Possessors
They elect these type of people, and then this happens. Headline from nypost.com: “Upper West Side is too white and Jewish, City Council candidate manager says.” Is it too liberal as well? Is the complainer calling for an exorcism?
Here’s an interesting NYP headline: “Company that owns a single NJ deli soars to $100M value on stock market.” The shop is across the river from Philadelphia. It earned less than $36,000 the past two years, hampered by Corona. It has traded between $9 and $13 lately. The owner’s shares and warrants are worth mega-millions right now. I’d sell. Does this meaning anything in terms of the market’s overall legitimacy? I don’t know, although it seems like a casino, a Ponzi scheme at present. Is a huge crash coming? I’m starting to doubt it, given the fact that there is room for many more Americans to trade. The market has been rallying no matter which party is in power. It is bizarre.
Friday night’s movie fix was shockingly graphic sci-fi, Possessor (2020), written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, a chip off the old block. A wife and mother has a secret life as a corporate assassin. She is placed on a table and a device is fitted into her brain that somehow allows her to invade the mind of the patsy who will carry out the murders. In this instance, the two fight for control. I am clueless about how the science works, and I didn’t spot any explanations in a Google search. Maybe it’s simply over my head. Science was my worst subject. As for the rest of the film, it is absorbing and shocking, the violence uncompromising, the sex almost entirely so. I found an interesting overall analysis in an article by Mary Beth McAndrews at filmschoolrejects.com. Here’s a snippet: “Possessor is Tasya’s journey into understanding her true self as an apathetic killer with a taste for blood.” That certainly explains the ending and her rehearsing empathy on the way to a visit to her estranged husband and son. The movie received many nominations and awards from genre organizations. It is Cronenberg’s ninth work, second full length feature. It returned less than a million at the box office. I was unable to find info on its production costs. Sean Bean and Jennifer Jason Leigh are the most famous members of the cast, although the principals have extensive credits, including the stars, Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott. 21,000+ users at IMDb have rated Possessor, forging to a consensus of 6.5 on a scale of ten. Those squeamish about bloodletting and nudity should stay far away. If the version I viewed wasn’t the uncut one — holy mackerel! Here’s a still of a special effect:
Also from the film world, this delightful headline from foxnews.com: “De Niro struggling to keep up with wife’s expensive habits: divorce lawyer. “ I’ll quote The Great One, Jackie Gleason: “How sweet it is!” Take it all, baby.
The floating book shop enjoyed good luck today on Bay Parkway. My thanks to Johnny Boy, who bought two thrillers: The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly and 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith; and to Bill, who purchased The Other Paris: The People’s City, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by Luc Sante; and to the three kind folks who combined to buy four books in Russian; and to the woman who donated one in that language; and to Den, who took a chance on my trading floor opus, Exchanges. Oddly, I found a copy and two of my other books, Present and Past and Billionths of a Lifetime, this morning at the viaduct where I’d set up shop during Thursday’s rain. I was returning from Stop n Shop. There were about 20 other books there as well. I took the most marketable. I assume the person tried to reach me before I bailed. He/she was a doodler. The three of mine will go for a buck apiece. Although it’s a bit demoralizing to find them discarded, I like having a less expensive option to offer.
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