Bo Goldman
and directed by Martin Brest called <b><i>Scent of a Woman</i></b>. In that film, Pacino, who
would go on to win the Best Actor Oscar for this performance playing a retired
Lieutenant Colonel named Frank Slade, makes this noise more than once:
“Hoo-ah!” Those two syllables have been used to parody Al Pacino from <i><b>Scent of
a Woman</b></i> until now to such an extent that anyone who hasn’t seen the film might
believe that’s all he says during the course of its entire 156 minutes. In
fact, it could be argued that since 1990’s <b><i>The Godfather Part III</i></b>, film
critics, to some extent, and the film-going public almost completely, stopped
taking Pacino seriously. There have certainly been films and performances that
were embraced — as Vincent Hannah in Michael Mann’s <b><i>Heat</i></b>, Lefty Ruggiero in
Mike Newell’s <i><b>Donnie Brasco</b></i> and Lowell Bergman in <i><b>The Insider</b></i>, again for Mann, and most recently his remarkable turn as Jimmy Hoffa in Scorsese's <b><i>The Irishman</i></b> —
but the popular perception of Al Pacino is that he’s a once-great actor who has
either sold out or gone insane or given up nuance; whatever the case, he’s no
longer any good. Or at best, he’s a formerly great actor who is now a silly
goofball.</div>
<br />
However, on the occasion of Al Pacino’s 81st birthday, I
must insist that the truth is this: Since 1971, when he starred as a heroin
addict in Jerry Schatzberg’s <b><i>The Panic in Needle Park</i></b>, and right up until
today, Al Pacino has never stopped being one of the greatest screen actors this
country has ever produced. It’s worth mentioning that <i><b>The Panic in Needle Park</b></i>
was Pacino’s second film appearance. <b><i>The Godfather </i></b>was his third.<br />
<br />
My great frustration has been that those who slag Pacino
seem to be aware of only a fraction of his recent work. So with that in mind,
please allow me to recommend a few of his most underrated, or under-seen
(likely both) Al Pacino performances, all of them post-<b><i>Scent</i></b>. And so, to begin!<div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpqVJZu8ni3b9RYSgdvsStUuIfCdggf_CId14WqqW92t4-jfpN4PJGySF8dzxf4icrQPb0cccUsfMxRl51FhapdOFfiN_5F3FF4xvHGDRpZy9FEPuv1Eq1meCuuZZXhjrLhc9mfRzx9xg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="1067" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpqVJZu8ni3b9RYSgdvsStUuIfCdggf_CId14WqqW92t4-jfpN4PJGySF8dzxf4icrQPb0cccUsfMxRl51FhapdOFfiN_5F3FF4xvHGDRpZy9FEPuv1Eq1meCuuZZXhjrLhc9mfRzx9xg/w640-h256/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><i>
Any Given Sunday</i></b> (1999): I’m about to write the nicest thing
I will ever write or say about Oliver Stone, and it is this: For this film
(actually my favorite thing Stone has ever done) the director, who I believe
has the worst taste of any major filmmaker, appears to have trusted Al Pacino
to know what the hell he was doing and didn’t direct him into the ground. As
pro football coach Tony D’Amato, Pacino looks and sounds every bit the
weathered, passionate, cynical and exhausted man who senses that he is about to
age out of the job he has dominated for decades. The big scene is, as you would
imagine, a grandiose locker-room speech before the biggest game of the season.
Admittedly, it doesn’t hurt that Stone wrote a pretty good speech, but watch
how Pacino builds from a resigned world-weariness (the way he throws away
“We’re in Hell, gentlemen,” making what would be an otherwise rather dramatic
line sound like a verbal slump) into a genuinely inspiring roar. You can watch
the speech <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY">here</a>.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBG0u63uUBbfFUpQZxIAAgmgStVdkufiS1baY4InqS0iE6YSPM8l5d8Ww56yEGw6yGQoTuHGv30PnGaNRFAfFu5lW2RYnzemAxy1PxPVWQJMhOBWI8Me-8kPluXtO6i6nzzg0WP8HpcY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="500" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBG0u63uUBbfFUpQZxIAAgmgStVdkufiS1baY4InqS0iE6YSPM8l5d8Ww56yEGw6yGQoTuHGv30PnGaNRFAfFu5lW2RYnzemAxy1PxPVWQJMhOBWI8Me-8kPluXtO6i6nzzg0WP8HpcY/w640-h344/image.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><b><i>
Chinese Coffee</i></b> (2000): Most people don’t realize that Pacino
has directed a handful of films. They are small, independent affairs, beginning
with 1996’s <i><b>Looking for Richard</b></i>, a documentary about staging <b><i>Richard III</i></b>, and
followed up four years later by this drama based on a play by Ira Lewis. It’s
essentially a two-hander with Pacino starring opposite Jerry Orbach as a pair
of terrifically unsuccessful writers. The two butt heads for 90-some minutes
about debts, their poverty, their pasts, shared and otherwise, their love
affairs and their writing. As a director, Pacino adds a few too many
unnecessary flourishes, but his performance is excellent (as is Orbach’s). The
film climaxes with its best scene when Orbach confesses to Pacino that, despite
what he said earlier in the film, he did in fact read the manuscript for
Pacino’s new novel, and he hated it. A lot unfolds from there, but what’s most
striking for me is how Pacino plays his side of it, at times patiently
defending his book, at other times becoming angry, but never slipping into the
expected arrogance that would have turned the scene into a lazy “how
interesting that they’re both wrong” ambiguity that is much easier to do, and I
suspect, easier to act. You can watch most of that scene <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqgvdXKQJNM">here</a>, or you can just
go <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snDR9eJBzyo&t=1s">here</a> and watch the whole thing.<br />
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bridXHPCSJKnWn2iLZRpt0p-GIMWYi8GgX_b0QQdX-PUeKDr_xtW18JAIA7-3_vyLXmAMJS0hRe17_NTik-FNPpeiQtZbRCD-LiE7cIQQgYnq3j3G1DWGdVkORM4Y3wUWhJ9cJfMzj4/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bridXHPCSJKnWn2iLZRpt0p-GIMWYi8GgX_b0QQdX-PUeKDr_xtW18JAIA7-3_vyLXmAMJS0hRe17_NTik-FNPpeiQtZbRCD-LiE7cIQQgYnq3j3G1DWGdVkORM4Y3wUWhJ9cJfMzj4/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><i><b>
Merchant of Venice</b></i> (2004): Perhaps the most towering
performance Pacino has given in the past 20 years. Michael Radford’s divisive
adaptation of Shakespeare’s most controversial play features Pacino as Shylock,
