Day two of the big revise. Worked for four hours. Did pilates (yes, you heard that right). Did more work. Went to a late afternoon movie about a woman who goes off her Lithium. No idea why that would speak to me. I’ve never plugged a movie in all these years of posting, but I urge you see Empire of Light. I was so deeply pulled in. So moved. Olivia Colman is my spirit animal.
Got any movie recs?
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Betsy Lerner 
I recommend “Hard to be a God,” a Russian film that explores what happens to writers and intellectuals in a totalitarian regime intent on maintaining the status quo. The film makes the benign-neglect plight of American writers, feeling victimized by uninterested publishers and agents, and exploited by parasitic free-lance “editors”, seem quite comfortable. In the film, set on another planet in an age like our early medieval years, two soldiers drop a poet head first down into a narrow outhouse pit. I think that the film puts into perspective our ability to write what we want, and others’ ability to ignore our writing, without murdering the writers (just roughing up their hopes and dreams). The film is visually fascinating. You have never seen a set or cast like it, and are unlikely to forget it. Recommended.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
Amazing cast. Looks wonderful. Thanks!
I still love Good Will Hunting. Robin Williams blows me away every time I see it.
“Got any movie recs?”
None for current flicks. I’m working my way through the Sharpe series, though I’ve seen most of it before. Costume drama, Napoleonic Wars, battle scenes, snooty and treacherous rich folk — it’s an acquired taste.
My son, who is staunchly approaching middle age, set out a couple years ago on a life-project of watching some 2,000+ movies, chronologically, hundreds of which he has now watched. He and I discuss movies every couple of weeks, as he renders himself into a lay expert and I wax nostalgic. He maintains that “Blazing Saddles” was the funniest movie ever made. He DM’d me the other day and said, “Dad. Barry Lyndon. Why has no one ever told me about Barry Lyndon? It’s brilliant!” So you see, he’s up to the mid-70’s now.
One that I saw last spring, a film that was brutal and devastating, was Tarkovsky’s “Ivan’s Childhood.” It will tear your heart out. A pleasant afternoon at the matinee? Sorry, can’t help you.
I haven’t seen too many good movies lately, mostly what’s on TCM, to be honest. I like some of the old ones, more watching certain actresses and actors rather than the movie they were in — Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Bogart, Ingrid Bergman. For pure sensuality, check out the “nude” swimming scene in Tarzan(my wife said, wait, they’re in the jungle; why is there no pubic hair?) or the match for match strokes of the Creature from the Black Lagoon swimming beneath his obsession. Watched “Something Wild” recently and it was incredible the way the movie shifted when Ray Liotta entered the picture. Oh, and if you really don’t want to think, there’s always Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. I was watching it one night and told my daughter how funny it was. She just looked at me and said, Dad, that’s stoner humor. Well, yeah…
I loved Dune. Beautiful to look at, wonderful score, Timothee Chalamet and Oscar Isaac…
Olivia Colman just slayed me in Tyrannosaur (2011). Rough watch but she is spellbinding, as always.
Please Stand By
The Last Word
I’ll See You in my Dreams
Chef