We got rid of our TV but kept the Netflix subscription (I don't think cancelling it was an option.) I haven't been using it but yesterday- reinforcing my resolution to stay up later- I fired it up on my computer (which has a pretty big screen.) There was very little I wanted to watch but settled on A Pale Blue Eye- a costume farrago that enmeshes a young Edgar Allan Poe in a series of ghastly murders at West Point. The setting is striking (the Hudson River Valley in winter), the writing is clumsy, Christian Bale plays it straight, Harry Melling is expressive- not to say expressionist- as Poe, the rest of the cast chews what scenery is available to them and the occult element is undercooked gobbledygook. A curious thing about it is that though it's an American film on an American subject almost every character is played by a Brit or an Anglo-Brit. Robert Duvall- just about the only fully paid up American in the cast- is given a terrific build-up as the "most extraordinary person" Christian Bale knows and then has one scene and a few lines of flat exposition. I didn't recognise him.
A Pale Blue Eye
We got rid of our TV but kept the Netflix subscription (I don't think cancelling it was an option.) I haven't been using it but yesterday- reinforcing my resolution to stay up later- I fired it up on my computer (which has a pretty big screen.) There was very little I wanted to watch but settled on A Pale Blue Eye- a costume farrago that enmeshes a young Edgar Allan Poe in a series of ghastly murders at West Point. The setting is striking (the Hudson River Valley in winter), the writing is clumsy, Christian Bale plays it straight, Harry Melling is expressive- not to say expressionist- as Poe, the rest of the cast chews what scenery is available to them and the occult element is undercooked gobbledygook. A curious thing about it is that though it's an American film on an American subject almost every character is played by a Brit or an Anglo-Brit. Robert Duvall- just about the only fully paid up American in the cast- is given a terrific build-up as the "most extraordinary person" Christian Bale knows and then has one scene and a few lines of flat exposition. I didn't recognise him.
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Heading North
We're heading north for the weekend. Two birds with one stone. We'll be going to watch two of our granddaughters perform in an am-dram…
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Transition
I cut the grass. Or, rather, I cut some of the grass and then the lawnmower fell apart. So we went out and bought a new one. The old one was a…
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Eating My Words
A year ago I opined here in LJ 1. That the US President seemed to know what he was doing. 2. That the Epstein kerfuffle was done and dusted. 3.…
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