the Jewish merchant and villain of the piece, who both embodies certain
anti-Semitic stereotypes while raging powerfully against anti-Semitism. It’s
always a shock to remember this is considered one of Shakespeare’s comedies,
especially judging from this movie, which dampens all the comedic scenes as a
way of amping up Pacino’s furious performance. Click over <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th7euZ30wDE">here</a> to see Pacino’s
take on the “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” speech.<div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vLi-CSKuUPgPTdndkiyhLQPO_mXbUjCgWvAnGODqz1w6ot1L5vuBMBmEmOpjZMUJh01_3oERbHkZtpcW5OIi909whhccSvEx1FTsKilDoakCfyQc3kL5MezYGL3a-29SxWYYGnVlgww/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="681" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vLi-CSKuUPgPTdndkiyhLQPO_mXbUjCgWvAnGODqz1w6ot1L5vuBMBmEmOpjZMUJh01_3oERbHkZtpcW5OIi909whhccSvEx1FTsKilDoakCfyQc3kL5MezYGL3a-29SxWYYGnVlgww/w640-h360/image.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /><b><i>
Phil Spector</i></b> (2013): David Mamet’s 2013 HBO film posits the
theory that Phil Spector did not in fact murder Lana Clarkson, the crime for
which he was convicted and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison in 2009, but
rather it was a freak accident. To be blunt, and despite my deep admiration for
the work of Mamet, I think this is complete horseshit. But Phil Spector isn’t
the only film to feature a central moral idea with which I have disagreed and
still managed to enjoy, so I’m not too worked up about that. And either way,
the whole film could be trash and Pacino’s raving mania as Spector would still
come off as a crazy kind of genius. How appropriate. He plays Spector as insane
when we first see him and then slowly disintegrates from there. Here’s a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ipmur8FOLE">sample</a>.<br />
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPmujA5DQYlXmMDzia_vBgp_kranzCG_QGyLmGMbaankkX1JxG78452jFlkg_WfzR1gaJ-wh5RqcnmSlepisoPCA2oL1tdhRkbYnAGbQ7cjQiU6QtLBeWsCLIO4j6LB6Rrux3Ctq3EuMQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPmujA5DQYlXmMDzia_vBgp_kranzCG_QGyLmGMbaankkX1JxG78452jFlkg_WfzR1gaJ-wh5RqcnmSlepisoPCA2oL1tdhRkbYnAGbQ7cjQiU6QtLBeWsCLIO4j6LB6Rrux3Ctq3EuMQ/w640-h426/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><i>
Manglehorn</i></b> (2014): This is possibly my favorite film on the
list. David Gordon Green’s modest comedy-drama stars Pacino as a quiet, lonely,
cat-loving locksmith who wants to pull himself out of his solitary rut. As
basic as that sounds, the film has a strange, almost ethereal quality to it
(driven home most directly by the last shot). It’s a wonderful mix of
unexpected humor and a character study of a man on the brink of a personal
apocalypse (“I’m losing hope in tomorrow”). <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmE7ndoGkHk">This scene</a> (with Pacino playing
opposite Harmony Korine, of all people) should give you a good idea of the tone
of the thing. But best of all, as always, is Pacino. As you can see from that
clip, however bizarre and unexpected the humor is, it’s mostly happening around
Pacino, who just sits there, making keys and fixing locks and taking care of
his sick cat. For anyone obsessed with the idea that all Pacino knows how to do
anymore is yell, maybe <b><i>Manglehorn</i></b> will finally shut them up. And also, there’s
a simple little scene between Pacino and his cat that is one of the truest and
most honestly happy moments I’ve seen in ages.<br />
<br />
So there you have it. Al Pacino has been making movies for
50 years, and despite what some people would have you believe, he has been
turning in brilliant performances for just as long (this, by the way, is to say
nothing of his equally long and distinguished stage career). He has not
stopped. He has changed, perhaps, but who would wish him to do otherwise? And
if you don’t believe me that Al Pacino is just as good as he ever was — that he
is, in fact, our greatest living American actor — then check out the above
films. All of them are easy to get your hands, or anyway your eyes, on (even
<i><b>Chinese Coffee</b></i>, which Pacino himself wouldn’t release for seven years after it
played festivals). There are other good ones, too, such as <b><i>Danny Collins</i></b>, and
even interesting misfires like <i><b>The Local Stigmatic</b></i> (I myself am undecided
about how successful or unsuccessful it is, but you can check it out for
yourself <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FZ-1MuvjUI">here</a>). It’s almost all worthwhile, on some level. <br />
<br />
All of which is to say: If your first thought when
considering Pacino’s work from the mid-'90s to now is “Hoo-ah!” you should try
to branch out a little. He’s not the problem. You might be.<br />
<br />
(Incidentally, he’s also quite good in <b><i>Scent of a Woman</i></b>.)<br />
</div></div></div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-62741349355261053302021-04-23T10:25:00.001-04:002021-04-23T10:25:16.323-04:00Paul Bunyan<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNdbxce7QIH9XY6qwzsdm8hnHHa36_pkmJTNXbZkm42PN9YCFo7-QzT6i4Y6_LAKuvRpVClcKoKOEgEwnbMEPVJr_yH62BBgdqSHkx02yY5L_DRVEWGiSEV_8MV-ijgU1NYEMqgVif3iA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="1200" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNdbxce7QIH9XY6qwzsdm8hnHHa36_pkmJTNXbZkm42PN9YCFo7-QzT6i4Y6_LAKuvRpVClcKoKOEgEwnbMEPVJr_yH62BBgdqSHkx02yY5L_DRVEWGiSEV_8MV-ijgU1NYEMqgVif3iA/w642-h361/image.png" width="642" /></a></div> <p></p><p>I have a new piece about <i style="font-weight: bold;">Fargo</i> up at The Bulwark today. Click <a href="https://thebulwark.com/fargo-and-the-rise-of-frances-mcdormand/?amp&__twitter_impression=true">here</a> to enjoy!</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-80608564526264019582021-04-09T09:31:00.004-04:002021-04-09T09:31:57.155-04:00Timpano<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBd8caf4IB5LdQRABAIPvFXgiDZA8rFxImWVp04wwL6Rsh2aL8hAJPRckLRcHAVZi7eFB7nyIwdtIo7q_sV4Xh97nYFgvLSpOxNP3c1uuViYtBC_9uQlZIgScFie_C_nrXBrvw_LFFiCo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBd8caf4IB5LdQRABAIPvFXgiDZA8rFxImWVp04wwL6Rsh2aL8hAJPRckLRcHAVZi7eFB7nyIwdtIo7q_sV4Xh97nYFgvLSpOxNP3c1uuViYtBC_9uQlZIgScFie_C_nrXBrvw_LFFiCo/w640-h426/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Hello, folks! Today I proudly make my debut at <a href="http://RogerEbert.com">RogerEbert.com</a> with a <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/features/breaking-bread-on-the-25th-anniversary-of-big-night">piece</a> celebrating the 25th anniversary of Stanley Tucci's <i style="font-weight: bold;">Big Night</i>. Click and read!