Hot Times

The final week of August has been one of the hottest and most humid weeks of the summer.  It should end today--the heat, that is, not the humidity.  So far my new astronomy cycle has been a washout, but things should improve by Sunday.  Monday is the new moon already, so I don't have much time remaining.  I have a newly cleaned telescope mirror, and I'm anxious to get out and use it.

 

Piano practice is paying off.  I've been at the new pieces for about six weeks now, interrupted by my medical issue.  But almost all of the pieces are at least playable, and memorization is proceeding well.  I hope to memorize everything except the two pieces by Bach.  That includes three Haydn movements, 2 pieces by Satie, a Debussy Prelude, and an Etude by Philip Glass.  I've just started memorizing the Glass, and am well into the Haydn.

 

In fitness news I am again back at it, after a hiatus due to some health issues.  I am still experiencing some pain, but it is intermittent and not as severe.  There can be some lingering pain even weeks after passing a kidney stone.  Next week is the start of the intensive 6-week training program we use for high altitude hiking.  I am not really certain I can get through it again, though I am willing to give it one more try.  I made it through the program last year, but Deb's 2 injuries precluded any hiking.  Weather is supposed to be less hot and much drier.  Here's hoping.

 

I am just finishing up my last book of the reading month, and will be publishing my August post either late tomorrow or early Sunday.  Watch for it, all you fans of great literature (and not so great).

 

In viewing news, we are now watching, in addition to films, three series and two Great Courses.  Tonight we watched episode 1 season 2 of Rings of Power.  It mostly fills in a lot of detail about Sauron and what he has been up to.  Not a really compelling episode to begin the new season, but it has some wonderful shots both indoors and out, including Cirdan's shipbuilding workshop at the Grey Havens.  And we finally get to see those Elven Rings on the fingers of their owners.  We continue to watch Star Trek Discovery, Season 1, though that becomes less and less interesting as it goes along.  There is decent acting and great effects, but way too much violence and sadism.  I miss Star Trek, when they went exploring, and Science was an important topic.  Now it's about war and battles and traitors and cruelty, and lately we went again to an alternate universe, where bad versions of everyone from our universe lives.  Good grief!  And lastly (and still holding our attention) is The Peripheral, also quite sadistic and violent, but at least the plot seems original (William Gibson) and quite fascinating.  The CGI views of a future London are quite spectacular, too.

 

We are watching a 24 episode Great Course on Mystery Fiction, and we just began one on Gravity, after finishing up one on the best piano literature.  That latter one was one of the best seen so far, of about a dozen courses we have viewed on various topics, from weather to ancient astronomy.  It is a truly great channel, and the professors are mostly the best in their field, and good speakers.

 

In film news there are three to report, Deb's choices up first, and then my choice.  (my film festival choices begin this weekend).  First is The Birdcage, from 1996, an American remake of La Cage aux Folles.  Mike Nichols directed Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as the gay couple.  It is as inoffensive a film about gays as can ever be imagined, and perhaps even funnier than the original version.  It is certainly colourful.  Gene Hackman is terrific as the Republican Senator from Ohio, whose daughter wishes to marry the son of Williams.  Many great supporting roles make the film consistently good, especially the houseboy role played to perfection by Hank Azaria.  Highly recommended, especially if you liked the original.

 

Leaving Criterion August 31st. 

 

Next came a downer of a film.  The Hypnosis is a Swedish film from 2023, about a young couple making a pitch to find an investor for their women's health app.  They attend a weekend workshop on how to hone their sales pitch, and then get to present it to actual investors.  But she goes completely off the rails after visiting a hypno-therapist before leaving.  The film becomes nothing but an uncomfortable cringe affair.  It's supposed to be a comedy and zany--it ain't.  If you enjoy feeling extremely uncomfortable for about 80 minutes of the total 100 minute running time, then you may enjoy this film.  We did not.  This thing won film awards at festivals!

Showing on Mubi.  Avoid. 

