December 2025 Consumption: (no, not tuberculosis)
But I did get pretty sick during December, missing a few days of work and I still have the remnants of a cough.
It occurred to me what if I had COVID, but I was pretty sure it was the flu. And M is a doctor, so …
December 1st
— Green Porno, “Bee” (2008)
Directed and written by, and starring Isabella Rossellini
Premiered in the United States on May 5th, 2008.
— Green Porno, “Fly” (2008)
— Green Porno, “Mantis” (2008)
— Seduce Me, “Duck” (2010)
Directed and written by, and starring Isabella Rossellini.
Starring Isabella Rossellini.
Premiered in the United States on April 20, 2010.
— Mammas (2013), “Le hamster”
Released in Germany on February 8, 2013.
This is a series of short films by Isabella Rossellini, who did graduate study on animal behavior at Hunter College. It’s not clear what precisely is the inspiration for Green Porno, which was the first, and then followed by Seduce Me and Mammas. But they are charming little snippets, and very funny.
December 2nd
— Sanjuro (1962), 30 mins.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa; screenplay by Kurosawa, Ryūzō Kikushima, and Hideo Oguni, based loosely on a story by Shūgorō Yamamoto.
Starring Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi, and Yūzō Kayama.
Released in Japan on January 1, 1962; the U.S. release followed in May 7, 1963.
I had actually never before seen this film, which is surprising because I watched Yojimbo in 1998 or 1999, at the beginning of watching all of these Kurosawa films. Sanjuro might be called a sequel to Yojimbo, but as the Wikipedia article notes, there are few resemblances between these films.
— Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier, Part IV, 5 pp.
December 4th
— The Thunderbolts* (2025), first hour
Directed by Jake Schreier; screenplay by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo.
Starring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Released in the United States on May 2, 2025.
that I feel embarrassed, particularly since there are few films and series of worth created by Disney and/or Marvel. However, I do think this falls into the last category, among which is practically alone (so much of the MCU is just complete and total crap).
What intrigued me was the character of Sentry played by Lewis Pullman, of which I had known something — I thought — from a comic series called Exiles (the only Marvel comic I’ve read in the 21st century and actually enjoyed). Apparently this character, Bob (Robert Reynolds), had participated in a Super Soldier program not unlike the one that produced Captain America. However, Reynolds has some serious psychological instabilities, a kind of mania, meaning that he moves from one extreme character (Sentry, the good guy) to another (The Void, the bad guy).
In the film, there is considerable attention to not only Sentry’s psychological instability, but that of other characters, and it was that which drew me in.
December 5th
— Finished The Thunderbolts*
— Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh; screenplay written by Ted Griffin.
Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy García, Julia Roberts, Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac, and Don Cheadle.
Released in the United States on December 7, 2001.
Meh. I was interested in the electromagnetic magnetic pulse effect.
— B2: Stealth At War (2013)
Directed and written by Brian Armstrong. A documentary about the B-2 bomber focused on several of its missions.
Once upon a time I was like my son and fascinated by the mechanics of war. Particularly airplanes.
December 6th
— Green Porno (2009), “Snail”
Directed by Isabella Rossellini; written by Isabella Rossellini.
Starring Isabella Rossellini.
Aired in 2009.
— Seduce Me (2010), “Dolphin”
Directed and written by Isabella Rossellini.
Starring Isabella Rossellini.
Aired in 2010 as part of the Seduce Me short‑form TV series, a follow‑up to Green Porno created and performed by Isabella Rossellini.
— Mammas (2013), “Cichlid Fish”
Directed ad written by Isabella Rossellini.
Starring Isabella Rossellini.
Aired in 2013 as part of Mammas, a short‑form series exploring maternal instincts in the animal kingdom.
— Arrival (2016)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve; screenplay written by Eric Heisserer, based on the short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang.
Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker.
Released in the United States on November 11, 2016.
“Sadomasochism turns me on.”
