tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9044118465180284652024-03-19T15:14:15.012+10:30cellar door. we might as well be a symphony.cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.comBlogger2859125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-62867509450504866162024-03-19T12:05:00.000+10:302024-03-19T12:05:20.278+10:30Favourite Books I've Read This Year In Progress<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><p style="text-align: left;"><b><i><u>Non-Fiction:</u></i></b></p><p style="text-align: left;">Gilbert King: Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.<b><u> </u><i><u><br /></u></i></b></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><u>Fiction: </u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Andrea Barrett: The Voyage of the Narwhal.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Michelle Paver: Thin Air. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sarah Lotz: The White Road. </div><div style="text-align: left;">Gabrielle Zevin: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwtU7IIGE_NfBJ18mskw0iVwKKPQ5ZAV2eCUiz1GkiyTpJgSBbqK_XBjk0SNsbyzqCnnm1vONkryMDp3rTLiKsnLLDo2ue-JrgXqVYCH5TnL2rKKyEH1dgOWfl-rTf9tS6l7MvW1OiavMvESEKEkbtzBBIc9RyKhVRRPMiLdsRGKHytTs5SHGVf_oohOX/s400/763952.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="267" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYwtU7IIGE_NfBJ18mskw0iVwKKPQ5ZAV2eCUiz1GkiyTpJgSBbqK_XBjk0SNsbyzqCnnm1vONkryMDp3rTLiKsnLLDo2ue-JrgXqVYCH5TnL2rKKyEH1dgOWfl-rTf9tS6l7MvW1OiavMvESEKEkbtzBBIc9RyKhVRRPMiLdsRGKHytTs5SHGVf_oohOX/w134-h200/763952.jpg" width="134" /></a></div>Andrea Barrett</b>'s <i>The Voyage of the Narwhal</i> follows a fictional American expedition looking for signs of John Franklin's lost ships Erebus and Terror in the early 1850s. The voyage is also meant to be a scientific journey, gathering data about the fauna and flora of the Arctic. The main character is a scientist, naturalist Erasmus Darwin Wells, who is also coming along to look after his sister's fiance, the headstrong expedition leader Zeke. The story may be fictional, but to anyone who has read accounts of real polar expeditions during the 19th century, it holds little treasures of recognition and references many actual events, including the horrifying Inuit accounts that Rae collected about the fate of Franklin and his men. The beauty of the novel is the scientific work though, and the close relationship that Erasmus forges with the surgeon on board (a relationship almost romantic, and tragically doomed), who is similarly fascinated by everything he encounters. There are echoes here of the television adaptation of Harry Goodsir's character in <i>The Terror</i> and of the (in my opinion) best part of the seafaring classic <i>Master and Commander</i>. One of my favourite aspects of the novel were the attempts Erasmus makes to include Ned, the eager and curious young ship cook (with his own tragic story of surviving the potato famine in Ireland), in the journey of discovery. Of course, most things that can go wrong do, including scurvy due to inadequate preparation for overwintering, a nipped and lost ship, and severe discordance within the crew when individuals begin to disagree about priorities and plans. Interwoven with the accounts and thoughts of the explorers are the women back at home, waiting for the men to return and contributing to the scientific work in the only way they're reluctantly allowed to (I thought that Alexandra, a woman who is learning the art of engraving, was deeply fascinating). There is also a discussion of science in relation to racism, both in regards to the understanding of the Inuit that the expedition connects with and the question of slavery back home in the United States just before the Civil War. This is a fantastic novel of fiction that weaves together philosophy, science and polar exploration with all of its dark sides included. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL-tOLrTJQgLmsVqtZTm5L5PUemJyyGKj8C1of0xZc1AMM-TeKgLdWNi8ge6kx1iZPuFV5fHStbq2hbQmV-5aB4CstY58I1nrGyqbK17F_56pxm9Qf_tGF1e39aBQwQLGznMzr8TjXh6fFBuupbor19N5-TlP4MTwI7gIFf3E7V27A9tfugA5J4arMydBh/s921/ta.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL-tOLrTJQgLmsVqtZTm5L5PUemJyyGKj8C1of0xZc1AMM-TeKgLdWNi8ge6kx1iZPuFV5fHStbq2hbQmV-5aB4CstY58I1nrGyqbK17F_56pxm9Qf_tGF1e39aBQwQLGznMzr8TjXh6fFBuupbor19N5-TlP4MTwI7gIFf3E7V27A9tfugA5J4arMydBh/w130-h200/ta.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>I like when by sheer coincidence, two books appear to be in conversation with each other. <b>Michelle Paver</b>'s <i>Thin Air </i>chronicles a fictional 1935 attempt to reach the summit of Kangchenjunga. Soon after arriving at the foot of the mountain, expedition doctor Stephen, eager to prove to his comrades that he is just as valuable as his older, sneering brother, begins experiencing a haunting - T.S. Eliot's "There is always another one walking beside you", but, as he comes to realise, malevolent, unlike the calming presence that Shackleton felt when he first reported the phenomenon after his trek through the mountains of South Georgia to save his stranded expedition. It appears that the mountain is haunted, perhaps by a member of a previous expedition whose body was never retrieved. <i>Thin Air</i> is a great portrait of the same kind of doomed English arrogance that cost Scott's life at the South Pole, putting a focus on the way the white men of the expedition look down on their support staff (the ones actually doing all the work, while they sip their tea). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEfa33SqnppznPt_c3XvUt6ThZAPOMCmA5_PSNNmSRX2ysGXhO6EC1dVakbaGowcjhL9pZ7v93dji8S69hYxRp3PQase1MVRzQ9kgJxw1Xve5t0gdyJZdSieW-tvyjhGEgsT64-Wc4xFS2LpM6r1e6pCI50CpxgSuRYOqeU7RFgfVZONILoEFI2eRusCC/s630/twr.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="390" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEfa33SqnppznPt_c3XvUt6ThZAPOMCmA5_PSNNmSRX2ysGXhO6EC1dVakbaGowcjhL9pZ7v93dji8S69hYxRp3PQase1MVRzQ9kgJxw1Xve5t0gdyJZdSieW-tvyjhGEgsT64-Wc4xFS2LpM6r1e6pCI50CpxgSuRYOqeU7RFgfVZONILoEFI2eRusCC/w124-h200/twr.jpg" width="124" /></a></div>Sarah Lotz</b>' <i>The White Road</i> doesn't begin on a mountain - it starts in a place that I personally find even more scary, a cave system in Wales in which protagonist Simon is attempting to film the dead bodies of a previous group of cavers for a morbid and sensationalist website he runs with his friend. In the caves, his guide dies after they get trapped by rising water levels, but his presence doesn't leave Simon, as if his bad intentions are now being judged by the constant presence of another malevolent "third man". Simon carries that spectre with him to Everest (again on a mission to film the dead), where he finds himself in the middle of another man's attempt to find closure from the death of his mother on the mountain years earlier. The climb ends in more disaster, and Simon is stuck trying to artificially create closure so the haunting stops. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/an-unquiet-house" target="_blank">Garth Greenwell: An Unquiet House</a>, February 6, 2024 <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/israels-crackdown-on-hebron" target="_blank">Jewish Currents: Israel’s Crackdown on Hebron</a>, February 13, 2024</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68318742" target="_blank">BBC: What we know about Alexei Navalny's death in Arctic Circle prison</a>, February 19, 2024</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://tastecooking.com/the-new-standard-of-japanese-fish/" target="_blank">Taste: The New Standard of Japanese Fish</a>, February 28, 2024</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/28/aaron-bushnell-self-immolation-gaza-israel" target="_blank">The Guardian: It is our loss that Aaron Bushnell is no longer with us</a>, February 29, 2024</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/03/02/unilateral-actions-gaza-rafah/" target="_blank">New York Review: Unilateral Actions</a>, March 2, 2024</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/russia-navalny-supporters-harassment/" target="_blank">.coda: In Russia, the ‘worst is happening in the present’</a>, March 15, 2024 </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/zionism-uber-alles/" target="_blank">Dissent: Zionism Über Alles</a>, March 15, 2024<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/jesse-plemons-star-everything/" target="_blank">Texas Monthly: How Jesse Plemons Came to Star in, Well, Pretty Much Everything</a>, April 2024.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/04/04/mourning-navalny-the-dissident/" target="_blank">New York Review: Mourning Navalny</a>, April 4, 2024<br /></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-62952845327521418582024-03-17T10:05:00.001+10:302024-03-17T10:05:00.127+10:30Das Lied zum Sonntag<p><b> La Luz - Strange World </b>(on <i>News of the Universe</i>)<br /></p>
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<![endif]--><span><a name='more'></a></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There are many scenes that will stay with me for a long time
in this film. Glazer places cameras in the reconstruction of the house in which
Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss lives with his family – which creates a static
experience of sorts, where the camera catches people moving through scenes and
rooms. The horrific noises from the camp on the other side of the walls were
recorded separately, so that characters do not react to them – like the Höss’s
pretend idyll in their new “Lebensraum”, it requires a high level of
compartmentalisation that the film constantly undermines. It follows the
father, attempting to give his children the kind of adventurous childhood with
canoe rides that maybe he wanted for himself, but the ashes that wash down the
river from the crematorium interrupt it, and he evacuates in a panic, fearing
contamination. His shoes have to undergo a complex process of cleaning before
they are worn again because as much as nothing about the murder and death in
the camp itself seems to touch him, the irrefutable proof of the crimes – the remains
of his victims – follow him around constantly. It’s an eloquent refusal of the
claim that anyone could have been ignorant of what was truly happening at the
camp (the ever-present ashes, the smoke, the noise). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Sandra Hüller’s Hedwig is indistinguishable from the staff
frequently in her simple housecoats, and when she tries on the stolen goods
from the prisoners – a luxurious coat, a lipstick that enters her life like an
artifact someone else’s stolen life – she seems ill at ease, as if it doesn’t
quite fit, as if she can’t make herself fit into this assumed life. Her mother
comments that she has landed on her feet, hinting that the family has risen
through the opportunity that the concentration camp provided, which matches
historically with the make-up of concentration camp leadership. These people
have absorbed the ideology of being “pioneers” – claiming a new space by
eradicating what was there before, assuming a new life like a role they are
playacting. Neither of the actors attempts to provide “a human face” – they remain
closed off, as dehumanised as their actions dehumanise the victims of the
holocaust. They stay that way even when the film shows them having affairs,
having conversations in their separate beds. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Hedwig doles out the stolen goods to her staff like a
benevolent employer but in a moment of anger, when the constantly nervous staff
does not deliver precisely as expected, she threatens that her husband will
spread her ashes on the fields, showcasing how far off a normal
employer-employee relationship this is, like the staff are being held hostage
with constant reminders that there are no limits to the power of their employers.
They approach each task with fear, extreme nervousness, a tension that carries
the film. Rudolf appears like an involved father, but when his voice carry over
from the other side of the walls, it becomes clear what kind of man he is in
his job, and how he has earned his accolades. In his living room, the giants of
industry gather around a table to present a more effective and productive way
to destroy human lives, German precision engineering used for the task of genocide,
and the language they use deliberately obfuscates what is happening (talking
about humans as “pieces”, as if they are discussing the mass production of a
product, not the machinery of death). He is good at the job of human
destruction, good enough to return from some unnamed scandal because the new
man on the job doesn’t have the guts to finish it. He cherishes the opportunity
to contribute to the “complex” task of killing the Hungarian Jewish population.
He approaches this as a logistics problem, not a problem into which morals ever
enter, or consideration of human life. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The most unbelievable scene – at a level of cynicism that
feels more scripted than anything else in this film – is when Rudolf records a
voice memo, threatening concentration camp staff with consequences if they
continue to damage the lilac bushes – planted to beautify this death camp – by carelessly
taking flowers, damaging the tree in the process. Höss seems genuinely
distressed by this destruction. The care for flowers carries throughout the
film, which often focuses on the Hösses’ garden, in which Hedwig wanders around
with the baby, weeds in the heat, proudly shows it to her guests. This garden
is made resplendent with the ashes of the people that are murdered and
incinerated across the walls. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There are scenes that intercut the film, in which a
night-vision camera (a technology that did not exist – it’s an artistic
flourish that creates an alienating effect, as if the showing of humanity can
not exist at the same time as the rest of the film - they occur as Rudolf reads fairy tales to his cihldren) follows a young woman who
hides apples in the mud for the prisoners, and finds a canister that contains a
piece of music written by an inmate. She plays that piece of music on the
piano. These are short scenes of resistance, in which the prisoners are given
aide, are seen as people rather than an equation to be solved, but the camera
itself never enters the camp. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The scenes filmed in the surrounding nature of the camp,
along the river, with lush greenery and thickets along the shore – that somehow
feel as oppressive as the house itself (even though it is such a stark contrast
to the human-made structures, purpose-made for destruction), where in every outdoor
shot the walls and towers of the camp loom. It just intensifies the feeling
that the characters, the Hösses, are playacting in a scenery that they never
quite acknowledge. They want to be pioneers in a new “Lebensraum” but they just
appear as intruders, as foreign objects, insisting constantly they belong here
(Hedwig stays behind when Rudolf is reassigned, claiming the house as hers).
