Standing desks? Standing…desks…? I don’t get it. It’s always been so clear to me that the best thing about a desk job--maybe the only good thing about a desk job--is that you can SIT DOWN!
So…standing desks. What the what? What’s going on here? What the hell is wrong with people? HEY! SIDDOWN!
Take a load off, fer cryin’ out loud. I’m gettin’ tired just looking at ya.
A quick follow-up to the last post in which I revealed how little notice I take of movie music...
I just read a comment elsewhere in which it was stated that OPPENHEIMER had a "wall-to-wall" music score, that it was a movie with barely a single unscored moment. I'm assuming that's true.
But I have to admit, I didn't notice any music at all. I did see OPPENHEIMER, in a theater, with speakers blaring. I didn't fall asleep, didn't take a bathroom break, was attentive and relatively entertained throughout.
But if you'd told me that OPPENHEIMER had NO music score whatever...I'd have believed you. I genuinely did not notice a single note of music in the movie.
I guess this is on me, but maybe Ludwig Goransson or Christopher Nolan should shoulder some of the responsibility too.
ME AND THE MUSIC OF THE MOVIES
Basically, it's wasted on me.
I'm not good with movie scores, to put it mildly. 90% of the time I don't even notice that the
movie has music at all. Occasionally, a brief segment will make me aware of the score, but
usually these are negative moments. It's either, "wow, that music doesn't fit what's on screen,"
or, even worse, "good lord who wrote that lousy music and why does it exist?"
Occasionally, the music is so powerful that it's undeniable: PSYCHO, 2001: A SPACE
ODYSSEY, ROCKY, some others.
But most of the time, it just slides right past me as if it wasn't even there.
So, of course, I recently took a YouTube "Identify the Movie by Its Music" quiz. Of course
I did.
60 movies were included in the quiz and I had seen every one of them. I identified exactly
13 by the music sampled. That was actually better than I'd expected, but, truth be told, the
quiz included some particularly famous or memorable themes.
These are the titles I got: JAWS, JAMES BOND THEME, TITANIC, ROCKY, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, GHOSTBUSTERS, PSYCHO, EXORCIST, GODFATHER,
HALLOWEEN, BRAVEHEART, THE THIRD MAN, THE SEARCHERS.
Here, plucked from a long list, are a few I did NOT get:
STAR WARS (after listening to about one second of music, I shouted, “SUPERMAN!”
Of course I quickly recognized my error, but too late. I got it wrong)
THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY (knew it was a spaghetti western, guessed
the wrong one.)
SHREK
INCEPTION
HARRY POTTER
HUNGER GAMES
LORD OF THE RINGS
AVATAR
UP
and to my eternal shame, THE SHINING.
I also didn’t get DR. STRANGELOVE, but I don’t count it against myself because
it was a cheat. They played a rendition of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”, a
song which is definitely integral to STRANGELOVE, but the version they played was
not from the movie and had a much different sound.
And, possibly worst of all, I half-heartedly guessed that the SCHINDLER’S LIST
music was actually from…YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.
So sue me.
Entering this year I decided I needed to read more books by female authors. When I actually considered the situation, I realized that, apart from a zillion Agatha Christies, I'd read very few books written by women. Surely less than 10% of all books read, maybe less than 5%, were by women. And so far this year, I've made a decent dent in the problem. A Jane Austen here, a George Eliot there, a great novel by Maggie O'Farrell, and a few others. Not bad.
But now I'm thinking that I need to read more western novels. As in, you know, cowboys and Indians and bad guys stuff. I can only remember reading 5 westerns ever, though I might be forgetting one or two. And the average quality of those 5 is extremely high.
The least of them is BLAZING GUNS ON THE CHISHOLM TRAIL by Borden Chase. It's actually quite good, and was the basis for the classic film RED RIVER. But still, good as it is, it's the least of this small selection I've read.
Next would be SHANE by Jack Schaefer. Another excellent novel which spawned an even better movie.
The last three I hesitate to separate or rank in any way. All three are superb. Classics. They are...
THE OX-BOW INCIDENT by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Powerful, beautiful, and so damn depressing. Seed for yet another great movie.
TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis. This one gave us two terrific movies, both of which were smart enough to retain much of Portis's dialogue.
LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry. This could "only" lead to a TV miniseries, but that was the right way to go. There's a lot of story in that massive stack of pages.
All these are great. I think TRUE GRIT and LONESOME DOVE, at least, are among the very best novels--of any type--that I've ever read.
So, yeah, based on this history, I should read more westerns. Unfortunately, the preponderance of male authors is probably more dominant in this genre than any other so I may have to double up on the Jane Austen to balance things.
Here's a scoop for you-- Stephen King has written a lot of books! I know! Who would have guessed?
Just how many he's written is not so clear. He's written, or co-written, 63 novels. I think. And he has several short story collections, a couple of non-fictions, other stuff. It's the other stuff that brings some questions.
