What I'm Watching

Movie I’ve Watched:

• The Adventures of Taura: Prison Ship Star Slammer (1986): Not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. There are jokes and the odd one actually lands.

• Apollo 11 (2019): A documentary that really makes you feel like you were there.

• The Ascent aka Black Ops aka Stairs (2019): This is an extremely low budget action/horror/science fiction film that is so boring for its first half that I was wondering if I was going to end up thinking it was an all-timer. So much day-for-night in this one.

• Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959): Produced by Roger Corman’s brother, not the man himself. This is an hour long and the intra-human conflict is “If you dynamite that lake I will arrest you!" so it’s really high stakes.

• Le doulos (1962): Melville is the master of French crime cinema.

• Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip (2003): Among the Ken Burnsiest Ken Burns films I’ve ever watched.

• I’m No Angel (1933): Reputed to be the “best” Mae West film, this film has dated a ton and is also a mess narratively.

• The January Man (1989): One of those films with a great cast where all the actors seem to be acting in different films. At the very least, Rod Steiger, Harvey Keitel and Kevin Kline are acting as if they are in different films.

• Le joli mai (1963): This is an in-depth look at life in Paris in May 1962. The film is very interesting as a time capsule. I wonder if films like this even have a purpose any more given how much we now document our own lives.

• Orphée (1950): This is a technically interesting film (like so many of Cocteau’s films) which I feel isn’t very strong on the narrative side, though I don’t even know if I’ve read Orpheus.

• Radar Men from the Moon: “Chapter 1 - Moon Rocket” (1952): A serial from 1952 seems pretty late to me. In this one there are human aliens living on the moon who speak English.

• The Rest I Make Up (2018): A documentary about a playwright I’ve never heard of. I am happy I watched it. I probably will never seen a Fornes play because I don’t know how common it is to read them. (Does it make sense to read her? I didn’t learn enough from the film.) But I also think a better film would have told me more about her as a playwright and balanced that with the story of her mental decline rather than mostly focusing on her declining memory.

• Titicut Follies (1967): This is the movie that made Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman. If you don’t know who Frederick Wiseman is, you probably don’t want to watch his movies. They are “fly on the wall” documentaries that often feature little-to-no dialogue, though there is plenty of (abusive) dialogue in this film about a mental health facility.

• Undersea Kingdom: “Chapter 1 – Beneath the Ocean Floor” (1936): The first chapter of a serial I watched as part of the MST3 episode of Attack of the Giant Leeches. Everything that is “undersea” is of course above-ground and outside, so you can see the sun. Lots of skullcaps substituting for otherness.

TV I’m Watching:

• Atlanta: I finished the third season. I will be starting the fourth season as soon as I finish the other TV I’m watching without Jenn.

• Inside No. 9: I have finally started watching the most recent season of what I think is one of the best shows on TV. Why are you not watching it?

• NBA Basketball: The Raptors got hot and won a bunch of games and had fans worrying they would get a worse draft pick. And then they lost some games again. Their record is, um, 17-38. If they lose 4 more games there is literally zero chance - i.e it’s impossible - they could be a .500 team. And yet, fans are worried they might be too good. Tanking breaks fans brains.

• Deadloch: This is a very funny Australian parody of the British “big cop in a small town solving a series of murders” style show. Think Broadchurch. I laughed a lot and I think it was mostly very successful and worth watching.

• 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: So Jenn is watching this and I am watching along but really struggling. Jenn has so many films and shows that she doesn’t enjoy that I do because she finds all the characters unlikable. Well, the tables have turned. I hate everyone here at this point, or just about, and I find the woman at the heart of everything to be maddening. (She is pursuing this just awful, womanizing old money man - who publicly embarrassed her while she was working!!! - who isn’t even as handsome as the show wants him to be. And it is driving me crazy.) I have no idea if we will finish this season. My completist streak wants me to.

What I’m Listening to:

• Count Basie: The Complete Atomic Basie (1994): This late album is particularly acclaimed so I am listening to the whole sessions even though Basie’s music isn’t really my thing.