The homely scenes of family life, shared meals, children playing, don’t exist
in spite of the camp across the walls, they exist because of it. They are fed
by the violence, sometimes literally like the roses, by the stealing of
property. <br /></p>
cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-10834359584286981162024-03-10T07:52:00.001+10:302024-03-13T07:54:38.063+10:30Das Lied zum Sonntag<p><b>Beth Gibbons - Floating on a Moment </b>(on <i>Lives Outgrown</i>)</p><p></p><p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ldrx0eSqV-E?si=kgCB3uMyF17v-Yps" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> </p><p><i>Without control<br />I'm heading toward a boundary<br />That divides us </i><br /></p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-2764199582402031462024-02-29T23:59:00.025+10:302024-02-29T23:59:00.136+10:30Reading List: February. <div style="text-align: left;"><b>Non-Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Kyle Chayka: Filterworld. How Algorithms Flattened Culture. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Roger Dean Kiser: The White House Boys. An American Tragedy. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Gilbert King: Beneath a Ruthless Sun. A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Wade Davis: Into the Silence. The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest. </i><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Lizzie Pook: Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Nathan Ballingrud: The Strange. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Jenny Kiefer: This Wretched Valley. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Sarah Lotz: The White Road. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Michelle Paver: Thin Air. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Tim Lebbon: Among the Living.<br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Films: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2024/02/more-horrors-in-ice.html" target="_blank"><br /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2024/02/more-horrors-in-ice.html" target="_blank">The Last Winter</a> (2006, Larry Fessenden).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/under-thin-ice" target="_blank">Under Thin Ice</a>. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Ruins (2008, Carter Smith).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Outbreak (1995, Wolfgang Petersen).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Contagion (2011, Steven Soderbergh).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Im Westen nichts Neues (2022, Edward Berger).<br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Shows</b><i>: </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Servant, Season Three, Four.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" target="_blank">The Last Place on Earth</a>, Season One. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Brothers Sun, Season One. </i><br /></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-83073511607328283072024-02-25T10:28:00.001+10:302024-02-28T10:31:18.066+10:30Das Lied zum Sonntag<p><b>Mary Timony - Dominoes</b> <i>(on Tame the Tiger)</i></p><p></p><p>
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bDtnl2USZVY?si=u7__vPGzeam2Tn_N" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>
<i>always that look on your face
here and gone
like you're watching from a distant time</i>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-22157793726026574412024-02-20T10:13:00.004+10:302024-02-20T10:14:08.408+10:30Servant<div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmoBIcXyyw0_Iou60zWqHYWl5W8GFGxtVZpAzT3xZumpZYAZFU1Sc7XwVmn5YF4eOLF1vNxWP9smkp16dl3VJIRF_MPavoYNHK9ys4Z4mQar6EaW1mFVMzHs9xJbUFyVkoE3t7i9ge0BQAuTvxv0MCP4J6mQe8prwx6Asq5mquEZyfPpj3MwXqKqZ7dTOO/s1000/servant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmoBIcXyyw0_Iou60zWqHYWl5W8GFGxtVZpAzT3xZumpZYAZFU1Sc7XwVmn5YF4eOLF1vNxWP9smkp16dl3VJIRF_MPavoYNHK9ys4Z4mQar6EaW1mFVMzHs9xJbUFyVkoE3t7i9ge0BQAuTvxv0MCP4J6mQe8prwx6Asq5mquEZyfPpj3MwXqKqZ7dTOO/w640-h360/servant.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While thinking about <i>Servant</i>’s fantastic three seasons, I’ve been considering the strangeness of how all three characters Lauren Ambrose has played regularly on television (save in <i>Torchwood</i>) are connected by a thread of grief and refusal to move on from trauma and loss. They are three very different people, and yet feel thematically linked. <i>Six Feet Under</i>'s Claire Fisher, whom Ambrose embodied the longest, is growing up with the constant presence of grief and loss in her parents’ funeral home and she has just lost her father when we first meet her. One of the most well-known scenes of the show that even people who’ve never watched it may have encountered on social media is from the last episode, when Claire finally takes off to begin her own life in New York, and takes a final picture of her family. An apparition of Nate, her older brother who has passed away from brain cancer, tells her that she can’t take a picture of this – it’s already gone. As an artist, capturing moments is what Claire does to make sense of things, but the whole theme of <i>Six Feet Under</i> is impermanence – every episode begins with a death – and the famous ending that shows each of the characters final moment is an eloquent way to drive home the point that everyone dies, even if the show throughout its run allows dead characters to return as ghosts (or embodied memories – there’s nothing traditionally haunting about these apparitions) who comment on the lives of their loved ones long after they themselves have passed. <br />Last year, Lauren Ambrose was cast as adult Van Palmer (a character eerily apt at survival) in <i>Yellowjackets</i>, and the first time we encounter her is in a video store – a lovingly curated space, but also, in the present time, a time capsule of the past that directly references the time period a younger Van went through the trauma of the plane crash and survival in the wilderness back in the mid-90s. She rents out video cassette tapes, not DVDs, and this dedication to an obsolete technology means that she keeps having to explain to her younger customers how to use a VCR. On the surface, it’s a quirky (maybe even hipster) dedication to the past, but there are other signs that Van is very much arrested in time, as if preserved in amber, that her way of dealing with the past is circling it endlessly, in her cozy little shop, while her financial problems and addiction issues escalate and remain unaddressed. It feels like a realistic reaction to a period of time that was incredibly traumatic, and, in <i>Yellowjackets</i>’ second season, becomes more and more violent and incomprehensible. <br />I only began watching <i>Servant </i>after having seen Ambrose’s Van, and on the surface, the first thing that struck me about Dorothy Turner was how different she is from both Van and Claire Fisher, who would both likely loathe her. Dorothy grew up with privilege and money, and is very much a product of both: not in any way interested in counter culture, dedicated to outward signs of wealth, arrogant and dismissive towards Leanne, the “help” she’s hired to look after her son Jericho. She is a successful television journalist and eager to return to work, while her husband Sean (played by Toby Kebbell, who proves in <i>Servant </i>that <i>For All Mankind</i> criminally underused his talents) is an up-and-coming chef (the first season very much uses the same aesthetic approach to his cooking that Chef’s Table does, and very deliberately). They live in a gorgeously renovated Philadelphia town house. But as soon as the show kicks off, it immediately becomes obvious how of that surface is hiding underneath. There’s the big twist right at the beginning: Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) has been hired to look after Jericho, the Turner’s baby, but there is no baby, only a life-like doll that, as we soon find out, Dorothy very much believes is her actual baby, while everybody else plays along. It takes a while for Sean to explain to Leanne that this replacement doll has been suggested to help Dorothy deal with the loss of their actual child some time ago, after which she became catatonic, and the twist is that Leanne finds nothing strange about this at all: she plays along perfectly, treating the doll like a human child to an extent that seems to be freaking out Sean (and Dorothy’s brother Julian, who maybe goes through the greatest change as the series unfolds, but is an insufferable ass to start off with). Leanne, eighteen and from Wisconsin, also turns out to be much more than she seems: she appears to the Turners as sheltered, meek, deeply religious. But then, the doll is replaced with an actual baby. <br />It's interesting to think about <i>Servant </i>as a companion piece of sorts to <i>The Leftovers</i>, in which the cataclysmic loss affects almost everyone in the world, and creates a different reality of grief on a global scale. Jericho’s loss and magical reappearance in <i>Servant</i>, by contrast, plays out within the constraints of the Turner’s home and life, contained within the four walls like a chamber play. Sean and Julian cannot acknowledge that anything has changed, because to Dorothy, nothing has: where they have both suffered the trauma of losing Jericho, the months of painful pretense with the doll, and now the shock of finding an actual baby returned to the home, Dorothy has had a continuous experience without any breaks in it, and her loved ones have to continue the charade because they fear what would happen if she realised that her son has died. It’s a trap of their own making that limits their ability to act. Their suspicion, and the only rational explanation they can come up with, is that Leanne has somehow tricked them, either passing her own baby or a stranger’s off as Jericho. They begin investigating her background, and things get weirder and weirder the more they find. <br />One of my favourite things about <i>Servant </i>is its unpredictability, how much it embraces its own weirdness (in the interesting time constraint of thirty-minute episodes, a rarity for a drama/horror thriller). Toby and Julian, with the help of a private investigator, realise that Leanne was raised in a cult with weird beliefs, and the remnants of that cult soon begin infiltrating the Turner’s lives. Character, throughout the series, fluctuate in their perception and acceptance of what is happening – it takes a while for threads to really crystallize, which only really begins happening once Leanne begins developing and starts being surer of herself. Nell Tiger Free’s performance is incredible in this, especially as Leanne embraces what she perceives as her power, and battles down in a household that frequently treats her as unwelcome, insisting that they make a family together, because a loving family is what she has yearned for her whole life. Leanne is a fascinating character – an eighteen-year-old who was raised to believe that she had to serve, had little agency, who is growing into someone powerful and self-assured the more she situates herself in the Turner household. Her presence also begins to reveal how much of that household is a facade: she brings out the worst in Dorothy, who lashes out when she loses control. She lives in a part of the house that hasn’t been renovated, so following her means going to the creepy parts of the house that feel like its true nature, as if everything else is just paint covering up its history. The basement (containing the extensive and very expensive collection of wines that are frequently drunk) becomes an uncontrollable entity that keeps acting up, turning into a quagmire in spite of frequents attempts to fix it somehow. There are enough nooks and crevices in the house that the burnt corpse of someone who came after Leanne remains indefinitely hidden. It’s as if the house becomes an extension of Leanne, controlled by her own emotions – her anger creates damage, her desperation brings plagues of termites and moths (it’s like Leanne is haunting the house, but at the same time, grief is, and sometimes Dorothy). Eventually her power seems to extend beyond the house into the street, beyond the street into the whole city. The show presents a rational explanation for everything, as if all these strange events only appear connected through the eyes of its increasingly paranoid and bewildered protagonists, but the mystical, or religious interpretation stays just as valid: Leanne is whatever the viewer decides she is, either a scarily powerful entity that grows in power the more her identity is allowed to develop, the surer her footing becomes, or a delusional young woman deeply traumatised by the cult that raised her, desperate for connection and love that she feels she can only attain through deception and force. I’m ambivalent about the ending – I think Leanne would have deserved exactly what she yearned for – but in the end, Servant is a show about unresolved grief and what happens when grief remains unaddressed. Dorothy cannot move on, or continue existing, if she doesn’t eventually address the abyss that was created the day that she lost Jericho. The show takes a long time to reveal what really happened that day: Sean, frustrated by the limitations of his role as a father, decided to take a gig as a guest presenter in a cooking competition show in Los Angeles. Without his support, with a constantly crying baby in a sweltering city, Dorothy became overwhelmed. A desperate phone call to her brother remained unanswered (and he never really gets over that guilt, it drives his whole character). She forgot Jericho in the car, during a heatwave. It’s a gravity well, not unlike the one that exists in <i>The Haunting of Bly Manor</i>, a single act of desperation that changes everything around it. Servant’s animating force is that this doesn’t feel like something that has torn the family apart. Sean feels guilty for having left Dorothy, and he loves her deeply (a rare kind of love to find on television in straight married couples – it reminded me of the otherwise very different <i>Santa Clarita Diet</i>, where Van Palmer’s young alter ego Liv Hewson got their start). Julian, in spite of how insufferable he is throughout the first season, loves his sister, and knows that his inaction played a part in the loss. Both men forge connections with the new, mysterious baby, in spite of being fairly certain that he isn’t really Jericho. As much as Dorothy is the only character who, on the surface, has not suffered the loss because her brain has removed it from her memory, she feels substantially changed by it too, as if the labour of forgetting has forced a mask on her that keeps her ability to really connect, or show empathy, limited. There’s a moment in the final episode in which Dorothy, having finally remembered, has the first encounter with Leanne that feels true, where she feels like a whole person again, capable of the full range of emotions. It shows how outstanding Lauren Ambrose’s performance is in the series, having played Dorothy as so removed and distant throughout, that this connection now feels like the first real thing she has done in years, like Dorothy has finally become fully human again. Dorothy has to embrace her, and as easy as it would be to embrace what Leanne offers: a return to a normalcy where they are all back in the house, with Jericho in their midst to bind them together forever – she knows that she will be never be whole unless she begins addressing Jericho’s death. I still wish there had been a way for Leanne to survive, but then I guess the whole point was that Leanne presence is predicated on Jericho’s, who she was hired to care for. What a great, strange, ambitious show. <br /><br /><i>2019-2023, created by Tony Basgallop, starring Lauren Ambrose, Nell Tiger Free, Toby Kebbell, Rupert Grint, Tony Revolon, Bons McGiver.</i><br /></div><div><p></p></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-50372307045392133482024-02-04T09:12:00.001+10:302024-02-04T09:12:00.131+10:30Das Lied zum Sonntag<p><b> Kim Gordon - Bye Bye (on The Collective)</b><br /></p><p>
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<i>Advil, black jeans, blue jeans </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Cardigan, purse, passport </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Pajamas</i></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-52120542369681747302024-02-03T07:02:00.003+10:302024-02-13T09:36:44.544+10:30More horrors in the ice<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiReEGCz5x1n-W7uDFrwn7PeY6eY5PByYONAY-D7SJadfeobLAMq-xyliYkivLorA9na0a1gm2rgMNxx8NZGQnVUDjVOmx60bYy-Xy1g-9Ci0K5iQTUm8XfHJZwyYzayeySbsL3_x2g0AfrlsNm3_7Sime1gLwS51tRnRUpAiahI-h0hKm8Os5D29ofYpsV/s1200/td.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiReEGCz5x1n-W7uDFrwn7PeY6eY5PByYONAY-D7SJadfeobLAMq-xyliYkivLorA9na0a1gm2rgMNxx8NZGQnVUDjVOmx60bYy-Xy1g-9Ci0K5iQTUm8XfHJZwyYzayeySbsL3_x2g0AfrlsNm3_7Sime1gLwS51tRnRUpAiahI-h0hKm8Os5D29ofYpsV/w320-h213/td.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I wouldn’t say that <i>The Last Winter</i> is a particularly great film. I watched it based on a list of recommendations for if you’re enjoying the new season of <i>True Detective</i>, which I am, and it sounded interesting based on the story it tells. There is also an inescapable draw to seeing Connie Britton reunited with Zach Gilford, like an emotional reminder of so many seasons of <i>Friday Night Lights</i>. <i>The Last Winter</i> is a horror film, definitely profoundly influenced by the ultimate polar horror film, <i>The Thing</i>. It is set in an Alaskan outpost for an oil-drilling company that is trying to develop the area for extraction, a project driven by Ron Perlman, who plays Ed Pollack straightforwardly the way you’d expect someone obsessed with wringing oil from the ground would be. At one point, he argues that there is a god-given right to such riches. This is a man who takes humanity’s domination of nature very seriously. His ideology is directly opposed to James Hoffman (James Le Gros, who will forever interest me just for the stark contrast of appearing both in early 2000 <i>Ally McBeal</i> and Kelly Reichardt’s films). Hoffman is a scientist studying the impacts of climate change on the polar regions, but he is also bought by the oil company he works for, which severely restricts how he can act on the concerning data he finds in Alaska. The temperature is rising. The permafrost is melting. The wind feels hostile, as if imbued with intent. Halfway through the story, it begins raining – in February, during the Arctic winter. I doubt that much of the film will stay with me, long-term, but a conversation with the station’s chef Dawn (played beautifully by Joanne Shenandoah) will: She explains a word that her native people have for friends who are acting out of character, appear disconcertingly changed (uggianaqtuq), and says that this could be applied to the weather that they are all experiencing out there (a reference possibly taken right from the <a href="https://forces.si.edu/arctic/02_00_00.html" target="_blank">Smithsonian Environmental Research Center</a>). As the horror unfolds, the two possible meanings of the word come to fruition. As each of the characters encounters the strangeness, the change, the reality of the impact of climate change, they begin to irrevocably change and lose their minds. Zach Gilford’s Maxwell is the first victim, as if his hesitancy about his role at the station and uncertainty about his own purpose makes him more susceptible to the forces at play. The station workers begin turning against each other, and when they venture out of their isolation, they discover that whatever is impacting them is not contained to their station alone. There is a real, scientific concern here about what it would mean for the climate if the permafrost disappeared and released all the carbon is has stored (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-021-00230-3" target="_blank">this scientific paper</a> released in 2022 cites that the Arctic permafrost stores nearly 1,700 billion metric tons of frozen carbon, and this carbon sink is now in danger of turning into a carbon source). The more horror-story prone aspect is the idea that the melting permafrost will reveal other things frozen in the ice that will come to haunt humanity, such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/21/arctic-zombie-viruses-in-siberia-could-spark-terrifying-new-pandemic-scientists-warn" target="_blank">ancient viruses</a> or long-forgotten creatures that could come back to life (an idea that has felt like a mainstay in horror novels about the polar regions for a while). <i>The Last Winter</i> doesn’t really limit itself to any of these ideas – it could be a virus that is affecting the mental health of the station workers – but eventually, towards the end, the survivors do see a monster of some kind that inevitably recalls Dan Simmons’ Tuunbaq, even though <i>The Terror</i> wasn’t released until 2007. It is unclear if this creature is corporeal or not, if it, like the Tuunbaq, exists to restore balance where white men have upset it. It could just as well be an expression of guilty minds shaping the knowledge of the destruction they have wrought into something concrete. I liked the eloquent ending, in which sole survivor Connie Britton awakes in a hospital to a scene of destruction that remains hauntingly off-screen, but is very much felt in the soundscape, in the sludge beneath her boots, which make it clear how literal the title of the film ultimately is. <br /><br />There are a lot of obvious connection points to the new season of <i>True Detective</i> here, which hasn’t finished yet but appears to embrace the idea of the supernatural a lot more than the much debated first season ultimately did. This is perhaps a feature that feels more earned considering that the Issa López developed season allows some room for the beliefs of the local Inuit to clash against Jodie Foster’s Elizabeth Danvers supposed rationality and cynicism (and, especially in how she handles her stepdaughter’s attempts to connect to culture, racism). <i>True Detective</i> is set in an Alaskan mining town, in which the resource extraction has led to horrible impacts on the local community. The water seems to be poisoned. There is a slew of traumatic stillborn babies, and horrifying violence against Indigenous women that is mostly met with indifference by the local police force. Danvers reminds characters who point out these dangers that the mine is what keeps the town alive, a claim severely undermined by the many attempts by local indigenous activists to reclaim what has been stolen from them, and the sheer fact of their existence on this land for thousands of years. They were here before – and possibly, as has been whatever spectre is haunting the town now. The mystery kicks off when the scientists in a research station (<i>True Detective</i> is very conscious of what came before in terms of polar horror!) disappear into the ice, and are later found frozen together in what Danvers terms a “corpsicle” – a spine-chillingly gruesome installation of ice and meat that Danvers drags to the local ice rink to defrost. Aspects of this connect to an old, unsolved crime in which an Indigenous activist and midwife was killed and then, inevitably, let down by the ensuing incomplete investigation. Some of the success of this season is that there are so many open venues for explanation, and it feels completely in the air which one the show ultimately will go down. There’s a hinted story here about how the effects of the mine have destroyed nature irreparably, have destroyed a pre-existing community and also created a schism between those economically dependent on it and those who are defending their ancestral home. There are the scientists themselves, who were taking samples from the ice to find compounds for medicine and research into arresting aging, or averting death – who may have found something ancient and incomprehensible instead. The much-discussed ending of the first season of <i>True Detective</i> ultimately went with an almost pedestrian explanation after hinting at something much greater. This new season cites some of those mysteries, and might still either deliver or deliberately refuse to.