Completely inadvertently, I ended up watching two episodes of I’ll Have What Phil’s Having last night. I had never even heard of the show before, but it instantly hooked me when I saw the shot of the piazza in Panicale, a small hilltown (half… Read More ›
Movies & (occasionally) TV
Hollywood in Dorchester
What is an old Detroit police car doing on Ashmont Street in Dorchester? The answer, of course, is that they’re making a movie … and 2016 Dorchester is apparently a perfect stand-in for 1967 Detroit: The movie, which is directed… Read More ›
School Daze
Being forced out of one’s comfort zone is a good thing, right? So they say. But I’m not so sure. I just watched School Daze, a 1988 pseudo-comedy written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee, who also played one of the lead roles. It’s primarily about… Read More ›
The Ruling Class
Wow! What a great film! How did I miss The Ruling Class during all these years — it was released in 1972! — that was 44 years ago!!! — but I am so glad that I have finally watched it. This over-the-too… Read More ›
Finding Your Roots
My previous post was about routes; this one is about roots. It’s not clear to me why it has taken me until Season 3 to start watching “Finding Your Roots,” a well-known series on PBS hosted by Skip Gates. This… Read More ›
Smiles of a Summer’s Night and A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
Literary and musical connections can be rather complicated. First, we have Mozart’s well-known “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” often translated (literally but inaccurately) as “A Little Night Music.” Nachtmusik actually means “serenade,” but the literal translation has become even more well-known as a result… Read More ›
Hitchcock/Truffaut
If you’re a film buff (as I am not), you will want to see Hitchcock/Truffaut, currently playing in Kendall Square, Cambridge. I went with a couple of friends who are film buffs, as I had assumed (correctly) that they would enjoy this documentary about the… Read More ›
0 for 3
“Sigh. I’m 0 for 3 in recent books and movies!” That’s what I said to myself after finishing a book that I had recently taken out of the library. What I meant was that I had disliked all three of… Read More ›
Meerkats, the Canadian Pacific Railway, coral reefs, and the Dead Sea scrolls
What do meerkats, the Canadian Pacific, coral reefs, and the Dead Sea scrolls all have in common? Maybe I should have added a fifth item, so we could play “one of these things is not like the others.” But that’s… Read More ›
As Good as it Gets
So I managed to watch three quarters of As Good as it Gets before deciding it was time to make dinner and I wasn’t interested in finishing this 1997 movie. Despite an excellent performance (of course) from Jack Nicholson, it all just… Read More ›
