We are now knee deep in late autumn weather, which is a bit of a jolt after last week's sunny and very mild spell. We are due for our first taste of snow tonight and tomorrow, which is never a welcome event here at the Homestead. I leave water out for the birds to drink, and it was frozen for two days. I finally was able to break the ice up today and insert the small heater that keeps the water open through most of our cold weather. The birds are fed twice each day, and a small flock of blue jays always quietly awaits my appearance each morning. They prefer peanuts, while the squirrels really like sunflower seeds. The other birds eat birdseed mostly. It's getting really expensive now to buy birdseed. Not surprising, as most food, especially fresh fruit and vegetables, are being priced sky high. Our inflation rate dropped to 3.1% recently, but that is only due to cheaper gasoline prices. Everything else is going up and up.
With the arrival of the full moon Sunday and Monday, I am already looking forward to the December astronomy session. Clear nights are rare in December, and if we get a few, it's usually bone chillingly cold. But November turned into such a great session that I have some hopes for December.
Not much news from here at the Homestead. Movies, reading, Deb working on her next film and me practicing piano, it's business as usual. A week from today is supposed to be our next piano gathering. I don't even know yet what I will perform. Possibly Bach. Possibly Beethoven. Possibly Chopin. Possibly nothing. Lots of possibilities, anyway.
I'll take the film reviews here in reverse order, beginning with one that we just finished. Deb gets five picks in a row, because it's her festival weekend. Here are her first three. West Is West is from 1987, and was directed by David Rathod. Vikram comes to California from Bombay in hopes of attending university. But his Indian sponsors are dealing with a family tragedy and are away from home. So Vikram arrives with no place to stay. He ends up in a small hotel (in San Francisco) run by an Indian lady. His application is turned down by the university, and he is about to be deported. He has been forming a friendship with a young female artist, rebelling against her family, and they manage to team up to make things eventually work. But not in a way one might expect. The lead actor is okay in the role of hard luck wannabe student, and the girl pulls off her role quite well, too. Their Bollywood scene together is a very nice touch.
Before that we watched Powwow Highway again. It seems quite popular around here. It has many classic scenes and lines, scenes and lines that have become part of who we are and what we represent here at the Homestead. Based on a fabulous novel by David Seals, the movie pulls few punches about life on a reservation, and the way that Whites are continually trying to exploit the resources there. Starring Gary Farmer in a role that was meant only for him. Highly recommended.
Before that came a concert performance film called Tripping With Nils Frahm, from 2020. While I found the music quite good, the film shows Nils creating the sounds with a vast array of electronic equipment, including several keyboards. My main problem was that he was moving around to different places so much to get the incredible effects he was producing that it greatly interfered with listening to the music. So I gave up partway through the film, but will be sure to check out his stuff on Spotify this week. He has also scored a few films.
Before that came my two film picks. The 2nd one was leaving Mubi soon. It is called Bellissima, a 1951 film by Visconti. It stars Anna Magnani as a very poor mother sacrificing everything, even her marriage, to get her five year old daughter into a film. When auditions are called for slightly older children to play a part in an upcoming film, dozens of mothers show up with their daughters. Anna shows up with her tiny 5 year old, telling the movie people that she is 7 and small for her age. This is Magnani's film, and her pace and style are manic and non stop. She talks, moves, carries on, argues, fights, and travels all in a whirlwind of motion and words. I honestly don't know how she would ever rehearse her scenes, so perhaps she was improvising a lot. The scene at the ballet school, for one, is priceless. Though the ending cops out and becomes unbelievable (first that they would actually chose her little girl, with a manic mother like that, and second that she would ultimately refuse to let her daughter do the part), this is an unforgettable glimpse into post war Italy (neo realism) and the struggles that people faced to survive and try to get ahead. Definitely worth a look.
My main choice for last week was The Crow, from 1994, and starring the late Brandon Lee. From graphic novel to film, the transformation looks pretty good. The story is simplistic, with good guy seeking revenge on bad guys. There is the expected climactic duel at the end between good and evil, with a princess that needs to be rescued. This takes place on top of a cathedral during a storm. While more suited to comic book pages than cinema (was this film really worth dying for?), it is good eye candy. It's not too hard to spot the bad guys, but at least the look of the film, and the constant night scenes and falling rain, give it a kind of distinction. There are nearly as many killings as in one of the Lone Wolf and Cub or Zatoichi films, though nowhere near the subtlety those martial arts films can display at times.
It's nice to hear that David Tenant is back as Dr. Who for a short revisit, along with Catherine Tate. Sadly, we will never get to see any of them, as they show only on Disney, which we will have no part of. Streaming channels can be very good; streaming channels can be very bad.
Mapman Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment