Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- 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
Recent Comments
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on March 2026 Snapshots
- sheila on “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
- Jessie on March 2026 Snapshots
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Maddy on “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
- sheila on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Joseph Pedulla on Susan Hayward Sleeps Raw
- sheila on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- P Nickel on “The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.” — Jean Toomer
- Melissa Sutherland on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- Bryce on The Books: “Nine Stories”- ‘The Laughing Man’ (J.D. Salinger)
-
Tag Archives: Robert Altman
For Arrow Films: An essay on Robert Altman’s Gosford Park
What a treat this project was! Another DVD booklet for Arrow Films in the UK (my first was an essay on the under-talked-about masterpiece Another Woman included in a Woody Allen boxset): I wrote the booklet essay for their DVD … Continue reading
2017 Books Read
I got into a good rhythm with reading this year. I did a lot of re-reading, going back to books I haven’t read in 20 years or whatever. It was fun, like a reunion with an old friend. Much of … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged 1984, A.S. Byatt, Bette Davis, books read, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Edgar Allan Poe, England, France, George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Herman Melville, Hitler, Ireland, Jack London, Janet Malcolm, Jean Renoir, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Crawford, Joan Didion, John Milton, Kim Stanley, Mark Danielewski, Mary Astor, Mary Gaitskill, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Altman, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, S.E. Hinton, Shirley Jackson, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, The Great Terror, war
4 Comments
November 2017 Viewing Diary
This viewing diary may be tough going for those of you who are not Supernatural fans. But there’s a lot more mixed in there that is not that damn show. I was on a viewing tear, in general, to get … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Afghanistan, Agnes Varda, Cate Blanchett, Dennis Hopper, documentary, England, France, Isabelle Huppert, Israel, Joachim Trier, Joan Didion, Kentucker Audley, Kristen Stewart, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Altman, Russia, Sebastián Lelio, Steven Spielberg, Supernatural, Terrence Malick, Tiffany Haddish, women directors
29 Comments
September 2017 Viewing Diary
Nightcrawler (2014; d. Dan Gilroy) Such a good film. I wrote about it here. Rancho Notorious (1952; d. Fritz Lang) Marlene Dietrich rules. I totally buy her as that ranch owner. It makes no sense but she makes it make … Continue reading
How To Make a Scene Happen: Bruce Davison in Short Cuts
Mitchell said to me once, “Bruce Davison is so good at making a scene happen. He is one of those actors who just knows what needs to take place in order for the scene itself to happen.” The best acting … Continue reading
Things I Love About Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs Miller
1. The & in the title. This is a business partnership. 2. The fact that when she is alone in her room at the whorehouse, she is always reading. It’s just such a nice unexpected detail. I was dying to … Continue reading
“I was a director for hire. I needed the job.”
Joe Valdez has another movie review up – and this time it’s about one of my favorites: Robert Altman’s The Player. I did not know that Sidney Lumet was originally attached as a director, and that Robert Altman did the … Continue reading
“Bruuuuce Williiiiiis …” Dean Stockwell in The Player
I love Stockwell’s frenetic cameo in The Player. He and Richard Grant play a pair of writers who have a brilliant mind-blowing idea for a film and are desperate to get it made. They buttonhole poor Griffin Mill at a … Continue reading