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- Review: Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story (2025)
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- “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.” — Archie Leach
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- Leena Myller on “It wasn’t there, and then it was there.” David Lynch on Elvis
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Tag Archives: Poland
NYFCC 2022 Awards
If you’ve been reading entertainment news then you already know: Yesterday, all the members of the NYFCC met up at Lincoln Center to vote on this year’s awards. It was so good to see people – friends I rarely get … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged animation, Cate Blanchett, China, documentary, drama, India, Iran, Iranian film, Ireland, Poland, Scotland, South Korea, women directors
4 Comments
November 2022 Viewing Diary
Something in the Dirt (2022; d. Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson) I really liked this. If you like losing yourself in conspiracy theories – without being, like, a QAnon-type ready to shoot up a pizza parlor – then this is super … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Alan Ladd, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Cate Blanchett, Claude Rains, crime movies, D.H. Lawrence, documentary, drama, England, film noir, France, historical drama, horror, Iran, Iranian film, Isabelle Huppert, Jafar Panahi, Joanna Hogg, Joe Berlinger, John Garfield, Nina Hoss, Poland, Ralph Macchio, Russia, sci-fi, South Korea, Steven Spielberg, Tilda Swinton, true crime, women directors
3 Comments
On This Day: September 1, 1939
From Newsweek: Scenes from the invasion of Poland From MSN: Friends, foes, mark WWII’s start in Poland Hitler’s speech on Sept. 1, 1939, from Berlin: To the defense forces: The Polish nation refused my efforts for a peaceful regulation of … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
Tagged Germany, Hitler, Poland, Victor Klemperer, W.H. Auden, war, William Shirer, WWII
12 Comments
2021 Books Read
I lived at three addresses this year. I moved twice. In the middle of a pandemic. It’s been a year of upheaval, transition, as well as endurance. For most of this year, the majority of my stuff was in storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, Balkans, Billy Wilder, Biography, books read, Cary Grant, Croatia, Czeslaw Milosz, David McCullough, Dubravka Ugrešić, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, essays, Eve Babitz, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Germany, Hitler, Howard Hawks, Ireland, Italy, Liz Phair, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, Sweden, Thomas Mann, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
1 Comment
October 2021 Viewing Diary
I really didn’t watch all that much, numerically, during October, for various reasons. 1. I was on the move. I think I spent, all told, about 7 days at home over the course of the month. Including one unexpected stay … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged comedy, documentary, drama, England, Joanna Hogg, Memphis, Peter Bogdanovich, Poland, screwball comedy, short films, thrillers, Wes Anderson
5 Comments
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
It’s been a while. Been a very busy summer. Family vacation as we do every year. Reunions with family after the lockdown. Tears when hugging aunts and uncles. New job, new digs, lots of change. Lots of writing too! Less … Continue reading
Posted in Books, writers
Tagged Biography, Cary Grant, Czeslaw Milosz, Eve Babitz, fiction, Ireland, Memoirs, Poland, politics, Stalin, stuff I've been reading, war
2 Comments
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
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2020, Part 2
Here’s part 1, a list of things I’ve written for other outlets. This list, then, is a hodge-podge of the things I’ve written here this year. Anyone familiar with this joint knows that I do tribute posts for people’s birthdays. … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Movies, Music, Personal, writers
Tagged A. E. Housman, Alexander Pope, Andrew Marvell, Anna Karina, Anne Spencer, Austin Clarke, Ballets Russes, baseball, Basil Bunting, dance, Eminem, England, France, Frances Farmer, friends, Harlem Renaissance, Hediyeh Tehrani, Hope, Iranian film, Irish poetry, John Donne, Melvin B. Tolson, Nick Tosches, Nijinsky, Philip Larkin, poetry, Poland, Rhode Island, Robert Frost, Romania, Scott Walker, Stanley Kubrick, women directors, year in writing
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June 2020 Viewing Diary
Deadwind (2018; d. Rike Jokela) A Finnish crime drama television series on Netflix I got sucked into. I’ve been doing mostly binge-watching these days. Having a hard time absorbing movies, I’m not sure what’s going on. I am grateful for … Continue reading