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- “You are not acting so much as being. The result is realism.” — Gary Cooper
- “I started at the top and worked my way down.” — Orson Welles
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: As You Like It
- “Is there any virtue, for literature, for poetry, in the simple continuity of a tradition? I believe there is not.” — Thomas Kinsella
- “I’ve always had everything I wanted, and I never wanted a great deal. ” — Aline MacMahon
- “I was never totally involved in movies. I was making someone else’s dream come true. Not mine.” — Mary Astor
- “Fear and the absence of hatred may go well together.” — Niccolò Machiavelli
- “I only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in funk, and I like to put that to good use.” — James Brown
- “It’s the sexiest toughest chord change in all of rock ‘n roll.” – Steven Van Zandt on “Rumble.” Happy Birthday, Link Wray
- “I still get a chill when I sing, ‘You Don’t Own Me.’ I find some new feeling in it every time.” –Lesley Gore
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Tag Archives: Scotland
“Gie me ae spark o’ nature’s fire / That’s a’ the learning I desire…” — Robert Burns, “the Ploughman Poet” of Scotland
“For my own part I never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once heartily in Love, and then Rhyme and Song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart.” — Robert Burns … Continue reading
2025 Books Read
I ended last year with a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s short stories, declaring I’d read all the plays in 2025. I mean, there were only five, sadly, due to the homophobic violence of his own society. I know these plays … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Austria, books read, Charles Lamb, children's books, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, David Lynch, Dubravka Ugrešić, England, essays, fiction, France, Frankenstein, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hungary, Ireland, Jane Austen, Janet Malcolm, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mark Danielewski, Mary Gaitskill, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Memoirs, nonfiction, Oscar Wilde, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Roald Dahl, Robert Kaplan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Russia, sci-fi, Scotland, scripts, Spain, The Beatles, Twin Peaks, William Shakespeare, Yugoslavia
12 Comments
“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
“When I go to the cinema, I want to have a cinematic experience. Some people ignore the sound and you end up seeing something you might see on television and it doesn’t explore the form. Sound is the other picture. … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Joaquin Phoenix, Lynne Ramsay, Scotland, Tilda Swinton, women directors
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Review: Die My Love (2025)
I reviewed Lynne Ramsay’s latest, Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Here’s what I wrote on Instagram: It hits a niche (perhaps) sweet spot of yours truly: people blather on and on (AND ON) about destigmatizing mental … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged drama, Jennifer Lawrence, Lynne Ramsay, reviews, Scotland, women directors
1 Comment
Finding Elvis Shakespeare in Edinburgh
I’ve been in Scotland for the last 8 days. I haven’t had a ton of free time, but there was kind of an unexpected afternoon off so I decided to go out into the streets of Edinburgh and seek out … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Elvis Presley, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Scotland, William Shakespeare
11 Comments
Movies I Loved in 2022
It is the month of Top 10 Lists. I’ve submitted a few to different sites. And … each list is slightly different. Because I’m not a list person and I don’t rank things and I really don’t like to argue … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged action movies, Argentina, Aubrey Plaza, Australia, Austria, Baz Luhrmann, biopic, comedy, coming of age, documentary, drama, Elvis Presley, England, France, Georgia, historical drama, India, Iranian film, Jackass, Jafar Panahi, Kentucker Audley, poetry, Poland, romantic comedy, romantic drama, Scotland, South Korea, Steven Spielberg, Sweden, thrillers, true crime, Ukraine, war movies, women directors, WWI
30 Comments
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
Review: Aftersun (2022)
I’ve been really looking forward to this one. Charlotte Wells’ feature film directorial debut. It did not disappoint. I really loved it. I reviewed for Ebert.
R.I.P. Sean Connery
In 1965, Oriana Fallaci sat down to interview Sean Connery. It remains one of my favorite celebrity interviews ever, it’s the wild west honestly, and can be read in full in her book The Egotists. Here’s an excerpt, which I … Continue reading