Fa-la-la-la-la

Tomorrow (Friday) is Solstice Eve.  We are looking forward to our usual celebration of all things dark.  There should be fresh snow on the ground by Saturday, and it will be very cold.  We will be up for sunrise, and will keep a wood fire going all day, until sunset (don't ask why, it's just fun to do).  There will be plenty of eats and drinks, and lots of music.  For the full moon last Saturday we listened to Acis and Galatea, the opera by Handel.  It is a really great piece of music, and we hadn't listened to it since 2005.  For Solstice Saturday we will try hearing all or most of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg.  We've never heard the full opera, only some excerpts.

 

We are done with medical appointments until the new year, though Deb might try to get to a physio session.  Today (Thursday) she saw an oral surgeon for her TMJ problem.  She is now on a soft food diet for a month, along with taking some physio for the symptoms.  Something is very inflamed in there, and it needs to calm down.  An MRI was also requested, though that may take months.  The doctor won't consider doing anything invasive until he sees the MRI result.

 

With three appointments for Deb this past week, my reading time is doing just fine.  However, my piano practice is suffering a bit.  I had hoped to have the program memorized by Solstice.  It pretty much is!  A bit of remedial work near the end of the Debussy Prelude, and some mid-score work on the Philip Glass Etude, and all will be confined to the space between my ears.  The Haydn and Satie are pretty secure.  The Bach will not be memorized; it's too contrupuntal for my brain.

 

In movie news there are three to report.  Most recently we watched Del Toro's 2021 remake of  Nightmare Alley.   The original b & w film is one of the best, and I hardly think a remake was necessary.  Do we need a remake of Casablanca, too?  Having said that, Del Toro does a fine job with William Lindsay Gresham, the author of the 1946 novel.  Sets, costumes, CGI, and the unique use of colour shades enhance the film for modern viewers, many of whom know nothing of the original film.  Bradley Cooper stars as the con man, with Toni Collette as his assistant.  Together they come up with a winning psychic nightclub act, but when a chance comes up to make a lot of money pretending to put rich people in touch with their dead loved ones, things quickly get out of control.  Cate Blanchett stars as the therapist who outsmarts Mr. Smartypants.  Once one knows the ending, from seeing the earlier film, much of the fun of watching is removed.  Still, it is a stylish and very well done picture.  Recommended, especially if you haven't seen the original, or read the novel.

 

Now showing on Prime Video. 

 

Before that we watched Miller's Crossing, a 1920s gangster film by the Coen brothers from 1990.  Albert Finney stars as the successful Irish mobster boss, with the mayor and police chief in his pocket.  His right hand man is played by Gabriel Byrne, and the opposing Italian crime boss by John Polito.  The acting is very good, the script varies from comical to high drama, and the story itself is engrossing.  John Turturro gets a plumb role and milks it for all it's worth.  Byrne's character is the ultimate in laissez-faire lifestyle.  Whether he is getting beaten up for not paying his gambling debts, or being marched off to be executed by a rival mobster, or telling his boss to his face that he is sleeping with his (the boss's) girlfriend, he just lets what is to come happen, without fuss.  He is the picture's central character, and he pulls it off really well.  The violence is of the comic book variety, with machine guns, explosives, beatings, and threatening stares, and there is plenty of it.  Still a good picture to watch, even 34 years later.

We recently finished two Great Courses lecture series.  Both Understanding Gravity (24 lectures) and Mystery Fiction (36 lectures) were highly worthwhile projects.  We usually watch an episode at 6 pm, time permitting.  We are now embarking on two new courses.  Formal Logic and Geological Wonders are up next.