December 9th
— Finished The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.
This is an really old Vintage edition that I’d purchased at the Front Page in Villanova. Notice the $1.65 price. It’s in quite good condition.
I’m honestly uncertain why I read this. Mostly likely it was having read about this novel in the NRYB.
But once I started reading I was fascinated by the narrator.
I always want to believe the narrator in the books that I read and I do think this is part of the contract that we enter into with the writer: some good faith in reading.
But this was continually denied by this novel.
December 10th
— The Painter (2024), 5 minutes
Directed by Kimani Ray Smith; written by Brian Buccellato.
Starring Charlie Weber, Jon Voight, Marie Avgeropoulos, and Madison Bailey.
Released in the United States on January 5, 2024.
The level of vacuousness in this stupid, stupid movie was apparent within the first few minutes.
— The Mechanic (2011), 45 minutes
Directed by Simon West; screenplay by Lewis John Carlino and Richard Wenk.
Starring Jason Statham, Ben Foster, and Jessica Alba.This was a remake of the 1972 Michael Winner film of the same name starring Charles Bronson. Released in the United States on January 28, 2011.
I have enjoyed the original that this film is based upon, although the last time I watched it the scene where the one character is toying with a suicidal woman on LSD stood out to me.
— No Country for Old Men (2007)
Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; screenplay by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, based on the novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy.
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, and Garret Dillahunt.
Released in the United States on November 21, 2007.
— Kenneth Fearing, The Big Clock, NYRB Books, 40 pp.
First published January 1, 1946.
Picked this up from Bookhaven …
At about the scene where Foster’s character kills the homosexual killer I had to turn it off. If I am training someone a very delicate skill and the mentee repeatedly ignores my warnings, I must be a fool to continue training them.
It was obvious that Foster’s character was preparing to kill Statham’s for the assassination of the former’s father.
So dumb.
December 12th
— Finished Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock.
I was interested in reading this after I saw parts of the 1948 film adaptation with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton. Laughton is the antagonist, Milland our hero.
Which is kind of hilarious given that Milland plays the evil husband in Dial M For Murder ….
But I digress.
It’s worth noting as well that the novel was also adapted in the 1980s as No Way Out, starring a younger Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young and — most notably — the forever backgrounded Will Patton, who is here front and center.
No Way Out eclipse The Big Clock (1948) because it takes the premise and develops it properly.
Whereas, to be frank, the book is really a piece of shit. I mean, it has no end. If the book was renamed after No Way Out, it would be called No Ending.
It’s captivating, albeit a bit unbelievable at times. And the primary narrator is a heartless cad. But one redeemable feature of the novel is its structure. It was clear imagined as a film. Not as a traditional novel.
December 13th
— Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Directed and written by Anthony and Joe Russo; screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, and Josh Brolin.
Released in the United States on April 27, 2018.
— Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Directed and written by Anthony and Joe Russo; screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau, Bradley Cooper, and Josh Brolin.
Released in the United States on April 26, 2019.
December 14th
— Party Girl (1958), an hour
Directed and written by Nicholas Ray; screenplay by Nicholas Ray and Samuel A. Taylor.
Starring Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, and Lee J. Cobb.
Released in the United States on February 26, 1958.
— Maryanne Wolf, Reader Come Home, 10 pp.
First published August 7, 2018
Have put this down and been uninterested in picking it back up, despite being generally enthused with the author’s judgments.
Yes, actually, it was Cyd Charisse. In a mob film, she plays the girl of a man who is trying to leave the mob.
As it happens, that’s not so easy.
In the world I live in, Charisse is a unworldly femme fatale that appears in the final strange sequence of Singing In the Rain (196?).
December 15th
— F1 (2025), 2 hours
Directed by Joseph Kosinski; written by Ehren Kruger.
Starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and Javier Bardem.
Released in the United States on June 27, 2025.
Well, M arrived and that is part of it. But I think we watched a little of it and were just sort of uninspired.
