Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
- Review: Come Closer (2025)
- “Even to this day, I watch The Wizard of Oz like I did when I was five years old. I get really involved in it.” — Lynne Ramsay
- “Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.” — Little Richard
- “The ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language.” — Joan Didion
- NYFCC 2025 winners
- A Streetcar Named Desire: That’s What Williams Wrote. Deal With It.
- “Intellect and taste count, but I cut with my feelings.” — legendary editor Dede Allen
- “My aesthetic is that of the sniper on the roof.” — Jean-Luc Godard
- “I have trouble working off things that are too preconceived, like storyboards.” — Terrence Malick
Recent Comments
- mutecypher on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
- Krsten Westergaard on “I thought girls in their teens might like to read [Anne of Green Gables], that was the only audience I hoped to reach.” — L.M. Montgomery
- Gemstone on “Well, if I can’t be happy, I can be useful, perhaps.” — Louisa May Alcott
- Jincy Willett on The Books: “Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles” (Kathleen Turner)
- Son on Boyhood (2014); directed by Richard Linklater
- Matheus on “I’m not the person I was at 28. The passion is still there but the rage mostly isn’t.” — Marshall Mathers
- mutecypher on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- mutecypher on “There’s nothing you can tell me about guilt.” — Martin Scorsese
- sheila on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- Mike Molloy on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- sheila on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- Mike Molloy on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- sheila on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- sheila on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- sheila on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- Lyrie on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- Mike Molloy on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- Lyrie on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Guillermo del Toro: a live event
- Melissa Sutherland on Review: Die My Love (2025)
- Gale on For John Wayne’s Birthday: Hondo (1953) at MoMA: John Wayne in 3D
-
Tag Archives: Czechoslovakia
“If someone spends his life writing the truth without caring for the consequences, he inevitably becomes a political authority in a totalitarian regime.” — Václav Havel
“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” — Václav Havel Václav Havel, whose birthday … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Czechoslovakia, Golshifteh Farahani, Iran, Iranian film, Jafar Panahi, scripts, Shabnam Toloui, Vaclav Havel, war
2 Comments
June 2025 Snapshots
I took a right-hand turn and found myself driving in the Pride parade in the small beach town next to mine. I was on my way somewhere else but could not escape so I just went with it, waving and … Continue reading
Posted in Movies, Personal
Tagged Czechoslovakia, Emily Dickinson, family, Jane Austen, Matthew Arnold, Pride and Prejudice, snapshots
2 Comments
December 2022 Viewing Diary
The Whale (2022; d. Darren Aronofsky) I thought it was appalling, and not for the obvious reasons. His body is viewed as literally a movie monster, with all these horror-movie shots of his gigantic ankles, etc.) It felt tired and … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged action movies, animation, Austria, Brad Pitt, Brian De Palma, Charles Dickens, Christopher Walken, Claude Chabrol, Claudette Colbert, comedy, coming of age, Czechoslovakia, Darren Aronofsky, David Bowie, documentary, drama, England, France, Germany, heist movies, historical drama, Hungary, India, Isabelle Huppert, Kentucker Audley, Natasha Richardson, Paul Schrader, Paul Thomas Anderson, Preston Sturges, Punch-Drunk Love, Russia, Sandrine Bonnaire, screwball comedy, thrillers, Ukraine, war, women directors
3 Comments
Dynamic Duo #37
Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanov, Daisies, 1966 (directed by Věra Chytilová)
2020 Books Read
What a year, huh. What a dumpster-fire year. I read a lot, mostly in the mornings, and it helped create rituals for the days, which often seemed endlessly the same, interchangeable. I read a lot of long and challenging books … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, ballet, Ballets Russes, Belfast, Biography, books read, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, dance, Dubravka Ugrešić, Elinor Lipman, Elizabeth Bishop, Eminem, essays, Ezra Pound, fiction, H.D., Hannah Arendt, Hitler, Ireland, Jane Austen, Jean Arthur, Marcel Proust, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shirley Jackson, Stalin, true crime, Ukraine, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
38 Comments
Recommended Books: Memoirs
More recommendations: Recommended Fiction Recommended Non-Fiction MEMOIRS The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre And The Thirties, by Harold Clurman Probably the most famous of all the Group Theatre-related books. Harold Clurman writes his memories of that time and what those … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Music, writers
Tagged African Queen, Anjelica Huston, Austria, Baby Doll, Benjamin Franklin, Born Standing Up, Bruce Springsteen, Carroll Baker, Charles Grodin, Czechoslovakia, Diane Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Elia Kazan, Ellen Terry, Elvis Presley, Frank McCourt, Ginger Rogers, Goldie Hawn, Group Theatre, Harold Clurman, Ireland, James Salter, Jeanette Winterson, John Strasberg, Katharine Hepburn, Kathleen Turner, Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Lee Strasberg, Marlon Brando, Maud Gonne, Memoirs, Patricia Bosworth, Primo Levi, Robert Evans, Rosalind Russell, Russia, Shane Leslie, Shelley Winters, Shirley MacLaine, Stefan Zweig, Steve Martin, The Kid Stays In the Picture, Victor Serge, WWII
2 Comments
R.I.P., Vaclav Havel
A hero of mine has died. Another great intellectual light has left the planet. R.I.P., Vaclav Havel. Update: Friend (and high school prom date) Trav S.D. has a wonderful reminiscence about Havel and the Havel Festival at the Brick Theatre. … Continue reading
Kolya (1996); Dir. Jan Sverák
Cranky confirmed bachelor gets stuck taking care of a little kid. At first the bachelor is harsh and unfriendly to the kid. The kid puts a cramp in his ladies’ man lifestyle. Bachelor just wants to pawn the kid off … Continue reading