Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (RE-READ): The translation was by Constance Garnett and is far more readable than the recent Pevear-Volokohsnky disaster, though I still found myself inching my way through this book. This is partially because I found myself writing lots of stuff in the margins and trying to squeeze every last bit of depth I possibly could out of it, because I wouldn't want to miss anything (OCD! OCD!) so I've been reading it about 5-10 pages a day since roughly, I think, the end of February? Only Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow and William Gaddis' J R have possibly taken me longer. Well, folks, here's my big takeaways from my lengthy re-read:
1)The book has a fair share of filler and I think I would have preferred it lasting 500 pages or so instead of 736.
2)It's a big fat loud work of anti-intellectual conservative Christian propaganda.
3)Its status as a big fat loud work of anti-intellectual conservative Christian propaganda is solely due to the "road to Damascus" scene Konstantin Levin goes through towards the end of the book, after Anna Karenina has committed suicide, which takes about eight pages or so. It is NOT a work of propaganda for its first 700 pages; there are fleeting references to Christianity and of course Anna commits suicide because she's become totally self-absorbed and paranoid and miserable, but it's not like anyone ever tries to convert her.
4)The "road to Damascus" scene which finalizes the moral of the book, in which Levin turns towards Christ and taking action like a man and being a better husband and father by renouncing his life as a hand-wringing, bleeding-heart, feel-sorry-for-the-poor, thinks-too-much, over-educated atheist liberal intellectual (and because of that, a depressive, self-absorbed wimp who wasn't getting anywhere in life) is by far the most ham-fisted, unsubtle bit of writing in the book (and subsequently, the first thing I'll ever think of when I think about it.)
5)I'll pass on reading it a third time. I don't really have much of a problem with the book's status (though I bet almost no movie versions of the book, certainly not the one from 2012, interpret it as a Christian work) but War & Peace was far more readable.
MOVIES:
Scream VI: Probably the most watchable sequel so far, which isn't saying that much--it's still just a slightly above-average viewing experience, and it didn't use its New York setting all that well, but the characters are handled a little better than last year's film and a bit more suspense is generated. There are still a lot of dumb characters dying generic pop-out-of-nowhere stabbing deaths--always a poor aspect of these films--but the worst part is near the end, when we get something like six near-kills by the killers who apparently have the worst problem out of the series with managing only to wound people with those hunting knives. This happens if they don't plan on bringing the character back any more, of course, which mars what is otherwise a decent climax set in an abandoned movie theater converted into a Scream museum, featuring numerous props from the earlier films. I was glad I watched this--finally, they made a sequel I could get behind, if only a little bit!
Trafic: Jacques Tati's 1971 followup to Playtime got released on Criterion, which is how I watched it, but going through IMDb external reviews reveals that few people seem terribly interested in talking about this film today. For Tati to follow up the mighty Playtime up with this trite little movie is even worse than Brian Wilson following up Pet Sounds with Smiley Smile. It's not like Playtime on the road or anything anyway, just a silly comedy that happens to have a lot of roads and cars in it, and all I'm going to remember months from now is the cool logo for the film and the dumb American character, a loudmouthed and annoying young woman who Tati probably wants us to hate. This movie barely has a fraction of its predecessor's power if that. Skip it.
Suspiria (2018): It's fine with me that they wanted to remake Dario Argento's 1977 original and even finer with me if they wanted to wreck it--the Argento film is a gaudy stylistic exercise that has an incoherent script that could have been written by a 14 year old boy. People watch it for the colors, music, and ridiculous deaths. But you'll have to do better than an ugly grey-beige-red color scheme, a boring "political subtext" briefly touching on the Baader Meinhof complex (whoa, bro) a flabbergasting 160 minute running time, and a climax that involves a)blood-red lighting left over from 2018's other stylistic horror disaster Mandy, b)Tilda Swinton in a costume that could only be described as "Jabba The Witch," c)Tilda Swinton as a naked old German man pointing and yelling at d)the 50 Shades Of Grey chick walking around making girls' heads explode with a sound effect that sounds like the "collapsing bridge" noise from Super Castlevania IV as e)a bunch of people writhe around naked and f)(I am NOT making this up) a plaintive Thom Yorke piano ballad bawls away on the soundtrack. Who thinks any of this was a good idea? There's a good kill scene early on in the film where witches make a girl contort herself to death, but everything else is boring, awful, stupid or incomprehensible, and not the amusing kind of "incomprehensible" that marks the original film. You were right, Norville, I hated this.
Let's Scare Jessica To Death: I was barely impressed with this early-70s "cult classic" at all. Most reviews I could find adored it completely, claiming in long-winded essay after long-winded essay that it has not merely the kind of mind-bending subtlety and beautiful atmosphere that most horror filmmakers would kill for, but also that it's a deep commentary on America's post-hippie years. Actually, that early-70s atmosphere is only passable and is also the only thing the film really has going for it (but hey, don't we all like loud ugly Moog synth squiggles when someone sees blood?)...the "is it all in her head or isn't it?" stuff is generic and is the kind of thing that bores me now, and also I think this film may have originated the hoary old horror trope of someone stumbling upon a dusty old photograph from a century ago, and...gasp! That person in the photo is who I was just talking to!! Ack. Messiah Of Evil was far better.
