During the meretricious month of March 2026 I watched some old films again (The Hit) and some new, not previously seen, like Rust and Bone, but Jacques Audiard. I read about plate tectonics and short stories by Robert Aickman.
Among the shit whose consumption I regret: even the first 15 minutes of Hooper, The Big Hit (I watched all of that), and The Hunted.
March 1st
— My Lucky Stars (1985), 96 min.
Directed by Sammo Hung; written by Barry Wong.
Starring Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, Richard Ng, Eric Tsang, and Sibelle Hu.
Released in Hong Kong on February 10, 1985.
First 80 minutes. What in God’s name is this film about?
Recommendation from the Criterion Channel’s Sammo Hung retrospective “Sammo Hung Kicks Ass” — of whom I’d never heard.
March 2nd
— Robert Aickman, “Compulsory Games”, “Le Miroir”
— Valley of the Dolls (1967), 123 min.
Directed by Mark Robson; written by Helen Deutsch and Dorothy Kingsley, based on the novel Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann.
Starring Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Paul Burke, Tony Scotti, and Susan Hayward.
Released in the United States on December 27, 1967.
Watched about 30 minutes of this before they all descend into drug abuse. Patty Duke’s character does a lot of singing! And saw the hilarious scene where Sharon Tate’s character is doing bust exercises.
March 5th
— My Man Godfrey (1936), 94 min.
Directed by Gregory La Cava; written by Morrie Ryskind and Eric Hatch, based on a story by Eric Hatch.
Starring William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, and Mischa Auer.
Released in the United States on September 6, 1936.
Watched the first hour of this with M and Lucian.
— Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red, 10 pp.
March 6th
— Death Proof (2007), 113 min.
Directed and written by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracie Thoms, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Released in the United States on April 6, 2007.
I guess I finally had to finish watching this film. For my thoughts on Tarantino’s representations of women in Death Proof …
— Formula 1: Drive to Survive (2019–), Season 8, Episodes 1, “New Kids On The Track“, 52 Min.
Created by James Gay-Rees and Paul Martin.
Starring Formula One drivers, team principals, and personnel including Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Christian Horner, and Toto Wolff.
Released on 27 February 2026 on Netflix.
— Formula 1: Drive to Survive, (2019–), Season 8, Episode 2, “Strictly Business“, 52 min.
March 7th
— The Big Hit (1998), 91 min.
Directed by Kirk Wong; written by Ben Ramsey.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christina Applegate, Avery Brooks, Bokeem Woodbine, Antonio Sabàto Jr., China Chow, Lainie Kazan, Elliott Gould, Sab Shimono, Robin Dunne, Lela Rochon, and Danny Smith.
Released in the United States on April 24, 1998.
The god to which I’ve referred elsewhere, who punishes those who suffer from cultural akrasia, punished me by making me hum “La Bamba” because I kept thinking of Lou Diamond Phillips’ other “big hit.”
— Formula 1: Drive to Survive (2019–), Season 8, Episode 3, “The Number 1 Problem”, 50 min.
Created by James Gay-Rees and Paul Martin.
Starring Formula One drivers, team principals, and personnel including Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Christian Horner, and Toto Wolff.
Released on February 27, 2026 on Netflix.
— Formula 1: Drive to Survive (2019–), Season 8, Episode 4, “A Bull With No Horns“, 49 min.
Released on February 27, 2026 on Netflix.
— Formula 1: Drive to Survive (2019–), Season 8, Episode 5, “The Sky’s The Limit“, 51 min.
Released on February 27, 2026 on Netflix.
— Hooper (1978), 99 min.
Directed by Hal Needham; screenplay by Thomas Rickman and
Bill Kerby.
Starring Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, Sally Field, Brian Keith, and Robert Klein.
Released in the United States on July 28, 1978.
Watched on the recommendations of the Criterion Channel’s “Stunts!” collection (see below).
But I only watched some 20 minutes, enough time for me to see Reynold’s character feed a horse a can of beer and then I wanted to turn it off.
March 8th
— Star Wars (1977), 121 min.
Directed and written by George Lucas.
Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, and Anthony Daniels.
Released in the United States on May 25, 1977.
My son Lucian is very patient with me, as I stopped the movie to ask him what the Greedo’s voice sounded like (he said Chinese).
And then asked him who the sand people reminded him of. He said “cannibals?” I suggested Arabs, and mentioned the 1979 oil crisis.
A lesson from Descartes: the imagination takes its materials from sensation.
— Brideshead Revisited (2008), 133 min.
Directed by Julian Jarrold; written by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, based on the novel Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.
Starring Emma Thompson, Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Michael Gambon, Greta Scacchi, and Felicity Jones.
Released in the United States on July 25, 2008.
Viewed on the Criterion Channel as part of the “Starring Ben Whishaw” collection.
March 9th
![Original poster for the Jacques Audiard film "De rouille et d'os" [Rust and Bone] (2012), starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts](https://staging.ashleyvaught.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rust-and-bone-2012-poster-2-600x814.jpg)
— Rust and Bone (2012), 120 min.
Original title: Le rouille et d’os.
Directed by Jacques Audiard; written by Audiard and Thomas Bidegain, based on the short story collection Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson.
Starring Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Verdure, Corinne Masiero, and Céline Sallette.
Released in Belgium, France, and Switzerland on May 17, 2012.
— Aickman, “Hand in Glove” in Compulsory Games
I’ve read three different stories now by Robert Aickman. This is the best, so far. The title story is very interesting, but I was not as impressed with “Le Miroir” as others.
Whereas “Hand in Glove” has visual components as well as a disturbing set of actions …
March 10th
— Aickman, “No Time is Passing” in Compulsory Games
This story follows Delbert one day when he has left work early and noticed the river on the edge of his property, as he may not have noticed it before. He hasn’t noticed it before because he’s very busy and why would his attention deign to exhaust itself on this …
Eventually he crosses the river in a small dinghy (also on his property that he hadn’t noticed before) when a man across the river flags him over. It is his neighbor, inviting him to be neighborly. Who offers him a beverage that appears to have stopped time from passing and given Delbert the ability to see moving pictures in bowls of water.
In which he spies his wife, who was supposed to be at work, at an social event with his boss.
When he returns across the river, policemen inform him that his home was housebroken. There were apparently two people who broke (into) the house. His wife arrives in a fancy dress she rarely wears (a birthday party for a coworker?).
How do you read these stories?
FIIK!
But seriously, it seems like you need to read these stories at least twice, if not more times. For in each there are little details that need to be attended to, details that may or may not be important.
Contra Chekhov’s gun: lots of details that will not be fired by the end of act 3. This is not narrative parsimony. In this respect, Aickman is the preacher to my choir: narrative parsimony is for milquetoasts!
March 10th
— The Hunted (2003), 94 min.
Directed by William Friedkin; screenplay by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths, and Art Monterastelli.
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio del Toro, Connie Nielsen, Kevin J. O’Connor, and William Hurt.
Released in the United States on March 14, 2003.
Not worthy of William Friedkin. Connie Nielsen as an FBI agent! Ha! That’s funny.
Watched as part of the “Stunts!” collection on the Criterion Channel, along with such films as:
- Death Proof (2007)
- Ben‑Hur (1959)
- To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
- Bullitt (1968)
- Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
- Hooper (1978)
- The Hunted (2003)
- Safety Last! (1923)
- The General (1926)
- Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)
- Stagecoach (1939)
- Police Story (1985)
- Hard Boiled (1992)
Of these, I’ve linked places where I’ve written about them, but it’s worth again repeating the name of Bill Hickman, in case you don’t know who he is.
I think the only two that I have not watched recently are Hooper and Ben-Hur, the latter is freaking nearly 3 hours long …
Safety Last! and The General are wonderful.
March 13th
— The Little Hours (2017), 90 min.
Directed by Jeff Baena; written by Baena, based on stories from The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.
Starring Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Kate Micucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, and Nick Offerman.
Released in the United States on June 30, 2017.
This was entertaining — a suggestion from M.
— Reservation Dogs (2021), “NDN Clinic”
Directed by Sydney Freeland; written by Sterlin Harjo.
