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Showing posts from January, 2025

Shooter (2007)

It strikes me that as a culture we love movies about corrupt politicians committing atrocities and finally getting stopped by lone ex-special forces moral heroes, but we don’t seem to have a lot of heroes in real life. 

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

I think if you don’t take it too seriously this very over the top and very unique drama (themes include body building, drug abuse, family difficulties, lgbt romance, weapons smuggling) could be a lot of fun, almost great - but it’s also quite violent and sometimes disturbing. 

The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater

Not sure what possessed me to read this short, famous political manifesto from 1960 but it was neat to get back to primary sources and gauge this guy’s opinions for myself; naturally I think he was mostly misguided and crazy, but he brings up a lot of interesting thoughts, particularly about self-reliance - a concept mostly ignored by conservatives today. 

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Grossman is a very skilled writer, and in The Bright Sword he tries his hand at a Golden Compass or American Gods style mythology-meets-religion epic, set in Arthurian legend, and I think he pulls off exactly what he intended, complete with many adventures and fever dream logic and intensity, but when all is said and done the problem is it’s just not that compelling, I didn’t really care about the characters enough, I think Grossman was so focused on the history and artifice he missed the pathos. 

Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman

It may bill itself as a history of Israeli assassinations, but this incredibly well-researched history functions surprisingly well as a fact-focused and unbiased cross-sectional history of Israel from before its founding to much more recently, and I have finished it with a much deeper understanding of the regional geopolitics. 

being there (1979)

Even though this classic old drama only really has one point / joke to make, it makes it every well, and is worth a watch - the only other funny thing about it is that it feels like it was shot a decade earlier, not sure why.