Mapman Mike 

Del Toro Again

Del Toro has the means and ways to make possibly the most atmospheric and wonderful films ever conceived.  Watching a recent gothic horror film by the director, it has become obvious that Del Toro is obsessed with graphic violence.  The kind that a male teenager might get huge kicks from, and even laugh at as it happens on screen.  Del Toro's type of graphic violence is not out of place in a novel, perhaps, where one can skim through parts if desired, or simply try not to picture things too graphically.  Even in comics his style of violence could be accepted, as we are aware of the fact that this isn't real.  But when a film maker of Del Toro's creativity and magnitude hooks you into a movie, you do believe it's real.  The violence is so sudden and so shocking that it literally ruins the entire picture.  All the fabulous work he has done on sets, costumes, lighting, etc. are immediately thrown away.  What are you going to remember about the film?  Guess.  Anyway, Crimson Peak is mostly a traditional gothic tale, with a familiar, almost tired plot.  There are some very scary ghost scenes, however.  Awesome visuals, which make you forget how dumb the story is.  And then there is the over the top violence.  I hope someday Del Toro overcomes his teenage violence fantasies, and makes at least one movie before he dies that shows off his talents in a positive light.  I'd be interested in what percentage of viewers were entertained by seeing a man's head smashed repeatedly and graphically into the side of a bathroom sink, with all the accompanying blood and broken head.  Or the abysmal climax, with at least five stabbings, all very graphic and over the top.  And the two female leads have at one another with knives, a cleaver, and a shovel.  Stupidity marches on.

Now streaming on AMC+ 

 

And now for something completely different.  Deb's leaving choice last weekend was called The Balcony, a filming of a Jean Genet play that stars Peter Falk (who is pretty good) and Shelly Winters (who is awful).  Winters runs a fantasy island type of house of pleasure in a vast building.  She has many girls who work for her, and the customers (all male) pay highly for their services.  They get to act out their fantasies.  In this case there are three: one man wants to be a bishop, another a general, and a third a judge.  Outside the building the world is descending into chaos, with street battles and bombs.  Falk plays the police chief who is trying to take over everything.  Mostly quite silly now, there are several funny moments that keep up interest.  Pretty avante garde for 1963 cinema.  The language from the 1957 play was toned down considerably.  Worth a look for the curious.

 

Leaving Criterion August 31st.

 

For my main choice of the week I selected two shorter films by Les Blank from the early 70s.  They are called Dry Wood, and Hot Pepper.  Both deal with Black Creole culture in Louisiana.  The better film is Hot Pepper, which follows Clifton Chenier around to some of his gigs.  His incredible virtuosity on the accordion mixes jazz, blues, and zydeco.  The film is much more focused than the first one, which shows a variety of scenes, some very unpleasant to watch, of the rural community doing what they do.  But the Chenier film has some wonderful music, really stunning photography, and some random scenes with music in the background worth their weight in gold.  There was also a more recent short documentary to watch about making the two films.  Criterion is the only place to see stuff like this, especially in excellent prints.

The better of two Les Blank films leaving Criterion August 31st. 

 

In local news, Deb's mom Lois took a fall in her room.  She needed to have an x-ray done on her arm.  So Deb had to drive to Kingsville (30'), then follow the ambulance to Windsor (35'), stay until the x-ray happened (about 3 hours), drive back to Kingsville for the paperwork and to get her mom comfortable, then drive back home.  Not the end of her driving.  The arm was fractured, and Lois needed to return to Windsor next day at 6 am.  So Deb was up at 4:40 am, driving back to Windsor to meet her mom.  When her sling was on (they aren't going to use a cast), Deb drove back to Kingsville (Lois had transport separately arranged for her in her wheel chair), and then finally home.  Lois is in some pain, but she has pills for that.  Her arm is immobilized for three weeks, when she has to return to Windsor.  Deb is pretty sick of driving. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Film Festival Time

We are running a bit behind n our viewing schedule, as we tackle several mini-series outside our normal weekly movie watching.  A normal week will see us watch 4 films.  But at the end of each month, a 3-film film festival gets thrown into the works, in addition to the regular schedule.  We are currently watching the June film festival offerings, chosen by yours truly.  I selected six short documentary films from Senegal, by director Paulin Soumanou Vieyra.  They begin with the 1955 short called Africa on the Seine, which takes us to Paris to see how blacks are faring at that time.  Next came the 1961 short called A Nation Is Born, detailing the history of Senegal.  Mol is from 1966, and is in colour.  A fisherman from a small village needs to purchase a motor, so he can go out further to find a richer catch of fish. The film details his efforts to find, fund, and transport his motor back to his home village from Dakar.  Birago Diop, Conteur, is a 1982 film about a Senegalese writer and poet, one who still influences the country's schools and thinkers today.  From 1981 comes his film about Ousmane Sembene's film Creddo.  The documentary is called Behind The Scenes: The Making of Creddo, and includes interviews with Sembene, his wife, his cameraman, and his editor, as well as many scenes of filming.  The hardships of African filmmakers are highlighted, including the 4 week wait for the rushes to be sent to Paris and returned to Dakar.  Eye opening stuff!  Lastly we watched Iba N'Diaye, about the Senegalese painter, a film from 1982.  The director died in 1987.  The films we saw give a glimpse into things African from an African perspective, and there is no better way to gain insight into that continent.