Starring Devery Jacobs, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Lane Factor, Paulina Alexis, Zahn McClarnon, and Sarah Podemski.
Aired on FX on August 9, 2021.
It’s hard not to appreciate this show with its subtle comedy, in which the primary characters are teenagers, and therefore wrapped up in misprision of themselves and their surroundings, reality in general. And that misprison still managing, through satire, to calmly document the struggle of a culture to maintain itself despite a world that does not care.
— Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress, 50 pp.
Lucian is reading this for his English class, so I borrowed it from the Free Library. Purportedly for him. It’s a quick, energetic read, with a salient description of the conditions of African American life in southern California during the post-war period.
— Robert Aickman, “Raising The Wind”, “Residents Only” in Compulsory Games (25 pp.)
March 14th
— Finished Doyle, “The Sign of Four” in Complete Sherlock Holmes
— From the Terrace (1960), 149 min.
Directed by Mark Robson; written by Ernest Lehman, based on the novel From the Terrace by John O’Hara.
Starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ina Balin, Myrna Loy, Leon Ames, and George Grizzard.
Released in the United States on September 22, 1960.
Watched last two hours. But not because it was good, exactly.
Ina Balin is breathtaking, whereas Newman’s character is tired and Woodward’s is unlikeable.
— Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress, 75 pp.
Now reaching the point where Easy considers himself a detective, searching for Frank Green. That seemed to me to be an inflection point, as much of this had the feel of a Chandler-esque thriller, but with a likeable character.
March 15th
— The Mummy (1999), 124 min.
Directed and written by Stephen Sommers.
Starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Kevin J. O’Connor, Jonathan Hyde, and Oded Fehr.
Released in the United States on May 7, 1999.
Could only watch the first 15 minutes of it (and I’ve never seen it before — someone in my neighborhood has a bumper sticker along the lines of “would rather be watching the 1999 masterpiece The Mummy,” which I assumed was meant in jest). Perhaps I was horrified by the domino chain of bookshelves tumbling …
In truth, I have always hated Brendan Fraser. Yeah, I know, The Whale, which I also have not seen.
— The Hit (1984), 98 min.
Directed by Stephen Frears; written by Peter Prince.
Starring John Hurt, Tim Roth, Terence Stamp, Freddie Stuart, and Laura del Sol.
Released in the United Kingdom on September 12, 1984.
Perhaps I like this film so much because Parker (Stamp) is one that appeals to me, a person who’s become a book lover, gained a philosophical appreciation for death (like Socrates), or so most of the film would make it seem.
I do wonder what it means that Parker becomes so upset when his killers decide to kill him at the border and not in Paris. Then his air is disrupted and he seems to fear death, all because what he thought he had known was no longer true.
March 16th
— Boogie Nights (1997), 155 min.
Directed and written by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, Heather Graham, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Luis Guzmán, and William H. Macy.
Released in the United States on October 31, 1997.
Only watched the first half, up to the New Year’s Eve party, after Freddy has show Dirk his car but before Little John kills his wife and self.
This first part of the film is so hilarious and seemingly harmless …
“Brock Landers” and “Chest Rockwell”!
“Let’s get some of that Saturday night beaver!”
— Finished Devil in a Blue Dress
March 18th
— Lem, Solaris, 20 pp.
The history of Solaris is both fascinating and dreadful.
— Robert Aickman, “The School Friend” in Dark Entries
March 19th
— N+1 on Adams mayoral term, Dick Cheney
— Boogie Nights (1997), 155 min.
Watched the second half.
Two things:
(1) There is not a single poor, undeveloped characters in this entire film. Even Scotty (Philip Seymour Hoffman), though having less than 5 minutes of substantial screen time, is a full, sympathetic character. Rahad Jackson (Alfred Molina) is brilliant!
(2) One thing that concerns me is the use of music throughout the film.
Hollywood films are famous for exposition by montage with a single popular song. Because of the era that this film represents, particularly Southern California during the late 1970s and early 80s, the danger is the greatest we’ve seen since the 1991 Oliver Stone biopic The Doors.
