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Xmas Movies
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 587
Xmas Eve, Day, Boxing Day, today even, as Xmas Day was on a Sunday and nobody wants to pay overtime.
I'm trapped in somebody else's Christmas dream. Worse yet, they are most probably trapped, however well intended, in my Xmas nightmare...
Netflix, the TV, on 16/24 hours, playing inane Netflix Christmas Movies. And - as there's no place to go, everything is closed, I'm obliged to sit around and watch them.
This is spiritual suicide.
The first movie, something about a couple getting married, the families names "Christmas" and "Hope" and so following the wedding it becomes "Christmas-Hope".
I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.
"Starring" Kelsey Grammer, Elizabeth Hurley, John Cleese...
I'm surprised at the Elizabeth Hurley because the last movie on Netflix I watched - "Glass Onion - A Knives Out Mystery" - 'starred' Hugh Grant as the sexually ambiguous housekeeper designed to lend emotional/personal depth to our protagonist Benoit Blanc. I shudder to think that this is Daniel Craig's retirement.
Now this movie, not nearly as well written, merely hashing up stereotypes, setting the Xmas in a "quaint" English Village with beautiful, homogenous people, it's setting the type. The themes.
And it's inane. Beyond belief. You watch it like you'd watch a train-wreck. You can't look away. A beautiful estate, worth in the tens of millions of pounds, millions of pounds a year on the upkeep alone...these comprise our "relatable protagonists".
And dialogue, acting - well...this was filmed in one take. The stars, 'stars' how they've fallen, and I can't figure out why they're here.
I google "Kelsey Grammer". Why is he fucking here? Ooops. He lost 2 of his half brothers to a shark attack. I'm not making this up. And this - THIS - is probably the least traumatic thing you can say about him, look him up if you dare. The drugs, alcohol, rehab, they've got nothing on his life. Bloody hell.
Obligatory Black Guy driving Rolls-Royce he presumably didn't steal and Lesbian waiting to pounce from the closet.
The plot meanders in every predictable way towards it's happy ending. I mean, it stoops lower than most, but it gets there.
Summary, probably filmed in "1 take", over a weekend (rental of the mansion - expensive), feeble, appalling humor, the "stars" were probably on-set for no more than 2 or 3 hours and then paid off with $20,000 or $30,000 paychecks. I mean, how else?
Next up: "Holidate", about a girl that finds a date for the holidays and then ends up with him. Hallmark? I dunno But you could see the ending from the beginning .
Another predictable "fall-in-love-with-the-guy-I-was-meant-to-fall-in-love-with" film.
Starring some actresses that resemble famous actresses and actors that resemble famous actors only with enticing accents - is 'he" meant to be Australian or English? Or merely retarded? I can't tell anymore....
Anyways, it comes to pass that Aussie Chris Pratt finds true love in the love interest he's had all along.
Fucking hell. Day one of Xmas. I'm being held hostage and I don't know who to call...
It goes on and gets worse. Much worse. I'm going out for walks, bailing in every conceivable way on the shows being offered. But nothing is open and they're always there playing when I get back.
The next one, about an idyllic small town in which a dying village is lent a helping hand by the unexpected appearance of "Bigfoot". A "Jon-bon-jovi" production.
And yet again, a couple of stars I recognize, him, from "Shape of Water" and her, from the secretary in "Arrested Development".
And Lovejoy (Ian McShane), or - more widely known as the concierge in "John Wick".
How, how, how did this ever get made? What does it add to the Christmas Canon? My God!!!!
The idiocy continues. All of it, wholesale, a "Very Murray Xmas Special" which uses Bill Murray and friends, including George Clooney and the entire SNL cast - all to very bad effect, then comes the "El Camino Xmas", which only got 3 stars because everyone was hoping they would be getting a Merry Xmas update Jesse from Breaking Bad, starring Tim Allen, and then a "Bad Mom's Christmas" starring Kristen Bell and Susan Sarandon, and - like how - how? HOW HOW HOW?
Like fucking how.
The generic ideas of beauty (applicable only to women, never or seldom to men), the small town idylls portrayed by people who clearly have never set foot in one, the contrived and predictable plots, the "filmed entirely in a single take" aesthetic, never a "take 2", the cast and crew is as bored with the formula as the audience, this, this is hell.
Scripted inclusivity, every show a written in minority, funny/rich black sidekick/groom/suitor, alternative (lgbt) subplot, characters scripted into a loveable "Disney" utopia that would never have them, a vanilla enclave that has rejected them from time immemorial, yet - here they are, funny, witty, "ha-ha-ha", fooling no one and yet - clearly - fooling enough.
This is bullshit.
And I still can't figure out "how", I mean, even if every star's an idiot, wouldn't they still realize how shite this stuff is and give it a pass? They have agents...
Then I realize, they're committed, it's part of the "we give you good role, we give you bad role, you take what you're given...", few actors have the clout to escape the clauses that bind them to their studios. And, to be frank, most of these "films" take longer to watch then they do to film, and so - well - small investments for mediocre returns still=profit or money laundered.