Before the above festival, I suffered through a 2nd viewing of Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.  My views have not changed much; it is still one of the most sadistic films I have ever seen.  Though the fantasy elements are off the scale for their incredible effects and atmospheric renderings, the film is ruined for me by the violence.  Many viewers eem able to overlook this aspect of the film and move on.  I cannot.  Welcome back to modern films.  One of the main characters, who is the reason the other characters end up together in the film, is a fascist captain of the Spanish army, in 1944.  He is there to fight and eliminate the rebels.  Fine, whatever.  But del Toro goes way overboard with the character, making him a masochistic and ultra sadistic bully.  His portrayal and way over the top actions basically ruin the film for me.  No matter what eventually happens to him, he cannot ever be made to pay for what he has done (including shooting a doctor in the back and killing him, teasing and torturing a captured rebel, a stutterer, in a very long and extremely painful sequence, and shooting to death a little girl, another main character of the film).  Del Toro was a big fan of Dickens, and it shows, but now severely updated.  This film is not really entertainment, except perhaps for an ultra sadistic viewer.  But it is a reminder (if anyone actually needs one) of how cruel some people can be.  And if you really believe that this film has a happy ending, then go back to watching the Disney Channel.

Now showing on AMC. 

 

Pierre Etaix is a French director, kind of in the same category as Jacques Tati, a favourite of ours.  We watched 4 short comic films by Etaix, under the umbrella title of As Long As You've Got Your Health, from 1966, which was one of the shorts.  In it a stressed out doctor tries to deal with his stressed out patients.  The other three are Insommnia, about a man unable to sleep who picks up a bedside vampire novel and reads it; Cinema, about trying to find a good seat in a crowded theatre; and In The Country, about a picnicking couple, a farmer trying to put up fencing, and a hunter, all interacting in a hilarious way.  We are looking into more by this director.

 

Scene from Cinema, one of the shorts by Etaix showing on Criterion. 

 

In local news, the heat and humidity are back.  At least we had a few days of relief, though the sun is merciless this time of year, even on "cooler" days.  We are once again making progress on installing a second railing segment on the new stairs.  There are problems trying to match it to the first segment, but those are being overcome with new tools and lots of patience.  Concrete hole drilling should resume tomorrow afternoon.

I did a run through of my piano pieces when Amanda visited last weekend.  Next Monday I will perform them for three friends, and possibly for Jenn if I see her this weekend.  Even though we are now entering our 7th wave of Co-vid, this will be the first time we have had three people inside our house since before the pandemic.  The next day Deb and I will go to Windsor to receive our 2nd booster shot.  After that I will think about making my way north to Sudbury, possibly later that same week.  My brother Stephan retired from his job last week, a service manager at the local Ford dealer.  He should be in a good mood!  Meanwhile, tomorrow I report to my ear specialist for another hearing test and check up.  My hearing has fully returned again, so I anticipate a quick visit.  Dr. Ling is also a pianist, and we usually chat more about music than about ears.  And Thursday Deb returns to see her oral surgeon, probably for stitches removal and a final check on how things are healing.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

Countdown To Spring

We are enjoying another wintry weekend, with a bit of snow Friday and seriously cold temps today (high of 24 F).  But official Spring is only a week away.  The winter pictures will come off the walls, and up will go different ones.  We have already had a few very fine days, and our snowdrops have been blooming for a week or so now.  I may even start to go outdoors again next week, though mostly do begin yard cleanup and shrub trimming.  Though I do have an uphill mode on my treadmill, I would prefer to get back to Malden Hill once a week for some serious hill climbing.  Though there will be no spring hiking in New Mexico again this year, I am ever hopeful for early autumn, getting back to high country once again.  I have so many unfinished hiking projects there I would like to complete, including at least three mountain crest trails.  Two are half complete, while the third is a long one day journey.