To Anderson’s credit, however, I can only think of a single montage in the film, lasting nearly 20 seconds, of Thomas Jane’s character repeatedly entering Dirk’s house after scoring coke.
While there are other sequences scored by a song — like the one at the pool party near the beginning scored by Eric Burden’s goofy, “Spill The Wine” ending in an unnamed girl jumping into the pool and swimming — Anderson doesn’t let the music do the emotional and/or diegetic work.
A closer resemblance would be to the films of Robert Altman, except that when Altman does this it’s to the effect of exposing diverse characters in completely different orbits. Whereas Anderson’s effect is synergetic: these characters are completely wrapped within the same world.
March 20th
— Heat (1995), 170 min.
Directed and written by Michael Mann.
Starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, and Ted Levine.
Premiere on December 6th, 1995; general theatrical release in the United States on December 15, 1995.
Watched this with M in part because it was on a list of feminist films that I’d compiled from online … I was already dubious of this description. But the female characters are real, three-dimensional — particularly Ashley Judd’s character.
March 21st
— WALL·E (2008), 98 min.
Directed by Andrew Stanton; written by Stanton and Jim Reardon.
Starring Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver, and MacInTalk.
Premiere in Los Angeles on June 21, 2008.
What in the fuck is this movie about? Seriously, I know not. I thought M would like it (and she did), and I fantasize about a robot in the future that will clean up after the mess we’ve created … which it seems clear to me now is a funny kind of misprision. Nature doesn’t need us to provide a helping hand.
March 22nd
— Peter Molnar, Plate Tectonics: A Very Short Introduction, 15 pp.
March 23rd
— Aickman, “Ringing the Changes” in Dark Entries
— The Shooting (1966), 82 min.
Directed by Monte Hellman; written by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce).
Starring Warren Oates, Will Hutchins, Millie Perkins, and Jack Nicholson.
First shown at the Pesaro Film Festival in Italy on June 22, 1966. No general theatrical release in the United States.
Watched in part because of the reference in this Guardian article on Heat as Lanre Bakare’s feel good movie, as the inspo (inspiration) for the final LAX scene … yeah, I guess that’s true … not sure that I would ever draw that conclusion. Especially given that the final shootout is not nearly as protracted as that of Heat and there is no change of light to dark in the airport landing lights (in The Shooting).
Hellman, the director, is known primarily for Two-Lane Blacktop, which I confess to not having seen before.
At least one commentator doesn’t want to get “Sartred” on The Shooting. Eh. Yeah, perhaps … not sure if I’d say so.
March 25th
— My Cousin Vinny (1992), 120 min.
Directed by Jonathan Lynn; written by Dale Launer.
Starring Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio, Mitchell Whitfield, Fred Gwynne, and Lane Smith.
Released in the United States on March 13, 1992. Marisa Tomei won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
Practically all of the first part of the film is spent presenting Vinny Gambini (Pesci) as a fool, completely incompetent, so as to set up the end of the film. In fact, so much so that it’s kind of boring.
My Cousin Vinny as a Time Capsule
It’s worth remarking how different human life was in 1992, when this film was set.
The “youts” played by Ralph Macchio and Stan Rothenstein are driving through the South on their way to the West Coast where they will be starting graduate school at UCLA. They have no maps on their phones and are merely driving to see what they can see.
They are not driving on major highways to get where they are going.
The characters do not spend time staring at their phones to keep in touch with friends and relatives. In fact, most of the time they are not even watching TV.
When Vinny and Mona Lisa arrive, she is taking photographs (Chekhov’s gun) but she will have to have the film developed (she’s actually using a “disc camera“, which is actually a subpar negative quality — 8 mm as opposed to the more familiar 35 mm) before she can see the results of her “snaps.”
March 26th
— Moonfall (2022), 130 min.
Directed and written by Roland Emmerich.
Starring Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, Michael Peña, and Donald Sutherland.
Released in the United States on February 4, 2022.
Middle 45 minutes, mostly without the sound. Boy was this dumb.