</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-54334974594562366812021-03-27T11:45:00.003-04:002021-03-27T11:45:43.164-04:00Willeford<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiye5wp76ovEipewwJanroznpXiPfUEywp0UIw7HbSULWl4VyYcemBNKpy3Fb4wBenLIOv2sdw9xdy83kk2ImPRLT7yR41OiRuVR6-DRC9Y4eRPgPnUakEANQuKbUCdLZQBugpjOZdhNXs/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="862" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiye5wp76ovEipewwJanroznpXiPfUEywp0UIw7HbSULWl4VyYcemBNKpy3Fb4wBenLIOv2sdw9xdy83kk2ImPRLT7yR41OiRuVR6-DRC9Y4eRPgPnUakEANQuKbUCdLZQBugpjOZdhNXs/w552-h640/image.png" width="552" /></a></div><p></p><p>I have a new piece up at <a href="https://thebulwark.com/">The Bulwark</a> about one of my favorite writers, Charles Willeford. Please click <a href="https://thebulwark.com/amoral-fiction/">here</a> and give it a read.</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-91136689648613546012021-03-18T12:44:00.009-04:002021-03-18T12:59:19.611-04:00Devastaytio'nMy band Devastayt'd has a new EP, which includes our newest single "Witch's Beer," please click the link to buy and Spread the Devastayt'ion!!!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCKdq-E07gbyqIF4feP7exCJY9DXMXK8c-5-2R0MyGSL60eXR5kPsc0xZkSfv6JqmGj5qUKFzGzybrYPNWa5Hs35TF2Gcw-ZVyNLGxINVUqXumo-o0kuBIIcwHateoAIgMyQd2wpTE9tQ/w640-h480/image.png" width="640" />Also if you want our LP, THIS FILTHY EARTH, we have a lot of CDs left -- a surprising number, I would argue, we toured and everything -- so just go to the website and use the coupon code IMDEVASTAYTD to get 87% off both.GET DEVASTAYT'D!!!!!!!!!!!!!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgve0BBqzhfeUpX1RxrEnX0iYFA_KKluZHdbKr8ZZM662quRX7yQJ4AJ6yNVOJPrQ1DD2HsJ2BmNnOdp4eIE8Ue8GN26NMzWdAAgrnhCooWp2TvE96rmgaynkb-fT-EvldRAywzx-6gx-A/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="680" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgve0BBqzhfeUpX1RxrEnX0iYFA_KKluZHdbKr8ZZM662quRX7yQJ4AJ6yNVOJPrQ1DD2HsJ2BmNnOdp4eIE8Ue8GN26NMzWdAAgrnhCooWp2TvE96rmgaynkb-fT-EvldRAywzx-6gx-A/w640-h436/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></div><br /><br /><p></p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-85882752224266166832021-01-16T15:45:00.001-05:002021-01-16T15:45:58.607-05:00Pisces<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgSPb57JZs7k9XmniO6KTE3a3hLOCaLZxMn7NpDHc3Bqeugwxg-Kju7yGJ42epRDduRZevjSD66F4ZXwTms7tBCF8M1815AKbAOJj_nwAu-XvHNLRoUobdokTbR1kozjsdR_bm2Ea3s4/s1200/zodiac.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpgSPb57JZs7k9XmniO6KTE3a3hLOCaLZxMn7NpDHc3Bqeugwxg-Kju7yGJ42epRDduRZevjSD66F4ZXwTms7tBCF8M1815AKbAOJj_nwAu-XvHNLRoUobdokTbR1kozjsdR_bm2Ea3s4/s600/zodiac.webp" width="600" /></a>Hello folks. Hey, if you'd like to hear my shitty voice through your computer's speakers, or the speakers of your hand-held device, then please click over to Blake Howard's <a href="https://oneheatminute.com/" target="_blank">One Heat Minute</a> podcast site, specifically to the page devoted to <a href="https://oneheatminute.com/zodiac-chronicle" target="_blank">"Zodiac Chronicle"</a>, his new 24-part series on David Fincher's 2007 masterpiece <i style="font-weight: bold;">Zodiac</i>. In the new episode, I and many more qualified guests talk about the early parts of the film, with the Lake Berryessa murder taking center stage. And you know what, I might appear on future episodes as well! But even if I don't, you should listen to each and every episode, because Blake and his guests know what's what.</div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-34192870128287039562020-12-31T17:08:00.002-05:002021-04-26T19:37:58.953-04:00The Collective Failure is Complete: The Books of 2020<div>Hi! What a great year it's been, for literally everybody! So here we go again, my list of the best books I read over the last twelve months. The body of the post highlights my favorites (in no particular order, except for the last few, which are my extra-special favorites), and after that is the complete list. As ever, just because I didn't highlight it, that doesn't mean I didn't like it. It's just that one must draw the line somewhere. Onward!</div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNmwjOKv_JGawcji-9FbpM0NfaMjSFwp1mZeedTmy263vOfSGyIrR_oBgxTYgnfbe7gZbnV9C7itIU6zeqNetU1Xm0SyoRzyOftyNLVj52sIXLpT1UFlNWaX5kv14R_gfpN3WkvAntvkY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="580" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNmwjOKv_JGawcji-9FbpM0NfaMjSFwp1mZeedTmy263vOfSGyIrR_oBgxTYgnfbe7gZbnV9C7itIU6zeqNetU1Xm0SyoRzyOftyNLVj52sIXLpT1UFlNWaX5kv14R_gfpN3WkvAntvkY/w413-h640/image.png" width="413" /></a></div><br /></i></b></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The League of Frightened Men </i>by Rex Stout<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>- Only my second Nero Wolfe mystery, but surely not my last. The most purely entertaining novel I read all year.</div><div><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><b><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4XzfWAIhvvlO2WRBdOdKqwVai5_dqxtRX3fzw5_d4aE1SUrM_uvDyNGRygqbtQ8QpIAaL0SnWfgV2ieQiDAU5Pj5FRfZKdYgOoHRkhWCGhf8UmNs7XRM_BUrhz0wagCcb410VfgROB5Y/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="587" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4XzfWAIhvvlO2WRBdOdKqwVai5_dqxtRX3fzw5_d4aE1SUrM_uvDyNGRygqbtQ8QpIAaL0SnWfgV2ieQiDAU5Pj5FRfZKdYgOoHRkhWCGhf8UmNs7XRM_BUrhz0wagCcb410VfgROB5Y/w419-h640/image.png" width="419" /></a></div><br /></i></b></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Frankenstein in Baghdad </i>by Ahmed Saadawi - A strange, complex novel that is at once about what it seems to be about, but also a look at daily life in modern Baghdad (marred by occasionally clumsy translation).