Oct. 29th - Nov. 1st
— Sherlock (2010–2017), Season 1, Episode 1 “A Study in Pink,” aired July 25, 2010 on BBC One.
Directed by Paul McGuigan; written by Steven Moffat.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Rupert Graves, Una Stubbs, Vinette Robinson, and Mark Gatiss.
— Sherlock, Season 1, Episode 2 “The Blind Banker,” aired August 1, 2010.
Directed by Euros Lyn; written by Stephen Thompson.
— Sherlock, Season 1, Episode 3 “The Great Game,” aired August 8, 2010.
Directed by Paul McGuigan; written by Mark Gatiss (who plays Mycroft!).
— Sherlock, Season 2, Episode 1 “A Scandal in Belgravia,” aired January 1, 2012.
Directed by Paul McGuigan; written by Steven Moffat.
— Sherlock, Season 2, Episode 2 “The Hounds of Baskerville,” aired January 8. Directed by Paul McGuigan; written by Mark Gatiss.
— Sherlock, Season 2, Episode 3 “The Reichenbach Fall,” aired January 15.
Directed by Toby Haynes; written by Stephen Thompson.
What explains the popularity of this television program, breathing life into a series of short stories first published in 1887? Very very different times. What’s more, most of the names and ideas are still stuck very much in the 19th century.
Have you ever heard of Belgravia before? Really? Where is Belgravia?
Of course, there is some laugh in the fact that the show depends for its popularity on a BLOG. OMG. Is it still the 2000s? Do people still talk about grunge? Undoubtedly Watson should have a Substack by now. Gotta monetize!
November 2nd
— Jed Perl, “Impassioned Ferocity“, New York Review of Books, Nov. 6, 2025
I’ve read many, many essays in the NYRB — having been a reader for at least 15 years — and it’s been a significant influence on my thinking. Particularly as I am lacking exchange with like-minded others and the intellectual atmosphere in which some of these questions would otherwise arise (or so I like to imagine).
This essay was salient because it spoketo what I do on this website. And I often wonder what it is that I do and why do I do it. Should I keep doing it.
On the most basic level it’s an exercise and I engage in it for that reason, just as I ride. Consuming all of these productions and not pausing to tease out the details and give them some further attention. That feels like a life lived asleep. Writing is the way that I stop myself and address this thing before me.
November 7th
Searching for original film posters for this film is entertaining, not least because of the different versions of the poster created by different countries. But it’s also striking the image that was chosen for this film: an incredibly homo-erotic portrait, albeit with a gun. The glistening skin on a clearly well crafted pectoral region.
— Adrian Johnson, Science of Reading, 10 pp.
— The Terminator (1984)
Directed by James Cameron; written by James Cameron.
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield, and Earl Boen.
Released in the United States on October 26, 1984.
November 8th
— Black Angel (1946)
Directed by Roy William Neill; written by Jonathan Latimer and Steve Fisher.
Starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Fay Helm, and Barbara Bedford.
Released in the United States on November 20, 1946.
Duryea actually plays a relatively decent guy … okay, he’s an insatiable drunk that appears to be redeemed by a widow (June Vincent) seeking revenge on the man who killed her husband. But he’s a musician and talented and cleans himself up when he’s with her. But it turns out that he killed the husband.
— Venom (2018)
Directed by Ruben Fleischer; written by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel.
Starring Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, and Reid Scott.
Released in the United States on October 5, 2018.
Why did I want to watch this again?
— Mandy (2018), first 20 minutes
Directed by Panos Cosmatos; written by Panos Cosmatos.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache, Ned Dennehy, and Olwen Fouéré.
Released in the United States on September 14, 2018.
I’ve been wanting to see this film for a while. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be disappointing and the first 20 minutes didn’t assuage those intuitions. Stupid dialogue between the title character (Riseborough) and her husband, played by Cage, who’s (you probably didn’t see this coming) going to go apeshit when she gets kidnapped. I think they were discussing their favorite planets?