I am currently reading my 6th book of 8 related to my Avon/Equinox project.  Once the 8 books are read I have what I call free reading for the remainder of the month.  The book I am now reading is a strange but satisfying mix of SF and fantasy, written by Jack Williamson in 1994.  I am halfway through its 349 pages, and so far so good.  There are flying unicorns, but also steam wagons, steam trains, and astronomy.  There have been good characters, and the plot so far is building solidly.  Go Jack!  He was still writing this stuff well into his 80s.  I can only hope I will still be doing similar activities during my 80s. 

Deb continues work on her latest film, about four animals running away from certain doom once they have outlived their usefulness to their human masters.  It should run under 10 minutes, and be a visual stunner.  In piano news, I continue work on my next program.  I will seek out lessons with Philip A. sometime after the 21st, before performing them for friends.  My first Valeria book is currently being translated into French, as I await any news from 3 English publishers (can take up to 6 months) where the e-manuscript was sent.

 I am still anxiously awaiting word on when testing will be dropped at the border to return to Canada.  I keep having dreams where I am in Detroit, having a great old time, and then suddenly realize that I have to find someplace to get a Co-vid test.  Of course they are all closed....

Turning to film watching news, Truffaut's Day For Night is one of his best and most accessible films.  He plays a film director dealing with the many problems encountered in such an enterprise.  No doubt these were all problems he really did encounter when making his many films.  Very enjoyable viewing.

Showing on Criterion until March 31st. 

I Was A Simple Man is a film a lot of people rave about, but it left me pretty cold.  Deb really liked it.  It is a film from Hawai'i from 2021, telling in flashback parts of the life an older man now dying.  While I liked the way the story was told, the character selected for the film turned me off to the production.  The photography is beautiful, the dialogue is mostly quiet and sensitive, and the people trying to cope with the man's death are mostly caring and concerned.  The man was a pool shark and heavy drinker, who fathered two kids.  His wife died young and it left him even emptier as a person than he was previously.  He passed off his kids to his sister-in-law, and never had anything much to do with them, despite an early closeness to his daughter.  He barely talks as an old man, refusing to tell doctors anything.  He continues to drink and smoke.  He is nearly a blank slate, and never really develops into any kind of human character.  The story itself goes nowhere, either.  But quiet dialogue, lush atmospheric music, and superb photography have a lot of people thinking that this is a really deep film.  He wasn't a simple man; he wasn't really a man at all.  He was someone who faced hardship and failed to come to terms with it, or with anything, in his long life.  To me a simple man is one who lives his life as best and as full as he is able, without self induced complications or unnecessary drama.  This person was simply flat line throughout his life, at least according to the movie.  Nothing to see here.

Now showing on Criterion. 

Next was a very entertaining film, as Guillermo Del Toro takes us on a one hour tour of his museum to pulp, horror, and SF collection, housed in an amazing building that he has customized down to the last detail.  Called Adventures In Movie Going, it's one of a series where Criterion film buff talks to different directors about film.  Del Toro talks about films that influenced him as he shows us around his palace of collectibles, a rare look inside a place that he uses for inspiration and research.  Eye popping stuff!

Next up was Ken Russell's Mahler.  Like most of his feature films, this one could have been quite good, if it had a lot less of Ken Russell and just a bit more Mahler.  Like his Tchaikovsky film seen earlier, we get the basic facts and highlights (and lowlights) of Mahler's life.  But we get a lot more, too, with some truly outrageous segments that are pretty embarrassing to watch.  The music of the composer is used liberally and quite well, showing viewers where some of his important influences came from.  It shows Alma's struggle with her own self, as she literally has to bury her hopes of becoming a composer, too.  Set in the Austrian Alps, and on board a train travelling through Austria, the film uses flashback to tell much of the story.  The flashbacks are always triggered by something happening on board the train, such as a town brass band playing at a station, or something Alma says to him.  Not essential viewing for Mahler fans, but likely more for Russell fans.

Now showing on Criterion. 

Lastly comes a strange little b & w western from 1958, called Terror In A Texas Town.  It stars Sterling Hayden as a Swedish man come to take over his aging father's homestead.  When he arrives in town, he finds that his father has been murdered, and an evil land baron (Sebastien Cabot) is out to claim the land, with the aid of a hired gunman.  The settlers and townsfolk are too scared to band together and stand up for their rights.  Only Hayden's character will stand up to the bullies.  The final showdown features the gunman with his pistols versus Hayden with a whale harpoon, facing off on main street.  Weird but strangely watchable.

