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

 

 

First Heatwave

It lasted a week, and though the temps did not get as high as predicted, the extreme humidity made up for it.  We get a two day respite (82 F today), then more heat, then a longer break in the pattern.  Solstice day was a warm one.  We will often take a drive along the lake somewhere and have a picnic.  This year celebrations were indoors.  June was always a most unpleasant month to be a teacher here, with classrooms often getting several degrees warmer than outside temperatures.  It must have been a miserable week for many.  There was plenty of rain in the form of intense storms all around us, but we got bypassed.  It is quite dry here at the Homestead.

Deb had some medical tests to undergo last Tuesday, the only day we went outside.  They were supposed to take several hours.  I dropped her off in Windsor and met Randy G. for lunch.  We got partly caught up, as we haven't got together in a very long time.  The chosen restaurant was permanently closed.  As I looked around the plaza, there were five others to choose from.  Sigh.  No wonder it closed.

In film news, there are a few to report.  We have now finished the 2nd season of Detective Anna, all 40 episodes (there were 56 in the first season), and have now turned our attention to watching Picard, of which there are 30 episodes.  We just subscribed to Paramount Plus, which has every Star Trek movie and series in its streaming base.  It will take a while to get through.  We now have paid subscriptions to Criterion, Mubi, Prime, The Great Courses, and Paramount.  In addition, we get hundreds of free channels (many with ads) on Roku.  I've been watching Danger Man over time, with The Avengers ready to go as well.

Most recently we watched a spaghetti western called Keoma.  It isn't often that a decent film is completely ruined by the musical score.  In this case it features a female singer/narrator who just will not shut up.  She sings what we see happening on the screen, very very often.  She sings in a high soprano voice, and it is immediately obvious that she is an alto.  It is extremely painful to hear her screech out high notes.  From 1976, the film features the charismatic actor Franco Nero, who, unfortunately, also attempts to sing the narration from time to time.  In reading reviews of the film, hardly anyone mentions the music.  One critic said the score was "tone deaf," but another said it was the best part of the film.  Really!!?  Speaking of tone deaf...  We had to put the subtitles on and mute the film when the singing began.  The subtitles indicated when the singing was over, and it was safe to put the sound back on.

 

Leaving Mubi soon. 

Before that came Deb's two picks.  The first was a BBC film from 1984 called Threads.  It is a very graphic depiction of the aftermath of a nuclear war, using Sheffield England as its centre of gravity.  The story mostly follows two families before and after.  A young man gets his girlfriend pregnant and they decide to get married.  We meet the families (one working class, one a higher white collar class).  They choose an apartment and begin to redecorate.  In the background are newscasts telling of increasing conflict in the Middle East.  Things continue to bubble until the unthinkable happens.  Sheffield, as not only an important manufacturing district but also a NATO airbase, takes a direct hit.  We get a front row seat, and it isn't pretty.  Not much is held back from viewers, as the realism hits home many many times.  This is the kind of film that should be required viewing for anyone wishing to become a politician.  Of course nuclear war is still a very real possibility, especially with so many unstable leaders of countries with bombs.  But it seems as if our demise will not be a sudden holocaust, but a slow, burning death, as the planet continues to heat.

 

The film is leaving Criterion June 30th. 

 

Deb's 2nd film choice was considerably lighter in theme.  Called Camera Buff, it is a Polish film from 1979.  A worker and his wife are expecting a baby.  He buys an 8 mm camera to record the baby, but soon gets hooked into doing a film for the company where he works.  As he gets deeper and deeper into his hobby, his wife thinks that he is neglecting her and the baby.  His little film gets entered into a festival.  He attends and wins third prize, which includes a nice lump of cash.  His wife is horrified, as she realizes that he will never stop now.  She ends up leaving him, but as he now has access to a 16 mm camera, he manages to survive the breakup.  A low level comedy that might hit home to camera buffs, and other buffs as well.  Sometimes balancing work, family,  and play can be tricky.

Showing on Criterion, with a ton of the director's other films. 