Anyways, looking forward to my luddite, Netflix-Free Xmas next year, wherever that might be...
Notes on Big Sur, Etc. (Henry Miller)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 823
Finally finished, and an introduction to a whole new set of artists/authors I've never read (or knew of) and now must keep my eye peeled for...
- Ephraim Doner (Artist, friend of H. Miller)
- Bezalel Schatz (painter, sculptor, friend of H. Miller)
- Moise Kisling (French Painter)
- Charles-Albert Cingria (Author)
- Sir Godfrey Higgins (author)
- Oscar Vladislav De L. Milosz (Author, Milasius)
- Restif de la Bretonne (author, rival of De Sade, foot-fetishist)
- Lawrence Lipton (Journalist, author "The Holy Barbarians")
- Balzac (Author, "Seraphita")
- Jaime de Angulo - (Neighbor, novelist, ethnomusicologist, outsized reputation-major character of the era)
- Jakob Wassermann - "The Maurizius Case"
Many of the above were acquainted with Henry Miller, through correspondence, travel, or neighbors, for a time, at Big Sur.
It makes me curious as to what other books/artists he'd recommend, and - as luck would have it there is in fact a list:
The final chapter - some 100 odd pages of the book, deal with a character that comes to stay with Miller in Big Sur. His name is Conrad Moricund, a Swiss-French Astrologer who Anais Nin passed off on Miller when he proved to be too troublesome. Now, Miller has some issues with this guest over the three month visit, and over the course of 100 pages paints the most damnable picture of him - by turns laughable, outrageous, all things, foolish, sage, impotent, pornographer... - ...
And I'm laughing and laughing because I know him, or enough of his type, and laughing, laughing painfully because - in certain degrees he is as well me. It's like being shown a grotesque mirror of both everyone you know, but yourself included. It's funny, but it makes me aware - well, I was always aware, reminds perhaps is a better way of putting it, me of my own failings.
Anyways, finally finished that one up with enough notes to inform my reading for a year or two, should I so choose...
Aspartame linked to Anxiety
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1204
Having heard so much nonsense about artificial sweeteners causing cancer, etc. - always at concentrations that would be impossible to consume - I was curious to read this study:
Which - so sum it up for those too lazy to follow the link, Aspartame use - at much lower than recommended daily allowances - creates long-lasting anxiety in mice.
As well, that anxiety persists over up to 2 generations (Epigenetic triggers).
So, time to reconsider my bad habit of diet sodas...
Big Sur and The Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch - Henry Miller
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 842
Of all the Henry Miller Novels I'm enjoying this the most. Because it's him on writing, living, in Big Sur California, at the height of the 1950's counterculture.
A lot less raucous sex (so far) and a lot more of the living the values I can relate to.
It reminds me of Nelson, as it was perhaps 10, 20 years ago. It is somewhat the same now, but real estate, rent, the "buying-in" has gotten exorbitant, ridiculous, and the titled hippies, now millionaires, barons, baronesses, counts, countesses, they've been corrupted, eccentricity when poor becomes despotism when they think they're rich.
So, Big Sur, I mean, everyone went there - Steinbeck, Pynchon, Man Ray, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, William Burroughs, Ginsberg, everyone went for a while, their time in the wilderness.
Few stayed, I'm not sure that Miller did for long beyond the scope of this book (I haven't finished it yet), but - it seems a place I should definitely visit.
Anyways, This, more autobiographical than his other books, more in the tradition of a writer on writing - and as such he comes off much better than he does say in "Tropic of Cancer" & "Tropic of Capricorn". Those - autobiographical to an extent, but also largely novels. This is him settled down, writing about more human relationships with wives and neighbors. And he has some pretty good neighbors.
It is a treat when a good book refers you to another good book you should read, that you haven't yet, and you make a note - the convenience of the internet is that whatever I don't know I can find out. And so note after note...
Like: Henry Miller's Watercolors (I didn't know he painted....), Artist Abe Rattner (neighbor), Ecce Homo by George Grosz, (funny, in that a painting by that name was infamously restored a few years ago, to art-lovers dismay and internet trolls delight...you know the painting...)
And for Authors: Arabia Deserta - Charles Montagu Doughty, Lillian Bos Ross, Robinson Jeffers, Rimbaud, "The House of Certain Death" by Albert Cossery, some of whom were Miller's neighbors, others people he knew through correspondence, and those he merely read and admired.
And - by this point, early 50's, he's well admired throughout the world. He wants - as always, only for cash, everyone knows his name but for some reason (the war) his royalties from France are slow to arrive. But he talks of his fame, people showing up unannounced to look at his pictures, see the writer, the sacks of mail, the hippies and drop outs and drop ins that frequent the Big Sur area, so, in almost every way a very relatable book...
Still another half to go, a little thicker than I'm used to reading, but enjoyable every inch of the way...
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