• Beethoven: Piano Trios: I am slowly making my way through these.

• Bonnie Prince Billy, Nathan Salsburg, Tyler Trotter: Hear the Children Sing & The Evidence (2024): If I describe this record to you, you probably won’t want to listen to it. Will Oldham sings two songs by a hardcore band I’ve never heard of, Lungfish. He’s backed by a guitarist and a drummer. They play the songs as contemporary folk songs. The album is over 40 minutes long. That’s right. Two hardcore songs each played for roughly 20 minutes each. It doesn’t sound great, does it? But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

• Eric Dolphy: Out to Lunch! (1964): A classic free set.

• Bill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (2003): The complete recording of a famous date which produced multiple LPs for the pianist.

• Fairport Convention: While listening to a podcast with Joe Boyd I was reminded I haven’t listened to Fairport in forever. So I listened to their first four records again, the only records of theirs I’ve ever listened to. (They’re four of the five Richard Thompson records and three of them have Sandy Denny so that’s why.) Such a great band.

• From the Basement: I went back through their old YouTube videos. Radiohead are the most famous to be on the show of course but there are so many more: Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth before they broke up, and much more. And I discovered at least two bands: Sons of Kemet and Squid.

• Ligeti: Lux aeterna (1966): If you’ve seen 2001 you know this.

• Liszt: I forgot to mention last month that I am slowly making me way through Liszt’s “late” pieces, or at least the ones I think I am supposed to care about. The thing about Liszt is that he wrote hundreds of piano pieces.

• Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (1909): Described by many as a symphony, this is an orchestral work with two singers, which is highly unusual for a symphony.

• Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto: Not really my favourite composer or era but I don’t mind this so far.

• Mingus at Antibes (1976): A fantastic 1960 set by one of Mingus’ small groups (with different combinations on different tracks).

• Mozart:

  • Krönungsmesse (1779): If I listen to enough Mozart maybe I’ll eventually come to like him.

  • “Haydn” String Quartets 14-19: I like these more than much of his music but that’s because I’m a sucker for string quartets.

  • Symphonies 39-41: See my top comment on Mozart.

• Offenbach:

  • Orphée aux enfers (1858): How did I experience two different (French!) versions of Orpheus this month?!?!

  • La grande duchesse de Gérolstein (1867): Offenbach feels like the predecessor of the American musical - so much non-musical dialogue.

• Shane Parish: Repertoire (2024): Great, brief American Primitivist performances of mid century progressive jazz with some really left-field selections from Kraftwerk, Minutemen and, um, Fred Rogers, among others.

• Giacomo Puccini: Madama Butterfly live at the Four Seasons Centre: This is one of Puccini’s operas I had yet to listen to. It’s pretty radical in some ways: the main male voice disappears for the vast majority of Acts II and III and there is this extremely long intermezzo between Act II and III with no singing that I am not sure I have encountered before in an opera. The music is, like all of Puccini’s music for me, great. But I was really impressed by the staging and I like how weird it is in its construction.

• Prokofiev:

  • Piano Sonatas: I really like these a lot.

  • Romeo and Juliet (1935): His most famous ballet.

• Johann Strauss II: Accelerationen (1860): A waltz.

• Szymanowski:

  • Complete piano music: I am slowly working my way through these.

• Various Artists:

  • Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1958 (1972, 1998): I have finally gotten around to listening to perhaps the most famous various artists compilation of the classic rock era. I know a few of these songs from listening to 1050 Chum or Q107 but most are obscure enough I didn’t know them.

  • A Tribute to Don Heffington (2024): If I have ever seen Heffington’s name among the credits of the numerous famous musicians he worked with, I don’t remember. But this is a super varied and fun tribute to a man known as a drummer but who also turns out to have been a pretty decent songwriter.

• Verdi:

  • Messa da requiem (1874): I really like his Requiem so far.

  • La traviata (1853): I prefer Puccini but he is the king of Italian opera and so I feel I must work my way through them.