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgaP7Yd_6Dn54ypJ3XIvEYeFnJTS_xUgMHBm7FPczMCzWEPd3OU4FPDj8Qk-SyaO0vJOdnEbE9beXkr0jit6hQR3asIbIMKRD5OhPSL5tNFBhEzrMNx2rBLqdf0hyrw-7ToHOVg7JphF_aLemJnYCx-NdCGhH9JrURlXxGR85fQpiLwb_j1TGn7cPmEvM/s1475/tlpoe.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="981" data-original-width="1475" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtgaP7Yd_6Dn54ypJ3XIvEYeFnJTS_xUgMHBm7FPczMCzWEPd3OU4FPDj8Qk-SyaO0vJOdnEbE9beXkr0jit6hQR3asIbIMKRD5OhPSL5tNFBhEzrMNx2rBLqdf0hyrw-7ToHOVg7JphF_aLemJnYCx-NdCGhH9JrURlXxGR85fQpiLwb_j1TGn7cPmEvM/w400-h266/tlpoe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">All of this feels like a great context for watching the 1985 miniseries <i>The Last Place on Earth</i>, based on the non-fiction book by Roland Huntford about the race between Amundsen and Scott for the South Pole, for the first time. It’s an interesting series to consider just based on format alone – miniseries based on novels have been so popular lately (think the recent Liane Morarity adaptations, or <i>Sharp Objects, Pachinko</i> and <i>Little Fires Everywhere</i>). In my head, this has felt like a new phenomenon that goes hand-in-hand with the changes that streaming has affected in the television landscape, mainly because for the majority of my television experience, the idea of six to ten more than hour-long episodes of television making up a season would have felt odd, but now feels less so with the model of shorter seasons with episodes of varying length, frequently released in one go rather than week-by-week. In fact, there are a lot of other examples from the 70s and 80s – the adaptation of Alex Haley’s <i>Roots </i>in 1977, the original 1990s <i>House of Cards</i>, BBC adaptations Jane Austen’s novels. Regardless, something about the scope of <i>The Last Place of Earth</i> is deeply surprising to me. It dedicates a lot of time just to the build-up of the two competing expeditions, developing Amundsen and Scott as diametrically opposed characters, as if their societal context – which affects their ultimate approach to how they lead their respective pushes for the Pole – was just as important to show as the expeditions themselves. The first episode shows Scott’s failure in the Navy, desperation to prove himself, struggle with his personal relationships, as much as it follows Amundsen’s disappointment when the North Pole, his obsession, is claimed by his good friend Frederick Cook (the question of whether Cook, or Peary, ever reached the North Pole would warrant another miniseries), and his ultimate daring decision to race Scott for the South Pole, secretly diverting his government-funded expedition on Nansen’s famed Fram to the other side of the world. It shows in harrowing detail how both expedition’s attempts to find funding strains relationships (Amundsen’s long-suffering brother and “business manager” gets more airtime than members of the actual expedition). This show has time to be detailed and precise, which is joyful, and it will all come together to make Huntford’s ultimate historical argument that Scott failed because of his refusal to adapt the Inuit-tested strategies that Amundsen embraced. There is much rah-rahing about the British empire here, about how the white spaces on the maps must eventually be part of Empire, that will inevitably end in the frozen tent 12.5 miles from the next depot. The goal here isn’t resource extraction, yet – but there is still an ultimate connection in terms of the ideology that makes these “great men” believe that they could ever dominate a land so hostile to humans. <br /><i>The Last Place on Earth</i> is of course not a horror story in the traditional sense – there is nothing here that is released from the ice to haunt the explorers, there are no monsters or viruses here to feed off white men who do not comprehend that they have perhaps tread where nobody should go. The horror lies in the physical exhaustion, the slow death of starvation, the impact of frostbite and unpredictable weather. As great as many of the recent horror novels about the polar regions are – especially Ally Wilkes’, and the television adaptation of <i>The Terror</i> – nothing comes close to the sheer desperation of Apsley Cherry-Garrard (played here by a young Hugh Grant at the beginning of his career) writing about his lost friends, calculating the necessary caloric intake for future expeditions to avoid the fate Scott, or sitting in the halls of the Natural History Museum to view the penguin eggs that he and his two doomed companions collected during their harrowing winter journey, only to find the museum workers disinterested in their great feat that has cost them so much. The horrible irony of <i>The Last Place on Earth</i> is that Amundsen, with his reliance on dogs, skies and Inuit methods of survival, had a comparably easy time to reach his goal (discounting some frostbitten feet, a kind of body horror in and of itself), while Scott struggled severely with his ponies, his failed motor vehicles and the over-extension of matching the scientific research with the ultimate goal of the Pole. It’s a miscalculation that results in the death of his South Pole party, hubris met with inevitable punishment in an environment that does not permit miscalculation on such an epic scale.<br /><br /><i><b>The Last Winter</b> (2006), directed by Larry Fessenden, starring Ron Perlman, James Le Gros, Connie Britton, Zach Gilford, Kevin Corrigan, Jamie Harrold, Pato Hoffmann, Joanne Shenandoah. <br /><br /><b>True Detective: Night Country</b> (2024), created by Issa López, starring Jodie Foster, Kali Reis, Fiona Shaw, Finn Bennett, Isabella LaBlanc, John Hawkes, L'Xeis Diane Benson, Aka Niviâna, Angunnguaq Larsen.<br /><b><br />The Last Place on Earth</b> (1985), created by Trevor Griffiths, based on a book by Roland Huntford, starring Martin Shaw, Sverre Anker Ousdal, Stephen Moore, Hugh Grant, Michael Maloney, Richard Morant, Sylvester McCoy.</i><br /></p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-57269926213562505502024-01-31T23:59:00.049+10:302024-01-31T23:59:00.137+10:30Reading List: January. <div style="text-align: left;"><b>Non-Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Lamya H: Hijab Blues. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Gilbert King: Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.<b><br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Tana French: The Witch Elm.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Isle McElroy: People Collide. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Andrea Barrett: The Voyage of the Narwhal.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Dan Simmons: Drood. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Will Dean: The Last Thing to Burn.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Vanessa Chan: The Storm We Made.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Alexis Soloski: Here in the Dark. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Alexis Henderson: The House of Hunger.<br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Films: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Oculus (2013, Mike Flanagan).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Gerald's Game (2017, Mike Flanagan).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Godzilla (2014, Gareth Edwards).<br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Kong: Skull Island (2017, Jordan Vogt-Roberts).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019, Michael Dougherty).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Godzilla vs. Kong (2021, Adam Wingard).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Marvels (2023, Nia DaCosta).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Eileen (2023, William Oldroyd).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2024/01/kaibutsu-monster.html" target="_blank">Kaibutsu</a> (2023, Kore-eda Hirokazu).<br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Shows: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Babylon Berlin, Season Four. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2024/01/scavengers-reign.html" target="_blank">Scavengers Reign</a>, Season One. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Servant, Season One, Two. </i></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-49855019340067014892024-01-29T10:29:00.001+10:302024-01-29T10:35:40.904+10:30Links: 29/1/24<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Politics: </u></i></b><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It feels like the Republican Primary at this stage is a foregone conclusion. After the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/iowa/republican-presidential-primary" target="_blank">Iowa caucus</a>, in which Donald Trump managed to get ahead of Ron DeSantis by 30%, DeSantis (who has been creating a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65627756" target="_blank">nightmare dystopia for trans people in Florida</a>) suspended his campaign and endorsed the former President. Trump then went on to win the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/new-hampshire" target="_blank">New Hampshire Primary</a>, in spite of the fact that the electoral make-up of the state (independents being allowed to vote in Republican primaries, the educational make-up of the electorate) probably created more difficult conditions for him than most of the next contests will hold. Nikki Haley, the only remaining contender other than Trump, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" target="_blank">is projected to lose her home state of South Carolina</a>, where she was governor for five years, a loss that will be the coffin nail in her campaign. It doesn't matter that Trump has just <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/topstories/donald-trump-ordered-to-pay-833-million-to-rape-accuser-in-defamation-case/ar-BB1hkuLs" target="_blank">been ordered to pay $83.3 million</a> to E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial that found him liable for sexual abuse, or that so many more law suits are pending, or that Trump has been <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/20/politics/donald-trump-ballot-removal-efforts-dg/index.html" target="_blank">stripped from the Maine and Colorado primary ballot</a> for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The 2024 Presidential election will be a repeat of the 2020 one, and it will be an uphill battle for the Democrats, who are now also struggling with <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/muslim-arab-voters-biden_n_653fe8bce4b032ae1c9c1b92" target="_blank">flagging support from Muslim Americans</a>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"> The findings of a recent study into abortion bans in the US are horrifying. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><i>Fourteen states have banned abortions at any gestational age since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022. Since the enactment of those abortion bans, an estimated 64,565 people became pregnant as a result of rape in those states.</i></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/01/estimated-64000-women-girls-became-pregnant-from-rape-in-abortion-ban-states/" target="_blank">ArsTechnica: Tens of thousands of pregnancies from rape occurring in abortion-ban states</a>, January 27, 2024</p><p style="text-align: justify;">South Africa has brought a case against Israel to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/26/how-south-africas-genocide-case-against-israel-played-out-in-the-hague" target="_blank">International Court of Justice</a>. The actual ruling on the charges of genocide will take years, but the court has made an interim judgement. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><i>"In a historic interim judgment, the UN court in The Hague told Israel it must “take all measures within its power” to desist from killing Palestinians in contravention of the genocide convention, and to prevent and punish the incitement of genocide and facilitate the provision of “urgent basic services”. But the ruling stopped short of ordering a ceasefire to the war in Gaza."</i></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/26/icj-ruling-increases-pressure-israel-prevent-civilian-deaths-gaza" target="_blank">The Guardian: ICJ ruling increases pressure on Israel to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza</a>, January 27, 2024</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, nine countries including Australia <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" target="_blank">have suspended funds to the UNRWA</a>, the primary humanitarian agency working in Gaza, due to charges against a small group of staff regarding the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, just as millions of Gazans are facing a famine. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Pop Culture: </u></i></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I've been watching the fourth season of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmJHKF2bYVc" target="_blank"><i>True Detective</i></a> (I skipped the two previous seasons), which feels right in my wheelhouse: it is set in a remote Alaskan town during the polar night and follows the investigation of mysterious deaths in an Arctic research station. Jodie Foster and Kali Reis are starring as the investigating police officers in a show that feels deeply indebted to <i>The Thing. </i>I've been finding it especially enjoyable to watch the series unfold week-by-week instead of as a full-season drop (a trend I notice in general - I feel fatigued by the Netflix model of releasing whole seasons and would rather watch things more slowly, to have more time to think about what is happening and really dig into the narrative). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Vulture has a detailed interview with Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein about all the songs on the new Sleater-Kinney album <i><a href="https://www.vulture.com/2024/01/carrie-brownstein-corin-tucker-sleater-kinney-little-rope.html?utm_source=flipboard.com&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part" target="_blank">Little Rope</a></i>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There's a bit of controversy surrounding the Academy Awards nominations (specifically for Barbie - the in-world irony of nominating Ryan Gosling, but not Margot Robbie or Greta Gerwig), but I'm happy that Sandra Hüller has gotten a nod for <i>Anatomy of a Fall</i>, with both Justine Triet's film and Jonathan Glazer's <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-vfg3KkV54" target="_blank">The Zone of Interest</a></i> being nominated for Best Film. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And in sports, yesterday brought two very surprising upsets to the dominant Australian cricket squads: the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/jan/28/south-africa-level-series-with-stunning-first-ever-win-over-listless-australia" target="_blank">South African women</a>'s team under Adelaide Strikers premiership winning opener Laura Woolvardt managed to defeat Australia for the first time ever in a Canberra T20 match, and the young <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/jan/28/shamar-joseph-inspires-west-indies-test-win-over-australia-at-the-gabba" target="_blank">West Indies test squad</a> beat the Australian men's cricket team in a day-night game with only eight runs to spare in a stunning performance by quick Shamar Joseph, who managed to get seven wickets with an injured toe. <br /></p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-14696479231706972902024-01-26T13:08:00.002+10:302024-01-26T13:08:19.813+10:30 Kaibutsu / Monster <div style="text-align: justify;"></div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin57LlfRa5ZSkqRmP_LQL37R1KES5pgeIAcYxrghN_c03auj-v0enDeGdyxh660vzjXdsaqZlz5tUSpNo-c9ZLRvimu2asnuViCMEzNYMH1ij-0sNfgO2SqsfiY6DD3uDGF6gV9FuwkQ-v0njNqf50zlXanswO7Cjt-NCFElfYnl0BV-H6YrG3NTI6vLHC/s1280/kaubutsu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin57LlfRa5ZSkqRmP_LQL37R1KES5pgeIAcYxrghN_c03auj-v0enDeGdyxh660vzjXdsaqZlz5tUSpNo-c9ZLRvimu2asnuViCMEzNYMH1ij-0sNfgO2SqsfiY6DD3uDGF6gV9FuwkQ-v0njNqf50zlXanswO7Cjt-NCFElfYnl0BV-H6YrG3NTI6vLHC/w640-h360/kaubutsu.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />My first encounter with a film by director Kore-eda Hirokazu was at the 2004 Viennale Film Festival, at a screening of <i>Dare mo Shiranai / Nobody Knows</i>. It’s about four half-siblings who are left alone in their apartment when their mother disappears. The oldest among them, twelve-year-old Akira, tries to take care of everyone but his resources are limited. Inevitably, things go horribly wrong, but the exceptional quality of the film is the way in which it captures the inner lives of the children, their perception of the world and Akira’s attempts to maintain normalcy for his siblings, even when it becomes impossible. <br /><br />Kaibutsu shares with <i>Nobody Knows</i> that its most moving emotional moments happen when there are no adults in sights. Kore-eda splits the film into three segments, each following one of the main characters. First, Saori (Sakura Ando), Minato’s mother, becomes concerned about her son’s behavioural changes and blaming his home-room teacher, who she thinks is inflicting physical and psychological punishment on her child, advocates for him at his school, an incredibly frustrating process. The troubled principal of the school who has just lost her grandchild in a terrible accident makes an apology that doesn’t actually acknowledge what has happened, and none of the teachers or staff in the school seem willing to either take responsibility or make changes to what Saori perceives as a great injustice. Eventually, Hori (Eita Nagayama) loses his job, but the second part of the film that follows him shows that he was never the “monster” that Saori perceived him to be, that he genuinely tried his best to care for the children and has fallen victim to Minato’s inability to be truthful about what is actually happening. The third part of the film follows Minato (Soya Kurokawa) and reveals the truth of the events – where there were previous hints that Minato may in fact be a bully rather than the one being bullied, it turns out that he has befriended Yori (Hinata Hiragi), a kid constantly targeted by other children for being different. The only true monster in the film is Yori’s father, who is abusing his son after his wife has left him, and the failure of the adult characters in the film is either realising that the abuse is happening or effectively protecting Yori from it. This doesn’t seem to stem from any kind of ill will or deliberate neglect, but a failure to see or communicate, as if something is ultimately untranslatable between the experiences of the children and the adult characters in the film – a gap that is only bridged briefly when the grieving principal connects with Minato and shows him how to play an instrument. <br /><br />To make things more difficult, Minato has also discovered that his own feelings for Yori go deeper than friendship, and he doesn’t have any conceptual framework to make sense of those feelings or talk about them with his loving and tender but also overworked and overwhelmed single mother. Yori and Minato create their own little world together in an abandoned train compartment in the woods, and Kore-eda’s care in portraying what they create together is beautiful – it’s a world without adults, imaginative and creative, threatened by the misunderstanding and violence of the outside as well as a coming storm. The magic of the film is that the catastrophe, in the end, is averted, even though it looms over the entire film until the very last scene. <br /><br /><i>2023, directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu, starring Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Soya Kurokawa, Hinata Hiiragi.</i><br /><p></p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-90087469177618535242024-01-21T09:53:00.007+10:302024-01-21T09:53:00.135+10:30Das Lied zum Sonntag<p><b>Sleater-Kinney - Hell (on Little Rope)</b></p>
