What I'm Watching

Movies I’ve Watched:

• John Candy: I Like Me (2025): This is an affecting but seemingly incomplete documentary about one of Canada’s most famous actor-comedians.

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2012): Apparently the book is just a guide for fans and not a novel.

• Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018): This is closer to Harry Potter, I guess.

• Thermae Romae (2012): We watched (most of) this very silly Japanese historical fantasy film in Japan with no English subtitles so take this with a grain of salt.

TV Shows I’m Watching:

• The American Revolution (2025): The new Ken Burns is, presumably intentionally, timely.

• Andor (2022): I watched the first season on a plane.

• Basketball: The Raptors are still over .500 but it feels like not for long the way they’ve been playing since we got back. I think maybe we need to go back to Japan.

• Master of None (2015): I need to get back to watching this. I haven’t watched an episode since I left.

• Physical Asia: Mostly great challenges - with one or two duds - and just terrible pacing and editing, as you would expect for this franchise.

What I’m Listening to:

• Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López: You can find my reviews at the links.

  • De Facto: I listened to the albums, but not the EPs, for this dub band that existed briefly at the turn of the millennium.

  • The Mars Volta: My favourite prog rock band of the 21st century but also basically the only 21st century prog rock band I’ve ever given enough time to. I do not like where they’ve gone for their reunion, however. Reviews at the link.

• Chopin: Polonaises: The most famous polonaises. (One of them is the basis for one of my favourite Monty Python songs and I can’t help but hear the Python lyrics in my head when I listen to it.)

• Richard Strauss: Don Quixote (1897): A programmatic tone poem.

Where I’m Going:

For the second half of November and the first week of December I was in Japan which is why there isn’t a lot in this newsletter.