Tag Archives: Iran

“Fear adjective; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.” — poet Basil Bunting

It’s his birthday today. By all accounts, including his own, Basil Bunting was some kind of genius prodigy. Along with everything else, he was also Iran correspondent for the London Times for a bit, and was very interested in Persia … Continue reading

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January 2020 Viewing Diary

Hell Is for Heroes (1962; d. Don Siegel) A spare lean and mean war movie – pretty standard, actually – except Steve McQueen is actually presenting a character study here, a character he probably knows something about. He is eerie … Continue reading

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Present Tense: on Daughters of the Sun (2000)

I wrote about Maryam Shahriar’s 2000 film Daughters of the Sun for my next Present Tense column on Film Comment.

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2019 Books Read

It’s been such a busy year for me as a writer. The busiest. I’ve had to “make time” for reading stuff that has nothing to do with anything writing-wise. I need to read for pleasure. Many of the books I … Continue reading

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More 2018 Movies to See

So all this Top 10 stuff gets a little bit too competitive for me sometimes. There can’t be a “winner” anyway, in art. It doesn’t work like that. This has been a really good year and I’ve seen a lot … Continue reading

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November 2018 Viewing Diary

Mr. Soul! (2018; d. Melissa Haizlip) The opening night film of Indie Memphis, which already feels like it was 20 years ago. I wrote about it briefly in my recap of the festival for Ebert. It’s a gorgeous film. Supernatural, … Continue reading

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March 2018 Viewing Diary

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 14 “Good Intentions” (2018; d. P.J. Pesce) Probably not a good sign that I can’t remember anything about this episode. Queer Eye (2018) My friend Mitchell has been raving about the new version of Queer Eye … Continue reading

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February 2018 Viewing Diary

Supernatural, Season 13, episode 12 “Various & Sundry Villains” (2018; d. Amanda Tapping) I was happy to see that the series showed at least passing interest in the inner life of one of its lead characters. Six Feet Under, season … Continue reading

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Bookshelf Tour #8

Welcome to the Tyranny section of my bookshelves. First up: Collapse of Communism by the correspondents of The New York Times. A really interesting in-real-time book about the various gigantic events which signaled the crackup of the Soviet Union, as … Continue reading

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May 2017 Viewing Diary

Chuck (2017; d. Philippe Falardeau) A movie about the “real life Rocky,” the “bleeder from Bayonne” Chuck Wepner, starring Liev Schreiber. My review for Ebert. Take Me (2017; d. Pat Healy) God, I loved this movie. Please seek it out. … Continue reading

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