Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- 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
- “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
- “I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.” — Jonathan Swift
- “Look in thy heart and write.” — Sir Philip Sidney
- For Busby Berkeley’s birthday: Remember My Forgotten Man and Sucker Punch
- “Well, if I can’t be happy, I can be useful, perhaps.” — Louisa May Alcott
Recent Comments
- 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
- Pam on The Books: “Rally Round the Flag, Boys!” (Max Shulman)
-
Tag Archives: war
For Busby Berkeley’s birthday: Remember My Forgotten Man and Sucker Punch
I wrote a piece originally for the Musings blog at Oscilloscope (it was included in a book!), and now lives on my site (since it’s off the Musings blog). It’s about the similarities between Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers of 1933 … Continue reading
Posted in Movies, On This Day
Tagged Busby Berkeley, dance, Gold Diggers of 1933, Joan Blondell, Mervyn LeRoy, musicals, Sucker Punch, war, WWI
15 Comments
Today, the Sheila Variations turns 23.
I don’t even know what to say. And now I will proceed to say some shit. The above pic of me – taken by Michael – graced the top of my original blog, when I set it up 23 years … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Personal
Tagged Block Island, Cary Grant, Croatia, Dean Stockwell, Elvis Presley, family, friends, Hope, Humphrey Bogart, Iran, Ireland, Jafar Panahi, Joanna Hogg, July and Half of August, Martin Scorsese, Memphis, politics, Raging Bull, September 11, Supernatural, Tilda Swinton, war
127 Comments
“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
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” –Robert Conquest
“I think once you accept that you have the answer to everything, you can do anything to bring it about because your enemies are trying to stop you, are enemies of reason, of truth of everything – enemies of the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, nonfiction, politics, Robert Conquest, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, The Great Terror, war
3 Comments
“When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.” — Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson, 1939: testifying in Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act. “They are holding every Jew in Germany as a hostage. Therefore, we who are not Jews must speak, speak our sorrow and indignation and disgust in so many voices … Continue reading
June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
June 28, 1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie – setting out in their motorcade in Sarajevo that fateful morning, as the assassins, unseen, move into position. Here are two excerpts from Rebecca West’s towering Black Lamb and Grey … Continue reading
“I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell
Orwell was born on this day. When Animal Farm was released in a new edition, Christopher Hitchens wrote specifically about the quote from Orwell shown in the title above. Very few people can “face unpleasant facts”. Hitchens: A commissar who … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged 1984, Animal Farm, dystopia, England, essays, George Orwell, nonfiction, politics, Russia, war
7 Comments
“And the role of the fatal chorus / I agree to take on” — Anna Akhmatova
“This I pray at your liturgy After so many tormented days, So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia Might become a cloud of glorious rays.” — Anna Akhmatova, “Prayer” Anna Akhmatova – born Anna Andreyevna Gorenko on this day – … Continue reading
For D-Day: John Ford’s They Were Expendable (1945)
In 2019, for D-Day, I wrote about John Ford’s magnificent They Were Expendable, one of the best war movies ever made. Thank you to all those who sacrificed their lives — not just Americans — in the name of liberty … Continue reading
“Fear and the absence of hatred may go well together.” — Niccolò Machiavelli
Prologue, The Jew of Malta, by Christopher Marlowe, written in 1589. Machiavelli died in 1527. You can see his posthumous reputation had ballooned, just 60 years after his death. Enter MACHIAVEL. MACHIAVEL. Albeit the world think Machiavel is dead, Yet … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Christopher Marlowe, Italy, Machiavelli, nonfiction, politics, war
10 Comments