Black Bird: Six-part HBO miniseries starring the guy who just played Elton John (but here basically playing Mark Wahlberg) who goes to prison and might get his sentence commuted if he gets another prisoner (the guy who just played Richard Jewell and Shawn Eckhardt) to admit where he buried some girls. Taron Egerton is good but Paul Walter Hauser is rapidly becoming one of my favorite character actors. He uses a high whispy voice similar to M. Emmet Walsh in Blood Simple and he's really creepy, keeping the worst sides of his personality bottled up until the near-end. This was still six hours long though and as usual for this sort of thing, it could've been three with little loss. Dennis Lehane was in charge, but the results are wavy-hand.
Watchmen (Director's Cut) (RE-WATCH): It's something like 45 minutes longer, but I don't recall anything great being added to it that wasn't in the original film. The main reason to watch this is still pretty much the only reason to watch it, and the only thing that keeps it from being crap: it's based on, y'know, Watchmen, so you get to watch real actors acting out Watchmen. There's probably no way that could fail totally. But Matthew Goode is still badly miscast and the ending is still crap--not just because I'm a squid apologist, but because Zack Snyder fails to imbue the nuclear destruction of New York City with any emotional power whatsoever, which points to the real problem with the enterprise, as that sort of thing is all over this movie. Oh well. Give him points from trying, but I'm done with this movie.
Dune (2021) (REWATCH): I will see the Part Two of this, which is the chance it has to save itself once and for all. I thought it was okay when I sat through it on the big screen, but I guess it has to be a big screen, because on my TV it's revealed as being quite boring, just a load of sci-fi tropes I've seen elsewhere a zillion times and Hans Zimmer's score getting on my nerves. I don't quite hate it, but I certainly don't like it anymore.
Dune (1984) (REWATCH): While I was at it, I re-visited this, which I haven't watched in nine years--2014 was when I did all the books and the David Lynch movie. The sets and costumes are the only things I could have ever liked about this movie in the first place. Everything after Paul and Jessica escape and find the Fremen is CRAP, CRAP, CRAP. Except the end credits, I stil like to watch those. Paul becomes head of the Fremen, meets and beds Chani, and goes on a worm-riding/martial-arts training montage all in the space of like five minutes, then we get that stupid final battle scene and the even worse fist-fight, which lasts two minutes and gives Sting the two worst lines in the movie. Yep, never watching this again. Would Lynch having final cut really have saved it?
Tenet (REWATCH): This isn't Christopher Nolan's worst movie--that's still Interstellar--and hell, it's not even a bad movie. But it is easily his least emotionally resonant movie. I didn't see anyone dissecting it the way they did Inception, and for that matter, I guess everyone, like I did, realized that there was no point in trying once you understand it's just so we can have "trippy" action scenes where characters fight past things that are happening backwards around them. This thing left even less cultural footprint than Avatar--do you know anyone who loves it? Does Nolan himself even love it? It's disappeared!
ALBUMS:
Queensryche, Operation: Mindcrime: I wonder if I would have loved this if I'd heard it in, say, 2000, when I was taking all those overblown Dream Theater albums seriously. I certainly would have tried to pick apart the silly "Anarchy-X" assassination (!) plot, which might have seemed pretty cool to metalheads in 1988, but...well, okay, there's probably been worse "plots" in concept albums. Whether I would have liked all the songs is another matter. After all these years, I do still greatly enjoy "Revolution Calling," with its surging chorus and surprisingly relevant lyrics ("I used to trust the media to tell me the truth!"...boy the Trump supporters love that one--oh, and fun fact, "Revolution Calling" has no Wikipedia entry); there's also a couple of likeable faster numbers, "Spreading The Disease" and "Speak," but watch out for the 10 minute bore "Suite Sister Mary." Of course, for whatever prog pretensions these guys had--mostly Floydian pretensions--this album is still late-80s hair metal, and as such, there's probably next to no chance I could ever love it. But could I have in high school? Who knows...
Aerosmith, Get Your Wings: A bit of an advance on the debut, but only a bit. Slightly more mature, slightly more ambitious and slightly higher song quality. "Train Kept-A-Rollin" and "Lord Of The Thighs" seem to be the big highlights followed by the moody "Seasons Of Wither" (they should try THAT mood more often! Bleak and eerie!), the funny opener "Same Old Song And Dance," and the guitar solo in "Woman Of The World." I don't hate "Pandora's Box," but I'm not sure what the big deal about it is. They named a compilation after it, right? "Spaced" seems like it could have a cool feel to it but it never gels. Haven't heard this band's masterpiece yet...
