Early January

This is the time of year that Winter usually cranks up the volume.  While it has been rather chilly here of late, and will remain so for the foreseeable future, it has not been Earth-shattering.  We are at about seasonable temps for this time of year, though the snow is still missing.  One of those giant winter storms is currently passing well south of us today.

 

Our New Year celebrations began last Tuesday night as we watched London UK ring in the new year with their usual spectacular fireworks at and in the London Eye.  New Years day we listened to a very long opera by Rameau, his Hypolyte and Aricie.  I gave myself two presents for this holiday, one of them being a 27 CD set of the Rameau operas.  This is part of my music education I have been neglecting for too long.  I love his harpsichord works, and have even performed several of them.  But his operas are his crowning achievement, and though not fully appreciated in his time, are now seen as the masterworks that they are.

 

In gaming news we have played some Bob Ross, Scrabble, and a Dr. Who card game recently.  The card game is a good game, but the rules are written so poorly that one has to play several times to fully catch on.  We continue to make progress with Tengami, the Japanese paper folding PC game, and I finished playing a much older game.  My 2 CD set of Road To India was damaged, so it became a bit frustrating.  With the help of online saved game files I was able to skip over parts that didn't play well, to finally conclude the game.  I managed to save the girl.  It's a pretty lame game.

 

Back to self-bought presents: my 2nd purchase was a new set of ice skates.  I used to skate a few times a year as a teacher, as the kids would go to the local arena monthly in winter for skating time.  Which means that the last time I was on ice skates was 2010.  Anyway, I am going to a public skating event this afternoon at our newest local arena. and am really looking forward to it.

 

In film news, there are three to report on.  At the beginning of each month the Criterion Channel posts which films are leaving at the end of the month, and which are just arriving.  We usually concentrate on the leaving list.  Some months there are only a few of interest, but this month the list is long and quite interesting.  So for now we are watching Criterion channel films leaving on January 31st.  Mubi does a similar thing, but for now we are all caught up there.  First up was Deja Vu, a SF film by Tony Scott, Ridley's younger brother.  Denzel Washington plays an ATF agent investigating a terrorist act in New Orleans (creepy timing).  As he is drawn deeper into the case, he is inducted into a special team that can see events as they happened four days earlier.  Now they can catch the killer.  But Denzel wants to do more; he wants to prevent the bombing of the ferry in the first place.  This is a classic big budget Hollywood thriller, with insane car driving, lots of violence, terrific special effects, and fine acting.  The SF twist makes it all bearable, though the plot eventually ends up with more holes in it than Swiss cheese.  No matter, it's just a fun roller coast ride.  Hold on and enjoy the best you can.

 

Leaving Criterion Jan. 31st. 

 

John Turturro has a large presence on Criterion, including giving short intros to films they show there.  We watched one of his directed films, Romance and Cigarettes from 2005.  Produced by the Coen Brothers, it is John's 3rd directorial effort.  It's a delightfully odd comedy/musical, with several pop songs (two by Tom Jones, one by Springfield, etc.) serving as musical dance numbers in the middle of the story.  It is quite an engaging film and well acted.  It stars James Gandolfini and Susan Saradon as a middle aged couple breaking up.  He is having an affair with a red-haired Kate Winslet, who is using a hilarious flat Midlands accent.  Their three daughters have formed a rock band and they practice in the backyard.  It's a difficult task to describe the film, but it resembles Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven, only funnier.  Highly recommended.

Leaving Criterion January 31st. 

 

I was attracted to a 1952 film called Strange Fascination.   Written, directed, produced, and acted by Hugo Haas, it's the old story of a concert pianist leaving Europe to try and conquer America.  He has a rich female patron, and begins his tour in Columbus, Ohio, as he attempts to work his way towards Carnegie Hall.  He plays Chopin.  He meets a very young bleached blonde, and they seem to hit it off.  She is a nightclub dancer heading to New York, where they meet up again.  They fall in love and get married, and after that his career seems to fall apart.  A Midwest flood forces cancellation of the rest of his tour, and he goes broke.  They live in a small room together, but his jealousy keeps her indoors and away from jobs she could have.  This tragedy manages to somehow avoid all the cliches that films about pianists have, as well as films about a young bleach blonde wife to a much older man.  She does love him, and she is a decent person.  To cash in on an insurance policy, he sticks his hand in a printing press machine.  Life can't get much worse.  Except his wife leaves him and he pines for Europe again.  In the final scene he is playing one-handed boogie woogie in an AA meeting for a bunch of sobering up skid row men.  But wait, at the very end, his original patroness appears at the door... and smiles at him.  He smiles back.  End of movie, about as happy an ending as could be imagined for this film.  An odd film worth a look.