</div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><b><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvEQYLYDvzu9U14_WZtqpLHLyZ0obr_DcBIjBGP5rOXqaRHgzg3R9NXk9idl-TPb-6SWVe3BKdWaaDc5oF1kBlzWX6VNL1VVqMdz0qlZbc4DBK2C4vI7j31bO31WEwrWwzqc1A9Dbwhw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1370" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPvEQYLYDvzu9U14_WZtqpLHLyZ0obr_DcBIjBGP5rOXqaRHgzg3R9NXk9idl-TPb-6SWVe3BKdWaaDc5oF1kBlzWX6VNL1VVqMdz0qlZbc4DBK2C4vI7j31bO31WEwrWwzqc1A9Dbwhw/w429-h640/image.png" width="429" /></a></div><br /></i></b></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Apropos of Nothing </i>by Woody Allen - Wrote about it <a href="https://wwwbillblog.blogspot.com/2020/06/allen.html">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxnJk3DPLH3AGlLiTpNuRyOJ3GY2_udvwBk31ZumC8V8fYSh38x-AX5E41l4e54BUJtmzknLa68sBxuaxTWJrIeSnxnGYgn-af9gb6I1h3U_ksN-E0nIsZWb937pyNKY_s33A5mW3CHs/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="263" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxnJk3DPLH3AGlLiTpNuRyOJ3GY2_udvwBk31ZumC8V8fYSh38x-AX5E41l4e54BUJtmzknLa68sBxuaxTWJrIeSnxnGYgn-af9gb6I1h3U_ksN-E0nIsZWb937pyNKY_s33A5mW3CHs/w421-h640/image.png" width="421" /></a></div><br /><i style="font-weight: bold;">Doting </i>by Henry Green - Not one likable character, which is perfectly all right. Repetitive, which is the idea.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gU7bRbBY2zYU-teGRR_Npwjy3hGYX-Mhb5f1xPkNz0y2DuW4EV01N_Q60Jb-eJdlZj1rn1R8EnCVmLmTKp0Sz8zWlsnp5QVTM0kZz7lwd_77wBPocCSwU5RQF8Sp95aCfvDZdLMR35s/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="445" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gU7bRbBY2zYU-teGRR_Npwjy3hGYX-Mhb5f1xPkNz0y2DuW4EV01N_Q60Jb-eJdlZj1rn1R8EnCVmLmTKp0Sz8zWlsnp5QVTM0kZz7lwd_77wBPocCSwU5RQF8Sp95aCfvDZdLMR35s/w379-h640/image.png" width="379" /></a></div><br /><i style="font-weight: bold;">McCabe</i> by Edmund Naughton - Basis for the Altman film, good enough that I bought two other obscure Edmund Naughton novels.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihjvPt0pF_o4LTiOWaARqrBOPgJ_vwwuW2ven0sBIz8xIZMVbxRiQiwNG6JYuvvPIkyz4It-d2akdDV4tsB-2l4lburUx9kCnyuTepJ8AwOYlPYKcmF5SJnvusxTf6s5MCaSJunZvjFEw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihjvPt0pF_o4LTiOWaARqrBOPgJ_vwwuW2ven0sBIz8xIZMVbxRiQiwNG6JYuvvPIkyz4It-d2akdDV4tsB-2l4lburUx9kCnyuTepJ8AwOYlPYKcmF5SJnvusxTf6s5MCaSJunZvjFEw/w427-h640/image.png" width="427" /></a></div><br /><i style="font-weight: bold;">Last Days</i> by Brian Evenson - About a sort of dismemberment cult. A cerebral, queasy, a horror novel for our times.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYWVjGP4jOSIS1OY8W5XKrmS9Ozy1204MgBNEz5JoyDqQmTtndT2PMNuqjyjY1Aw9d2SKQJ0yybnBvRIAiqaAGs5HRBnVpt5fNLK1Cp_9B113IKTA6n9vgVMpTnpSq6wEWiAtAKaAfD8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="282" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimYWVjGP4jOSIS1OY8W5XKrmS9Ozy1204MgBNEz5JoyDqQmTtndT2PMNuqjyjY1Aw9d2SKQJ0yybnBvRIAiqaAGs5HRBnVpt5fNLK1Cp_9B113IKTA6n9vgVMpTnpSq6wEWiAtAKaAfD8/w445-h640/image.png" width="445" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Eltonsbrody </i>by Edgar Mittelholzer - This pioneer (so I'm told) of West Indian literature also dabbled in horror fiction. This one's very much imperfect, but the horror itself is both blood-curdling and cruel.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj30EMthZi8EgCRJt-vU0FHCKY5YCAt2aWET0dsbrb-oNy7np97bM9Qan7YPgUhGuiBBgIj4LsNLo1nXRzJ0c1vFWHst2_U90duY76_SBawVXmM7rWN5ysHmWp_v_2sx_N2udp80xWHtU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="220" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj30EMthZi8EgCRJt-vU0FHCKY5YCAt2aWET0dsbrb-oNy7np97bM9Qan7YPgUhGuiBBgIj4LsNLo1nXRzJ0c1vFWHst2_U90duY76_SBawVXmM7rWN5ysHmWp_v_2sx_N2udp80xWHtU/w413-h640/image.png" width="413" /></a></div><br /><b><i>Platform</i></b> by Michel Houellebecq - This novel about terrorism and sex tourism doesn't give a fuck to a quite extraordinary degree.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhESRrThRyELxuP8oR3d5Pv0CmnVvBvIYJOLJU8ZXUPWWEMc7SpoIKVYIJv8sOSB4LV-Y4Bk7ax6ULLgP1c5AV9uuU6GsmVHYNqqfe3TjFNb-DJxxepUmuS6zh2La2_1X5uBGyMQdfMRWU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="583" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhESRrThRyELxuP8oR3d5Pv0CmnVvBvIYJOLJU8ZXUPWWEMc7SpoIKVYIJv8sOSB4LV-Y4Bk7ax6ULLgP1c5AV9uuU6GsmVHYNqqfe3TjFNb-DJxxepUmuS6zh2La2_1X5uBGyMQdfMRWU/w413-h640/image.png" width="413" /></a></div><br /></div><div><b style="font-style: italic;">Deception </b>by Philip Roth - A sort of meta-novel about a man and a woman, told entirely through dialogue. It's maybe no surprise that my favorite parts were when Roth takes a flamethrower to certain political hypocrisies.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEEXLdZY2FU3W4rRmr11_fJHhSXVRnohp8iFuKsKGhGvyn-UTwmENJKNJePbQdWg5MFuPaqWwD0stY4pqFd-2W_R3AHi9JqQJULlsiZj3XM0LOVRw4Hu1eDImdYymdcBpxTSy4AY69z4/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="292" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgEEXLdZY2FU3W4rRmr11_fJHhSXVRnohp8iFuKsKGhGvyn-UTwmENJKNJePbQdWg5MFuPaqWwD0stY4pqFd-2W_R3AHi9JqQJULlsiZj3XM0LOVRw4Hu1eDImdYymdcBpxTSy4AY69z4/w416-h640/image.png" width="416" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Levels of Life </i>by Julian Barnes - Novel, history, memoir of grief, all in one slim volume. One of the most terrifying books I've ever read.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3umSyg08ZwBGcQWLRTBDCBRHbRhqvG63CXRVv0n3UFCSFjXwYFeG-dxrDb9UkAOcR0ziawX0icS_25v52TDXynwPa7GFC9aZabB9zx0lGPYZi2Z6Ka5l-qbaGievawuxPBDRjEP1v97g/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="322" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3umSyg08ZwBGcQWLRTBDCBRHbRhqvG63CXRVv0n3UFCSFjXwYFeG-dxrDb9UkAOcR0ziawX0icS_25v52TDXynwPa7GFC9aZabB9zx0lGPYZi2Z6Ka5l-qbaGievawuxPBDRjEP1v97g/w413-h640/image.png" width="413" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Cotton Comes to Harlem </i>by Chester Himes - Maybe the best in the series since <b><i>The Real Cool Killers</i></b>, although I got the order mixed up and accidentally skipped <b><i>The Heat's On</i></b>. So grain of salt, etc.