Dire Straits, Communiqué: An incrementally more moody and minor-key version of the DS debut album. Everything else is exactly the same--same style, same lineup, same air, same album cover...and the two best songs are "Lady Writer" and "Angel Of Mercy," which are obvious rewrites of "Sultans Of Swing" and "Water Of Love," the two best songs on the debut, and I liked the two new songs the same as the two old ones, and like this album exactly the same as the first one. I have like, nothing to say for myself here. "Where Do You Think You're Going," "Once Upon A Time In The West" and the soft, sad-sounding "News" and "Follow Me Home" are the other good songs. I'm finished here!!
Black Sabbath, Technical Ecstasy: I guess this is the sound of a 70s band running out of gas towards the end of the decade and just making a desperate attempt an album that sort of goes all over the place and mostly fails. A good analogy would be Yes' Tormato, but that had one great song ("Onward") and this one has one great song, "You Won't Change Me," with its dark but energetically sleazy, Sabbathized glam-rock melody and fiery guitars. I also think the opener, "Back Street Kids" isn't bad. Elsewhere..."Rock & Roll Doctor" seems pretty basic, and "She's Gone" gets these cool snowy string swells going but seems to have little to nothing to do with Black Sabbath otherwise, so I can't really call it a great song. Oh, and they do a non metal pop song called "It's Alright" which has Bill Ward singing and doesn't sound like them AT ALL. Uhm...I actually didn't hate this like I was supposed to; it's a mediocre mess, but not actually a particularly painful listening experience. Then again, neither was Tormato.
Kate Bush, Director's Cut: In one of the weirdest "fans only" moves ever made by a major artist, Kate Bush re-recorded a bunch of cuts from two albums she'd made twenty years prior, the somewhat well-received Sensual World and the somewhat disliked Red Shoes. She remade them in the generally quiet style of Aerial, her most recent album prior to this one. The results are very mixed. The llllllush "The Sensual World" is renamed "Flower Of The Mountain" to sound like Aerial's best cut, "King Of The Mountain" and it's okay but not as good as the original or the Aerial song. "Solomon's Song" and "Moments Of Pleasure" are the two best and most improved cuts--that "don't want your bull-s***!" line rings out clear as a bell in the former and the latter is really beautiful and tender this time around. "Never Be Mine" murmurs along and I noticed its melody a lot better too and "Top Of The City" has been turned into some big glowy thing reminiscent (to me) of Elton John's "Curtains," so those are good too...but "Deeper Understanding" and "This Woman's Work" have been translated into overlong coma-inducing super-bores and Kate saves the worst f***ing song she ever did (yes, even worse than that one on side two of Hounds Of Love based on all the choppy dated voice samples) for last, taking the lovely dance pop song "Rubberband Girl" and turning into...uh, "Street Fighting Man" by the Rolling Stones?!? Why?!? It's a stupefyingly witless joke. Just...gah. I'd rate this as slightly below par for her--she did have some good reasons for doing something as odd as randomly reworking cuts from two lesser albums, but it's basically something I can only see total die-hards really adoring.
David Bowie, Tonight: I was supposed to hate this one too--every critic does, and I guess Bowie himself basically admitted later that it wasn't very good, but there are two big slams on it and only one is true, so I can't hate the album. The accurate slam is that Bowie let his musicians flesh this one out because he was trying to rush out a sequel to Let's Dance, and it's full of covers and that's one of the signs it was rushed and it shows. I agree. However, detractors also make this album out to be an 80s "synth pop" disaster, and it isn't. It is not dance music and it is not based around horridly dated synthesizers. I really liked the hit "Blue Jean," which I'd heard many times before, but didn't know was from this album. I also dig the energetic, overdriven Iggy tune "Neighborhood Threat" and "Loving The Alien," which has a vibraphone line so close to "Love My Way" that the Psychedelic Furs could've sued, but oh well. Really, the only howler is "God Only Knows," and yes, that one's really bad. And this album is no great shakes. But it's been awhile for me that a "terrible" album made out to be the worst in a major artist's catalogue actually is their worst.
The Moody Blues, Strange Times: ...and this might be THEIR worst. The 1999 reunion album runs an hour (CDs! CDs!) and features boring adult contemporary pop song after boring adult contemporary pop song until you want to die. "The One" features a repetitive chorus hook where the guys sing "no surprise!!" and it sounds like a 90s car commercial muzak bit or something. And someone sings "we're liv-ing in strange tiiiimes!" and hits a weird scratchy high falsetto note when they do it. And those are the only two moments during this hour of non-power that I stand any chance of remembering any time soon. Unless you care about the dumb electronica beat on the opening song. This album, more than any other--even more than Jethro Tull's Rock Island--confirms once and for all that I'd rather listen to a lame embarrassing dinosaur disaster (like Sur La Mer) than a completely forgettable dinosaur disaster that doesn't embarrass itself. One f***ing star.
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