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<p><i>I pull myself in pieces<br />Pull myself apart<br />It's like looking in a mirror<br />With a stranger looking back</i><br /></p><p>(<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hUUGdb2qoE" target="_blank">Untidy Creature</a></i> / <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp2z1cL6qoU" target="_blank">Say It Like You Mean It</a></i>)</p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-42444924107528400332024-01-13T08:07:00.002+10:302024-01-13T08:07:31.986+10:30 Scavengers Reign<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij1TPoKdLoYMnluu5vgamJaZxHTc8ovcfwiG0cDPDnCYnEyhJ_cSXQjv0vytdVXQqtXhVjllzGtqozm_EY-bnDJMtqsecar7GdidzLQLCU-PRs1eY5umK4YunsVegUB4y_YdZXd0bE-oSe981vWwvUk0ORAH-ZmXb91qIkerq7olCO_fIAlU1wt0BDnhPu/s1920/sr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1920" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij1TPoKdLoYMnluu5vgamJaZxHTc8ovcfwiG0cDPDnCYnEyhJ_cSXQjv0vytdVXQqtXhVjllzGtqozm_EY-bnDJMtqsecar7GdidzLQLCU-PRs1eY5umK4YunsVegUB4y_YdZXd0bE-oSe981vWwvUk0ORAH-ZmXb91qIkerq7olCO_fIAlU1wt0BDnhPu/w640-h318/sr.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">The last few years have provided us with a wealth of fictional and reality television survival narratives. Most recently, it felt like the more cooped up with their devices audiences may have been due to the pandemic, the more they felt drawn to shows like <i>Alone</i>, in which contestants are stranded in the wild with limited supplies and have to outlast their competition. Maybe that is a weird comparison to have in the back of my head after watching the beautiful twelve episodes of the animates series <i>Scavengers Reign</i>, which feels visually inspired by artists Moebius and the events unfolding in Jeff Vandermeer’s <i>Area X</i> novels. It is also a strange coincidence that I was also catching up with the <i>Monsterverse </i>at the same time as slowly working my way through <i>Scavengers Reign,</i> cherishing every episode rather than binging it. It surprised me because films like <i>Kong: Skull Island</i> are at their best when they portray King Kong, by himself, in his environment, grieving the loss of his family and fiercely protecting his realm from destruction, in contrast to the invading humans with their differing approaches to encountering something that does not fit into their preconception of what nature is. <i>Skull Island</i>, and the Monsterverse in general denies human dominance over nature by placing the titans above them on the food chain, and it punishes those who approach this change in dynamics by resorting through violence rather than scientific curiosity and the willingness to concede that humanity, as a whole, is not separate from its environment but both part of it and dependent on it. When the soldiers reassigned from the last days of the Vietnam war arrive on Skull Island, their first action is to drop bombs on the pristine environment, and punishment for that act of destruction follows immediately, is meted out by Kong whose function appears to be keeping things in balance (in that regard, he is not unlike the Tuunbaq in <i>The Terror</i>, a half-polar bear half-spirit that reacts to the imbalance of the 120-some Englishmen of the failed Franklin expedition attempting to survive off a land that cannot support their hunger). <br /><br />In <i>Scavengers Reign</i>, a cargo ship destined for a far-away colony runs into trouble in the orbit of an undiscovered planet and while most of its passengers sleep in their cryopods, the crew of the ship escapes in life pods to the surface. Only a few of them survive the landing, and they are spread out over the surface of the vast planet. It’s important that they haven’t arrived here to colonise – this is an accidental location, an unmapped one, and while each of the surviving groups has different backgrounds that determine how they approach the situation, the goal is to somehow return to the ship and be rescued rather than to stay and make a life on Vesta Minor. <i>Scavengers Reign</i> is exceptional because it puts as much effort into portraying the flora and fauna of the planet as it does into presenting the characters attempting to survive in it. Vesta Minor feels like a perfectly balanced ecosystem in which each element depends upon others, a symbiosis (and frequently, a host-parasite relationship) that the series presents throughout the episodes. The life cycle of plants sustain animals which prey upon each other to in turn nourish the plants, and as alienating and foreign as that ecosystem is (and frequently horrifying, especially when it comes to the parasites), it feels, in the absence of a human equivalent to childishly tilt it, perfectly balanced. All the plants and animals are designed with great detail, always on the edge of familiarity but just different enough to evoke the sense of wonder and alienation that the stranded humans must feel when they first encounter it. <br /><br />Biologist Ursula (voiced by Sunita Mani) seems best adapted to thrive in this new environment. She is stranded alongside the Demeter’s captain Sam (Bob Stephenson), and when we meet them the first time, they have existed on the planet long enough to have learned how to get along. They harness the peculiarities of the environment, using plants and animals as tools in their attempts to set off a rescue beacon and to move through the landscape. Ursula remains deeply fascinated by what she finds throughout the series, even when things turn dangerous and horrible – at one point, she witnesses the entire lifecycle of a plant and emerges from the experience deeply humbled and amazed, a kind of secular awe. It’s interesting that Ursula and Sam are the only characters who encounter the remains of a previously stranded mission, an experience that makes it clear to them that the only way to live on this planet is to be profoundly changed, to become part of the inter-dependent system, to leave humanity behind. The transformation comes with a solid dose of body-horror (as do so many other aspects of the environment, including hallucination-inducing spores), a concession to the cost that individuals have to pay as the planet makes it clear that it will not tolerate the exceptional position of humans. <br />Azi (Wunmi Mosaku) arrives on the planet with more supplies that the others, but without a human companion. The former cargo manager has the support of a Levi (Alia Shawkat), a robot that undergoes a transformation towards sentience when its circuits encounter the planet’s flora. Levi embraces that transformation with wonder, as it provides an autonomy that it was previously denied. All of a sudden, Levi acts in ways that Azi does not quite understand – creatively, compelled and inspired, and no longer bound to human command. Eventually, Levi’s connection to Vesta Minor becomes so profound that it is literally rebirthed and perfectly integrated, with no further interest in the original mission, finally at home. Azi’s own reaction to being on the planet is more akin to a traditional stranded outcast. He uses the tools she has to keep the encroaching environment at bay, hesitant to confront it. She does not have the same resources that Ursula has to study it and make it useful to her, and so it remains vaguely threatening rather than beautiful or fascinating. Azi is eager to return to the ship and wake up the remaining passengers in their cryopods because that’s where she has left a woman she loves (voiced by Sepideh Moafi), but her path to achieve that goals is difficult and complicated when a group of three scavengers arrives and prioritises extracting the ship’s cargo for their own colony (and it is interesting how different approaches to the environment are once again mirrored in these three strangers). <br />The most horrifying journey is undergone by Kamen (Ted Travestead), who arrives on the surface with all the selfishness and guilt of a man who caused the disaster that killed the woman he loves. He is isolated and trapped to start off with, driven to insanity, and then rescued by a creature capable of telepathy and telekinesis. While sustaining his hallucinations, it enters a parasite-host relationship with Kamen (an interesting one, because it is unclear which is which), and induces a viscerally horrible bloodlust that provides the creature with food so it can grow. There is no beauty here, just destruction – Kamen’s mental dissolution perfectly mirrored in the havoc they wreak together, as if humanity’s tendency to destroy whichever environment it is in finds an expression in their symbiosis. One of the most stunning moments of the entire series is the end to this story – when Levi, made new and part of the balance of the planet, arrives to break the destructive bond, and enables a rebirth for both, the creature returned to its juvenile state, skittering off to hopefully return to its regular cycle of life, and Kamen slowly reintegrating into the newly emerged society by tending to the same environment he was previously devastating. <br /><br /><i>Scavengers Reign</i> is a beautiful, self-contained story that earns its version of a positive ending, in which the surviving humans hopefully find a way to exist on the planet by becoming part of its eco-system rather than destroying it. <br /><br /><i>2023, created by Joe Bennett, Charles Huettner, with the voices of Sunita Mani, Wunmi Mosaku, Bob Stephenson, Alia Shawkat, Pollyanna McIntosh, Ted Travelstead, Dash Williams, Sepideh Moafi, Freddy Rodriguez. </i><br /></p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-90954366613774930612023-12-31T23:59:00.041+10:302024-01-05T07:11:39.929+10:30Reading List: December.<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Non-Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Amy Key: Arrangements in Blue. Notes on Loving and Living Alone.<b> <br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Joanna Biggs: A Life of One's Own. Nine Women Writers Begin Again. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Casey Parks: Diary of a Misfit. A Memoir and a Mystery.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Bruce Henderson: Fatal North. Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Nita Prose: The Maid.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Nita Prose: The Mystery Guest. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Jenny Xie: Holding Pattern. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Ally Wilkes: Where the Dead Wait.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Bethany Jacbos: These Burning Stars. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Alison Rumfitt: Brainwyrms.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Waubgeshig Rice: Moon of the Crusted Snow. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Jane Harper: The Survivors.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Christina Henry: Near the Bone.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Films: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><i>Voleuses (2023, Mélanie Laurent).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>It's a Wonderful Knife (2023, Tyler MacIntyre).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Wonder (2022, Sebastián Lelio).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023, Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Sibyl (2019, Justine Triet).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>May December (2023, Todd Haynes).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Holdovers (2023, Alexander Payne). <br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022, Daniel Goldhaber).<br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Shows: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Der Pass, Season Three.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Full Circle, Season One.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Carol and the End of the World, Season One. <br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Vigil, Season Two. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Somebody Somewhere, Season One, Two. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Pokemon Concierge, Season One.<br /></i></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-43995764671959868102023-12-31T23:00:00.483+10:302023-12-31T23:00:00.127+10:30Shows of the Year<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Best new show:</u></i></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="Deadloch" target="_blank">Deadloch</a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Last of Us</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As someone who watches a lot of television, my favourite moments are always the ones where connections seem to unfold between unconnected stories. <i>The Last of Us </i>(based on the game) feels like a companion piece to last year's <i>Station Eleven</i> (based on the novel), both when they're at their best investigating the old Voyager adage that survival is insufficient. Ellie and Joe are both deeply damaged, especially Joe, who has tragically lost his own daughter and is all the more reluctant at the beginning to make himself vulnerable to Ellie (who is very hard not to love). The third episode departs from our regular cast to create a love story from beginning to end, in which Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman (a man who will never play a character that is not competent, what an achievement) build a nest together in the ruins of society and find meaning in their curated, beautiful life. <i>Long Long Time</i> is perhaps one of the best episodes of television (not just this year). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Poker Face</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At some point after the first season of <i>Russian Doll</i> came out, some people on twitter commented that Natasha Lyonne could be the spiritual successor to Peter Falk's Detective Columbo - and then, somehow, through serendipity, Rian Johnson (now providing us with annual counterpoint whodunnits to Kenneth Branagh's revival of Hercule Poirot) must have come to the same conclusion. <i>Poker Face</i>, like <i>Columbo</i>, is not a whodunnit - each episode begins with the crime, so that the audience is well aware of who has committed it. Following Lyonne's Charlie Cale and her indefeatable instinct for telling lies is where the charm of this show lies. Each episode is full of stars who act like they're having the time of their life (and what other television show can boast to have John Darnielle's acting debut as well as songs written by him specifically for an episode). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/search/label/Orphan%20Black%3A%20Echoes" target="_blank">Orphan Black: Echoes</a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Beacon 23</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It took me a few episodes to get into this show, even though it should have been the easiest sell ever (Lena Headey) - this is a science fiction show about a galactic lighthouse, outfitted with a (very emotional) AI. The show mainly focuses on Headey's Aster and Stephan James' Halan unravelling a mystery about space rocks, but there is also a deeply philosophical approach where individual episodes go back in time to show the fates of previous beacon keepers (it seems that like olden days lighthouses, beacon keeping attracts eccentrics who translate into fascinating characters on-screen), and characters discuss the fate of humanity (expansion into the stars vs focusing on community, transcending death). The result is something quite unlike anything else I've seen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Horror of Dolores Roach</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Justina Machado, great since <i>Six Feet Under</i>, stars in an inspired adaptation of <i>Sweeney Todd</i> set in Washington Heights. The story brilliantly weaves together the effects of incarceration and gentrification with the morbid twist of the original story, with Dolores' (frequently deserving) victims ending up in empanadas instead of meat pies. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Best one-season show:</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><div><b><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/05/dead-ringers.html" target="_blank">Dead Ringers</a></b></div></div><div><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div><b><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/02/bad-behaviour.html" target="_blank">Bad Behaviour</a></b></div><div><b> </b></div><div><b>Carol and the End of the World </b></div><div><b> </b></div><div>I think this may be a show that is best consumed without knowing much about it beforehand, and it is one of the few ones that I've taken a lot of time to watch slowly this year, to really let the episodes marinate before moving on to the next one<b>. </b>Of all things, it reminds me most of <i>Somebody Somewhere</i> - the idea of discovering meaning and connection as an outsider. <b><br /></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-fall-of-house-of-usher.html" target="_blank">The Fall of the House of Usher</a></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Jury Duty</b></div><div><br /></div><div>A deeply high-concept show that pays off amazingly, in part because somehow, this show found the perfect mark for its long con. Without Ronald's empathy and loveliness, this could have gone awfully wrong, but somehow, the experiment works out. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Changeling</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>This magnificent, beautiful adaptation of the Victor LaValle novel of the same name (LaValle taking the role of the narrator) is stunning. It's a complex tale about motherhood and fairies who steal children, the ravages of post-partum depression and the troubles of not being believed, of being unsure about reality. It contains some of the best performances of the year - and it finally, finally allows the great Adina Porter to fully shine (in episode seven, she basically performs a one-character play, holding attention for every second - until Alexis Louder joins her in a devastating performance as another lost son). LaKeith Stanfield is amazing as the father and husband, searching for an explanation, Clack Becko as mother and wife, being asked to do horrible things to get her son back. </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>While the Men Are Away</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>This was such a surprise! Like <i>Bomb Girls</i> if written as a poignant comedy rather than a drama, this show focuses on the Land Army, women who help out in regional areas with male farm workers going overseas to fight in WW2. Delightfully queer, but also very much about what happens when female aspirations meet an inherently patriarchal society. One of the most moving performances is by Phoebe Grainer, who plays an Aboriginal woman who is trying to protect her brothers from the profound racism and constant threat of living in a mission - and the stakes are constantly higher for her than for her white co-workers, a fact the show never shies away from. </div><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><b>Willow</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>I hadn't watched the 1988 film until the first few episodes of this aired, and as much as it doesn't exactly look great - the effects are awkward, Sorsha's character development from daughter of an evil woman to supporting the heroes happens through a kiss and no reasoning (and she has barely any lines), the fact that the television show managed to cast two people who capture the spirit of being Madmartigan's (it's sad Val Kilmer couldn't be in the first season for health reasons) twins so perfectly is pretty stunning. I'd say that 85% of this show thrives on the ensemble cast and how they come together, how each of them on their own is loveable but they also take the idea of a quest to heart, and change throughout it. It's a manifold heroes' journey, with a lot of heart. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Full Circle</b></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Best show:</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/search/label/Yellowjackets" target="_blank">Yellowjackets</a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Bear</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What a great second season for <i>The Bear</i>! The kids are trying to revamp The Beef into The Bear, including dealing with all the bureaucratic red tape that entails and the utter catastrophe that is both the building itself and Carmy's family. The most impressive thing about the show is how it oscillated between the beauty of creation and the genuine moments of caring between characters (when they bring out the best in each other) and the almost <i>Better Call Saul</i> like tension when things go awry, which happens often (when they bring out the worst in each other). Some favourite moments this season: Marcus being sent to Copenhagen to train with Will Poulter, Richie sent to an excellent restaurant to polish forks and learn about the meaning of service, including a magical moment with Olivia Colman (!!!) in which she provides guidance so he doesn't keep fucking up his life (very fitting full-circle moment for me since first seeing Olivia Colman dispensing useful if chaotic advice as Naomi's mum on <i>Skins</i>), a Christmas episode so emotionally fraught and tense that it made me want to take a nap, that also features: Sarah Paulson, John Mulaney, Bob Odenkrik, Gillian Jacobs, Jamie Lee Curtis!