Across the Street
Friday night’s movie fix, courtesy of Netflix by mail, was Swedish, The Unthinkable (2018). It begins as a domestic drama and evolves to a thriller. The country is invaded by an unknown foreign force, although the narrative teases it’s Russians. It takes a while to get going, as it delves into the sorrows of the main character on two fronts: his hatred of his psychologically abusive asshole dad, and lost love. I really hated the first and the second was simply okay. I think the film would have worked far better without either, and would certainly have been tighter. Once the conflict begins in earnest, the flick improves dramatically. The visuals are fantastic. The work is billed as a production of Crazy Pictures, funded independently by many participants, cinephiles. I was unable to ascertain if it was successful financially. Since the budget was only $2.2 million, I will assume it turned a profit. DVD sales, rentals and streaming alone probably made up for any shortfall. 7500+ users at IMDb have rated The Unthinkable, forging to a consensus of 6.1 on a scale of ten. It’s rated higher at Rotten Tomatoes. The cast was unfamiliar to me, always a plus, as there are no pre-conceived notions about the actors. Running time is a bit more than two hours. It is subtitled. This was director Victor Danell’s first full length feature after many shorts. If he’s responsible to for the action scenes, he deserves more chances.
Headline from nypost.com: “R. Kelly’s sales soar 500% after guilty sex trafficking verdict.” Don’t know what to say about this except that it’s not surprising.
Excerpts from an article by Conor Skelding at foxnews.com, edited by yours truly: So far, 14 NYC businesses — out of 27,500 inspected — have been hit with fines for disobeying new vaccination rules… another 6760 have been warned about failing to enforce the mandate. The procedure is thus: warning, $1000 fine first offense, $2000 second, $5000 for each thereafter… A new website touts a list of 61 businesses that so far are not enforcing the dictates. I won’t name it, as I am not sure who’s in the right, which is typical for me when it comes to Covid issues.
Last weekend a friend took a couple of pictures of me in action at the floating book shop after I revealed Chase’s manager had been told by a boss he didn’t want anyone doing business in front of the bank. He posted them and a comment about what had happened. Several of his artist friends were outraged and said I should not allow myself to be bullied, I should sue. I find that amusing. When I first started selling books curbside 20 or so years ago, I told myself not to argue if someone asked me to vamoose. During that two decade span, I’ve been told to git only a handful of times. Here’s one of the pics:
It had to happen. It was the first session in a while of below average return. I’m not sure if it had anything to do with being on the other side of the street, Bay Parkway. My thanks to the woman who donated three hardcovers in Russian, and to the other who bought two in that language and Dr. Abravanel’s Body Type Diet and Lifetime Nutrition Plan — and gave me a bag of something akin to zeppoles, only smaller; and to the young Asian woman who was unable to resist a small pictorial on Impressionists, picking it up by her fingertips and questioning in pantomime whether I had any disinfectant spray, which, of course, I did not.
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