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOimdP4AXRMD5hlBKSnXMfaoduNpUDTz8eRIezvS2z-Z8_cWztjyvMS3eHvNtlLyUfj3ip7oYelReOJ1dNMRxn97SAYBKOUs-quvBbCYegyUWiC0idYBJIv3ME-mHlgza3xoQCrLasE7U/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="592" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOimdP4AXRMD5hlBKSnXMfaoduNpUDTz8eRIezvS2z-Z8_cWztjyvMS3eHvNtlLyUfj3ip7oYelReOJ1dNMRxn97SAYBKOUs-quvBbCYegyUWiC0idYBJIv3ME-mHlgza3xoQCrLasE7U/w421-h640/image.png" width="421" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Fullalove </i>by Gordon Burn - One of the most savage novels I've ever encountered, so bleak that I almost wish I'd never read it. It makes tabloid journalism seem kind of sleazy, actually.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNG7VLY4a3m0dPpn2iEQ4ffiCKEA2eDWdsQSo6ZyOMADN4-Lt68HyWTKy_t1enHFpFKk7gW_czp692lGHMQfZtPIze6P4Cjew5Mk1TCOkvNjJoXSW_2jjhVBQ2c9-R2R06eEmce-YD7rc/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="585" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNG7VLY4a3m0dPpn2iEQ4ffiCKEA2eDWdsQSo6ZyOMADN4-Lt68HyWTKy_t1enHFpFKk7gW_czp692lGHMQfZtPIze6P4Cjew5Mk1TCOkvNjJoXSW_2jjhVBQ2c9-R2R06eEmce-YD7rc/w416-h640/image.png" width="416" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Amongst Women </i>by John McGahern - Sad in a way that made me want only happiness for everybody, including the person who caused the most unhappiness.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRq5WDP8ZZfhfNsLWlQ1ukE0Z5z4d4Og693YbI-kFTLyFVb3L1TZp9q-7-wwYA56NI5hiRiCaaPHml7oh1e7DUVpEr5iLjCiZkeHvewNwiN5Vzd936geiUbQjskuqwY7TWr75EjHNMO3U/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1330" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRq5WDP8ZZfhfNsLWlQ1ukE0Z5z4d4Og693YbI-kFTLyFVb3L1TZp9q-7-wwYA56NI5hiRiCaaPHml7oh1e7DUVpEr5iLjCiZkeHvewNwiN5Vzd936geiUbQjskuqwY7TWr75EjHNMO3U/w416-h640/image.png" width="416" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Revival </i>by Stephen King - As black as <b><i>Pet Sematary</i></b>, horror in its purest form. Bleak. I mean, bleak. One of his best.</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUofFq_fMrMI8WOyTPB3h-MTH0ObtxiRgM9YTDxfBAZ1AqLI44LIu-IBZHxltkLw7Ymbda46N3NScYcQblXcFthRKFx51waD1eeD7bw69Qw5KwlaWA88ytX1fYERIJd6YZUGaHlxoZKrA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="323" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUofFq_fMrMI8WOyTPB3h-MTH0ObtxiRgM9YTDxfBAZ1AqLI44LIu-IBZHxltkLw7Ymbda46N3NScYcQblXcFthRKFx51waD1eeD7bw69Qw5KwlaWA88ytX1fYERIJd6YZUGaHlxoZKrA/w413-h640/image.png" width="413" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Changeling </i>by Joy Williams - One of the strangest, eeriest novels I've read, primal and insane, exuberantly sad, chilling and free.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHKQJMYezZrRIAEt5n5aY5VOGKzyUHeSZbK9HeFGuxPjNNby9b_7cs-qk_IQ7dR8FOACneXFBWUInflYhGqYu_YNkgit06f9UaJQlxz98BIRdEQOjwCVCu309EZH3uUjweJdgTJfzi20/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="300" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHKQJMYezZrRIAEt5n5aY5VOGKzyUHeSZbK9HeFGuxPjNNby9b_7cs-qk_IQ7dR8FOACneXFBWUInflYhGqYu_YNkgit06f9UaJQlxz98BIRdEQOjwCVCu309EZH3uUjweJdgTJfzi20/w419-h640/image.png" width="419" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Watson's Apology </i>by Beryl Bainbridge - A novel based on the true-life murder of a woman by her husband in Victorian London. Almost queasily empathetic. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKlITZGBYqvNlfLuNJtOxpqrpgtJ3UUBRU7fYA51ZJsux6qca-dAsBo3V8Ta9iKT2RHzTjR258FFr2PDWa1-EdJO2RyRzbHPFnkvMg5p61918C98IF_rmDvsbZv6e7KzcahixRRZMigU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="336" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUKlITZGBYqvNlfLuNJtOxpqrpgtJ3UUBRU7fYA51ZJsux6qca-dAsBo3V8Ta9iKT2RHzTjR258FFr2PDWa1-EdJO2RyRzbHPFnkvMg5p61918C98IF_rmDvsbZv6e7KzcahixRRZMigU/w432-h640/image.png" width="432" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">A Mother's Kisses </i>by Bruce Jay Friedman - A quite funny novel about a kid in New York, his loony parents, summer camp, and the like. I really should read more books like this.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5AezWwi05TZnVB7rgg1P7yZXybSIn2j7djYvbjbgzBpdWYttie25xNIG4e_WjC91_4SB3qqIPlq6vkD0ubhBbNK5BiuP2hXsGktm7MI5HTrJ6S28okZ-Fxv_NGK9QBHnBCW_RkF11-0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="273" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5AezWwi05TZnVB7rgg1P7yZXybSIn2j7djYvbjbgzBpdWYttie25xNIG4e_WjC91_4SB3qqIPlq6vkD0ubhBbNK5BiuP2hXsGktm7MI5HTrJ6S28okZ-Fxv_NGK9QBHnBCW_RkF11-0/w437-h640/image.png" width="437" /></a></div><br /></div><div><b><i>Made Men: The Story of </i>Goodfellas </b>by Glenn Kenny - Rich, encyclopedic, funny, unique. It made me want to immediately rewatch a film I've seen dozens of times. Now do <i style="font-weight: bold;">Casino</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimaNiin_YHRlCplBdB5NeFvC_ej_FI1YYCRmh55QyJUrx24FesIHC70zTRt70hyybEdyar9TIXWl4t5FXNXRE-69ISIC1wwWEj7nlnj2XRrMTQhW70UQCYjJAUv4JKQWZtFuHlgkON6EU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="318" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimaNiin_YHRlCplBdB5NeFvC_ej_FI1YYCRmh55QyJUrx24FesIHC70zTRt70hyybEdyar9TIXWl4t5FXNXRE-69ISIC1wwWEj7nlnj2XRrMTQhW70UQCYjJAUv4JKQWZtFuHlgkON6EU/w432-h640/image.png" width="432" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Player </i>by Michael Tolkin - Speaking of novels that are the basis for Robert Altman films, this one is sharper, more disturbing, and better than that movie.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizBJG6Dau4WUSeAefkaVYRtYSIuP_JhCXo3cwWBuonBUhwEBC2VWPVTSx0Omb_wWops4h2mzRiNdlUaOnxoi1XHToe4D16oE-1vvDF1pDFNpP6XC0CAYHUO5S9_x5lYGV34hzbGhnpdFw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="326" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizBJG6Dau4WUSeAefkaVYRtYSIuP_JhCXo3cwWBuonBUhwEBC2VWPVTSx0Omb_wWops4h2mzRiNdlUaOnxoi1XHToe4D16oE-1vvDF1pDFNpP6XC0CAYHUO5S9_x5lYGV34hzbGhnpdFw/w416-h640/image.png" width="416" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Can't and Won't </i>by Lydia Davis - Lots of stories featuring seafood. Good ones, too. One story, not one of the seafood ones, made me cry. Maybe two other books have done that to me in my entire life.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiScwDnEGdAIRGcxBGA6p1oMO7ex092T6jNqXmX4tBpzQHNZbDUEKNTTGVVOt9gXiQxvkKBkspcoJOYyo66g_w5pQFc1pJkGcceK36xStwZ6U0TB1pa3cJ_yu8tayoUj32K91fDJAN6Nuw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="596" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiScwDnEGdAIRGcxBGA6p1oMO7ex092T6jNqXmX4tBpzQHNZbDUEKNTTGVVOt9gXiQxvkKBkspcoJOYyo66g_w5pQFc1pJkGcceK36xStwZ6U0TB1pa3cJ_yu8tayoUj32K91fDJAN6Nuw/w424-h640/image.png" width="424" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Love </i>by Roddy Doyle - I absolutely raced through this. One of the best novels about the titular emotion I've read. And just when I thought he'd gone as far he could go with his premise but with too much book left, Doyle writes an ending for the ages.