 

Speaking of a cringe worthy film, I chose Fellini's Orchestra Rehearsal from 1978.  This film makes Plan 9 From Outer Space appear as the masterpiece that it is.  Fellini's film is so bad that it makes my kidney hurt (the good one).  He attempts to show what happens when the unions take over the workplace.  He chooses the most conservative of organizations, the orchestra.  The film uses a caricature of a conductor as the orchestra leader, and the film shows the quick descent into chaos caused by bad leadership and new union rules for workers.  No doubt Fellini had a bit of a grudge against unions, having to make his later films trying to appease them.  Even so, this must rank as his worst film (at least I hope it is the worst).  Imagine if some young film goers wanted to learn about Fellini and went and saw this film.  A must to avoid.  Much cringier than even The Hypnosis (what a double bill it was to sit through). 

 

Leaving Mubi in 1 day.  A good thing, too. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Kidney Update and a Return of Heat

The crisis seems to have passed early in the week, though I have experienced pain today, the first since last Monday.  It would seem that there were three stones: a big one and two smaller ones.  Or the main stone broke into 3 pieces.  Whatever, I hope it is over, though there may be another small stone to come.  It all comes down to drinking more water.  Simple, isn't it?  There is no way to describe pain like that.  It is off the chart.  I am back to piano practice and exercising, and all normal duties.  In two weeks I begin the mountain hiking training program, designed for flatlanders who have little recourse to higher elevations.  And the new astronomy session begins in about three days time.  We had to cancel our visit to Sudbury last week, so it is now postponed indefinitely.

We have begun watching a newer series called The Peripheral, based on a novel by William Gibson.  After two episodes it seems promising, and isn't any more violent or sadistic than Star Trek Discovery.  It is showing on Prime.  More later.

 

In film news there are four to report.  Cairo Station is a hard hitting Egyptian film from 1958, directed by Youssef Chahine.  The film is centred around a vast train station in Cairo, with several stories intertwining, along with the mostly lowlife characters.  A newspaper agent takes pity on a crippled man and gives him a job selling papers.  But the man is obsessed with girly mags and is in love with one of the girls that sells pop (without a license) on trains.  The story seems to follow the old trope of bad body/bad mind.  Another story concerns a man trying to organize the porters into a union.  The men are run by a tyrant now, who takes most of their income for allowing them to work there.  The film becomes increasingly tense as the crippled man really goes off the rails, becoming violent and totally insane.  Quite a good film, the first to make the director well known outside of his home country.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

Deb then picked a silly movie, a Chines kung fu comedy called Dirty Ho, from 1979.  As much a modern dance film as it is kung fu, many of the routines are totally amazing.  In one of them, the hero (Prince #11), manipulates a young female musician against an enemy, making it seem like she knows kung fu.  He manipulates her arms, legs, head, and feet against an opponent in an astonishing sequence worth many viewings.  It must have taken hours of rehearsal!  In another he fights on one leg, as he has been wounded.  More jaw-dropping routines!  The film is quite funny, too, but as usual the final fight scene just goes on way too long.  As a result, the film ends very abruptly, and we never get to see the real villain (Prince #4) punished.  We can assume it is coming, however.  Fun and very colourful.  Quite a high budget film.

Now showing on Mubi.

 

Next came Breaking the Waves, a very strange film from Lars von Trier from 1996.  In many ways it is a terrific film, and the actress Emily Watson is absolutely riveting in her role as a child-like young woman who marries a rugged man that works on oil rigs.  Filmed in Scotland, the photography and landscapes are most impressive.  She lives in an isolated community, and the religious elders hold sway over much of the doings.  Women have no say in religious matters, and are not allowed to speak in church or to attend funerals.  Bess, the young woman, talks to God out loud, and he answers her in her voice, lowered in pitch.  After a week together after marriage, he has to return to the rig, and will be gone two months.  This sets off a breakdown in Bess, who loves her man dearly.  When she tells God that she wants him home, he obliges.  Her husband returns with a serious head injury incurred on the rig, and is a paraplegic.  Essentially a bizarre soap opera, Bess becomes more and more unhinged as the story progresses.  The most bizarre part of the film is the ending, where we find out (spoiler alert) that yes, God really was listening to her and replying.  The ending turns the film into a religious fantasy that must have sent pleasurable shivers to everyone who talks to God.  After all, observing the world as it is we know that prayer works just fine, doesn't it?  And of course sympathetic magic.  Or maybe for you but not for someone else?  An unsettling film that is very well done, though the ending is just too ridiculous to take seriously.