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Only Murders in the Building</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After a slightly less successful second season, the third season of <i>Only Murders in the Building</i> is a revelation - Oliver's return to Broadway is marred by his Hollywood-turned-stage-actor star (played with appetite by Ryan Reynolds) being murdered on opening day. After some hesitancy (Mabel suffering the effects of an early midlife crisis and the unaffordability of living in New York without access to the free apartment at the Arconia), the three besties return to try and solve the murder. One of the greatest things about <i>OMITB </i>is that it always attracts great guest stars (I hope because everyone is having a ton of fun, at least that's what it looks like), and this season features Meryl Streep (what can't she do)... performing in the musical version of Oliver's musical, after he thinks his way through his dilemma. There is so much to love here, like the running joke of Steve Martin's Charles failing to get through a a patter song without going to a dark place.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Newsreader</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Somehow the second season of the ABC's show about a commercial news programme in 1980s Australia is even better than the first - Anna Torv (a joy! We are going through a Torv-eissance!) and Sam Reid (fresh off of playing Lestat in <i>Interview with the Vampire</i>, a character that could not be any more different from Dale) return to cover 1987, from election day to the obsession with the preparations for the 1988 bicentennial to the ravages of the heroin and AIDS crisis. The show's incredibly tense fifth episode is its best so far, in which Helen makes a career-changing decision (in a season that seems to be all about ethics in news, and about the ascent and failure of a Lachlan Murdoch stand-in, perfectly timed with the real-life retirement of his inspiration's dad - and for additional entertainment I suggest looking up who Anna Torv is related to) and Dale chooses the worst decade to wake up next to a stranger after getting black-out drunk. My only criticism is that the episode-by-episode themes don't carry through more - with the incidental timing of the show airing just as the referendum on the Voice is coming up, the coverage of the Aboriginal protests against the blind celebration of colonisation should have carried through the entire season, instead of relying on just one impactful appearance by Hunter Page-Lochard.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Foundation</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The second season of the century-spanning Foundation, which feels like an improvisational jam on the source material, adds great new characters, and showcases how the hubris of Empire will bring the downfall that Sheldon predicted. There is also a freedom to the season that is incredibly enjoyable to watch, as is the fact that the second season embraces humour a lot more than the first one did, with Lee Pace embracing the over-the-topness of his character in a highly entertaining way. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Lazarus Project</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I only watched the first season, which originally came out in 2022, this year, and was glad not to have to wait too long for the second season. It was an interesting season to watch alongside <i>Orphan Black: Echoes</i>, as both shows are about the consequences of characters not processing their grief and exploiting a loophole to avoid the process. In the case of <i>The Lazarus Project</i>, the loophole has greater, world-encompassing consequences, and one of my favourite parts of the second season was that Sarah became central to the plot in her own right, as she came to entirely different conclusions than George about what needed to be done. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For All Mankind</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Abbott Elementary</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Somebody Somewhere </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I somehow missed this show when it originally came out last year but caught up with its two seasons in 2023. This is about a woman who returned to her hometown to care for her sister, now stuck after the death of her sister in her grief and loneliness. She accidentally stumbles into a vibrant, queer community where she least expects it (choir practice) and finds a new best friend and people to help her navigate her feelings. The second seasons has many moments of deeply frustrating self-sabotage, but ends fittingly with both a funeral and a wedding. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>Saddest Goodbyes:</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have previously expressed how much I love the Australian version of <b>Masterchef,</b> and how I feel that it all came together when the old judges left and were replaced with Andy Allen, Melissa Leong and Jock Zonfrillo. It's a magical thing when the chemistry of three people perfectly aligns, especially in a genre that can be wrought with conflict and mean-spiritedness. The loss of Jock Zonfrillo - a man who also seemed to be endlessly excited by good food, and generous in his celebration of it - feels immense. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Star Trek: Picard</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've been on the books for a long time to want, desperately, for the stepchild of Star Trek, <i>Deep Space Nine (</i>a show that I feel was years ahead of its time, and broke ground for the gritty <i>BSG </i>remake and <i>The Expanse</i>), to eventually get the same nostalgia-tinged treatment that has been afforded to <i>TNG </i>and <i>Voyager</i>. It's what's kept me at a bit of a distance from Picard over its three seasons, each of which has been different. The third is exactly that: a loving tribute to a long-running show and its cast, with the addition of Seven of Nine, who has finally gotten what she always deserved (it sure wasn't the skinsuit of the late 90s/early 2000 hellyears - let's hope Jeri Ryan gets many more great gigs after this). It is hard to accept that this final season features shapeshifters but not those who originally fought the Dominion wars, that Benjamin Sisko is still off in the wormhole with no reference to his fate. That doesn't detract from the joy of seeing Deanna Troi, Geordi LaForge, Data, Beverly Crusher, William Riker and Worf (who is very much there for honour and comic relief) reunited with Picard on the original Enterprise D, even if a reference to Word never weeping hits hard at those of us still grieving Jadzia Dax 25 years later. It's a beautiful send-off.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Reservation Dogs </b><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u>And:</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wanted to get excited about the science fiction show <b>Silo</b>, but it never really got back to the greatness of its pilot episode, in which <i>Rashida Jones</i> gives the performance of a lifetime. I really loved Aotearoa show <b>Sik Fan Lah</b>, which combines food and history. <i>Kristen Kish</i> travelled to <b>Restaurants at the End of the World</b> for the National Geographic. <b>Survivor Australia</b> had one of the greatest seasons the show's ever had anywhere in the world (tragic that one of the best players once again lost out on the win), sometimes more perfectly scripted than actual scripted shows (Simon's arc! Shonee!). And talking about reality television, the first iteration of <b>Alone Australia</b> surprised me - the winner embraced the idea that nature shouldn't be conquered but embraced. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">My favourite episode of the sixth season of Charlie Brooker's <b>Black Mirror</b> is the final one, <i>Demon 79</i>. The draw that I feel for <i>Black Mirror</i> has always been about something different than it's speculation about what happens at the intersection between technological advances and the dark side of humanity: it's a series written by a man who clearly watches as much television and film as I do. There's a meta- kind of draw to that pop cultural self-referentiality (it's why I enjoyed the first episode more than most reviewers, even though it was objectively not that great). But <i>Black Mirror</i>, at its best, creates perfect short stories. It will likely never be as good as <i>San Junipero</i> again, but <i>Demon 79</i>, and the performances by Anjana Vasan (<i>We Are Lady Parts</i>!) and Paapa Essiedu. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2008/12/tv-shows-2008-overview.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2008</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2009/12/serien-des-jahres.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2010/12/serien-des-jahres.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2011/12/serien-des-jahres.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2012/12/serien-des-jahres.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/serien-des-jahres.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2014/12/serien-des-jahres.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://www.cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/serien-des-jahres.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/shows-of-year.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/shows-of-year.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2017</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2018/12/shows-of-year.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2018</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2019/12/shows-of-year.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2020/12/shows-of-year.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2021/12/shows-of-year.html" style="background-color: white; color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | <a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2022/12/shows-of-year.html" target="_blank">2022</a></span></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-49998891649760451302023-12-31T23:00:00.438+10:302023-12-31T23:00:00.128+10:30Music of the Year<div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><u>Albums:</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Black Belt Eagle Scout</b> / The Land, The Water, The Sky</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Cable Ties</b> / All Her Plans</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Body Type</b> / Expired Candy</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Vagabon</b> / Sorry I Haven't Called</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Joanne Robertson</b> / Blue Car</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>PJ Harvey</b> / I Inside The Old Year Dying</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><i><b>Boygenius </b> / The Record EP </i></div><div><i><b>Mitski</b> / The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We</i></div><div><i><b>Lakecia Benjamin</b> / Phoenix</i></div><div><i><b>Yaeji</b> / With a Hammer</i></div><div><i><b>Angel Olsen</b> / Forever Means EP</i></div><div><i><b>Fatoumata Diawara</b> / London Ko!</i></div><div><i><b>The Mountain Goats</b> / Jenny From Thebes </i></div><div><i><b>Sampha</b> / Lahai</i></div><div><i><b>Jessy Lanza</b> / Love Hallucination</i></div><div><i><b>The Kills</b> / God Games</i></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><u>Songs:</u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Abbey Blackwell</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjcaBOiLXw" target="_blank">Fight or Flight</a> (on My Maze)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Being Dead</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu-4ejzM8-c&list=PLvsYXqtYjMYca4-pxFeZBbMrurU5Q78dm&index=3" target="_blank">Muriel's Big Day Off </a>(on When Horses Would Run)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Andrea</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e_dDiCUPIg" target="_blank">Silent Now</a> (on Due in Color)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>iSOLA</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFWUzEHWKJs" target="_blank">Aquarius </a>(on LP1)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Joanna Sternberg</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJBbPyS68TE" target="_blank">I've Got Me</a> (on I've Got Me)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Jonnine</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3IXuzBvwTc" target="_blank">I Put A Little Thing in Your Pocket</a> (on Maritz)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Rainy Miller & Space Afrika (feat. Mica Levi)</b>: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-Eb9_Wil2s" target="_blank">Maybe It's Time To Lay Down The Arms</a> (on A Grisaille Wedding)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2009/12/musik-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2010/12/musik-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2011/12/musik-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2012/12/musik-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/musik-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2014/12/musik-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://www.cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/musik-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/music-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/music-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2017</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2018/12/music-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2018</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2019/12/music-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">2019</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2020/12/music-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | </span><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2021/01/music-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"> | <a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2022/12/music-of-year.html" target="_blank">2022</a> | </span></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-48412241446328251172023-12-31T22:00:00.076+10:302024-01-01T07:46:45.514+10:30Films of the Year<div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/06/blue-jean.html" target="_blank">Blue Jean</a> (2022, Georgia Oakley)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/06/showing-up.html" target="_blank">Showing Up</a> (2022, Kelly Reichardt)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Women Talking (2022, Sarah Polley)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/06/natten-har-jne-attachment.html" target="_blank">Natten har øjne</a> (2022, Gabriel Bier Gislason)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Tytöt tytöt tytöt (2022, Alli Haapasalo)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022, Laura Poitras)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-royal-hotel.html" target="_blank">The Royal Hotel</a> (2023, Kitty Green)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/10/anatomie-dune-chute-anatomy-of-fall.html" target="_blank">Anatomy of a Fall</a> (2023, Justine Triet)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Holdovers (2023, Alexander Payne) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023, Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Also: </b></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/09/barbie.html" target="_blank">Barbie</a> (2023, Greta Gerwig)</i></div><div><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/01/emily-criminal.html" target="_blank">Emily the Criminal</a> (2022, John Patton Ford)</i></div><div><i>Aftersun (2022, Charlotte Wells)</i></div><div><i>How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022, Daniel Goldhaber) <br /></i></div><div><i>May December (2023, Todd Haynes) </i><i><br /></i></div><div><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/roter-himmel-afire.html" target="_blank">Roter Himmel</a> (2023, Christian Petzold)</i></div><i>Voleuses (2023, Mélanie Laurent)<br />Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021, Dean Fleischer Camp)<br />Talk To Me (2022, Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou)<br />Birth/Rebirth (2023, Laura Moss)<br />My Animal (2023, Jacqueline Castel)<br />Bottoms (2023, Emma Seligman)<br />Against the Ice (2022, Peter Flinth)</i><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px;"><div><i><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-menu.html" target="_blank">The Menu</a> (2022, Mark Mylod)</i></div><i>Corsage (2022, Marie Kreutzer)<br />She Said (2022, Maria Schrader)<br />The Banshees of Inisherin (2022, Martin McDonagh)</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2009/12/filme-des-jahres.html" style="color: #ae2cff;">2009</a> | <a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2010/12/filme-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a> | <a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2011/12/filme-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a> | <a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.co.at/2012/12/filme-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a> | <a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/filme-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-decoration-line: none;">2013 </a>| <a href="http://www.cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/filme-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a> <span style="text-align: justify;">| </span><a href="http://www.cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/filme-des-jahres.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/12/films-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2017/12/films-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017 </a><span style="text-align: justify;">| </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2018/12/films-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018 </a><span style="text-align: justify;">| </span><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2019/12/films-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2020/12/films-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> | </span><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2021/12/films-of-year.html" style="color: #a7557d; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">| <a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2022/12/films-of-year.html" target="_blank">2022</a></span></div></div></div><div><i><br /></i></div></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-68197500923742505192023-12-31T08:26:00.001+10:302024-02-20T11:17:14.145+10:30Favourite Books I've Read This Year<div style="text-align: justify;"><i><u><b>Non-Fiction:</b></u></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><u><b><br /></b></u></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Michael Wallis: The Best Land Under Heaven. The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: left;">David Welky: A Wretched and Precarious Situation. In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: left;">Buddy Levy: Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 15.4px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">Gershom Gorenberg: The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Rashid Khalidi: The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Restance, 1917-2007.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><u><b><br /></b></u></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><u><b>Fiction:</b></u></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Emily Tesh: Some Desperate Glory. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kemi Ashing-Giwa: The Splinter in the Sky.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bethany Jacobs: These Burning Stars. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Michelle Min Sterling: Camp Zero.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">C Pam Zhang: Land of Milk and Honey.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Sin Blaché and Helen MacDonald: Prophet. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Marisa Crane: I Keep My Exoskeleton to Myself. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rebecca Rotert: Last Night at the Blue Angel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tananarive Due: The Reformatory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div>Trang Thanh Tran: She Is a Haunting.</div><div>Alix E. Harrow: Starling House.</div><div>Caitlin Starling: Last to Leave the Room. </div><div><div>Victor LaValle: Lone Women.</div><div>Ling Ling Huang: Natural Beauty. </div></div><div>Megan Abbott: Beware the Woman.</div><div>Jessica Knoll: Bright Young Women.</div><div>Rebecca Makkai: The Great Believers.</div><div>Chloe Michelle Howarth: Sunburn.</div><div>Bronwyn Fisher: The Adult.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4f-sotnF5mWW17WfVgmlYhYxDIeBpJPpU1FoQhpyWh0pSaLhUhXaUJr1QazxQJSf8A5-NOFqMM24C2DuE_bUHOLezNgZzNTYM_l7U2wKEQiyJEFMtq29aZZs2rjRqP7wmV30hiSK2ahNyPht7sE76Rl0Bfe_jJEpYc0FCMvu2zk9bTWB6vdH7l9kuw/s2475/sdg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2475" data-original-width="1613" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD4f-sotnF5mWW17WfVgmlYhYxDIeBpJPpU1FoQhpyWh0pSaLhUhXaUJr1QazxQJSf8A5-NOFqMM24C2DuE_bUHOLezNgZzNTYM_l7U2wKEQiyJEFMtq29aZZs2rjRqP7wmV30hiSK2ahNyPht7sE76Rl0Bfe_jJEpYc0FCMvu2zk9bTWB6vdH7l9kuw/w131-h200/sdg.