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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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- 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)
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Tag Archives: Patricia Neal
February 2019 Viewing Diary
St. Agatha (2019; d. Darren Lynn Bousman) I reviewed this nunsploitation horror film which I resisted at first for some reason, but then I got into the spirit of it. It’s fun. It’s what it needs to be. It also … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Badlands, Cuba, documentary, Elia Kazan, Gaspar Noe, Hungary, Ireland, Jared Padalecki, Joaquin Phoenix, Meryl Streep, Patricia Neal, Paul Thomas Anderson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Poland, Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Steven Spielberg, Supernatural, Terrence Malick, Tom Hanks, women directors
8 Comments
For Film Comment: Reviews of The Night Digger (1971) and Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
I had so much fun watching, researching, and writing up these two (somewhat) little-known films, The Night Digger (1971), starring Patricia Neal (adaptation by her husband Roald Dahl: her second role post-stroke), and Alice, Sweet Alice, a bonkers religious-horror movie … Continue reading
November 2016 Viewing Diary
Elle (2016; d. Paul Verhoeven) I loved it. People HATE this movie. One lady on Twitter said that men should be banned from making films about rape. How you would enforce such a rule is beyond me. Also: No fucking … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Agnes Varda, China, Citizen Kane, Claudette Colbert, documentary, England, France, Gary Cooper, Golshifteh Farahani, Hong Kong, Isabelle Huppert, Jim Jarmusch, Mia Hansen-Løve, Orson Welles, Patricia Neal, Paul Verhoeven, Sophia Takal, South Korea, Supernatural
9 Comments
R.I.P., Patricia Neal
Actress Patricia Neal has died. Life is unfair. That’s one of the things I got from Patricia Neal’s autobiography,published in 1988. Neal’s life was full of unfair events (as I suppose all of us experience from time to time). But … Continue reading
Some Island snapshots
— “I cannot imagine how a casual reference to Suetonius and Petronius Arbiter can be construed into evidence of a desire to impress by an assumption of superior knowledge. I should fancy that the most ordinary of scholars is perfectly … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Andrei Tarkovsky, Block Island, Christopher Walken, Deborah Kerr, E.E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Evelyn Waugh, Frank Capra, Gary Cooper, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hope, In a Lonely Place, Keri Hulme, Oscar Wilde, Patricia Neal, snapshots, T.S. Eliot, The Bone People
10 Comments
The Books: “As I Am: An Autobiography” (Patricia Neal)
Daily Book Excerpt: Entertainment Biography/Memoir: As I Am: An Autobiography, by Patricia Neal This is one of those rare books where my response to it was, “Dear God, it’s me, Sheila. Could you please give Patricia Neal a break? Hasn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books
Tagged entertainment biography, Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Paul Newman, Roald Dahl
9 Comments
Culture Snapshots
— I’m reading A Widow for One Year by John Irving and also The Fortune of War by Patrick O’Brian. Awesome counterpoint. Both superb writers in their own way. — Thank you, dear Siobhan, for introducing me to the amazing … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged family, Gary Cooper, John Irving, Master & Commander, Patricia Neal, Patrick O'Brian, snapshots
16 Comments