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQ7mz1350zr0pBBT0UQity-f7bFzlj-Yt2LTCKZNi3Xli8AyPMH1thb5ScyemFdl5_C00A9xJ0r6UWnCbe2WbPYkpSeqM4_6KdOiMCjFuZtdGm9-nK57SIhFdZtFjgIzXrP7st8klixE/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="342" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQ7mz1350zr0pBBT0UQity-f7bFzlj-Yt2LTCKZNi3Xli8AyPMH1thb5ScyemFdl5_C00A9xJ0r6UWnCbe2WbPYkpSeqM4_6KdOiMCjFuZtdGm9-nK57SIhFdZtFjgIzXrP7st8klixE/w427-h640/image.png" width="427" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Antkind </i>by Charlie Kaufman - Gloriously funny, completely devastating. A great novel.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZTEDvkkkl9vtchOd9RvC82vNrmKGRnBc6Yx1sHpAO80rOvLhRFzMtR_y5dFM9efpYwTmmyPKlP-TmPyr5R8sJr07M7pobWxnGwYwulNeZguNVrA4Hnvpqy4Mm59RhsPCwidXZ4PJ9EpA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="257" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZTEDvkkkl9vtchOd9RvC82vNrmKGRnBc6Yx1sHpAO80rOvLhRFzMtR_y5dFM9efpYwTmmyPKlP-TmPyr5R8sJr07M7pobWxnGwYwulNeZguNVrA4Hnvpqy4Mm59RhsPCwidXZ4PJ9EpA/w453-h640/image.png" width="453" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Right Stuff </i>by Tom Wolfe - Wrote about it <a href="https://thebulwark.com/right-stuff-in-name-only/">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3qhc8m948NVwLRcMAhVCUE24VJu6HzYhXKijXRcX_gEJqGbbgyk6f7SW2OtmUIY4JmlmAw8OIwS1eAMoI44SGzEw6qDHMsZW5oV-d19XaoNEaWRy6OR9apaZB2MMluoMcqtb1BIhLKY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="297" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR3qhc8m948NVwLRcMAhVCUE24VJu6HzYhXKijXRcX_gEJqGbbgyk6f7SW2OtmUIY4JmlmAw8OIwS1eAMoI44SGzEw6qDHMsZW5oV-d19XaoNEaWRy6OR9apaZB2MMluoMcqtb1BIhLKY/w427-h640/image.png" width="427" /></a></div><br /></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Assumption </i>by Percival Everett - This compelling, bleak crime novel ends on such a note of strange horror that I had to think back on the small strangenesses i'd noticed earlier in the book and wonder "what have I been reading?" Unforgettable.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><b><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwSRLTGMud2-O8lDmKVSc3487j7gpW3l6ckKkOAwNdR2BYAp5yqvJbBilSKaOyvooY75lFydSrRMA85PlyZaN1a8dVvnpCJaw2_YprFGRroRL342I4mUKKYEHYVzL29zE2BAoWZCokVWo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="308" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwSRLTGMud2-O8lDmKVSc3487j7gpW3l6ckKkOAwNdR2BYAp5yqvJbBilSKaOyvooY75lFydSrRMA85PlyZaN1a8dVvnpCJaw2_YprFGRroRL342I4mUKKYEHYVzL29zE2BAoWZCokVWo/w437-h640/image.png" width="437" /></a></div><br /></i></b></div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Inside Story </i>by Martin Amis - One of Amis's great books, up there with <b><i>London Fields</i></b> and <b><i>Money</i></b> and <b><i>Time's Arrow</i></b> and <b><i>The Zone of Interest</i></b>, this strange, intimate epic is part novel (but which parts?) and part memoir (but which parts?), focusing on his relationships with Saul Bellow, Philip Larkin, and Christopher Hitchens, and the deaths of each of them. I don't want to talk about it anymore.</div><div style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><i style="font-weight: bold;">McCabe</i> by Edmund Naughton<br />
<b><i>Platform</i></b> by Michel Houellebecq<br />
<b><i>The Whitsun Weddings</i></b> by Philip Larkin<br />
<b><i>Doppelgänger </i></b>by Dasa Drndic<b><i> </i></b><br />
<b><i>Sphere</i></b> by Michael Crichton<br />
<b><i>Bereavements</i></b> by Richard Lortz<br />
<b><i>Levels of Life</i></b> by Julian Barnes<br />
<b><i>Learning to Swim</i></b> by Graham Swift<br />
<b><i>The Gallery</i></b> by John Horne Burns<br />
<b><i>The Breakout</i></b> by Donald E. Westlake<br />
<b><i>The Falconer</i></b> by Alice Thompson<br />
<b><i>Burning Secret</i></b> by Stefan Zweig<br />
<b><i>Frankenstein in Baghdad</i></b> by Ahmed Saadawi<br />
<b><i>Doting</i></b> by Henry Green<br />
<b><i>Curious Toys</i></b> by Elizabeth Hand<br />
<b><i>Equal Danger</i></b> by Leonardo Sciascia<br />
<b><i>By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept</i></b> by Elizabeth Smart<br />
<b><i>Apropos of Nothing</i></b> by Woody Allen<br />
<b><i>Last Days</i></b> by Brian Evenson<br />
<b><i>Deception</i></b> by Philip Roth<br />
<b><i>The Getaway</i></b> by Jim Thompson<br />
<b><i>Small Crimes</i></b> by Dave Zeltserman<br />
<b><i>Here We Are</i></b> by Graham Swift<br />
<b><i>Michael Kohlhaas</i></b> by Heinrich von Kleist<br />
<b><i>Cotton Comes to Harlem</i></b> by Chester Himes<br />
<b><i>Sisters by a River</i></b> by Barbara Comyns<br />
<b><i>Shirley</i></b> by Susan Scarf Merrell<br />
<b><i>The League of Frightened Men</i></b> by Rex Stout<br />
<b><i>Eltonsbrody</i></b> by Edgar Mittelholzer<br />
<b><i>A Mother's Kisses</i></b> by Bruce Jay Friedman<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Assumption </i>by Percival Everett<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">The Animal Factory </i>by Edward Bunker<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">A Night at the Movies </i>by Robert Coover<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings </i>by Iain Sinclair<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">The Chain </i>by Adrian McKinty<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">After Claude </i>by Iris Owens<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">The Underground Railroad </i>by Colson Whitehead<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Foe </i>by Iain Reid<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Weather </i>by Jenny Offill<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Lanny</i> by Max Porter<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Bleeding Edge </i>by Thomas Pynchon<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Antkind </i>by Charlie Kaufman<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">God Save the Child </i>by Robert B. Parker<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">A