Hall of a Day
This nypost.com headline makes me feel less self conscious about having an old car: “Vehicle thefts skyrocket 93 percent, driving NYC’s crime surge in 2022.” I wonder if my catalytic converter is still in place. I’ll find out in March when inspection is due.
NYP headline from an op-ed piece by Deroy Murdock: “The border stampede isn’t a Biden a ‘failure’ — it’s exactly what he and Dems want.” His agenda is a success to those who believe in socialism, at least to those patient to get there in stages.
Interesting thought from an NYP editorial: “…If we’re going to purify the web of crackpot claims, shouldn’t we also purge daily newspapers of astrology columns?”
Headline from foxnews.com: “Beijing Olympics: Coca-Cola quiet on Uyghur genocide after criticizing Georgia election law.” Maybe the company should put “Be less Uyghur” on its cans.
This week’s movie fix courtesy of Netflix was cerebral horror, The Night House (2020). I was baffled by much of it, so I Googled for an analysis and found a very satisfactory one. Set in the Midwest, it’s the story of a young teacher whose husband recently committed suicide. She did not see it coming and searches for clues as to why on his cell phone and in his journals. Soon weird things begin happening. Is it his ghost? That’s all I’ll say about the plot. Rebecca Hall is terrific in the lead, another Brit playing an American with ease. This was David Bruckner’s first solo full length feature. He has directed segments of other flicks, shorts and two episodes of the Creepshow reboot. He’s working on a remake of Hellraiser. Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski collaborated on the screenplay, as they have on several, none of which were familiar to me. According to a Google search, the budget was only $50,000, which, given its high quality look and the first rate acting, seems incredible. I apologize if that is incorrect. It returned more than $15 million at the box office. Throw in DVD sales and rentals and streaming revenue, and the creative team is guaranteed more work. Those three men seem to have a bright future. 34,000+ users at IMDb have rated The Night House, forging to a consensus of 6.5 on a scale of ten. The violence is minimal. There is some profanity. It’s geared to those who prefer a ghost story on the order of The Haunting (1963), not the 1999 remake. It runs 1:47. Hall, nearly 40, is in the midst of an impressive career. Among the 45 titles beneath her name are Wide Sargasso Sea (2006), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Frost/Nixon (2008), Iron Man 3 (2013) and A Rainy Day in New York (2019). Here she is in character in The Night House:
It looked like the floating book shop would be a dud on this cold but gorgeous day, as I had to wait almost an hour for a parking spot to clear. Things immediately improved when a woman handed me a bag of books that added much needed variety to my Russian inventory. And then Bill Brown, author of Words and Guitar: A History of Lou Reed’s Music and other fine books, showed and bought Curious Sicilian. My thanks to those kind folks, and to the woman who purchased a Nora Roberts translation in Russian.
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