From the Desk of…
You have less than two weeks to get your Valentines sorted. Everything is already booked. You’re gonna have to scramble to get the last stuffed bear off the CVS shelf. It’s okay because I haven’t done anything either. And! Probably won’t. What I really love about February is that it is the perfect 28-day month, an exact four weeks. Every month should be four weeks. That’d be one fewer rhyme I have to remember at least. Anything happen this week? I watched the second season of The White Lotus, which was good. What would it be like if I lived in Sicily, I wonder? Tim Ryan announced that he was gonna be a lobbyist for natural gas, which counts as getting into green energy now in Ohio. That’s pretty cool. I guess I can’t fault him for living his truth and securing that fossil fuel bag. It’s not like he’s got anything else to look forward to. Speaking of Tim Ryan’s issues, Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom launched their website. Go give them money and volunteer labor. Now, what popped out of the ol’ noggin this week?
The Brain Dump
hopping in my "car" to "drive" somewhere during the "morning commute." get real. none of these words will know god. time is artifice.
I was the Lindbergh baby
[looking at the expiration dates of condiments in my fridge] i will not see the kingdom of heaven
a factory is one of the least appealing places to eat cheesecake, and yet
My name is Senator Meow. Posting is my art. And there's no place I'd rather make it.
ART MAKES COLUMBUS
COLUMBUS MAKES ART
That was a better week for the brain, I think. Or, maybe worse. It’s difficult to say. Oh yeah, and Larry Householder is saying the judge trying him in federal court doesn’t pass the vibe check.
At the Movies
I did it! I went and saw new things!
Living (2022), dir. Oliver Hermanus ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ultimately, I think it was a successful adaptation of Ikiru for Western audiences who don't do subtitles... or black and white films.
I have some quibbles with the re-ordering of some plot beats, and I have some opinions about some of the character changes and expansions, but it was broadly good. It didn't pull as many punches as I expected it to in making it palatable for general audiences.
But Ikiru is a masterpiece, and this is a good movie.
Bill Nighy is great though.
Infinity Pool (2023), dir. Brandon Cronenberg ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐❤️
Brandon is his father's son.
It mostly reminded me of Naked Lunch, but I like Naked Lunch. Little Haneke in there too. Enough commentary about the fetishization of the exotic vis-a-vis bad tourists to make for interesting discussion while also playing out the Cronenberg hallucinogenic sequences and light body horror.
For the first two acts, I was pretty confident this was landing at a solid four, but the third act impressed me enough to bump it up. I was fully prepared to be unsurprised, and it was at least interesting. The performances were good enough to good, especially for the material. I would say I found it better than Possessor, and I'm pretty sure I gave that four stars.
Mia Goth please DM me urgently
also this movie is about what it's like to visit Ohio
Xanadu (1980), dir. Robert Greenwald ⭐⭐⭐
Not bad enough to be good... not good enough to be bad. Really benefits from a broad personal enjoyment of Electric Light Orchestra. The talent was clearly there to make a real movie, but they just... didn't.
The Don Bluth animated sequence really came out of left field though. Really thought I would see coming everything it would throw at me and got got. Silly me.
I wonder if the NC-17 cut of Infinity Pool will redeem it for the folks it didn’t land with. Probably not. Oh well. Upward and onward! As long as they keep tricking the Canadian government into giving them money, I’ll keep watching that garbage.
One Picture
I should buy some wall vinyls.
.
In closing,
Tell your people what they should hear while you can. You don’t know when they’ll be gone.