Showing on Criterion until March 31st. 

We are currently in the early stages of watching Cleopatra, a 4+ hr studio extravaganza starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and everyone else in Hollywood and beyond.

And, for your final entertainment, here are a few more pics from the family slide scanning project.

One of the first pictures I took with my first 35 mm camera, an Olympus.  Younger brother Stephen and unknown sidekick.  up till now I had used a Kodak Instamatic camera.

This four wheeler belonged to my female cousin.  I had a very fateful downhill ride on it one day. 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

More Movies

It's not that I am unaware of world events and choose to ignore them.  This blog was created as more of a "what I am doing lately" thing, for family and close to friends to keeps tabs on Homestead happenings.  I have usually avoided political discourse here, and will continue to do so.  If I were to start a political crises blog, I fear I would be writing in it 24 hours per day. So I do keep up with world current events, but you will find very little of that here (so far).  Making it through four years of a Trump presidency without much commenting was a daunting task.  Watching the UK go through Brexit was another challenge for me to keep my mouth shut.  Now it is Putin's turn.  And on it goes.  Now, putting my rose coloured glasses back on....

I have been sending out my Valeria manuscript to more English publishers.  I have a very good chance of having it published in France, but the translating costs are huge.  I am having the first three chapters translated into French for submission, but I will await the English deadlines before committing to more translation costs.  The second volume is also ready to send out, if and when the first one gets published.  And the third is inside my head, waiting to come forth should the 2nd one get a green light.

In film watching news, I am a bit behind, and there have been some memorable ones lately.  One of the creepiest films we have ever the dubious pleasure of watching is called The Cremator.  It is a Czech film from 1967, directed by Juraj Herz.  It's about a man who works at a crematorium during Hitler's rise to power.  He is mad at the beginning, getting more insane as the film progresses.  He is possibly one of the scariest villains in film history.  And the picture is a dark comedy, so don't totally despair.  He likes to brag about his firm's gas furnace, which can reduce a body to ashes in 75 minutes.  He combs his hair a lot, using the same comb on dead bodies, and on his children.  He commits four murders, and tries for a fifth.  For his efforts he is rewarded by the Nazis, and given the task of making more efficient gas furnaces.  Yikes!  A horror film, indeed.

The Cremator, now showing on Criterion as part of its Czech New Wave Festival.

A still from The Cremator. 

Next up was Cronos, Del Toro's first film, from 1993.  It is a very unique film, though not entirely successful, mostly due to excessive violence.  At its heart it is a vampire tale.  An older man who runs a small antique shop gets his hand on a strange little metal device, in the shape of an insect.  When he winds it it suddenly clings to his hand, and sharp needles penetrate it, injecting him with a life prolonging formula, provided he supplements his diet with human blood.  A rich older man is after the device, having come across a text about it from the 1500s.  Ron Perlman plays his nephew and strong man.  This was the actor's first film with Del Toro, and he has some funny comments to make about him in one of the many extras that come with the film.  Definitely worth seeing, but I think that a great idea was virtually wasted here.  Be warned; there is a lot of blood, and some hilariously gross scenes (such as the first older man licking blood from the floor of a rest room).

Now showing on Criterion.

 Next came Fassbinder's 1979 film, called The Third Generation.  Starring his usual cast of actors and actresses, the director takes on home grown terrorism in this darkly funny tale about a group of misfits who band together to try and create mayhem on the streets.  We are never told why, and I doubt the group knows why.  They are completely ineffective.  However, there is an informer among them, who does his best to destroy the group.  The ending is quite good, as the film suddenly ends during the making of a ransom film of a kidnapped millionaire.  He is under the impression that this is part of his plan to boost business, and is not worried in the least.  The film had much trouble in Germany, but was successful elsewhere.  

Now showing on Criterion. 

As Spring finally arrives here in SW Ontario (though more snow is coming on Monday), it's time to take a look back at what real snow looks like.  These are more photos from my colour slides scanning project, and are from 1976, the final winter we spent in Sudbury.

February 1976, Sudbury.  Younger brother Steve, about to be put to work.

 

 Front of the house, standing in the driveway which needs some shovelling....

The driveway is clear, but not much else.

We built a fort!  Deb and I would be married in August of 1976, and leave home permanently. 

Enjoy your weather, whatever it might be!

Mapman Mike