What I'm Watching

Movies I’ve Watched:

• Antisocial (2013): I was told this was a New Years’ Eve movie. It is absolutely not. The New Year’s Eve party that is supposedly part of this film is much more just going to someone’s house during university.

• Iron Warrior (1987): The third Ator film. I spent much of the movie air drumming because the ‘80s drums on the soundtrack are something.

• The Look of Silence (2014): The sequel to The Act of Killing is just as hard to watch, just as horrifying and a lot more hopeful.

• The Miracle of Milan (1951): Absolutely not my thing. I cannot stress that enough. I really don’t like movies like this - whimsical, religious fantasies posing as neo-realism. Ugh.

• The Palm Beach Story (1942): Part of our screwball season, some people think this is one of Sturges’ best films and I…absolutely do not. It has a terrible ending that a lot of people have decided to love because…Preston Sturges? I don’t know. the ending is just so unbelievably dumb.

• Silent Night (2012): This pretty humourless film is somehow the 6th film in the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise (who knew?). It is not very good, as you might imagine. It is not to be confused with a bunch of other Silent Nights released in the last 15 years or so.

• Umberto D. (1952): I feel for this man but I hate basically hate everyone in this movie except for the maid, Maria.

• Vengeance is Mine (1979): This is a wild serial killer film based on a real case. The opening music and the way it’s shot makes it feel like it is trying to be an American cop film for the ’70s. And then it is something very different. (Occasionally it’s very funny!)

• The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993): This is an excellent documentary about a woman who was a dancer and actress, a pioneering filmmaker and mountain-climber, a photographer and possibly one of the few nonagenarian divers, but also a favourite filmmaker of Hitler’s. A must if you are into film history.

TV I’m Watching:

• Atlanta: Season 3 is where the show gets really strange, with multiple bottle episodes which are not canon, as they say. I’m not sure I’ve seen another American show quite like it. (It reminds me of Black Mirror and Inside No. 9, though it’s obviously way different, than anything American I’ve ever seen.)

• NBA Basketball: The Raptors lost an absolute ton of games recently but might be playing a bit closer to how they were at the beginning of the season now.

• Deadloch: A very funny Australian parody of “big city cop, very small town” mysteries like Broadchurch.

• Hill Street Blues: I first read about this show when I discovered The Wire or maybe even when I was watching Homicide. It is as advertised: the birth of the modern American police serial.

• Rivals: This is a genre of novel I didn’t really know existed - rich British people behaving badly but now, rather than in the past.

• Shōgun: I want more of shows like this, novels adapted into 10-hour (or x-hour) TV series. Gotta say, though, I’m not thrilled about how there are two more seasons coming since they finished the novel.

What I’m Listening to:

• Anthology of American Folk Music (1952): This compilation of folk, blues and country influenced so many musicians in the 1960s.

• John Coltrane: The Classic Quartet – Complete Impulse! Studio Recordings (1998): Not all of Coltrane’s Impulse recordings but all of them with Tyner, Garrison and Jones. I’ve heard a couple of these albums many times but the rest (there are 11) I had never heard before.

• Cover Me’s Best Cover and Tribute Albums of 2024: I wrote about two of these already but listened to all of them and am now listening to the ones I liked more so I can review.

• Miles Davis: The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965: Seven sets over two nights. It’s the Shorter/Hancock/Carter/Williams band.