I mean...CREEPSHOW? Is that a book? He did some rewriting on THE GUNSLINGER after it was first published, so does that make it two books? For that matter, does THE STAND count as one, two, or maybe even three books? Of course, CHARLIE THE CHOO-CHOO is a big ol' bucket of arguments.
But my count, which is the only one that matters to me, is that Stephen King has written 83 books, total. You can have your own number, but I'm going with 83.
Just a couple of days ago, I finally finished reading THE DARK TOWER saga, by conquering, uhh, THE DARK TOWER. This means that I have now read all 83 King books.
Of course, King has another book (a short story collection), coming in the Spring and I'll read it right away. I mean, now that I've conquered the mountain top, I don't care to be knocked off.
I'm not going to get into best and worst and suchlike. Not now. Maybe later. For now, I'll just bask in the glory of having read all them big ol' books.
And thank you, Mr. King.
A Great Movie Scene
Al Pacino, to modern eyes, is the raggedy old guy who talks too loud and needs a haircut. To those a few years older he’s the “HOO-YAH” guy. But when he came into the movies, he was subtlety personified.
Pacino’s quiet, controlled, endearing-then-terrifying performance is the backbone of one of the greatest of all movies, THE GODFATHER. For me, as for most people, Coppola’s masterpiece has always been about Marlon Brando, first and foremost. And why not? Brando, arguably the greatest of actors, was perfection. But Vito fades and dies, and Michael Corleone comes to the front. Pacino was ready for his moment.
The movie is full of great scenes. Shoot, it’s nothing but great scenes. But my personal favorite moment in the movie, and one of my favorite moments from any movie, is all Pacino.
Michael is meeting with the bad guys (wait! Aren’t they all bad guys?) Sollozzo and McCluskey at a small, “family” restaurant in the Bronx. As instructed by old hand Clemenza, Michael asks permission to visit the bathroom, retrieves the pistol hidden behind the toilet tank, and returns to the table.
Clemenza had clearly and repeatedly instructed Michael on what to do. Once returned from the bathroom, he is to immediately shoot both baddies twice in the head, drop the gun, and slowly walk out of the restaurant. Instead, he returns to the table, sits and stalls while Sollozzo goes on talking.
In the earlier scene when Michael had proposed this shooting, he had been calm and easy. “It’s just business, Sonny.” Now, though, at the crucial moment, he pauses. His reasons are all over his face. We can read it in his eyes. Is he really going to assassinate two men? Is this really going to happen?
I think this silent moment is the greatest acting Pacino ever did. If we were thinking a moment before “why hasn’t he shot them yet?”, now we know why. We feel it with him. What will he do? What would WE do? The tension is overwhelming. Coppola keeps the camera on Pacino’s face, no movement, no chicanery. Pacino--or rather Michael--genuinely lives the moment and takes us with him. When the murders occur, despite the violence and blood, we breathe a sigh of relief, not just that the action is past, but also that Michael’s internal struggles have ended.
It’s a great, great scene.
BEST MOVIES OF A YEAR
Back in the early ‘70s, Peter Bogdanovich wrote an article on the best movies of the year. The year in question was 1939. It was Bogdanovich’s feeling that a movie couldn’t truly be judged till 20 or 30 years had passed. It took that long, he thought, for the measured judgments of time to form a worthwhile opinion. In general I agree with the man. Too many movies are under- or over-valued at first blush. But… I also think that the reactions to the film when it’s new is worth consideration. I mean, it may not be a movie for the ages, but if it satisfies the audience for which it was made, at the time it was made, that’s not a small thing.
Anyway, in the Bogdanovich line, I’ve decided here at the end of 2023, to zip back 25 years and offer up my choices for the Best Movies of The Year. The Best Movies of the Year 1998, that is.
This will not be a full Oscar-style slate of awards, just a list of the best pictures and maybe a few acting nods. This is based entirely on movies released in the U.S. in 1998. So if I overlook your choice-- that masterpiece on the romance between two Bulgarian sewer workers--well, maybe next year.
THE BEST PICTURES OF 1998 (in no special order)
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
A BUG’S LIFE
THE CELEBRATION
ELIZABETH
GODS AND MONSTERS
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL
LIVE FLESH
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
SONATINE
THE TRUMAN SHOW
I know, I know, that’s an unwieldy 11. I should make it just the 10 Best. But I don’t want to. And it’s my list, so there…
Honorable Mention
DARK CITY
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
FIREWORKS
A TASTE OF CHERRY
WAKING NED DEVINE
Performances of note
Jeff Bridges, John Goodman THE BIG LEBOWSKI
Jim Carrey, Ed Harris THE TRUMAN SHOW
Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser GODS AND MONSTERS
Nick Nolte AFFLICTION
Bill Nighy STILL CRAZY
Gwyneth Paltrow, Judi Dench, Geoffrey Rush SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
Cate Blanchett ELIZABETH
Angela Molina LIVE FLESH
Books Read in 2025 In 2025 I read 90 books. This was a small step up from 2024 when I read 84 books, but still a far cry from ‘22 and‘23 whe...