It’s not a great movie. Definitely not worthy of Javier Bardem.
Brad Pitt, yeah …
December 18-19th
— Hawkeye (2021), “Never Meet Your Heroes”
Directed by Rhys Thomas; written by Jonathan Igla.
Starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Tony Dalton, Florence Pugh, and Alaqua Cox.
Aired on Disney+ on November 24, 2021.
— Wolf, Reader Come Home, 25 pp.
Boredom makes even the most elevated of persons do regrettable things.
Boredom for the aesthete is like emotional turmoil for the user. The perfect condition for bad choice.
Dang, that’s good.
I have written a series of posts under the aegis of “Bad Movie Watching”, so this occurrence is by no means isolated.
Also, since you may not know me, I’m not quite the asshole I appear to be. These words are at least 45% in jest.
December 20th
That was the week that I was pretty sick. So FUCK YOU!!!
— Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Directed and written by Anthony and Joe Russo; screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
Starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, and Robert Redford.
Released in the United States on April 4, 2014.
— Hawkeye (2021), “Never Meet Your Heroes”
Directed by Rhys Thomas; written by Jonathan Igla.
Starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Florence Pugh, Vera Farmiga, Tony Dalton, Alaqua Cox, Fra Fee, Linda Cardellini, and others.
Aired on Disney+ on November 24, 2021.
Tony Dalton’s character seems as potentially dubious as the character of Lalo Salamanca he portrayed in Better Call Saul (2018–2022). But he turns out to be a good guy …
— Hawkeye (2021), “Hide and Seek”
Directed by Rhys Thomas; written by Elisa Climent.
Aired on Disney+ on November 24, 2021.
— Hawkeye (2021), “Echoes”
Directed by Bertie Elwood and Amber Templemore; written by Katrina Mathewson and Tanner Bean.
Aired on Disney+ on December 1, 2021.
— Hawkeye (2021), “Partners, Am I Right?”
Directed by Bertie Elwood and Amber Templemore; written by Erin Cancino and Heather Quinn.
Aired on Disney+ on December 8, 2021.
— Hawkeye (2021), “Ronin”
Directed by Bertie Elwood and Amber Templemore; written by Jenna Noel Frazier.
Aired on Disney+ on December 15, 2021.
— Hawkeye (2021), “So This Is Christmas?”
Directed by Rhys Thomas; written by Jonathan Igla and Elisa Climent.
Aired on Disney+ on December 22, 2021.
December 21st
— Miss Marple (1984), “The Body in the Library: Part 1”
Directed by Silvio Narizzano; written by T.R. Bowen.
Starring Joan Hickson.
Aired on BBC One on December 25, 1984.
— Miss Marple (1984), “The Body in the Library: Part 2”
Aired on BBC One on December 27, 1984.
— Miss Marple (1984), “The Body in the Library: Part 3”
Aired on BBC One on December 28, 1984.
Had never heard of Miss Marple before reading through Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come Home.
Am I richer now for having heard of her and having watched a few of these episodes?
I’ve never been much of a fan of Agatha Christie.
December 22nd
— Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis, 10 pp.
In Euripides: Orestes and Other Plays, a collection edited by Philip Vellacott and published by Penguin.
It seemed unthinkable that Agamemnon would agree to sacrifice his daughter for the sake of his brother’s
December 23rd (my mother's birthday!)
— Miss Marple (1985), “The Moving Finger: Part 1”
Directed by Roy Boulting; written by T.R. Bowen.
Aired on BBC One on February 21, 1985.
— Miss Marple (1985), “The Moving Finger: Part 2”
Directed by Roy Boulting; written by T.R. Bowen.
Aired on BBC One on February 22, 1985.
— Iphigenia in Aulis, 15 pp.
Had never heard of Miss Marple before reading through Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come Home.
Am I richer now for having heard of her and having watched a few of these episodes?
I’ve never been much of a fan of Agatha Christie.