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

Lastly comes a fairy tale called Innocence, a French film from 2004 directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović.  This is a highly unusual, very poetic, and very special treat.  Though vastly different from Spirit of the Beehive and Picnic At Hanging Rock, they share some kind of common ground with Innocents.  A secluded and walled boarding school for young girls aged about 5 or 6 to 10 or 11 becomes one of the most fascinating experiments in education that this viewer has ever seen.  Part idyllic and part prison, the girls are well cared for.  Their method of arriving at the school at the youngest age, and departing it when at their oldest, is as mysterious and secretive as their program of learning.  All of the children (25 of them in five houses, surrounding the central building) study ballet, and presumably core subjects.  They have free time, mostly spent outdoors and they are largely unsupervised on the vast grounds.  The photography is stunning, and some twilight and evening shots are among the most effective I have ever seen.  The girls mostly get along, and wear hair ribbons denoting their Year (RoyGBiv, with red being the youngest and violet the oldest).  The two hour film is paced slowly.  The opening scene is a minor miracle of openings, and the ending is a perfect one.  The film is based on a novella from 1903 called Mine-Haha, Or The Bodily Education of Young Girls, by Frank Wedekind.  The film is unforgettable, and it's amazing that the director could pull it off so masterfully.  Not to be missed.

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

Oh The Pain! The Pain!

Dr. Smith may have had a delicate back, and so never did anything useful around the Jupiter 2 in Lost In Space.  Over the past week I have quite a full understanding of what real back pain is like.  Pain has not been a large part of my experience, though it is no fun getting pricked by a cactus or stung by a wasp.  I even broke bones in my foot one time, and that really hurt, too.  Usually Deb is in charge of receiving pain, with her RA causing all sorts of daily complications for her.  But last week was my turn.  I was sitting playing piano Wednesday morning as usual and was coming to the end of my first hour.  Suddenly it felt as if someone had knifed me in the back, left side.  With only five minutes left in the session I had to quit.  The pain continued to increase.  I couldn't sit, stand, or lie down without intense pain.  We called my brother Steve, who has had kidney stones pass.  It sounded just like a kidney stone.  We only had Deb's arthritis pain meds, so I took two of those.  Nothing.  Finally, around 1:30 I couldn't take it any longer, and she drove me to the hospital.  We arrived at 1:35 pm, and left at 10:30 pm.  Arriving patients take a number then sit and wait.  After one hour of excruciating pain, I was triaged by a nurse practitioner and assistants.  It was a very long hour, but they immediately gave me pain meds via i.v., as well as anti nausea drugs, as the pain was making me sick to my stomach.  The pain drug helped somewhat, but not that much.  It would recede for a time, then return in spasms of agony.  They also took blood and I gave a urine sample.  So things were moving along.  

I still had to sit in the tiny waiting room for another 3 hours before being put in an ER "room."  Half an hour later a doctor finally saw me.  He ordered i.v. fluids, more anti nausea drugs, and was supposed to give more pain meds, but he forgot.  He also ordered a CAT scan.  A very long and very painful wait.  We finally hailed a nurse for help with the pain.  The original doctor had gone off shift, so now it was a new one.  This guy took my pain seriously and I was soon cramming pills down as fast as I could.  They finally helped.  We waited another hour to be taken for a scan, then nearly 90 minutes for the results (a 4 mm kidney stone was in there, all right), then a final hour awaiting release and prescriptions to be taken at home.  By the time we left the hospital (Met) we were both totally done in.  We had worn masks throughout the ordeal.  Today is Sunday and things haven't progressed much.  The pain is less today, however.  Yesterday I had an afternoon flare that quickly brought back unwanted memories.  I have a very serious pain killer pill to be used when needed.  At first they were needed lots.  I now have less than half left, anticipating more flares today.  Tomorrow we might be able to see my urologist.  More later.

 

Needless to say we've been watching some TV.  I am mostly unable to read without falling asleep, and find it difficult to read subtitles as well.  I have been mostly sleeping the past several days, and walking slowly around the house like a zombie in old pajamas.  So here are some of the things we've watched recently.

