What I'm Watching

In March and February

Riley Haas
March 16, 2025

Before I get to the usual stuff, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve updated my list of the Greatest Covers of All Time so that it is now multiple pages, so the videos actually load. (I also have a publicly accessible YouTube Music playlist if you are a subscriber.) You should trust me because

I write about covers for Cover Me
I have (mostly) really high standards for great covers. I am very rarely interested in covers that replicate the original.

Anyway…

Movies I’m Watched:

8½ (1963): When I first got into artsy films, Fellini was one of my “most overrated” filmmakers, I really hated him. That’s when I watched this, one of his two most famous and “greatest” films. I grudgingly gave it an okay grade but really didn’t like the experience. Then I watched a bunch of his other movies, mostly earlier ones, which I liked much more. So I gave this another try. And… fine: it’s probably a masterpiece. It’s not my kind of masterpiece, but it’s probably a masterpiece.
Le quai des brumes (1938): Altogether not shadowy enough, given its title. I did like the ending rather a lot. And the bad guy feels more realistic than most.
La règle du jeu (1939): I didn’t particularly enjoy this movie, thought by some to be one of the greatest films ever made. I didn’t find it that funny, I didn’t find it that incisive, and, crucially, I found the lead actress uncompelling. (That’s a major problem if you know the plot.) There’s nothing wrong with it and some of the direction is cool. But it’s also…not one of the greatest movies ever made.
Star Odyssey (1979): One of the worst movies ever made for its initial setup but it is saved from being All Time Bad by these two ridiculous robots who are actually intentionally funny. (Oh, and a gymnast who keeps performing whether or not the plot demands it.) Still absolutely terrible but I’ve seen worse.
Yi ge mo sheng nu ren de lai xin (2004): This is a Chinese remake of Letter from an Unknown Woman (which I have yet to see). Even though this was made by a woman, I found the female character so unbelievably “what a man thinks a woman would be like.” (The source material is written by a man.) This movie, made by a woman, fails the Bechdel Test!

TV I’m Watching:

Atlanta: I just started the fourth and final season.
NBA Basketball: The Raptors keep winning games when they are supposed to be tanking (hold out starters, holding starters to 20 minutes) and it’s causing all sorts of consternation in the media and the fan base. I wish people would relax. The lottery odds are pretty flat and dropping a place or two (rising in the standings) doesn’t do that much to them. Also, nobody will remember any of this if the Raptors luck out and get a Top 5 pick.
The Diplomat: We have started watching season 2.
Hill Street Blues: I finished the first season. I will not be watching the remaining seasons.
Inside No. 9: I have finished this fantastic anthology show, perhaps my favourite TV show I’ve watched lately. I’m kind of sad. I don’t do a lot of re-watching but maybe I will in 10-20 years. Already hard to remember every episode.
Rivals: I guess this is on hold now. It’s been a while since we watched an episode. Jenn doesn’t have my completist streak and she is the one who likes the show.
Taskmaster: We just finished the fourth season of the New Zealand version, which is the second best version of the show.

Music I’m Listening to:

Cannonball Adderley: Somethin’ Else (1958): The rare record where Miles Davis is featured but not the leader.
Cardew: Treatise (1963-67): Some of you would say this is just noise.
Benny Carter: The Music Master (2004): I’ve listened to this before and wrote a brief review years ago. Carter played at least three different reeds and bridged the Swing and Bop eras. Great soloist.
Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (1961): Two quartets playing off and against each other. A landmark in the history of jazz.
Peter Maxwell-Davies: Mr. Emmet Takes a Walk (1997): A pretty brief chamber opera about suicide!
Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit (1976): A string quartet.
Giordano: Andrea Chenier: A verismo opera
Benny Goodman: The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert (1950): The first ever big band concert at Carnegie Hall.
Orlando di Lasso/Lassus/Lattre: A major renaissance composer. Nobody can agree on what is proper name is.
Leslie Howard: Liszt: The Late Pieces (1991): This is just one disc from Howard’s 90-something CD set of the complete Liszt piano pieces. (I will never listen to them all.) It’s most but not all of the major “late” pieces, where Liszt mostly abandoned his earlier virtuosic style in favour of compositions that pushed conventions and highly influenced the next generation of composers who would completely break with Western musical rules. (I hear a lot of Debussy.)
Lutyens: “Ô saisons, ô châteaux” (1947): A cantata that really stretches the human voice.
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1905): A song cycle.
Mozart: String Quartet No. 20: I haven’t yet really thought much about what I think compared to the earlier ones.
Mussorgsky: Complete Songs: I am slowly making my way through Mussorgsky’s songs, many of which (most?) are not in cycles, which makes the process slower. This is not my favourite genre of music but I think I get why these are important. (Very, very “Russian.)
Red Nichols: That’s a Bargain (2007): A collection of his sides.
Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann (1880): Like his other operas, this feels very proto-musical.
The Amazing Bud Powell (1952): The other major early pop pianist.
Prokofiev:
- 4 Pieces for Piano (1911): What it says.
- Visions fugitives (1917): A piano cycle.
The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall (1953): The only recording by this one-off super group of Bird, Diz, Bud Powell, Mingus and Max Roach.
Rihm: 3 Klavierstücke (1967): The first three of his solo piano pieces.
Sibelius: En saga (1892): A tone poem.
Smetana: The Bartered Bride (1866): The rare notable Czech opera from the 19th century.
Webern: Passacaglia (1908): A modernist update of a Baroque musical form.