Diet of Treacle </i>by Lawrence Block<div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Can't and Won't </i>by Lydia Davis</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Player </i>by Michael Tolkin</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Kiss of the Wolf </i>by Jim Shepard</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Cows </i>by Matthew Stokoe</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Changeling </i>by Joy Williams</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Giant Rat of Sumatra </i>by Richard L. Boyer</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Revival </i>by Stephen King</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Made in Miami </i>by Charles Willeford</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Nobody Runs Forever </i>by Donald E. Westlake</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Down and Out in Paris and London </i>by George Orwell</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Ask the Parrot</i> by Donald E. Westlake</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Watson's Apology </i>by Beryl Bainbridge</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Tales of Muffled Oars </i>by Magnus Mills</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Dirty Money </i>by Donald E. Westlake</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Chemistry of Tears </i>by Peter Carey</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Amongst Women </i>by John McGahern</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Last Kind Words Saloon </i>by Larry McMurtry</div><div><b><i>Made Men: The Story of </i>Goodfellas </b>by Glenn Kenny</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Right Stuff </i>by Tom Wolfe</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Erasure </i>by Percival Everett</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">My Work is Not Yet Done </i>by Thomas Ligotti</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Love </i>by Roddy Doyle</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Less Deceived </i>by Philip Larkin</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Fullalove </i>by Gordon Burn</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Silence </i>by Don DeLillo</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Inside Story </i>by Martin Amis</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Ma Rainey's Black Bottom </i>by August Wilson</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">A Severed Head </i>by Iris Murdoch</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Interior Chinatown </i>by Charles Yu</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Mr. Paradise </i>by Elmore Leonard</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Dead Look On </i>by Gerald Kersh</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Last </i>by Hanna Jameson</div><div><i style="font-weight: bold;">Appointment in Samarra </i>by John O'Hara</div>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-78782727952024761192020-11-19T20:44:00.005-05:002020-11-20T06:47:53.740-05:00Ending Up With What You See<div class="separator"><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="Inside the Shocking Custody Case Court Documents that Shed Light ..." height="360" src="https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/c_crop,d_placeholder_euli9k,h_1439,w_2560,x_0,y_0/dpr_1.5/c_limit,w_1044/fl_lossy,q_auto/v1492202563/articles/2014/02/10/inside-the-shocking-custody-case-court-documents-that-shed-light-on-the-dylan-farrow-woody-allen-saga/140209-stern-woody-allen-tease_jilvrg" width="642" /></div><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">About halfway through his new autobiography <b><i>Apropos of
Nothing</i></b>, Woody Allen makes a reference to the scandal involving him, his
ex-girlfriend Mia Farrow, Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, now married
to Allen, and Dylan Farrow, the adopted daughter of Allen and Farrow. Farrow,
during their vitriolic split and custody battle, accused Allen of sexually
molesting Dylan when she was 7 years old. After bringing it up, he says
parenthetically: “(And I hope it’s not the reason you bought the book).” Speaking
for myself, as a fan of the films of Woody Allen since I was a kid, I can say
that it’s certainly not the only reason I bought the book, but let’s be honest
here. The Woody Allen scandal, and specifically the molestation accusation, has
defined Allen’s life and career for most people more than any of his films
currently do. The number of people who would still publicly count themselves as
Woody Allen fans has dwindled — if everybody else takes his guilt as a given,
who needs the hassle? Indeed, the book was originally supposed to be published
in March by Grand Central Publishing, until there were protests by employees of
Hachette Book Group, who own Grand Central, that same month, leading Hachette to
cancel it. But less than a month later, the book was picked up by Arcade
Publishing and was finally published on March 23. And while the scandal does
take up a large chunk of its latter half, there is a whole lot more going on
here.<br />
<br />
This is an odd book. Making the reasonable decision to begin
at the beginning, describing his parents’ lives before his birth and then
chronicling his childhood — which he at different times describes as “perfect”
and “beautiful,” making it all the more perplexing to him that he should be so
grim, pessimistic and misanthropic, even at a young age — as a good athlete
obsessed with magic, New Orleans jazz, movies, comedy and crime (when he was a
young man, his dad witnessed a mob hit, and Herbert Asbury’s <b><i>The Gangs of New
York</i></b> was Allen’s favorite book as a kid), Allen then spends most of the book
jumping around in time like someone who is constantly being distracted by his
own speeding trains of thought. For example, on page 122, Allen mentions Jean
Doumanian, his best friend for many years and, with her boyfriend, the
financial backer of many of his films, before they had a devastating
falling-out about money. Allen writes, “I will tell the story of me and Jean as
I go along, and it is a strange one." Then, starting just six pages later,
he suddenly tells the whole story. Whatever happened to “as I go along”?