December 24th Christmas Eve
— Die Hard (1988)
Directed and written by John McTiernan; screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza, based on the novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp.
Starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Alexander Godunov, and Hart Bochner.
Released in the United States on July 15, 1988.
— 65 (2023)
Directed and written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, based on a story by Beck & Woods and Ian Shorr.
Starring Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman, and Jessie T. Usher.
Released in the United States on March 10, 2023.
Once I learned of the actual plot of the movie I was very interested, set just before the cataclysmic meteor shower effecting the Cretaceous Paleogene Extinction Event.
But, as you might imagine, the movie is set on the very day when the meteor strikes the Earth and our protagonist and his surrogate daughter narrowly escape being vaporized.
We are so alienated from our past it’s difficult, nay, perhaps impossible to appreciate the experience that begins the film, our protagonist arriving on a transcontinental flight in Los Angeles.
Once upon a time a flight between New York and California was a massive expense and undertaking.
When I was a kid it was very possibly the biggest deal that I had traveled to Los Angeles.
When John McClane arrives in L.A., he’s just undergone an experience that was unique. He later thanks his wife’s boss for paying for his flight and the limo. For most Americans, this was a luxury experience.
The second point is less economic and more cultural: for most of America, California was culturally distinct from everywhere else in the United States. McClane hasn’t been to the West Coast before, never to California.
December 25th Christmas Day 2025!
— Ted Lasso (2020), “No Weddings and a Funeral”
Directed by Declan Lowney; written by Brendan Hunt and Jason Sudeikis.
Starring Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein, Phil Dunster, and Jeremy Swift.
Aired on Apple TV+ on March 15, 2020.
— Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Directed and written by Rian Johnson.
Starring Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista.
Released in the United States on December 23, 2022.
— Patriot Games (1992), last hour
Directed by Phillip Noyce; screenplay by W. Peter Iliff, based on the novel Patriot Games by Tom Clancy.
Starring Harrison Ford, Anne Archer, James Earl Jones, Sean Bean, Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Bergin, and Thora Birch.
Released in the United States on June 5, 1992.
Ted Lasso I’d never seen before. M showed me this. And it was sweet.
Glass Onion I really needed not see before I could see the next film in this series. Meh.
Did I need to watch the end of Patriot Games? Unlikely.
December 26th
— Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
Directed and written by Rian Johnson.
Starring Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church.
Released in select theaters on November 26, 2025; streaming on Netflix beginning December 12, 2025.
I do enjoy the character played by Daniel Craig in these films quite a bit, but more in this one than the others. In the second film no one was likable. Whereas here Brolin’s Jefferson Wicks was ghastly, yet hilarious. Especially when we learn his litany of sins was impossible … brilliant.
December 27th
— Finished and then reread Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis
Purchased this
—Read by Phillip Vellacott’s “Introduction” to Iphigenia in Aulis
— Maryanne Wolf, Reader Come Home, 15 pp.
I do enjoy the character played by Daniel Craig in these films quite a bit, but more in this one than the others. In the second film no one was likable. Whereas here Brolin’s Jefferson Wicks was ghastly, yet hilarious. Especially when we learn his litany of sins was impossible … brilliant.
December 29th-31st
— Euripides, The Children of Heracles
Included in Euripides: Orestes and Other Plays
— Vellacott, introduction to The Children of Heracles
— Euripides, Orestes, 10 pp.
Also included in the Penguin Orestes and Other Plays
— Groundhog Day (1993), one hour
Directed by Harold Ramis; written by Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin.
Starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, and Chris Elliott.
Released in the United States on February 12, 1993.
Perhaps it’s the distance of years, but I do not recall Aeschylus’ Orestes being psychotic like this one.
How did this film survive the last 33 years?
It’s striking that Murray was at what seemed like the end of his career near this point, only to be saved by Wes Anderson in the late 90s.
And just who is this Andie MacDowell?
But the mind engorges itself in this thought experiment.