It strikes me now, if there is a God that smites people like myself for watching bad movies, this same god must have an outstanding punishment prepared for people who write poor dialogue.
All I know of it is the trailer, and, now, the first 20 minutes and the description from Wikipedia.
The trailer makes it seem very, very dark — not at all the kind of movie in which two characters could discuss their favorite planets.
Instead, they say things like, “Did you get the newest album by Deathstrike?” and “Let’s eat some chitlins for din-din!” in very deep deep voices that sound like could be the voices of singers in death metal bands.
So why? I like that it is set in the 1980s, that the antagonist is brewing his own acid, that he’s got a sort of cult of followers, that there is a lot of red light in black environs. That the antagonist falls for Mandy and cannot do without her, just as the protagonist (apeshit Cage) cannot. A mirrored romantic resolution leading two souls to mutual destruction. And of course the sacrificial Mandy.
To be clear, I am not making light of the role that women play in films in which their violent deaths are the spectacle providing the emotional energy to set the plot in motion.
Yet I am clearly consenting to it in some respect … ugh.
The cinematography is enchanting, you have to admit.
November 9th
— Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Directed by Taika Waititi; written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, and Christopher L. Yost.
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Hopkins.
Released in the United States on November 3, 2017.
M likes this because she loves Taiki Waititi (and with good reason). There are undoubtedly marks of his direction in it (it bears self-consciousness!!!! The first time for a Marvel movie!). But it did make me think at least once, how much longer is this?
November 10th
— Take the Money and Run (1969)
Directed by Woody Allen; written by Woody Allen and Mickey Rose.
Starring Woody Allen, Janet Margolin, Marcel Hillaire, Jacquelyn Hyde, and Lonny Chapman.
Released in the United States on August 18, 1969.
Early Woody Allen film. His best gag is playing the cello in a marching band, undoubtedly.
November 11th
— Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Directed by James Cameron; written by James Cameron and William Wisher Jr..
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, and Earl Boen.
Released in the United States on July 3, 1991.
Part of an uncivil education for my progeny.
November 14th
— Kill! (1968)
Directed by Kihachi Okamoto; screenplay by Akira Murao and Kihachi Okamoto, based on the novel Peaceful Days by Shūgorō Yamamoto.
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Etsushi Takahashi, Akira Kubo, Shin Kishida, and Yoshio Tsuchiya.
Released in Japan on June 15, 1968.
Despite the title, this is actually an interesting film. Nakadai plays a lazy, errant samurai offering occasional wisdom to younger, less wise ones involved in a political intrigue.
The poster is misleading, shockingly.
Part of the Criterion Channel’s “Starring Tatsuya Nakadai” retrospective, appearing directly after his death on November 8th.
November 16th
— Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), first 30 minutes
Directed by Taika Waititi; screenplay by Taika Waititi, based on the novel Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump.
Starring Julian Dennison, Sam Neill, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley, and Rhys Darby.
Premiered at Sundance on January 22, 2016; released in New Zealand on March 31, 2016.
— Tokyo Story (1953), first hour
Directed by Yasujirō Ozu; written by Kogo Noda and Yasujirō Ozu.
Starring Chishū Ryū, Setsuko Hara, Haruko Sugimura, Sō Yamamura, and Kyōko Kagawa.
Released in Japan on November 3, 1953.
M got tired …
This film was brought to my attention by M, whose a huge fan of Taika Waititi, particularly because of the film What We Do In the Shadows (2014). As you may recall, I have a certain antipathy towards vampire movies, so generally I avoid this stuff.
To my detriment!
Of course, I sometimes wonder if I would be able to appreciate the humor of What We Do without her. I suppose there’s nothing surprising about that. Try reading Spinoza and sensing his irritability and belittling (the introduction to the TTP). Sometimes it slips by you, unless you have a good reader with you.
But Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a genuinely charming film, following a sort of mysterious, ne’er-do-well teenager (given to kicking things, graffitti, breaking things, spitting, etc.) and his “uncle” played by Sam Neill.
The latter has stood out more and more since having seen this. Made me wonder how many other things I’ve overlooked that he’s been in. Of course, I primarily associate him with the Jurassic Park film
November 18th-21st
Once upon a time, this record equally included literary as well as cinematic experiences …
— Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier, Chap 1
Purchased this at the Title Page (very possibly one of the best things in Villanova, PA). A quaint little bookstore run by an incredibly quaint older couple.
The title The Good Soldier was haphazard, as I recall, but undoubtedly false. It should have been called, The Bad Narrator, or The Letch that Stole My Wife and Mystified Me.
Despite my glib comments, it is actually a psychologically interesting novel. The narrator is definitely bad, albeit bad in a fascinating way. He’s the consummate cuckcold, I guess, except without the profound misogyny that normally follows that realization.
— Finished Adrian Johns, The Science of Reading
Since I’ve been reading The Science of Reading for months now, I should have more than a little to say about it.
I read through it slowly, in part, because it is a very dense read. There is a lot going on. Repeated introduction of new figures and the work that they did, but all following on the work of Cattell, to some degree.
But I also think I read it slowly because I was unclear what progress the science was making.
In the end I seemed to feel like there was no science of reading actually established. No conclusions have been reached even about the most basic principles, such as the best way to teach people to read. Instead there continue to be debates, but nothing resembling consensus.
Can you have a science without having at least some consensus defining inquiry?
November 18th
— Sword of Doom (1966), 1 hour
Directed by Kihachi Okamoto; screenplay by Shinobu Hashimoto, based on the novel Dai-bosatsu Tōge by Kaizan Nakazato.
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Toshiro Mifune, Yūzō Kayama, and Michiyo Aratama.
Released in Japan in 1966 (international release followed shortly thereafter).
Introducing M to one of my favorite films. She was generally befuddled.
— 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 1962/1963.
You know, I do not think I’d actually watched this before, even though it follows up from Yojimbo, and I’d seen that decades ago …
— A Fish Called Wanda (1988), first 90 minutes
Directed by Charles Crichton; screenplay written by John Cleese and Crichton.
Starring Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Tom Georgeson, Maria Aitken, and Denholm Elliott.
Released in the United States on July 15, 1988.
I do not remember Denholm Elliott in this at all.
— Finished Parts 1 & 2 of The Good Soldier
— The Residence (2025)
Created by Paul William Davies.
Starring Uzo Aduba, Giancarlo Esposito, Randall Park, Susan Kelechi Watson, Molly Griggs, Ken Marino, Edwina Findley, Jason Lee, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Bronson Pinchot, Mary Wiseman, and Julieth Restrepo.
Episode 1, “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Directed by Liza Johnson; written by Paul William Davies.
Episode 2, “Dial M for Murder”
Directed by Liza Johnson; written by Paul William Davies.
Because you didn’t watch a Netflix series over Thanksgiving?!
No, you’re worse.
November 25-27th
— Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
Watched again with Lucian, who really liked it.
November 22nd
November 28th
— The Residence (2025)
Episode 3, “Knives Out”
Directed by Liza Johnson; written by Paul William Davies.
— Ford, The Good Soldier, 50 pp
November 29th
— The Good Soldier, finished Part 3
— The Night of the Hunter (1955), first 40 minutes
Directed by Charles Laughton; screenplay by James Agee, based on the novel by Davis Grubb.
Starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, Billy Chapin, and Sally Jane Bruce.
Released in the United States on July 26, 1955.
— Ghostbusters (1984), last hour
Directed by Ivan Reitman; screenplay written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.
Starring Bill Murray, Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Ramis, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson, and William Atherton.
Released in the United States on June 8, 1984.
— Captain America: Civil War (2016), last hour
Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo; screenplay written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
Starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, and Elizabeth Olsen.
Released in the United States on April 12, 2016.