Nowhere near as sleazy at it looks.  Leaving

Criterion Jan. 31st. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

The Bleak Midwinter

It's cold enough for winter, but at least it's sunny and virtually snowless out there, beyond the coziness of Lone Mountain Homestead.  We have very few plans for the holidays, other than the usual: reading, practicing piano (one of us; the other one is making an animated film), watching films, hoping for clear nights with usable temperatures, and doing some gaming.  The exception is this Friday, when we will visit Detroit.  There is a fun film event at the DIA that day that we would like to attend.

 

In local news we enjoyed, as usual, our Winter Solstice party for two.  This is our longest event of the year, and it runs from about 7:30 am until around 10 pm.  This year we not only saw the sunrise (it is reborn!) but also the sunset.  That is a rare happening here at this cloudy time of year. 

Solstice sunrise, looking southeast from our rear picture window.  The sun rises here at 7:58, but we didn't see it until almost 15 minutes later.    

 

At sunrise we first noticed it on the top of our tallest tree, a white pine we planted many years ago.  The pine cones sparkled with a golden hue as if they were lights on the tree.  We had put up our indoor decorations the night before.  Besides an all-day wood fire in our living room fireplace there was good food and drink aplenty.  And there was Wagner.  This year we chose the next opera on our to-do list.  Wagner only wrote one comic opera, the same one that is his only opera with no supernatural elements to the story.  Die Mastersinger von Nurnberg also happens to be his longest opera, and the only one of which we have no recording on the premises.  Spotify to the rescue!  We were able to listen to all 4 CDS by playing it on the computer, with blue tooth relaying the sound to our stereo speaker system.  It took us most of the day to get through its 4 1/2 hours.  It is a very funny opera, and great fun to listen to.  Deb had downloaded a pdf English translation and we were able to follow along.  The opera has much to say about music and, of course, a united Germany and its old traditions.

This is the version we listened to, courtesy of Spotify.  We have a free account. 

 

I mentioned gaming a ways back.  We began our 11 days of gaming with two games of Carcassonne.  First game just a regular game, which Deb won handily.  Then we played adding the Robbers to the scenario.  I won, just.  We will need to play the playoff game soon.  Today (Sunday) we will play Middle Earth: The Wizards collectible card game, also part of a series.  We also made some progress on Tengami, our current PC game.  And I am nearly finished with Road To India, a mystery adventure game.  A problem arose where the game crashed just at the end of a movie, as the next section tried to load.  I finally had to download a saved game file so that I could restart my play once the game had loaded properly.  But they worked fine, and I should, hopefully, be able to complete the game.

 

Late on Solstice morning, with its long shadows.  Note the tiny bit of snow!

My Solstice beverage of choice, collected on our autumn road trip. 

 

The Detroit River was busy with ships today. 

 

Our wood fire, kept going today from 8:30 am until about 5:30 pm.  

We sat here and listened to opera.

 

Solstice susnet, 2024.

Solstice sunset with passing ship, one of five ships that I watch year round.

The Federal Bering had been in Detroit.  This is a salty, and during the year it travels to Europe, the Mediterranean, and South America.  Good by Bering until next year.
  

On the subject of opera for a few moments longer, we got to see Maria, a 2024 film starring Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, the Greek opera singing sensation.  Somehow Mubi got hold of it, even before it is being released worldwide.  We get to see the final week of Callas's life, her downward trend accelerated by drug addiction and depression.  She was also addicted to being admired, and needed to be noticed wherever she went.  Through flashbacks we get to see other key moments in her life.  She began singing in childhood, and was traumatized by the abuse of soldiers who not only used her for sex, but made her sing first.  While her older sister was able to "close the door" on this sad episode of their lives, Maria was never able to.  Her affair with Onassis is given a lot of coverage, as well as her attempt to return to the stage.  Having lost a lot of weight quickly in later life, it likely affected her ability to sing.  Jolie does some of the singing herself, though the greatest moments are lip synced with Callas performing.  She is capable in the role, though she is unable to garner much sympathy from viewers for her character.  Callas was not really a very nice person.  At least today we can still enjoy her many recordings, including some done in her prime.  Recommended for music fans, but not for Tomb Raider fans, unless they love opera.

Now showing on Mubi.

We also watched My Blueberry Nights, a romantic comedy from 2007.  Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai made his first English film about two people who meet, then separate for a year, and then get back together.  He runs a small cafe in New York, while she has just learned that her boyfriend has dumped her for another girl.  She goes often to the cafe (pie and ice cream) and they talk.  She feels that she has to leave, and heads to Memphis, then out west and on to Nevada, before finally returning to the cafe in the final scene.  She writes him letters, but never leaves an address, so he is unable to find her.  Her adventures on the road as a waitress in different locations make up the bulk of the movie.  Highly recommended, with good writing and acting.

