Category Archives: arts

nobody’s perfect

Once in a while Netflix makes a booboo: this week they sent me Taxi Driver (1976), which I have already seen, in place of Taxi Driver (1954). Tuesday: Make that twice in a while. Wednesday: I imagine that some minimum-wage … Continue reading

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what do you get when you cross a zebra?

Sir George Martin’s new coat of arms

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movies rented this week

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Formulaic fluff, but fun to watch. The Trouble with Harry (1955), a farce by Hitchcock, disappointingly thin. Shirley MacLaine’s first film.

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cielo de vainilla

Visited stepbrother last night, and we watched Abre los Ojos (Open your Eyes) (1997). The surprise ending concerns a concept on which I have spent hours happily musing; I had no idea that the concept had gone so mainstream.

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movies rented this week

Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) (1952). Set in a declining oil-boom town somewhere in South America, full of unemployed foreigners who can’t afford to leave. The oil company hires four of the becalmed drifters to drive two … Continue reading

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superhero comics and the nature of myth

Crisis on Infantile Earths – or – If it’s Tuesday, it must be Ragnarok! — a long and rambling essay by John Holbo

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swashing the buckler

The Master of Ballantrae (1953) is a swashbuckler done right; from a book by R L Stevenson. Technicolor, of course, though not as luminous as in Scaramouche. Fifteen years after Robin Hood, Errol Flynn is my age, which gives me … Continue reading

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