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>Emily Tesh</b>'s <i>Some Desperate Glory</i> is a great science fiction novel with a captivating protagonist: Valkyr has never known a world different from the small human settlement of Gaea station, a Sparta-like warrior culture obsessed with avenging the death of Earth. It is obvious to the reader that this is a deeply troubling culture that is obsessed with breeding child warriors, is deeply misogynist, does population control through state-sanctioned rape and ideologically indoctrinates its young who cannot even perceive of an alternative. As the story progresses, Valkyr realises that she has been told lies, that other humans live very different lives elsewhere and appear to be happy. This universe is defined by an artificial intelligence programmed to make the best decisions for the greatest number of people, a prime directive that has led to the destruction of Earth, but Valkyr's attempts to change the course of history fail - only for her to be thrown into an alternative timeline where she was never raised on Gaea station. Some Desperate Glory asks questions about how upbringing informs identity, but also the impossibility of the great heroic act, as any decision that Valkyr makes lead to horrible outcomes for someone. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipi9BXsLjcHPKnXjFyCknI7fgf03DOLKLffM1gVJuPdc6n13Epbcgwuu6xom8rsws4ukIpJfkQdgkgJKtWg-TIaeZXVqZt9sPr0mf2TlkWfX1dQklm5kxZLp56gArC9U6sFVBgSKLMOqjjAoRa9wn7Ru-phqbGcGqcdulhqvRwRKd0zdLgs8kk8EKSYw/s1125/cz.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="742" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipi9BXsLjcHPKnXjFyCknI7fgf03DOLKLffM1gVJuPdc6n13Epbcgwuu6xom8rsws4ukIpJfkQdgkgJKtWg-TIaeZXVqZt9sPr0mf2TlkWfX1dQklm5kxZLp56gArC9U6sFVBgSKLMOqjjAoRa9wn7Ru-phqbGcGqcdulhqvRwRKd0zdLgs8kk8EKSYw/w132-h200/cz.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>I read <b>Michelle Min Sterling</b>'s <i>Camp Zero</i> right after finishing <i>Birnam Wood</i> by Eleanor Cotton, and it feels like these two should be read in tandem, as they have similar concerns. In both novels, billionaires continue the tradition of extractive capitalism while also attempting to build themselves oases far away from the ecological consequences of their greed. In <i>Camp Zero</i>, a tech billionaire is exploring whether the Canadian North has deposits of a mineral he needs to update his (implanted) social media platform that is wreaking havoc on human relationships and people's memories, all under the cover of building a sustainable community far from the ravages that is plaguing the South. The individuals caught up in the ploy have to figure out how to build lives while caught up in the greater power structures at play. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHYnLkrvjyTvUgXkiDlznJpqX-cp6CIDC4kCzXLkMhSxYSr4QLhivwJEWYAprQxWcHOX0mUXovTq0utX-gpXt9zgArkE0kKIsEoS5J8t0FsMq20amIKxMoLlHFGVgzTp1ED2hevIMV_yDQl3D9Z-XEHREkWRJ03PnNfxO3tNmaxkaFyQ5VhEbtIpFgNtQ/s2560/101673225.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1696" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPHYnLkrvjyTvUgXkiDlznJpqX-cp6CIDC4kCzXLkMhSxYSr4QLhivwJEWYAprQxWcHOX0mUXovTq0utX-gpXt9zgArkE0kKIsEoS5J8t0FsMq20amIKxMoLlHFGVgzTp1ED2hevIMV_yDQl3D9Z-XEHREkWRJ03PnNfxO3tNmaxkaFyQ5VhEbtIpFgNtQ/w133-h200/101673225.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>Land of Milk and Honey</i> by <b>C Pam Zhang</b> will stay with me for a long time. This felt like a year of writers tackling the moral deprivation of the immorally rich: here, a man who dominates the novel more like a crime boss than a traditional billionaire escapes a world horribly changed by the climate catastrophe by building an arc of sorts in the Italian Alps, where a team of scientists recreates lost animals and plants, working towards a plan to afford a group of privileged people (and some servants) an escape hatch from the consequences of their greed. Zhang's main character is a chef and invited into the mountains to cook for a selected group of guests - except in the end, she is asked to do so much more, and bears witness to the perversity that unfolds. The novel beautifully ties food in with memory - or rather, the food only becomes meaningful when it does connect with memory, and before that, it feels like an empty signifier of excess and wealth. </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhS31lafbrBVrK3Z6PQZJqC7dwExaxWeHpAjcEHXZPI8rvSDu8HDnUs7aEGD7K2z4XvqOH5Qg5-FkGOlfCIQtUZDiYtPQkDZNS7lwUyp1zUS1bSfU8y7CILH9O30o0aQStOW3iMpUmv5_L9TaAjC3DUaVSH7B4shOr_0XdpPGC3TuCd9ybiVjbiz4Xyw/s2115/exo.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2115" data-original-width="1400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhS31lafbrBVrK3Z6PQZJqC7dwExaxWeHpAjcEHXZPI8rvSDu8HDnUs7aEGD7K2z4XvqOH5Qg5-FkGOlfCIQtUZDiYtPQkDZNS7lwUyp1zUS1bSfU8y7CILH9O30o0aQStOW3iMpUmv5_L9TaAjC3DUaVSH7B4shOr_0XdpPGC3TuCd9ybiVjbiz4Xyw/w133-h200/exo.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>I Keep My Exoskeleton to Myself </i>is a very grim twist on a world that values a twisted concept of safety above freedom. <b>Marisa Crane</b>'s protagonist Kris is a "Shadester": in this dystopian world, the criminal justice system has been radically transformed, and anyone who has been found to transgress is given a second shadow, and is discriminated against and constantly observed. After the traumatic death of her wife, she is raising her child in the shadow of this unfair and oppressive system, navigating discrimination and the mistrust and violence of those who are biased against her while trying to cope with her own trauma. This is a novel about someone who is trying, desperately, to build a liveable future for herself and her daughter against impossible odds, finding her own path to parenthood and meaningful resistance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTsVJGbTPXEGd0jUOi-5QAckn0k7QiAhZRix-kTJesqTdvy2PjKCnERbFvTyOpPse91K_8pvDgKBU5cqNtHYh9piNAiV1pMwSJRBOTFDNXSyNszlI3p58GRLA94sEhPicIoWoal8_hR1cOQdw9PaQV6aP0MwM1CZkJi9nKfg3i8hqDmZL4nxorBHHxg/s500/nb.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJTsVJGbTPXEGd0jUOi-5QAckn0k7QiAhZRix-kTJesqTdvy2PjKCnERbFvTyOpPse91K_8pvDgKBU5cqNtHYh9piNAiV1pMwSJRBOTFDNXSyNszlI3p58GRLA94sEhPicIoWoal8_hR1cOQdw9PaQV6aP0MwM1CZkJi9nKfg3i8hqDmZL4nxorBHHxg/w133-h200/nb.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><br />Ling Ling Huang</b>'s protagonist in <i>Natural Beauty</i> had to abandon a career as a pianist after her parents' death but an unexpected opportunity opens when she is approached to work in a high-end beauty and wellness shop called Holistik, which offers a range of products and treatments to stave off the effects of aging. What emerges is a horrible portrait of a business that profits from its customers obsession with surface-level beauty, who would do anything to appear beautiful and young and ask no questions about the true price of what they consume. Like a cult, once Holistik has its claws in the protagonist, she finds it harder and harder to escape. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHmZeBlVyBO_vRzSGdO683eUDzgwM-XlPCQ7cZyrZj8KQ8G1ADo5D4HHFzgf8t5ofHZggInNSX2rtMl_n93B77jx22OWtUxUZKhh98nmnbMxoZghNbRn-4j5YwJaH7gDn-fb8dd7J7frQlL_kS8RFrGbQAYG9mUnBLWKM06mKgXey8UBPUBAtdZxP_9w/s713/siah.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="713" data-original-width="472" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHmZeBlVyBO_vRzSGdO683eUDzgwM-XlPCQ7cZyrZj8KQ8G1ADo5D4HHFzgf8t5ofHZggInNSX2rtMl_n93B77jx22OWtUxUZKhh98nmnbMxoZghNbRn-4j5YwJaH7gDn-fb8dd7J7frQlL_kS8RFrGbQAYG9mUnBLWKM06mKgXey8UBPUBAtdZxP_9w/w133-h200/siah.webp" width="133" /></a></div><br />In <b>Trang Thanh Tran</b>'s <i>She Is a Haunting</i>, Jade returns to Vietnam to visit her estranged father, who is restoring an old colonial home. As she struggles with her family dynamics, she also becomes aware that the house itself is haunted by its dark colonial history, but to try and protect her sister and herself, she also decides to stage a haunting with the help of a woman his father has hired to do the publicity for the future holiday home. This is a great horror novel featuring hungry ghosts, but also a family portrait, showcasing the scars that personal and political history leave on places and people. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidL6KZ_oY9NG6-wlrIS6maGSLe5HhqUzAbEY9DMDvTb6ScmzoK-u2vs0xMFyLQrnWHg7JENqFcz77juWqbs_aVnlq8788LPvLsYEDASi-lL93xTKRRUTiRVL8yW_sTXadU-lsIoKH1moO2X4KfytSJhs1vtednvBaQsPQEuPxpgQk54f6jYoBltN59Lg/s400/lvls.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="263" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidL6KZ_oY9NG6-wlrIS6maGSLe5HhqUzAbEY9DMDvTb6ScmzoK-u2vs0xMFyLQrnWHg7JENqFcz77juWqbs_aVnlq8788LPvLsYEDASi-lL93xTKRRUTiRVL8yW_sTXadU-lsIoKH1moO2X4KfytSJhs1vtednvBaQsPQEuPxpgQk54f6jYoBltN59Lg/w131-h200/lvls.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><br />Victor LaValle </b>portrays frontier women in <i>Lone Women</i>, following a protagonist who is escaping to a Montana town where "lone women", due to vague language, can own property without a husband. She has a heavy trunk in tow that holds a family secret, but soon, that secret can no longer be contained - but the true monster, it turns out, are the close-minded and racist inhabitants of the local town, who try to shape their settlement to their own limited ideas, and a horrifying family of murderers and thieves, who appear to steal and inhabit other people's lives after getting rid of their previous owners. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpoOdKAzk3naP54whe4xienVc8EkAHS_bu53S8dmZvBLb-7hgFq0eui5hOfzyvOeW99FPfR1odBN8yaCLe2qP1DF6OXqmgPxsKfAvMnNcFQ8bytRu4MOhKrjAQw07viqyOtKtIOOewCNErTqr3SPiXXE_EfhP7pqMO-p9DoGkzgHevLRYj0_Nw85nyyw/s500/last%20night.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="330" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpoOdKAzk3naP54whe4xienVc8EkAHS_bu53S8dmZvBLb-7hgFq0eui5hOfzyvOeW99FPfR1odBN8yaCLe2qP1DF6OXqmgPxsKfAvMnNcFQ8bytRu4MOhKrjAQw07viqyOtKtIOOewCNErTqr3SPiXXE_EfhP7pqMO-p9DoGkzgHevLRYj0_Nw85nyyw/w132-h200/last%20night.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>Rebecca Rotert</b>'s <i>Last Night at the Blue Angel</i> is told through the eyes of two protagonists, the enigmatic singer Naomi Hill, who is escaping her childhood home to build a career as a Chicago singer, and through the eyes of her daughter years later, coping with a parent who is ill-suited to parenthood. The portrait of the queer night life of Chicago in the 1960s is beautiful, as is Sophia's relationship with father-stand-in Jim, a photographer (based on Richard Nickel), who is desperate to preserve Chicago's architecture against a policy of urban renewal that is focused on destruction. Sophia's dread of nuclear annihilation and feeling that nothing is permanent translates into endless lists of things that she fears will be lost, Jim's fear of the loss of architectural heritage is translated into photography of a city that is fading. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM0hG5IhiUdHeDrxUECrIW_uZyJix43kKvoSURPixdexSkKKWGzUCrZjxbR7h7TV1EUXwc_i4SG8iClWDX-cqPB2eoaZAEn2I9ySWCrR2VXwimzyi36f-9C8QscXbiKAPJZxJ3ugWLbjc-0_EmcSkN_1lEXoGYWOoWFAj-ncwlCM9S43XVIzOnFdmzzQ/s1000/btw.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="663" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM0hG5IhiUdHeDrxUECrIW_uZyJix43kKvoSURPixdexSkKKWGzUCrZjxbR7h7TV1EUXwc_i4SG8iClWDX-cqPB2eoaZAEn2I9ySWCrR2VXwimzyi36f-9C8QscXbiKAPJZxJ3ugWLbjc-0_EmcSkN_1lEXoGYWOoWFAj-ncwlCM9S43XVIzOnFdmzzQ/w133-h200/btw.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><br />Megan Abbott</b>'s <i>Beware the Woman</i> feels like a departure from the hard-boiled stories she usually tells. A woman travels with her new husband to the house of his charismatic father. Both men are excited for her pregnancy, until complications showcase that she doesn't truly know either of them, and can't depend on the medical establishment to help her - and now that is dependent on their goodwill, their misogynist ideology reveals itself, constructing a horrifying cage. When she tries to break free, she discovers terrible secrets. This is a breathtakingly claustrophobic thriller. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In her second novel, <b>Jessica Knoll,</b> inspired by the unbelievable veneration that a famous serial killer experienced both at his own trial and in the media, after his death, portrays the victims without ever naming the man who took their lives. The book follows one of the women, who tenderly builds a life of her own after she escapes an overbearing mother, and the survivor of a massacre that cost the lives of two of her friends in a sorority house. <i>Bright Young Women</i> follows a decades-long quest for justice, but it's most important point is its rebuke of the idea that this killer was charismatic (she ridicules him when he decides to defend himself, she captures his hatred of realising that others, including the women he targets, are smarter than him) - instead he comes across as deeply odd, profiting from women fearing what would happen if they say "no", or appearing unkind if they aren't accommodating to men. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIspnwNlSDlxpVuRjlXloF7hxG9b2H5K2_ILkWTu39qR2cKlQhSMnjNATxIO7hRMKuhTu24Cm54ihO25qoiBN5k6hLgAPAf49-FP7MrHYrh0X--IAC2z7PkNEG9w2rnuFPrKPBAkigflLVRVx2Mmhvu8vyRgBDL3ZdXtpubg14FpOJfFdbAGeU0Q9Pg/s276/tgb.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIspnwNlSDlxpVuRjlXloF7hxG9b2H5K2_ILkWTu39qR2cKlQhSMnjNATxIO7hRMKuhTu24Cm54ihO25qoiBN5k6hLgAPAf49-FP7MrHYrh0X--IAC2z7PkNEG9w2rnuFPrKPBAkigflLVRVx2Mmhvu8vyRgBDL3ZdXtpubg14FpOJfFdbAGeU0Q9Pg/w133-h200/tgb.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><b>Rebecca Makkai</b>'s <i>The Great Believers</i> is a breathtaking and profoundly moving novel that takes place in two timelines, intertwining the lives of its characters in a powerful exploration of love, loss, and resilience. Set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, Makkai creates a narrative that is both heart-wrenching and beautifully hopeful. There is a returning motif of art that is lost due to the death of its creators, like empty spaces in museums (the recollections of a dying muse take the story back to the years before the first world war). The prose is exquisite, capturing the raw emotions of her characters with depth and sensitivity. Through themes of friendship, art, and the enduring power of human connection, Makkai delivers a poignant and unforgettable story that lingers in the heart long after the last page.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Chloe Michelle Howarth</b>'s <i>Sunburn </i>is set in Ireland at the end of the 1980s, spanning until the mid-1990s. It's a captivating love story about two girls in a small town where everyone knows each others secrets. The main protagonist, Lucy, has to choose between two different partners that symbolise two very different life paths - she can follow her heart, against the rampant homophobia surrounding her, or take the safe option with her best friend and essentially live the same life that her parents have mapped out for her. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://thebaffler.com/salvos/unexamined-life-omar" target="_blank">Baffler: Unexamined Life. The too many faces of Edward Said</a>, July 2021.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://catapult.co/stories/when-food-is-the-only-narrative-we-consume-chinese-representation-media-angie-kang?src=longreads" target="_blank">Catapult: When Food is the Only Narrative We Consume</a>, February 8, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/bella-ramsey-interview-2023" target="_blank">GQ: How Bella Ramsey won the apocalypse</a>, February 13, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/02/15/cries-from-the-rubble/" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/02/15/cries-from-the-rubble/" target="_blank">The New York Review: Cries from the Rubble</a>, February 15, 2023.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.podcastguide.us/podcasts/Youre-Wrong-About/episode/120841/" target="_blank">You're Wrong About: Chris McCandless with Blair Braverman</a>, February 27, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/yaeji-with-a-hammer-profile.html?utm_source=flipboard.com&utm_medium=social_acct&utm_campaign=feed-part" target="_blank">Vulture: Yaeji Lets Loose</a>, March 15, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64992727?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA" target="_blank">BBC News: Putin arrest warrant issued over war crime allegations</a>, March 19, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow?src=longreads" target="_blank">ProPublica: Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire</a>, April 6, 2023. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://gardenandgun.com/feature/reclaiming-a-north-carolina-plantation/?src=longreads" target="_blank">Garden & Gun: Reclaiming a North Carolina Plantation</a>, April 24, 2023.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/bad-manors-wagner?src=longreads" target="_blank">The Baffler: Bad Manor</a>, May 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/uvalde-shooting-mother-grief-one-year-anniversary-gun-control/?src=longreads" target="_blank">Texas Monthly: Uvalde. Amor Eterno</a>, May 8, 2023. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.elle.com/culture/music/a43846386/meg-white-interview-2023/" target="_blank">Elle: Searching for Meg White</a>, June 1, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/lgbtq-rights-trans-gay-texas-florida-north-carolina" target="_blank">The Guardian: ‘It’s been a total witch-hunt. It takes its toll’: the LGBTQ+ families fleeing red states</a>, June 7, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://qz.com/italy-is-still-paying-for-the-damage-of-the-berlusconi-1850528792" target="_blank">Quartz: Italy is still paying for the damage of the Berlusconi years</a>, June 12, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trans-son-of-anti-trans-influencer-tania-joy-gibson-speaks-out_n_649d7449e4b028e6472f1700?src=longreads" target="_blank">Huffpost: He’s The Trans Son Of An Anti-Trans Influencer. It’s His Turn To Speak</a>., June 30, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://time.com/6290949/barbados-reparations/?src=longreads" target="_blank">TIME: Inside Barbados’ Historic Push for Slavery Reparations</a>, July 6, 2023. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/trans-families-leaving-texas/" target="_blank">Texas Monthly: “I Don’t Want to Live in This State of Terror Anymore”: Some Families With Trans Children Are Leaving Texas</a>, July 24, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/trump-georgia-indictment-election/675018/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20230815&utm_term=The+Atlantic+Daily" target="_blank">The Atlantic: The Georgia Indictment Offers the Whole Picture</a>, August 15, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-still-progressing-africa-whats-limit" target="_blank">CSIS: Russia Is Still Progressing in Africa. What's the Limit?</a>, August 15, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.insider.com/death-k2-real-story-climbers-stepped-dying-man-kristin-harila-2023-8?src=longreads" target="_blank">Insider: Death on the Savage Mountain: What really happened on K2, and why 100 climbers stepped over a dying man on their way to the summit</a>, August 22, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://lithub.com/conquest-and-care-in-antarctica-on-climate-stories-that-complicate-the-narrative/" target="_blank">LitHub: Conquest and Care in Antarctica: On Climate Stories that Complicate the Narrative</a>, September 11, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.gq.com/story/the-race-to-catch-the-last-nazis?src=longreads" target="_blank">GQ: The Race to Catch the Last Nazis</a>, September 12, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/175052/reservation-dogs-miracle-fx-tv-review" target="_blank">TNR: Reservation Dogs Was a Miracle</a>, September 27, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-10-08/ty-article-opinion/netanyahu-bears-responsibility/0000018b-0b9d-d8fc-adff-6bfd1c880000" target="_blank">Haaretz: Editorial | Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War</a>, October 8, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/where-the-palestinian-political-project-goes-from-here" target="_blank">The New Yorker: Where the Palestinian Political Project goes from here</a>, October 11, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/10/13/nowhere-to-go-in-gaza/" target="_blank">The New York Review: Nowhere to Go in Gaza</a>, October 13, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2023/oct/14/rejecting-the-voice-shows-australia-is-still-in-denial-its-history-of-forgetting-a-festering-wrong" target="_blank">The Guardian: Rejecting the voice shows Australia is still in denial, its history of forgetting a festering wrong</a>, October 14, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://alc.org.au/newsroom/media-releases/a-statement-from-indigenous-australians-who-supported-the-voice-referendum/" target="_blank">A STATEMENT FROM INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS WHO SUPPORTED THE VOICE REFERENDUM</a>, October 14, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/" target="_blank">n+1: No Human Being Can Exist</a>, October 25, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2023/nov/23/younger-australians-buck-entrenched-political-trend-as-new-kind-of-adulthood-bites" target="_blank">The Guardian: Younger Australians buck entrenched political trend as ‘new kind of adulthood’ bites</a>, November 23, 2023. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theverge.com/c/23972308/twitter-x-death-tweets-history-elon-musk" target="_blank">Verge: The Year Twitter Died (Special)</a>, December 2023. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.codastory.com/waronscience/sweden-climate-change-colonialism/">Coda: In the Swedish Arctic, a battle for the climate rages</a>, December 7, 2023. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.codastory.com/rewriting-history/2023-year-in-review-history/" target="_blank">Coda: Year in review: How memory wars have shaped global headlines in 2023</a>, December 14, 2023. <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/17/israel-palestine-conflict-sally-rooney-isabella-hammad" target="_blank">The Guardian: ‘The bombs are still falling. My heart breaks every day’: novelists Sally Rooney and Isabella Hammad on the Israel-Palestine conflict</a>, September 17, 2023. <br /></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-47419338414122762332023-12-19T09:27:00.005+10:302023-12-19T09:27:56.155+10:30random mixtape - you can't wish them away.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijRu2WZrbU6N5cb9eCQL7GU3bT1cVJgCWbkdER0iWEfsasl60LSo2Wf-_T6-bHOFHtK0dHNfox3cttKZi1YjVhgWen_7NCx_VDTBBp1oi9BdAoPxMX3jmjas6Be3qxpvT0_GjpZAN6HZ5Dj0yXIq5yNwBpiPJViTAaWy-eoFtTn2TF4mDDBaXMspv_epwp/s500/tumblr_mwrr07dGek1raw451o4_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijRu2WZrbU6N5cb9eCQL7GU3bT1cVJgCWbkdER0iWEfsasl60LSo2Wf-_T6-bHOFHtK0dHNfox3cttKZi1YjVhgWen_7NCx_VDTBBp1oi9BdAoPxMX3jmjas6Be3qxpvT0_GjpZAN6HZ5Dj0yXIq5yNwBpiPJViTAaWy-eoFtTn2TF4mDDBaXMspv_epwp/w400-h256/tumblr_mwrr07dGek1raw451o4_500.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"> pretty girls make graves | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCW47nWvx6w" target="_blank">pictures of a night scene</a>. the kills | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVtnsZPr6FM" target="_blank">new york</a>. jessy lanza | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHt2RXRKCSE" target="_blank">midnight ontario</a>. sampha | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhE5io7Nyk4" target="_blank">dancing circles</a>. the mountain goats | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVPy61HLHAg" target="_blank">ground level</a>. joanne robertson | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzTFnaNsX8U" target="_blank">take me in</a>. mitski | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU5D49kfNEM" target="_blank">i don't like my mind</a>. courtney barnett feat. vagabon | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j34SZmDVTc" target="_blank">don't do it</a> (sharon van etten cover). pretty girls make graves | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex3q1SeoLfw" target="_blank">the magic hour</a>. the mountain goats | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a79C3jWUiYE" target="_blank">jenny iii</a>. <br /></p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-78343505878769248522023-12-05T14:02:00.000+10:302023-12-05T14:02:28.123+10:30Orphan Black - Table of Contents<b><a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/orphan-black.html">Season One. </a></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Season Two: </b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/orphan-black-this-is-my-biology-its-my.html">Nature Under Constraint and Vexed.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/orphan-black-it-is-your-reality.html">Governed by Sound Reason and True Religion.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/orphan-black-2x03-mingling-its-own.html">Mingling Its Own Nature With It.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/orphan-black-know-your-enemy.html">Governed as It Were by Chance.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/orphan-black-this-was-never-game.html">Ipsa Scientia Potestas.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/orphan-black-you-know-were-not-just.html">To Hound Nature in Her Wanderings.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/orphan-black-i-say-we-divide-and-conquer.html">Knowledge of Causes, and Secret Motion of Things.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/orphan-black-you-have-to-love-all-of-us.html">Variable and Full of Perturbation.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/orphan-black-youre-bravest-thing-i-know.html">Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/orphan-black-were-so-different-all-of-us.html">By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried.</a><br />
<br />
<b>Season Three: </b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/orphan-black-i-had-to-choose.html">The Weight of This Combination.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/orphan-black-tell-me-im-doing-right.html">Transitory Sacrifices of Crisis.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/orphan-black-youre-just-as-fierce-as.html">Formalized, Complex, and Costly.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/orphan-black-theyd-do-anything-to-find.html">Newer Elements of Our Defense.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/orphan-black-we-cant-fight-them-alone.html">Scarred By Many Past Frustrations.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/orphan-black-after-that-science-took.html">Certain Agony of the Battlefield. </a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/orphan-black-youre-with-family-now.html">Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate. </a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/orphan-black-you-cant-crush-human-spirit.html">Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method. </a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/orphan-black-i-am-mother-now-and-walk.html">Insolvent Phantom of Tomorrow. </a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/orphan-black-do-you-ever-wonder-if.html">History Yet to Be Written. </a><br />
<br />
<b>Season Four: </b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/orphan-black-remember-dont-trust-anyone.html">The Collapse of Nature.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/orphan-black-watch-others-for-me.html">Transgressive Border Crossing.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/orphan-black-i-dont-want-them-to-grow.html">The Stigmata of Progress.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/orphan-black-if-you-were-smart-you.html">From Instinct to Rational Control.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/orphan-black-sometimes-it-just-takes.html">Human Raw Material.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/orphan-black-do-you-think-im-scared-of.html">The Scandal of Altruism.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/orphan-black-its-over.html">The Antisocialism of Sex.</a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/orphan-black-you-and-i-are-still-young.html">The Redesign of Natural Objects. </a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/orphan-black-this-is-bad-idea.html">The Mitigation of Competition. </a><br />
<a href="http://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/orphan-black-theres-always-bloody-board.html">From Dancing Mice to Psychopaths.</a><br />
<br />
<b>Season Five: </b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/06/orphan-black-and-we-here-shall-drink.html">The Few Who Dare.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/06/orphan-black-we-run-on-principle.html">Clutch of Greed.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/06/orphan-black-i-am-mother-and-homemaker.html">Beneath Her Heart.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/orphan-black-i-wasnt-good-sister-to-you.html">Let the Children and Childbearers Toil.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/orphan-black-defy-them-defy-them.html">Ease for Idle Millionaires.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/orphan-black-with-fortune-and-fiction.html">Manacled Slim Wrists.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/orphan-black-i-have-right-to-know.html">Gag or Throttle.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/orphan-black-to-my-galaxy-of-women.html">Guillotines Decide.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/orphan-black-come-on-meathead-stay-with.html">One Fettered Slave.</a><br />
<a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/orphan-black-freedom-looks-different-to.html">To Right the Wrongs of Many.</a><div><br /></div><div><b><i><u>Orphan Black: Echoes</u></i></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Season One: </b></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-if-i-have-to-find.html" target="_blank">Pilot.</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-whoever-made-me.html" target="_blank">Jules.</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-im-sad-because-i.html" target="_blank">Pegasus Girl.</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-do-you-think-were.html" target="_blank">It's All Coming Back.</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-i-lost-her-and-then.html" target="_blank">Do I Know You?</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-i-made-you-and-im.html" target="_blank">Unless You Trusted Someone.</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-you-have-always.html" target="_blank">The Dog's Honest Truth.</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-you-dont-know-who.html" target="_blank">The Paradox of Joyce.</a></div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/11/orphan-black-echoes-i-finally-feel-like.html" target="_blank">Attracting Awful Things</a>.</div><div><a href="https://cathyleaves.blogspot.com/2023/12/orphan-black-echoes-best-thing-that-we.html" target="_blank">We Will Come Again</a>.</div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-42519752906322938802023-12-05T13:16:00.003+10:302023-12-05T13:16:28.116+10:30 Orphan Black: Echoes - The best thing that we can do is just let go. <p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Orphan Black: Echoes: 1x10 We Will Come Again.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaP7XFOn9N3iF1Kwsiv7hB8SKA8Vzbp6Y1DVO-rtQYpITFJM0kISdOEh4mpjQEFbST4nwYVgdGwCpzGBsCIgJg9G6I5pMBVOM6uU5sq0ZA_SkqsF5IGSCL0wa7WbVNSjnqIl1PzfDhsjxpzAcm6GO1TXEGQa-LDj6aLqIsuuLRgkQ5_hzkXHt-qcFCgCXY/s830/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x10%20We%20Will%20Come%20Again.mkv_20231205_103320.093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="830" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaP7XFOn9N3iF1Kwsiv7hB8SKA8Vzbp6Y1DVO-rtQYpITFJM0kISdOEh4mpjQEFbST4nwYVgdGwCpzGBsCIgJg9G6I5pMBVOM6uU5sq0ZA_SkqsF5IGSCL0wa7WbVNSjnqIl1PzfDhsjxpzAcm6GO1TXEGQa-LDj6aLqIsuuLRgkQ5_hzkXHt-qcFCgCXY/w640-h360/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x10%20We%20Will%20Come%20Again.mkv_20231205_103320.093.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>I’ll be okay. </i></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Oh Jules! The conclusion of the first season of <i>Orphan Black: Echoes,</i> which has not even aired yet in the United States and is therefore in limbo when it comes to renewal, genuinely made me sad, and I did not quite see it coming either. Amanda Fix’ performance has been a stand-out, and she captures Jules’ bravery and sadness perfectly. Especially in the last two episodes, she has been vocal about the family she has found when she discovered Eleanor and Lucy – how it feels like a homecoming, after feeling alien in her foster family (remember, the walls were never fully painted), and uncomfortable in her life with all of those fake planted memories that were clearly incongruous with her as a person. Lucy makes a great sacrifice in this episode, choosing not go with Jack and Charlie to keep them safe from the consequences of being around her, but it’s Jules who truly stands out as someone who is bravely facing what fighting against Darros requires, even though she is only sixteen and would have every right to stand aside and let the grown-ups do the fighting. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">First of, Lucy learns from Tom that he wants to exchange Charlie for Jules because it’s what Darros wants. Tom would prefer getting to kill Lucy, but it looks like for now he is still under the control of the man whose approval he desperately seeks. Lucy is hesitant to sacrifice Jules, because it would be deeply immoral to ask that sacrifice of a child, even though Jack seems willing to (he is forgiven as a desperate father, but I think it reveals why he ultimately has to leave in the end – his priorities don’t align with the fight). Jules overhears and makes the choice herself, willingly giving herself up to keep Charlie safe. The episode doesn’t dwell much on Charlie and this additional trauma, because unfortunately it doesn’t have enough time to investigate further, but it must have been horrifying for her to be held by Tom, without the ability to communicate with him, and then to lose another mother-figure when Lucy stays behind. Being abandoned is one of her greatest fears, and now it is happening again, not due to any shortcomings on Lucy’s part (which Charlie seems to understand – she only requests that Lucy promise to save Jules), but because of the circumstances they’ve found themselves in. Lucy is giving up her found family that has propelled her forward and given her reason, but she has also found a new reason, and her protectiveness of Jules stems from the genuine connection she has with her that goes beyond their shared biology. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTb-4D2-3N7Ej56-_oP1rEOYGE-MxY-4NDNc7gofYmSmk2ElrcQ0PBra-5OXtHh0ei2ZVR4xMkByO9semvD_v-djQt1HWvW1U0CEBVR8KZkllPEcGpIy6oG5tP845e3rJK1G5zoLOzXLpmRLMDT_OetP8dqrIf_aEU9zp9LrbjIblmi6efmVpSaoQ-t1V4/s1280/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x06%20Unless%20You%20Trusted%20Someone.mkv_20231119_171928.770.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTb-4D2-3N7Ej56-_oP1rEOYGE-MxY-4NDNc7gofYmSmk2ElrcQ0PBra-5OXtHh0ei2ZVR4xMkByO9semvD_v-djQt1HWvW1U0CEBVR8KZkllPEcGpIy6oG5tP845e3rJK1G5zoLOzXLpmRLMDT_OetP8dqrIf_aEU9zp9LrbjIblmi6efmVpSaoQ-t1V4/w640-h360/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x06%20Unless%20You%20Trusted%20Someone.mkv_20231119_171928.770.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">Luckily for them, Xander’s memories (memories that reveal what kind of person Darros is, but also ask bigger question about whether the technology has advanced further than even Kira knows) have now put him firmly in the anti-Darros camp. He can get them into the compound to free Jules, and Darros will be gone with most of his security team for the big launch that is just ahead. This is essentially a heist – Xander will grovel to Darros, biting his tongue when he weaves a smartly constructed tale that fits in perfectly with how Paul sees himself (thanking him for being the strong one, offering the opportunity not to have to carry that burden by himself). Darros will reinstate him on the groundskeeping team, even if it’s just for a trial period, giving Xander the chance to smuggle in Lucy. Meanwhile, Kira will attend the launch and distract Paul with questions about his sister. In the background of the plan is the question of what the launch is, exactly, and the discovery runs alongside the planning and Darros’ final reveal. Eleanor and Kira break back into the closed down lab to print the faces of the scans they’ve found in the vault (this reveals that they are eleven teenagers, and one more scan that they can’t decrypt). Someone Eleanor knows (I think maybe the woman she’s been having an affair with?) can get them access to the census database to identify who exactly Darros has printed. It’s not something the show addresses explicitly, but what that turn of events reveals about data security and privacy in the 2050s is pretty harrowing, especially in conjunction with Paul’s access to the entirety of the US’ medical data. The future is truly dystopian, even if for now that realisation only plays out on such a small scale. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Eleanor realisation that all of the scans she can identify belong to the greatest minds of the previous generation (some of whom have passed away) comes just before Paul reveals his “Genius Project”. He claims to have identified highly intelligent youths in the foster care system whom he has placed with loving families to harness their intelligence and find solutions for the world’s greatest problems. The truth is deeply cynical: he is a man who wants “pure potential” without the baggage of having to deal with actual people. Surely there are actually many kids in the foster care system that would be suitable, and in profound need of that help, but instead he has harnessed the minds of the previous generation (what I would call a boomer move), and therefore stripped the risk of any unforeseen developments. He has created a completely controlled situation – obviously these kids have not been placed in families, instead, the claim unrolls just as Lucy and the newly freed Jules discover grim pods in the basement of the compound, outfitted with restraints and pictures of fake family members. They have been printed without any memories and raised like lab rats, a tabula rasa for Paul to project his ideas on, without the risk of the kind of opposition and rebelliousness that Jules has. When Kira confronts him with questions about Zora, his sister, to stall him, he replies that she “can’t let go of the past, I only think about the future” – but it’s a future that he fully controls, that negates individuality and the ability to meaningfully make choices. He claims that the ends justify the means, and that he is beyond questions of ethics because he doesn’t do it for personal gain, while Kira used the technology to try and reverse the death of her wife. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5K_uiRW0exwwjo5vbXcnNJ_HTwiX4GatjI42uIjveBRRnM_a1TqZlkOKzrh-EymQldWfpgqan_eQNTdTnxKwLbNIvASVgCtqUie3coy7gVi_eK8zodaIt91cEnggXchdI7y-f88P2eggl32p7eoqx9UVd2zpEdaAJEWJpiSsWIvRUDcSc-_TUb3h4PzTC/s830/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x10%20We%20Will%20Come%20Again.mkv_20231205_102737.891.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="830" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5K_uiRW0exwwjo5vbXcnNJ_HTwiX4GatjI42uIjveBRRnM_a1TqZlkOKzrh-EymQldWfpgqan_eQNTdTnxKwLbNIvASVgCtqUie3coy7gVi_eK8zodaIt91cEnggXchdI7y-f88P2eggl32p7eoqx9UVd2zpEdaAJEWJpiSsWIvRUDcSc-_TUb3h4PzTC/w640-h360/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x10%20We%20Will%20Come%20Again.mkv_20231205_102737.891.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">Instead of trying to leave quickly, Lucy and Jules once again do the responsible thing and collect as much information as they can to try and reveal the truth about Darros. Meanwhile, Xander has been tasked with disabling the printer, although it is unclear if he actually does. They run out of time: Darros returns early, and delivers a whole speech about how his project is meant to prevent “corruption” – like how Lucy, with her opposition to him, has corrupted Jules. He shoots Jules in the head, and then reveals to a grieving and outraged Lucy that he has already created another, more pliant version of her (suitably blonde, because we know who Darros wanted Jules to be based on the memories he tried to give her). And: Eleanor successfully identifies the final print-out, and discovers that it’s a young version of Kira Manning herself. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Random notes: </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The only person who ends this season with a shred of happiness, at least for now, before she finds out what happened to Jules, is Kira: Eleanor has been thinking about what to do, and has decided to follow Lucas’ advice that if Kira gives her meaning, she should keep her in her life. She pulls out the garden to start afresh, “here, with me”, as Kira asks, disbelieving her luck. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There is a little last-moment side-story here about Rhona trying to blackmail Kira into printing her father that just hangs there, maybe to be picked up again next season – in an episode that feels like it doesn’t really have enough time in the first place, it feels a bit sudden and rushed, even if it reveals Kira’s deep regrets over what she has done and her conclusion that printing the person she loved wasn’t the right way to deal with her grief. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Jack</b>: You’ve been looking for who you are for a long time and maybe you didn’t think you would find people who are actually you, but you did. It’s okay for it to mean something. </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">I like how Xander knew exactly what to say to Paul: he has, after all, studied him, and knows him in and out.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I really hope we get a second season, and I feel like that in spite of the definiteness of the headshot (deliberate, presumably, because they’ve successfully revived a gunshot victim before…), there is still a bit of wiggle room with the reveal that the technology does new and unexpected things that make Xander’s memory possible. </p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-89177972298003880602023-12-01T12:06:00.003+10:302023-12-01T12:06:32.566+10:30The Royal Hotel<p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1Kl5-qWjILUMQfG6YhnLBp_cI1mlXrcqetF-VpAuxkmRVjXa4vb1akHbGzYJ1q8rUaHS2Hy96zwYUbiC0tUDHBWIYGVYCBI3mJcGel5dZwXVLx2BCNVjsfLaeo3VKVRxOb6eUwUs0Ff8LC7mOrOsn0TKC4wrgAl4I9b6hfTWcn2hscJooEmw5bSaMZSs/s1920/The%20Royal%20Hotel%20(2023,%20Kitty%20Green).mkv_20231130_160227.824.