Roland Emmerich is known for, among other things, having directed 2012 (2009) and The Day After Tomorrow (1994) and Independence Day (1996). Of these, the only one worth watching is probably The Day After Tomorrow. I have never actually watched Independence Day — probably the biggest hit of these three — in its entirety. It’s just too dumb. Whereas, I found The Day After Tomorrow at least vaguely scientifically interesting.
— Plate Tectonics, 10 pp.
The history of the seafloor, how it develops at a uniform rate, so we understand.
— My Cousin Vinny (1992)
Watched the last half hour with M. She hadn’t been able to watch it the night before but is also a lover of Marisa Tomei’s performance.
— Kevin T. Baker, “AI Got the blame of the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying” The Guardian, 26 Mar 2026.
This is a really good read, deservedly a long read. I found the “Laotian truck eaters” part pretty funny.
Despite this, the section on the Laotian truck eaters reminded me of this moment in the late 00s — after the United States was ensconced wholly fecklessly in Iraq — about the human toll of the war there. Some statisticians had conducted a survey-based study and found an enormous toll of human lives lost, more than a million.
I remember this especially because I was a grad student teaching Intro to Philosophy and could not keep my mouth shut about this in one class meeting. The students doubted the numbers provided and I remember saying, sure, what if they are off my 50%? Now we are only discussing half a million
- Fuck Peter Thiel and Palantir. Rene Girard must be pretty sad to have wasted time with that fucking asshole.
- Being that my occupation and career — up until now — has been in reporting and continually addressing numbers and their changes, the passage below stood out to me. I would be willing to bet that the author extends his critique far beyond the instrumentality numbers serve for organizations.
- Assholes like the current Secretary of Defense and his boss take refuge in the abstract meaninglessness of numbers to conduct themselves and fortify their self-righteousness.
March 27th
— Ride in the Whirlwind (1966), 82 min.
Directed by Monte Hellman; written by Jack Nicholson.
Starring Cameron Mitchell, Millie Perkins, Jack Nicholson, and Katherine Squire.
First shown at the Vancouver Film International Film Festival on September 14, 1966. Received no general theatrical release.
And honestly, didn’t really deserve one. Although it does show a cowboy peeing for the first time on screen — at least the first one I noticed — and is more attentive to the characters’ motivations and confusions, it doesn’t really develop.
When I write that it “doesn’t really develop,” I’m aware of the fact that I am judging this film according to certain standards for a film, perhaps especially shaped by the films that I have seen more recently and their narrative structure and “development.”
I even stopped the movie nearly an hour into it and asked myself, do I want to watch the rest of it?
So why did you watch Ride in the Whirlwind?
I watched it in part because it was one of two films included in the Criterion Collection DVD, both of which were films by Monte Hellman and Jack Nicholson. The other was The Shooting. I borrowed this movie from the Free Library of Philadelphia.
But the other reason I watched it is because on a deeper level I am suspicious of the kinds of instincts that would conclude, “this is boring, let’s turn it off!”
Of course, there’s something to be said for the value of my time and the fact that this viewing may have only detracted from it.
But I am suspicious of that judgment as well.
March 28th
— Intolerable Cruelty (2003), 100 min.
Directed by Joel Coen; written by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen.
Starring George Clooney, Catherine Zeta‑Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Edward Herrmann, and Richard Jenkins.
First shown at the Venice Film Festival in September 3, 2003; it was released theatrically in the United States on October 10, 2003.
— The Planets (2019), “Jupiter”
Directed by Stephen Cooter.
Starring Zachary Quinto (narrator), Fran Bagenal, Konstantin Batygin, and others.
Aired on PBS / NOVA on July 31, 2019.
March 29th
— “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”, 15 pp.
— James Acaster: Hecklers Welcome (2024), 81 min.
Directed by Stuart Laws; written by James Acaster.
Starring James Acaster.
Released on HBO in the United States on November 23, 2024.
As usual, this is M’s thing. I’m sort of indifferent to standup comedy, for reasons I do not know. I had a student in NY whose brother owned a comedy club and he was always trying to get me to come, but I never did … stupid me.