 

When Jenn was over for a visit a while back, we told her about our rediscovery of the Utne Reader.  It was a brilliant and influential magazine from the 80s and 90s that we used to read a lot.  Of course it died as a print version a while back, but there is an on-line presence.  I have read three articles on line so far.  However, their Facebook page has not been updated for over two years.  I fear the online version may be going away, too.  I highly recommend that readers check it out.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Winter's Grand (Belated) Arrival

 IT is here.  IT has finally arrived.  IT is not much fun today, nor for the foreseeable future.  After this snowstorm we are to be hit with winds gusting to 100 km tonight and tomorrow, with temps dropping well below zero, and staying well below zero (Celsius) for many days ahead.  Ah, the howling sounds of January in Canada.  Detroit airport currently has an average departure delay of 81 minutes.   However, we at the Homestead are prepared for nearly anything.  The only thing that would affect us negatively this weekend is if the power went off for longer than 4 hours.  With heavy snow on the tree branches and the electric wires, this is a very real possibility once those overnight winds kick in.  We have a fireplace and plenty of wood to heat the central area of the house.  All of the fridge and freezer food could live in the garage indefinitely.  But we wouldn't have any hot water for tea, etc.  Anyway, we are now only observers, having to accept what comes our way.  We have the fire departments of our county on live broadcasts.  A few wires down and a house currently burning, but most of the calls are for vehicle accidents.  The first real snow of the season and people have forgotten how to drive in the stuff.

 

We dodged a big one earlier in the week, getting rain instead of the expected snow.  But that storm gave us the lowest barometer reading I have ever knowingly experienced: 28.86.  The lowest I have ever felt before that was around 29.30.  Normal is around 30.00.  And with this most recent storm hitting us this weekend we are back down to 29.03!  Amazing stuff!!

There are two films to report, but lately we have been rewatching the Dr. Who episodes that feature David Tenant  and Catherine Tate on Prime Video.  The original appearance of Donna Noble is in the episode called The Runaway Bride.  It is one of Tenant's better episodes, despite the ridiculous spider monster at the end.  The two actors seem to have an instant chemistry, and their repartee is hilarious.  A running joke about pockets, for example, really sets this one apart.  Partners In Crime, the first regular episode to feature Catherine, also introduces her wonderful and amazing granddad, played by Bernard Cribbins.  Both he and Catherine (and Tenant) ended up creating characters that are completely unforgettable.  Which is why we are rewatching those episodes.  We will see if they stand up over time as being truly memorable.  So far, yes.  I love Donna Noble, and I think that she might be in my top three companions of the Doctor of all time.

In movie news, most recently we watched The Man With A Shotgun, a Japanese pseudo western from 1961, and directed by Seijun Suzuki.  In widescreen colour, it is truly one of the weirder movies to come out of Japan.  With the usual fistfights, gunfights, saloon girls, good guys and bad guys, the movie will still have viewers' jaws dropping frequently during this story about a man out for revenge on those who raped and killed his young wife.  Lots of violence and more than a few surprises, Suzuki's early films are just as weird as his later ones, but in a different way.  Don't miss a chance to catch this one.  For us it is showing on Criterion.

The Man With A Shotgun is leaving Criterion January 31st. 

 

My main choice last week was called All Things Bright and Beautiful, a BBC production from 1993.  It is one of the Screen Two productions.  Here is the description from Prime:

County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. 1954 is the year of special devotion to Our Lady. When Barry's prayers to her are mistaken for a two-way conversation, the result is a wave of religious hysteria. Barry's father must rescue him from the worship of the village folk and the ambitions of Father McAteer.  

This is mostly a fun look at a pious young boy, whose actions are misinterpreted, and then allowed by the boy to go on, until a kind of hysteria has hit their small town parish.  It all begins with an innocent mistake, as the boy mistakes a hiding IRA refugee for Barabbas (hey, it can happen).  The old time radio gets a supporting role, too, to help set the time the story takes place.  The local priest is a complete shambles by the end of the story.

 

Showing on Prime.

That's it from the Homestead for now.  We are safe and cozy, and hope to remain that way.  Autumn has vanished at last; here comes Winter.

Mapman Mike