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- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
- “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
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- Bryce on The Books: “Nine Stories”- ‘The Laughing Man’ (J.D. Salinger)
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Tag Archives: New Zealand
March 2016 Viewing Diary
Supernatural, Season 2, Episode 20: “What Is and What Should Never Be” (2007; d. Eric Kripke) My 300-page re-cap here. At Any Price (2012; d. Ramin Bahrani) Inspired by the recent conversation Mitchell and I had about Zac Efron (Part … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Brad Pitt, Charles Beeson, David Lynch, England, Eric Kripke, France, Fritz Lang, Harriet Andersson, Ingmar Bergman, Ingrid Thulin, Ireland, Jensen Ackles, Jeremy Carver, Kim Manners, Liv Ullmann, Martin Scorsese, New Zealand, Ramin Bahrani, Richard Linklater, Ridley Scott, Robert Singer, Supernatural, Sweden, Thomas J. Wright, X-Files, Zac Efron
53 Comments
Review: The Dark Horse (2016)
I really loved this movie about real-life Maori chess-phenom Genesis Potini. He was also bipolar. Chess was his only focus, the only thing that helped him organize his illness and his lufe. He devoted his life (he died in 2011) … Continue reading
Review: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014); directed by Peter Jackson
Mixed feelings. Thought “Unexpected Journey” was an unnecessarily elongated prologue, loved “Desolation of Smaug” (review here), and the final installment feels like a long-drawn-out closing paragraph. Should have been done in one film. Could have been done in one film. … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged fantasy movies, J.R.R. Tolkien, New Zealand, reviews, The Hobbit
42 Comments
Review: Housebound (2014)
The poster kind of captures the mood of Housebound, a horror film by Gerard Johnstone (his debut as a director and a writer). It’s a horror film, it’s also hilarious. I liked it a lot. Not easy to pull of … Continue reading
Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
I thought the first installment was embarrassing and bad. Good news, though: the second one is pretty great! Still too goddamn long, Jackson, Jesus Mary and Joseph, but the real work that needs to be done is done here and … Continue reading