 

Guy Maddin is one of the great treasures of Winnipeg, Canada.  A filmmaker influenced by surrealism and expressionist silent film, he has made many films of unforgettable and legendary status.  A good place to start is his early feature Tales From The Gimli Hospital, from 1988.  If this shorter feature doesn't win you over, then probably none of his other films will, either.  The hospital is treating patients of an unknown and deadly plague, and one of the patients tells stories at night to entertain the nurses and other patients.  At times totally hilarious (think Monty Python) and even innocent, and at other times violent and sadistic, this b & w film (with some tinting) explores a type of visual experience never seen before 1988.  Maddin's originality and creativity are never in doubt, and his skills in film making are good enough to get the job done properly.  It is a film that once seen is never forgotten.  Highly recommended.  Gimli is an actual small community north of Winnipeg.  I hope I never have to visit their hospital.

Now showing on Mubi. 

 

State and Main is a film from 2000, written and directed by David Mamet.  It's an entertaining piece about a big budget film being made in a small town in Vermont.  The small town is a classic one, and there are some comic moments when the crew arrive and witness life there as it currently is.  Things soon change, however, once the stars arrive.  It stars Alec Baldwin as the alcoholic actor who likes teenage girls, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the meek mannered writer of the script.  They hurriedly had to leave a previous town because of Baldwin's antics, and they are soon up against it again as a young woman allows herself to be seduced.  A touching love story develops between the script writer and the female owner of a local bookstore, who also directs the local amateur theatre company.  There are many fun moments in the film, and it is one of Mamet's more accessible projects, with equal amounts charm and biting satire.  Recommended.

 

Leaving Criterion Aug. 31st. 

 

Devil of the Desert is an Egyptian attempt at a swashbuckling romance film.  It is from 1954, is directed by Youssef Chanine, and once again stars Omar Sharif.  The plot revolves around loose tribes being bullied by a cruel and unjust ruler, and their rebellion being led by a young upstart (Sharif).  Though not up to Hollywood standards, it is often a fun film, and with better scenery than the usual back lot Hollywood affair.  It reminded Deb of a Hollywood low budget serial, but I found it to be well above that level, though a bit goofy.  Sharif is good as the stand in for Errol Flynn.

 

Devil of the Desert, on Criterion. 

 

Next came two short films, including one animated one.  That was a 45 minute film about a samurai, being episode 5 of a series called Blue-Eyed Samurai.  This seemed to be the part where viewers learn of the origin of the ronin, who is in fact a woman.  It is bloody, full of killing, and has the usual unlimited number of bad guys out to kill the lone good person.  To its eternal detriment, the film also features katanas that "shing" when removed from the saya, or scabbard.  It's worse (to me) that having throbbing engine noise and explosion sounds in space.  If you have seen samurai films, this one offers little that is new to the genre other than a blue-eyed female swordswoman.

The second short was a pretty funny surrealist one from 1924.  Entr'acte was directed by Rene Clair, has music by Eric Satie, and contributions by Francis Picabia.  The main part of the "story" centres around a funeral procession, led by a camel.  Some very clever moments, and some very funny ones, too.  The music is loud and bombastic, so we kept our sound pretty low.  A fun film to view!

Now showing on Criterion.

Yesterday I had a particularly painful day, barely able to walk or focus on much of anything.  So the two final films reported here are old standbys, and watchable probably even on a deathbed.  The first was Forbidden Planet, directed by Fred Wilcox and from 1956.  The Criterion print is pure perfection, and watching all the old scenes go by one at a time was again to witness a marvel of brilliant SF film making.  This is one of those films that never seems to get old, other than in its usual 1950s SF misogynistic manner, and its somewhat infantile special effects for the monster.  The backgrounds by Chesley Bonestell are still supreme works of fantastic art.  Why has there never been a remake of this film, with female crew members as well as males?  Actually, I would much prefer a prequel, a film series that shows the rise and fall of the Krell.  It could be fantastic!