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="796" data-original-width="1920" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1Kl5-qWjILUMQfG6YhnLBp_cI1mlXrcqetF-VpAuxkmRVjXa4vb1akHbGzYJ1q8rUaHS2Hy96zwYUbiC0tUDHBWIYGVYCBI3mJcGel5dZwXVLx2BCNVjsfLaeo3VKVRxOb6eUwUs0Ff8LC7mOrOsn0TKC4wrgAl4I9b6hfTWcn2hscJooEmw5bSaMZSs/w640-h266/The%20Royal%20Hotel%20(2023,%20Kitty%20Green).mkv_20231130_160227.824.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Kitty Green’s <i>The Assistant</i> threw Julia Garner’s character into a film production company in which a man, never fully seen, had free reign to abuse women, with the institutional support of the entire organisation. It was set up as an incredibly tense piece, in which more and more slightly off-kilter happenings added up to a horrible realisation. Jane was a witness, with very limited power to effectively intervene in a system set up to fail women. Green successfully accomplished two things: painting a terrible portrait of an institution through the eyes of someone coming in from the outside and situating herself within it, and showing the process of weighing information and an increasing sense of unease until it adds up to an inescapable conclusion. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Like <i>The Assistant</i>, <i>The Royal Hotel</i> is loosely based on real events. It takes inspiration from the 2016 documentary <i>Hotel Coolgardie</i>, in which two Finnish backpackers experience the horrors of working in a small Western Australian town pub. The camera observes as they face severe misogyny and xenophobia by a clientele outraged that they refuse to confirm to whatever expectations they have of two women working behind a bar. Having recently been robbed in Bali, just leaving isn’t really an option: they’re economically dependent on the job. In <i>The Royal Hotel</i>, Julia Garner’s Hanna and Jessica Henwick’s Liv end up in a rural pub when Liv runs out of money in Sydney. They’re American, pretending to be Canadian because people like Canada. An agency places them in a mining town in the middle of nowhere, with the ominous warning that they’ll have to cope with a lot of male attention there, a deeply disturbing moment early in the film that feels like the first of many red flags that pop up before the two even arrive at their destination. It doesn’t feel like the agency woman talking to them feels any responsibility for them – they’re foreigners, fed into a well-oiled machine, without the resources to make any other choice. They’ve likely never read the countless stories of overseas workers who have gone through horrible ordeals (stories of women who barely made it out alive, or haven’t). It’s also obvious from the start that there is a rift between Hanna and Liv already: Hanna is a lot more cautious and willing to cut their adventure short to go back, whereas Liv is open to continue on wherever it takes them. Liv is the one without money, and the friendship between them is why Hanna goes along with it. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">If Hanna goes into it with a sense of unease, each consecutive moment in the film pushes her further towards the realisation that this was an error. They have to take a train, a bus, a car to the pub – making it clear how difficult it would be to leave if they have to. There’s nothing else there – the old Royal Hotel stands like a leftover of a forgotten time, and without cars, they’re trapped there. A promised pool turns out to be an unfilled bowl of concrete. They also learn quickly that this is a very different Australia than the one they’ve previously experienced as tourists (in the first scene we see them on a party boat in Sydney Harbour, surrounded by other tourists – they appear to not have travelled far or long enough to have realised that ordering a Foster’s at the bar is a cultural faux pas). Hugo Weaving’s publican Billy greets Hanna’s thinly veiled disgust at his question of whether they speak English by calling her a “smart cunt”, which he may have meant as a compliment (the punters at the bar certainly don’t mean it as such when they add “sour” to it), but just raises Hanna’s sense of unease even more. It’s an interesting decision by Green to focus on two Americans, who come into the experience with a certain expectation of at least having a fluency in English, only to discover that it doesn’t get them very far through the cultural divide, which takes an entirely different kind of deciphering (there’s a whole scene that implies that there is also an undercurrent of anti-black racism at play, when an Aboriginal delivery driver hesitates to come in for a drink – a moment that remains undecipherable for Hanna). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">A lot of reviews of the film have compared it to the 1971 Ted Kotcheff film <i>Wake in Fright</i>, in which a school teacher is stranded in an outback town and journeys into the darkness of violence and drinking culture – but <i>The Royal Hotel </i>adds the element of gender to it, and the specific kind of threat that women face in that environment. From the first night of service, they experience the kind of low-key jokey sexism that is always a thin veil for an abyss of violence beneath, especially in a place so devoid of other women, and of anyone who should speak up for them (the full extent of Billy’s support is to tell Hanna to smile more, to bring in more customers). The miners have clearly run other overseas travel visa workers through the paces before (the implication is that they are always female), and Liv and Hanna are walking right into an established power structure that they don’t understand yet. Liv remains open and willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, often resorting to the argument of “cultural differences” whenever Hanna brings up a moment where she felt severely unsafe. Hanna is tasked with the impossibility of weighing her own sense of possible danger against the demands of her friendship, and the increasingly difficult task of keeping Liv, especially when she drinks to excess, safe. It’s an interesting choice to know so little about either of the them – all that the film gives us is Hanna’s hesitance about alcohol, because of her mother’s drinking, and Liv’s statement that they’ve both tried to get as far away as possible from something back home. The crowds at the pub don’t really care about who they are beyond their willingness to play along with the rules they’ve set, and the one thing that sets them apart is Hanna’s unwillingness to confirm to their expectations. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Billy is technically their boss, and he should be responsible for their safety, but his drinking, only slightly curtailed by his constantly exasperated partner Carol (Ursula Yovich), and the hotel’s debts (which add to the sense of unsafety – what if there’s no money at the end of the ordeal?) make him entirely ineffectual. The three men that stand out among the pub’s clientele seem to vie for the girls in their own way – Matty (Toby Wallace) makes himself seem relatively harmless when he takes the girls out to a swimming hole and keeps them company, but he has ulterior motives, and it becomes clear that his help is conditional when Hanna rebukes him. Teeth (James Frecheville) seems harmless enough, a guy who has his drinks at the bar and a constant eye on Liv, but seems willing to at least share some vital information about the situation they’ve found themselves in. The most obviously dangerous is Dolly (Daniel Henshall), who teeters on the edge of violence throughout, which occasionally erupts into thrown chairs and threatening and mocking other customers. It becomes increasingly hard for Hanna to walk the line between being just accommodating enough to avoid escalation and to stand up for both of them to draw boundaries. The situation gets out of control when Billy goes to hospital, and Carol indicates that neither of them will be back: she tells the Liv and Hanna to run the bar by themselves for another week and then take whatever money is owed from the profit. Hanna calls a Norwegian she met in Sydney to pick them up and take them away, but he has clearly had a radically different experience of Australia than them – whatever illusion of safety he gives off as an outsider fades almost immediately. A night escalates, Hanna receives an incredibly unsettling phone call from one of the women who worked in the pub previously, trying to make sense of a statement that could indicate a harmless check-in or a message that one of them has disappeared after Dolly drove her to the bus stop (the film leaves it vague – it’s up to the viewers to decide the story, the true extent of the horror). Then she narrowly rescues Liv from being driven away in a car, avoiding what is clearly implied to be an intended rape. The film turns at this point – all the implied danger from the gender imbalance, the violent and sexual comments, the sense of isolation in a crowd of drunken men, end in Hanna grabbing an axe to ensure Liv’s safety. There’s no going back at that point, and whatever has been brewing beneath the surface is now fully in view. Matty, who reveals himself as just another monster under the veneer of friendship, tries to break into the hotel along with Dolly, so that they can both claim their prize. Hanna is injured in the struggle, and Liv only realises that Hanna has been correct in all her warnings when she sees the blood on her face. Teeth stops Dolly and Matty, but not out of the goodness of his heart, but because he sees an earlier claim he’s made on Liv as thwarted by the two men. No one is a safe person to trust. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Royal Hotel </i>has all the markings of a horror film. The Royal Hotel itself, for two women without a car in a place where the bus only goes twice a week, might as well be an inescapable locked room with monsters at the door. The miners have created their own little ecosystem of rules that female workers are thrown into like prizes to be claimed. Hanna burns all that shit down in the end – using all the booze that fed the violence as fuel – so at least nobody else will be fed to the machine. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>2023, directed by Kitty Green, starring Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Ursula Yovich, Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Toby Wallace, Daniel Henshall.</i></p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-52727883388440424902023-11-30T23:59:00.042+10:302023-11-30T23:59:00.251+10:30Reading List: November.<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Non-Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b><i>Gershom Gorenberg: The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977.<br /></i><i>Samuel Moyn: Not Enough. Human Rights in an Unequal World. <br /></i><i>Mahmoud Darwish: Memory for Forgetfulness. August, Beirut, 1982. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Gideon Levy: The Punishment of Gaza. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Erin Kimmerle: We Carry Their Bones. The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Fiction: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Tananarive Due: The Reformatory. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Jessica Knoll: Luckiest Girl Alive.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Sin Blaché and Helen MacDonald: Prophet. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>C Pam Zhang: Land of Milk and Honey.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Yume Kitasei: The Deep Sky.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Films: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Jagged Mind (2023, Kelley Kali).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Oppenheimer (2023, Christopher Nolan).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Luckiest Girl Alive (2022, Mike Barker).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Roter Himmel (2023, Christian Petzold).</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Shows: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Orphan Black: Echoes, Season One. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Four Lives, Season One.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Lazarus Project, Season Two.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Scrublands, Season One.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Mystery Road, Season One, Two, Three.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Gloaming, Season One.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i><b>Other: </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b><i>Rainbow Chan's The Bridal Lament @ Space Theatre. </i></div>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-904411846518028465.post-47751835276297967632023-11-29T18:20:00.006+10:302023-11-29T18:20:51.231+10:30 Orphan Black: Echoes – I finally feel like I belong somewhere. <p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Orphan Black: Echoes: 1x09 Attracting Awful Things.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWfj9i1SYEHB3w955Tfj3ptuIwfRmWKoHjGzpxzVeOl-xbQOn740gH8BBzwwdyjtoADII1eIYUAdNtRadKNbXrNJ8M_CdOToIwWs7z8RYZScL-WrIn8HoZK-mXYrI_hgGsDK6lTAYKEAWSCBS85B-J76xL1dRIgAxf9WTS_hlCPe25X0-vj2E4VYNNnp_/s858/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x09%20Attracting%20Awful%20Things.mkv_20231129_110412.274.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="858" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWfj9i1SYEHB3w955Tfj3ptuIwfRmWKoHjGzpxzVeOl-xbQOn740gH8BBzwwdyjtoADII1eIYUAdNtRadKNbXrNJ8M_CdOToIwWs7z8RYZScL-WrIn8HoZK-mXYrI_hgGsDK6lTAYKEAWSCBS85B-J76xL1dRIgAxf9WTS_hlCPe25X0-vj2E4VYNNnp_/w640-h360/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x09%20Attracting%20Awful%20Things.mkv_20231129_110412.274.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Who am I? Who are we?</i></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">I like how <i>Echoes</i>, although shaky at times in terms of general consistency, has combined the idea of a greater power struggle against technology being misused by a powerful billionaire with questions about identity and belonging. The show would be emotionally empty if the viewers weren’t so invested in Jules, Lucy, and Eleanor’s struggle to find meaning in how they were created, knowing that they’ve either come into the world without memories or that those memories belong to someone who has died. Lucy, who is age-wise right in the middle, has had the most time to create a life for herself that she finds grounding in – she wants a future with Jack and Charlie, her found family. It’s much harder for Jules and Eleanor, who have both spent the last year being told lies by people they thought they could trust and now have to find an entirely new way to exist. Having seen the final episode of the season, Jules telling the others that she has found belonging with her “selflings” (a great word coined by Craig) is deeply heartbreaking. It’s meaningful that her foster mother Neva is involved in the episode when she helps Kira and Delphine dig up financial dirt on Darros, but has no interaction with Jules – it’s like all that’s left for Jules are these new people deeply involved in the conspiracy, and her fate is bound to them – even though she’s so young, her way to claim agency is to fight Paul Darros. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The other thread in the episode is about characters trying to create a meaningful life after having done something horrible. Again, it’s interesting that this comes from Craig, who has been characterised as the most selflessly helpful, non-judgemental character – someone who immediately came to Jules’ help, in spite of not really knowing her well, someone who believed Lucy when she told him about the complex and fairly unbelievable conspiracy. After Xander’s accidentally shot him, he refuses to go to the hospital, and explains to Lucy that he was involved in a death in his youth – an idealistic man, he was part of a group that burned down the office of a pharmaceutical company, believing it to be empty. His guilt has haunted him (hence the drinking, which he continues to do), but he has tried to create meaning by helping others and by getting Lucy back on her feet. Like both Felix and Delphine have been telling Kira, the way to move forward from guilt is to prevent worse things from happening and to take responsibility. Eleanor’s guilt is of a different kind, since she has now learned that her memories aren’t really her own: a flashback completes the memory that Jules and Lucy share with her, and we find out that her father was still alive when she found him, but asked her not to call an ambulance. It has been implied that his depression weighed heavily on the whole family, that it, along with her mother’s early-onset Alzheimer’s, has determined how Eleanor proceeded in her life from then on. Eleanor wanted to spare Jules and Lucy from the truth of what happened (or felt ashamed), but both of them have always felt a sense of guilt over the memory, and Lucy, after seeing Craig shot, has put the pieces together, and is now struggling with the question of what it means that she is based on a person who would have made that decision. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The way to resolve the dilemma is to cling to the idea that they are still individuals with control over their own lives, that even though they have been created from the same base information, they can develop and change into their own, unique lives. It’s a greater struggle for Xander, who, having consumed the rest of Jules’ drug, now has even more memories at his disposal to learn about who Paul Darros is. He’s been raised with the idea that he is meant to be the perfect spitting image of Darros, but what he finds in those memories deeply disturbs him. He learns that there was a previous version of a print-out, who was no viable without medical intervention, and so Paul let him die, telling him a line about how hard it is to be the strong one that shines a horrifying light on the previous memory with his sick sister. Has he done this before? </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh_lAD6i10MCfNW0WkIv7bVWbXZ5c_hupSOFFquy9R99mUBQWfLs1I-zbwifOfz667UuO4KxDWAIf9k4Pd5CZ-PmbOAE3zV41CJI6q1g2gLCoA4ebIVWCr0EPXI0zp0VP-hBIAn1VxIzWqDGda8MDrQfNkM1lSkW-9KLhfnDxlh1LqA3oN9FzmcRsX2dGs/s858/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x09%20Attracting%20Awful%20Things.mkv_20231129_110256.579.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="858" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh_lAD6i10MCfNW0WkIv7bVWbXZ5c_hupSOFFquy9R99mUBQWfLs1I-zbwifOfz667UuO4KxDWAIf9k4Pd5CZ-PmbOAE3zV41CJI6q1g2gLCoA4ebIVWCr0EPXI0zp0VP-hBIAn1VxIzWqDGda8MDrQfNkM1lSkW-9KLhfnDxlh1LqA3oN9FzmcRsX2dGs/w640-h360/Orphan%20Black%20Echoes%20-%201x09%20Attracting%20Awful%20Things.mkv_20231129_110256.579.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">This memory is triggered when Xander helps the others to unlock Darros’ vault. It’s a new piece of technology that only works if the person using the token associates the symbol with the correct thought pattern, so Xander’s availability is truly fortuitous. The servers contain medical files for everyone in the United States, including the full-body-scans that patients receive regularly at their doctor’s appointments – meaning that Darros, in theory, has the ability to print anyone he chooses to. They find that he has accessed the files of twelve anonymised patients, a fact that is certainly connected to the big launch that is just ahead. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Random notes: </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The corporate logo for Darros is the pendant he took from his sister, the same pendant he put on a dying first version of Xander. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Also – if we ever do get a second season, which I very much hope we do: Xander shouldn’t be able to remember the fate of his predecessor. At first I thought that maybe his memories are based on a more recent scan of Darros, but then, that shouldn’t really be possible because of his age! And someone like Paul Darros would be deeply unhappy about not being able to transfer full consciousness, because he would love to live forever. I feel like maybe he’s managed to alter the technology somehow to create some kind of continuity, which would have interesting implications if any of the characters ever should die…</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Delphine Cormier is back! And Évelyne Brochu still has the perfect grasp on the character, who is pitch-perfect, as if we’ve never left 2017. My favourite moments were when she ribbed Cosima’s dreadlocks (a stylistic choice already widely considered problematic way back when) and talked her way into the bank’s basement by connecting with a fellow French-speaker. It was a nice reminder that Delphine, in the later parts of the seasons, fought back against Neolution by digging into its finances. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">“I’ll tell you what I told Cosima a hundred times. It doesn’t matter how you came to be. What matters is your passion. That’s who you are.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">“If anyone understands making mistakes out of scientific curiosity, it’s me.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Tom! I’ve mentioned before how perfectly Dominic Reed has played a slightly unhinged villain (he even has a little board on his wall, with strings and everything!), very much in the tradition of the original <i>Orphan Black</i>, and his truly sinister nature comes to the foreground in this episode. He exchanges tickets for a Celine Dion concert for some info on Jack’s unit, tracking down Tina’s house, and then proceeds to kidnap Charlie, whose been left alone with Tina because Jack was needed to help with Craig’s gunshot wound.</p>cathy leaveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06105494192400149730noreply@blogger.com0