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tengami

I am back to some PC gaming, after a hiatus following the completion of the newest version of Riven.  Tengami is an older game from 2014, but runs smoothly on our PC.  The adventure game takes place in medieval Japan.  There is no dialogue, and the one character in it, a Samurai, is one dimensional and not important to the game, other than to drive it forward.  The redeeming quality of Tengami is its look; the story and backgrounds unfold as does a cutout pop-up book, and many of the scenarios are quite lovely to walk through.  Don't expect really difficult puzzles, though a few of them are tricky enough.  Though not finished playing yet, I am enjoying my walk.  Deb has joined me for this game.

 

Three scenes from Tengami. 

 

I have also loaded an even older 2 CD Rom game on the upstairs older machine.  Road To India is a 2001 release from Microids.  An American man flies to India to check on the well being of his Indian fiancee.  He sees her kidnapped and must try to find her and rescue her.  A pretty old fashioned story for 2001.  So far the game runs perfectly.  I am still near the beginning, but am making progress.  The visuals are similar to slide show games, but views are 360 degrees.  I almost missed a very important monkey right at my feet near the beginning, though I had no trouble finding the elephant.  Part of the game is played in a dream state, where a lot of weird things can happen.  For instance, in the first dream a flute is played to make a rope climb up, so the hero can climb the rope and get at some oranges in a tree (for the monkey).  I've had the game on my shelf for many years.  I finally started to pack up some of the old games I will likely not play again, and I found several that I hadn't yet played.  More reports to follow.

 

In local news, Deb continues to keep our local medical profession busy and on their toes.  Most of our journeys are either for groceries, or to medical appointments.  She has been having really bad jaw trouble lately, an advanced form of TMJ, and will see a specialist next Thursday, one of three medical appointments for her next week.  But life goes on, though on a somewhat liquid and/or squishy diet for Deb.  She has had to rethink her recent stop motion film attempt.  Though the film will still be made, it will not be stop motion.  It already looks much better with the new techniques she is using.  And it probably won't take an entire year to complete now, either.

 

In film watching news, here is the latest report from the Homestead viewing room.  My leaving film choice this time was The Hudsucker Proxy, a film from 1994 and the Coen brothers.  Tim Robbins stars in this throwback to much earlier b and w comedies.  While much of the humour works, a considerable amount doesn't.  A young hopeful from Muncie Indiana, fresh out of business college, comes to New York to seek his way in the world.  He gets chosen to be the proxy director of a major company, whose fortunes are rising along with share prices.  The board of directors, led by evil Paul Newman, want to depress the shares so they can buy 51% of the company,then allow the shares to rise again.  Robbins has a goofy idea that is sure to flop, and he is allowed to proceed with it.  However, his idea, the hula hoop becomes a world wide hit, and the company continues to rake in money.  Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a snoopy reporter who is on to the scheme.  Watchable, but I prefer some of the old comedies from the 30s and 40s.

 

Leaving Criterion Dec. 31st. 

 

Deb's main film choice was Pictures of Ghosts, a 2023 film from Brazil that made it into some very major festivals.  How it did so is a mystery to me.  The film is a pretty lame documentary about the filmmaker's family and life in Recife, Brazil.  After a while he begins to examine the old and now closed cinemas of that city's downtown area.  Most of the cinemas were dreary places when they opened, nothing like the movie palaces that once dominated American cities.  I found the film to be mostly quite boring, though I am always interested in seeing before and after photos of how cities have changed.  Not recommended, unless you have spent a lot of time in Recife.

Kleber Mendonça Filho's documentary is showing on Criterion. 

 

Deb's leaving choice was a Terrence Malick documentary from 2016 called Voyage of Time.  Created for Imax theatres, it is showing on Mubi.  While there is some decent photography, the organization of material and the voice over narration is laughable, to be generous.  It purports to show the history of the universe, up till the time that a little girl in a blue dress walks through a field of grass not far from some highrise apartments.  Thankfully it is only 46' minutes long.  I wonder how much money was plunked down at Imax theatres to see this bomb.  No doubt many people who saw it thought that they had just seen and heard the most profound bit of science ever imagined.

 

The film leaves Mubi in two days. 

 

Because that film was so short, Deb also chose another one from her Animation Showcase channel.  A Bear Named Wojtek is a 30' animation from 2024, telling the story of how a bear became a colonel in the Polish army.  It is a true story, and quite heartwarming to watch.  Unfortunately we don't get to see the bear smoking and drinking beer with his comrades.  After the war the bear ended up at the zoo in Edinburgh. The animation itself is in a sort of swirly children's picture book sort of style.  Recommended, especially for bear lovers.

Now streaming on Animation Showcase, a channel for registered animators.

 Mapman Mike