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Lastly came another early classic, one worth many viewings, too.  The Ladykillers is from 1955 and is directed by Alexander MacKendrick.  Just seeing Alec Guiness with those teeth is enough to cause anyone undue kidney pain from laughter.  Later, seeing him sitting very uncomfortably at the player piano during a tea time singalong with four old ladies and his four criminal cohorts is also not to be forgotten soon.  Simply the best comic crime caper film ever made.  Not a wasted moment here.

 

Leaving Criterion August 31st.
 

Mapman Mike.

 

 

 

A Day Trip To Chatham

It's not been a great summer for being outdoors.  Lots of heat, lots of humidity, and sometimes entire days of rain.  But today (Saturday) was a beautiful day, mostly sunny with temps in the mid 70s, and a healthy breeze blowing.  Outside of a trip to Detroit much earlier in the summer, this was our first major outing.  Chatham is the largest city near Windsor on the Canadian side, with a population of around 45,000 people.  Like many small cities, the high street and downtown area seem to be struggling.  But it still makes as good destination for an afternoon's ramble.  On route we tried stopping in Comber, a s small farming community that boasts a wonderful new bakery.  As we pulled off the freeway and began heading towards town, the main road was blocked off.  It was the weekend of the annual "Comber Fair," and the tractor parade was in progress.  Yikes!  A quick turn around and we continued on our way to Chatham.  Imagine the thrill of watching 50 or so big farm tractors parading along the main street.  It chills me right out.

 

Our first official stop in town was a store called Birdie's Nest.  It features furniture and decorative arts from Mexico, India, and East Asia.  There were a few big items we would have been happy to purchase, and the sale prices were more than reasonable.  Instead we left with a scented candle.  The big spenders had arrived!  The VW bus bar was a highlight!

 

VW bus bar (with working lights) for sale at Birdie's Nest in
Chatham. 

We had lunch at the only brewery in town.  Sons of Kent has beer that rates pretty low on the scale of fine ales.  We ate lunch there and shared a flight.  They had no dark ales at all.  Like many such unenlightened businesses, they don't realize that people like stouts any time of year.  The pub is like a big barn, but at least it was not filled with TVs showing sports.

 

Our mostly forgettable flight at Sons of Kent Brewery.

Indoor looking out.  A rail mainline passes very close to the brewery.

Viewable from the pub, someone had placed a creepy photo in the upper floor window of a building across the street, so this guy seems to watch everyone drinking.  A head scratcher.
 

Next came a flea market store that looked about average size on the outside, but on the inside seemed to go for miles.  We spent an hour there, coming out with only a purchased shirt (Deb).  We walked deep into the downtown area and located a large gaming cafe and booksotre, with some delicious vegan desserts.  They must have had around 500 board games that can be played on site.  We found two that looked really interesting: Tang Garden, and Reign of Cthulhu are two very different games from each other, but both can be played by two players, and Tang by 1.  During the Pandemic a number of companies came out with one and two player games, and the Reign of was one of them.

One of two shelves of books at the gaming cafe (apologies for the blurry image).  This is half of the games they had available to play on site.  It was an impressive collection.  The coffee was good, too, as were the vegan desserts.

 

The mighty and muddy Thames River flows through downtown Chatham.

One of many historic murals in the downtown area. 

 

If the weather cooperates we will visit Detroit again next Friday.

 

In film watching news there are a few to report.  Montedoro is an Italian film from 2015, the true story of a woman (the filmmaker) returning to her home village after being uprooted as a child and sold into adoption to a couple from New York.  As a film it is quite terrible, with virtually no story, no characters who make any sense, no charisma, and no real reason to watch.  The only redeeming feature is some of the photography.  Montedoro was a hilltop village built from stone, and was a thriving community until a landslide wiped out much of the town.  It is now abandoned (except when filmmakers get person to go traipsing over the place).  It is in a lovely and very isolated spot.  The filmmaker can't decide whether she wants to create a coffee table book of very pretty images, or a film that will (supposedly) tug at our heartstrings.  Some gratuitous scenes that could easily have been left out (and should have been) include an animal slaughter, a nude scene, and a whole bunch of scenes at the end (a funeral procession with a child's coffin) that make absolutely no sense, except perhaps to the filmmaker.  Best avoided.  My choice, my bad.

The film has now left Mubi.

I did considerably better with my second choice, The Blazing Sun.  It is a 1954 b & w Egyptian film directed by the prolific Youssef Chahine.  The main reason to watch is Omar Sharif, who landed his first starring role here.  It is an old school melodrama, but quite hard hitting, with the climactic gunfight and hand to hand battle filmed at Karnak.  Impressive stuff.  Omar is one handsome dude, and handles his complex role quite well.  He ended up marrying the lead actress, Fatan Hamama, after the film.  They required special permission to kiss on screen.  We will likely be watching many more of Chahine's films, old ones and newer.  Criterion has about 20 of them streaming now.

The Blazing Sun is showing on Criterion. 

 

For her first choice, Deb selected four short films leaving Mubi soon.  Only one really stood out, a film called A Short Story.  Directed by Bi Gan, it is from 2022 and tells an original folk-like tale about a cat seeking the world's most precious thing.  Only 15 minutes long, it is a wonderfully imagined and executed film, with credits nearly as long as the film itself.  With humour and great visuals, this is a winning little film.

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

Tomorrow is a big day for Aragorn Observatory--I will go to Randy G.'s for assistance in cleaning the 12" telescope mirror.  It has been several years since the last scrubbing.  We'll see how that goes.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

3 Films by Krzysztof Zanussi

Polish director Zanussi intrigued us before with an early film called The Structure of Crystal from 1969.  Deb chose three of his other films for her August Festival, just before they left Mubi.  None of his films are currently showing on Criterion.  We began with his last film, titled Life As A Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, from 2000.  A young medical student and a dying older physician feature prominently in this reflective film that features many of the director's trademark hot points: mountain climbing, painful slow death, and uncertainty about life, the universe, and everything.  The film has a great opening scene, a medieval one with the story reaching its climax when, like the Monty Python film, we suddenly hear "Cut," and realize that we are on the set of a film.  The young medical student is an extra, his girlfriend being the costume person and the older doctor as the attending physician.  A followup film from 2002 titled The Supplement, also showing on Mubi, is the same film but re-cut.  New scenes are added and some original scenes are cut.  We started watching it before realizing that there wasn't really a need to see it.  The original film had a very limited release, so the director re-edited it for a new release.  It is worth checking out.

 

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

The Constant Factor is a much earlier film, being from 1980.  A young electrician is scrupulously honest, while his colleagues and boss try to scam dollars here and there from the corrupt Communist system.  This eventually costs him his friends and his job, and ironically his job.  His mother is dying, and he must navigate moral and spiritual issues along with his pragmatic day to day life.  The film one the Jury Prize and Cannes, and is worth seeing.  The ending is sudden and inexplicable, however.  Much better endings could easily be conceived.  There is mountain climbing.

 

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

Even earlier was the third film we watched, called Illumination, from 1973.  A young student comes to Warsaw to study Physics.  He also climbs mountains.  He has a prolonged life crisis as he tries to decide what to do with his life.  Eventually married and with a child, he has his biggest mental breakdown.  Eventually reconciled with his wife and child, he returns to university and finally completes his degree.  His physician, whom he has seen because of chest pains, tells him he needs to live life at a slower pace.  He rejects the advice, as he did with a colleague who does not wish to work on Sundays with him, until the very final scene, when he finally gets his "illumination."  In all of Zanussi's films, the story is not as important as the what the character is going through.  Religion, work, play, life, money, friends, discussions, and ideas all play an important role, in which the viewer is often as perplexed as the main protagonist.  His films are unique, however, if not always clearly stamped with an understandable vision.  Life isn't always like that, is it?

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

Ranchipur is a fictional city in India which apparently has heavy rains.  Those rains descended upon Amhersburg today, with a vengeance.  We have had more rain this summer than many previous ones.  Usually by now I am done with cutting grass.  Not so this year.  And today's temps never left the mid 60s F.  We have just ended a major and very long lasting heat wave, so the rain and cool temps are most welcome.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Movies and Spirograph Creations

 I will soon be embarking on my second astronomy observing session of this lunar cycle.  Last Saturday was also clear, and also very warm and fairly humid.  Tonight will be even warmer (mid 70s) and slightly more humid due to heavy rain yesterday (not here, but out in the county).  Summer observing is as bit of a pain, due to the very late hours necessary to obtain a dark sky.  I skipped out on a previous night, but will take this one.