Doumanian is rarely mentioned over the course of the subsequent 260 pages, except
when Allen and she were together at some event or on a trip. Frankly, I find
this aspect of <i><b>Apropos of Nothing</b></i> charming, and even fun. It certainly keeps
the book from falling into tedium borne out of a strict adherence to
chronology. In any case, my guess is that because Allen has always had complete
control of his films, he demanded, and got, the same for this book. I wonder if
an editor did anything more than accept Allen’s manuscript, read it and then
hand it back to him.<br />
<br /><b><i>
Apropos of Nothing</i></b> is always very funny, as you might
expect. In the fascinating <b><i>Woody Allen on Woody Allen</i></b>, a series of interviews
conducted by Stig Björkman, I remember Allen dismissing any compliment
regarding his comedic gifts by saying it always came easy to him. In <b><i>Apropos of
Nothing</i></b>, he doubles down on that assertion (which seems indisputable). After
sending in jokes to New York society columnists and getting published, he was
hired as a gag writer for unfunny celebrities: “And so, I went to work five
days a week and knocked out about 50 gags a day. It sounds like a feat but if
you can do it, it’s no big deal. The subway ride was about 35 minutes, during
which I wrote about 20 gags. The rest in the office.” A nice gig, if you’re
good at it. <br />
<br />
Allen rarely praises his own talent, except when it comes to
comedy. He thinks, or proclaims to think, almost nothing of his abilities as a
filmmaker, but almost seems unable to avoid the fact that he was born funny and
is happy to point out how rare this is (among others, he praises Diane Keaton,
Elaine May and his sometime collaborator Marshall Brickman as “authentically
funny”). He rarely has anything good to say about his talents as a director, to
such a relentless extent that the reader might wish he would give it a rest (I
did). While talking to him about Allen recently, my friend Glenn Kenny
described this facet of Allen’s personality as “self-serving self-effacement,”
which strikes me as exactly right. There comes a point when it’s hard to
believe he’s being sincere. This, I imagine, is one of the reasons so many
people have objected to the book, although it would take at most a distant
second place to Allen’s insistence on describing every woman he ever met as
“sexy,” or words to that effect. It’s constant, and depending on your threshold,
eventually sort of off-putting (though it’s hard to imagine thinking this is
the worst offense described in the book). The truth is, there is a
disingenuousness to <b><i>Apropos of Nothing</i></b> (very late in the book, Allen describes
his lifestyle as “middle class,” a description about which I am dubious), but
when the reader, meaning me, reaches the long section about the custody battles
with Mia Farrow and the accusation of child molestation, one might begin to
understand why Allen is desperate to present himself as a regular, every-day
guy. Maureen Callahan, in her <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/woody-allens-disgusting-tone-deaf-ridiculous-memoir/?utm_source=knewz">barely-a-review</a>, called the book “bitter.” You
don’t say.</div><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Apropos of Nothing eBook: Allen, Woody: Kindle Store - Amazon.com" height="500" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41x0WaqmY2L.jpg" width="334" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
How to approach this? For this bit, it’s hard to know,
without sounding less like a critic and more like an advocate. But as Woody
Allen might say, at various points in and throughout this part of <b><i>Apropos of
Nothing</i></b>, see what you think: After months and months of investigation following
Mia Farrow’s original accusation, both New York State Child Welfare and the
Child Sexual Abuse Clinic at the Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut not
only cleared Allen of any wrongdoing, but also determined that no sexual abuse
had been perpetrated against Dylan Farrow. This is public record, and in the
book, Allen — inexplicably “bitter” according to some — quotes from these
reports extensively. He provides much more evidence, including first-person
testimonies from both Soon-Yi Previn and Moses Farrow regarding how the Mia
Farrow household operated (Soon-Yi says that, among other abuses, Mia Farrow
hit her in the head with a phone), as well as housekeepers and nannies. <br />
<br />(One of the many things that can be added to this is the fact that Andre Previn's ex-wife Dory, a singer-songwriter, once wrote a song called "Daddy in the Attic," the lyrics of which describe a situation that somewhat resembles the story Mia Farrow has pitched all these years. The song was released in 1970, the year Andre Previn's marriage to Dory ended, and his marriage to Mia Farrow began.)</div><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
Nevertheless, <b><i>Apropos of Nothing</i></b> had to be canceled by
Hachette for giving voice to a sexual predator. <br />
<br />
Following this section, Allen, rather awkwardly, rewinds in
order to briefly describe all of the films he made from <b><i>Husbands and Wives</i></b> to <b><i>A
Rainy Day in New York</i></b> (still not distributed in the United States because of
the second wave of awareness of the scandal that came following the #MeToo
movement). This is probably the least illuminating part of the book, because he
blows through most movies at a rapid pace, boringly complimenting everyone he
worked with; though he takes some time to cock a snoot at the actors he worked
with during this period who later disowned him. He writes of Timothée Chalamet,
who acted in <b><i>A Rainy Day in New York</i></b>:<br />
<br /><i>
Timothée afterward publicly stated he regretted working with
me and was giving the money to charity, but he swore to my sister he needed to
do that as he was up for an Oscar for </i><b>Call Me by Your Name</b><i>, and he and his
agent felt he had a better chance of winning if he denounced me, so he did.
Anyhow, I didn’t regret working with him, and I’m not giving any of my money
back.</i><br />
<br />
I find this funny, and fair, but it will earn him no new
supporters (nor will the sentence “I liked Alan Dershowitz”). But Allen says
throughout this section that during the whole time of the original tabloid
explosion, he expected common sense to take over. Now that it hasn’t, he
believes this book will make no difference whatsoever. The reaction to <i><b>Apropos
of Nothing</b></i> so far bears this out. And it’s not as though I think Allen escapes
the book unscathed: His rebuttal to Mariel Hemingway’s account that he left her
family’s home early after he had been invited for the weekend because she, age 18,
refused to travel with him to Paris strikes me as not exactly believable. (He
claims he couldn’t stand sharing a bathroom with her father and so booked an
earlier flight.) And he’s especially weird about his second wife, Louise
Lasser, who suffered from bipolar disorder, and whose sexually euphoric highs
he writes about as though they were just fun sexy games, rather than part of
her illness. <br />
<br />
In short, Woody Allen is, from what I can tell, more messed
up than he thinks. But being an asshole isn’t the same thing as being a
monster.<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div></div><br /><br />bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-35936932022227086792020-11-08T17:29:00.001-05:002020-11-08T17:29:08.334-05:00Trebek<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMFoJj1MlIIyl2KoB_rvMQDoYDL-8SPa2ssfZndqh8GrzBUR_keuE7GWL2PuUhGkcoaLtwxakSr_YwaYA3rzYUV1JcvAE8QbDjgHQD3oDWCfj5XzB2r9wqSV1Ep3GIGaf3KK5NpECTFU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfMFoJj1MlIIyl2KoB_rvMQDoYDL-8SPa2ssfZndqh8GrzBUR_keuE7GWL2PuUhGkcoaLtwxakSr_YwaYA3rzYUV1JcvAE8QbDjgHQD3oDWCfj5XzB2r9wqSV1Ep3GIGaf3KK5NpECTFU/w640-h426/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>I wrote a <a href="https://thebulwark.com/alex-trebek-1940-2020/">short tribute</a> to Alex Trebek for The Bulwark. Please give it a read.</p>bill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.com1