 

In piano news I am now 3 weeks into my newest pieces.  A fuller report will come after one more week, but things are beginning to move forward.  Only one piece remains stagnant, the Bach 3-part invention.  But it will come, with time.

 

In Spirograph news, I am still learning what the different wheels can do for me.  Some have very similar patterns with only subtle differences, while others change the landscape totally.  I now have a set of ten coloured pens and a set of 24 markers.  The markers have two ends, a sort of paint brush on one end and a very fine tip on the other.  I will display more of the creations here soon.

 

First try at a central addition; not quite centred.

Central spire is now truly central.

Still lots to learn.  I am colouring with crude markers in these images, just trying out colour schemes.
 

We are halfway through Deb's movie picks, which this week includes her festival choices.  We have two Polish films remaining to view.  My final choice before Deb took over was another Screen One selection from BBC.  Called Meat, it is from 1994 and stars a very young Johnny Lee Miller.  He is just released from juvenile prison for a series of b & es, scraping the bottom of the barrel for jobs.  He washes dishes somewhere for a while, then moves on to a waiter in a rundown cafe.  If you don't think that London has seedy areas, this film may convince you otherwise.  "Charlie" soon becomes involved with a young female prostitute, getting her pregnant.  When she is hit by a car she loses the baby and he deserts her, becoming a male prostitute.  Rather a nasty story (Danny Boyle) directed by John Madden.  If you want to be depressed and angry, then this film is for you.  Not so much for me.

 

Now showing on Prime, Meat starring Johnny Lee Miller. 

 

The next four choices are Deb's, two of which we have just seen.  They both were viewed on Criterion.  Drive My Car is a Japanese film from 2021 directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.  It's a long film (3 hours), and not all of it works.  Driving around in a car for much of a Japanese film is a new experience for this viewer.  Still, it is compelling to watch, even though we are often on bland freeways and long tunnels.  It is presented in nine languages and adapted from Haruki Murakami stories—about an experimental staging of an Anton Chekhov play.  It might have helped considerably if I knew Uncle Vanya well, but I don't know it at all.  I found much of the film cold and emotionless, even when the characters were revealing the most horrendous tragedies that had happened to them.  The two main characters are the male theatre director and former actor.  He recently lost his wife to a brain hemorrhage, and earlier a young daughter to pneumonia.  He is assigned a female driver when he comes to Hiroshima to direct the play, a young woman with her own cruel history.  By the end the two of them have become friends, in a father/daughter way.  His own daughter would have been her age if she had survived.  I didn't find the play readings at all inspiring, the director insisting on low emotional involvement, but then demanding that the actors literally become the part they have been assigned.  It's like telling musicians to play without emotion, but also to put themselves totally inside the piece.  The play relates directly to the lives of some of the people involved, but that could also be said of any truly good play being performed.  Despite the torn up lives (one of the actors is removed from the play and charged with killing a man in a fight), the film remains calm and cool, without hardly anyone smiling or showing anger.  We do see some tears near the end, though.  Deb liked the film much more than I did, though I didn't really mind watching it.  But I won't be running out and buying a copy of the play anytime soon.  And I was not a fan of actors speaking different languages (including sign), forcing the audience to read the play on a subtitled screen behind and above the actors.  An interesting idea, perhaps, but one that viewers would tire of quickly.

Leaving Criterion August 31st. 

 

Will-o'-the-Wisp is a Portuguese film from 2022, taking place about 50 years later.  A young prince wishes to be a firefighter, and joins a local brigade.  When his father dies he has to give up his dream and assume the role destiny has laid out for him.  The gay sex and nudity is way overdone, taking up about half of the film.  More penises per minute than any other film, it might even be in the Guinness Book of Records by now.  There is one decent scene, when the brigade does an ensemble dance in the nearly empty fire station.  The rest is mostly gay sex, with a fado song thrown in at the end during a funeral.  The first part had some clever 4th wall scenes of the royal family at the dinner table.  It is a very short film.

 

Leaving Criterion Aug. 31st. 

Mapman Mike