Notes from February 2025#
2025-02-01#
"Rebel Moon: Part Two: Director's Cut" (2024) is a follow-up of, unsurprisingly, "Part One." Jokes aside, I was a bit disappointed with the pacing, which was slugging in the first hour, which is something that didn't happen in the first part. It's also narrowed down to one village on one planet. It got better later, but the whole thing is too childish plot-wise for adults and too graphic/sexual for kids. But visually it's stunning, all the designs, etc.
"Fahrenheit 451" is 2018's adaptation of a famous dystopian book (there was also one in 1966). I wanted to see it since I got HBO back in 2019, and I finally did it. It's a mediocre movie at best. While the message got strengthened over the years, I think, it still felt like a glorified TV movie. Michael Shannon delivered, as always, but in the end it, there was no katharsis for me.
"Dead Bodies" from 2003, on the other hand, is a TV movie. I wanted to see Andrew Scott in an early role. For a moment there, I thought it was a bit like pre-Tom Ripley, but his character develops in another direction (despite being named Tommy too). What is impressive is how many twists they packed in 80 something minutes. Once you think you got it, there's another one. There were interesting, video-clip like visual representations of inner states of the main character.
"Nosferatu" from 2024 is probably a remake with the biggest gap since the remade movie. Murnau's "Nosferatu" was released in 1922, which gives us 102 years. Wow. It's Robert Eggers' movie, so it's a visually impressive slow burner. Totally acquired taste, and if you didn't like his earlier production, there's nothing for you here. Count Orlok's got a really thick accent and is, for the first time, dressed in a Hungarian uniform, to be historically more accurate.
The second season of "Wellington Paranormal" finally finds its pace and rhythm, and with a bit of Flanderisation, but manages to map the characters' interactions. Once again, I am grateful for subtitles because New-Zealandian English is something altogether different. What I noticed in this season is that resolutions to most of the jokes' semantic traps come almost immediately, which is unusual, but in the end, worked out quite fine.
"The Pornographer" from 2001 is a movie that I was curious of since its release, mostly because I had an eye for Ovidie back then. A story of a retired porn director who needs to go back to directing, only to learn that things have changed. There is also a relationship with his estranged son. I had no expectations, and it feels like a mix of Finnish vibes with a bit of Yorgos Lanthimos, which produces very weird outcome. Probably not for young people.
One of the things that the movie, which even won an award in Cannes, is known for is that it has scenes of unsimulated sex (i.e., they really had a penetration). It was also mentioned in regards to 2000's "Baise-moi" and 2001's "Intimacy," so I suppose, looking back, it was a thing back then. It didn't catch up because it probably doesn't bring much value to the story. But it's my guess. In any case, no one advertises movies with this feature any more.
We went to a cafeteria for my birthday celebration, and I had two small cakes and a cup of chocolate with coffee, but it turned out to be too sweet for me, so I ended up with a bocadillo with lomo, to have a better foretaste afterwards. Sweets are not for me.
I also got a birthday fortune cookie, which informed me that "nothing stays the same."
"Existing Joy-Con and Nintendo Switch Pro Controllers are expected to be forward compatible as well." ❤️
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_2
2025-02-02#
Chowder composes really well with coldish weather.
I said it before and I'll say it again. Timezones are confusing.
I had "Mindcell" on my Nintendo Switch's wishlist for a while now, wondering if a game that cheap can be any good. In the meantime, I found out it's a port of a mobile game, which fits the handheld nature of Switch. Long story short, the game got discounted and to the price where I could buy it completely from the points I had. Now, for free, I might give it a shot.
2025-02-06#
I think that after going through with Brian Eno discography, I shall proceed with David Byrne's.
2025-02-08#
If you read or hear words, and they resonate with you and stay with you for years, then over time, they become your words, in a way. Not in terms of authorship, but you can use them without quoting them because you speak from the heart.
2025-02-10#
For my birthday, my wife found a surprise place for lunch: a Lebanese restaurant. I just love Lebanese and more widely, Levantine cuisine. They even had freshly prepared laban ayran.
It must have been like 20 years since I saw "Tetsuo" for the first time (perhaps, the only one too), but ever since, I liked the trousers that the character in the opening has. Shortly before stabbing a metal rod in his leg. Anyway. I've always tried to find ones that would look the same and whose fabric would behave the same. And I finally have. A pair of grey jeans in a colour matching black and white of the movie. Or at least according to how I remembered them. Which is all I need.
2025-02-12#
Due to renovations in our bedroom, we sleep in the living room (for nonce, we live in the living room), and sleeping by the open fireplace is nothing short of amazing. Yesterday, however, we overdid it, and it was too hot in the middle of the night. Lesson learned.
2025-02-13#
My sister's dog has advanced spleen cancer, and there is no sensible treatment, so they'll put him out tomorrow. I didn't know him well, but somehow it got to me hard. The worst moment, and perhaps the only bad sometimes, in the life of a dog owner.
2025-02-14#
They're going to shoot the boars in the area. While I understand the rationale, it saddens me a bit because I grew to like those safe interactions at the distance.
"A Real Pain" (2003) is a film written and directed and played by Jesse Eisenberg (but not only, he's creating a dynamic duo with Kieran Culkin). It's a love postcard to Poland, which was a surprising refreshment after gloomy as hell "Dark Crimes." This one's very colourful, like Poland in the Summer. A story of two brothers who visit Poland to find a house which belonged to her grandma. Touching, funny, but also not avoiding difficult topic of Holocaust.
"Stoker" (2013) is an American movie done by Park Chan-wook, whom I've seen only "Oldboy" and "The Handmaiden." A story of a young girl whose father died recently. After the funeral, an unknown brother of the father moves in. Things begin to get creepy. Stellar performances from Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, and mesmerising Matthew Goode. The pacing is slow and visually, it's an homage to Alfred Hitchcock (for a while, I didn't know what year the action could be set, it's so timeless).
Worth noting is that it's a screenplay debut from Wentworth Miller, who's probably most known from his role of Michael Scofield in "Prison Break."
I really liked Matthew Goode's performance. Very chilling. As if he was too smooth to be true. I didn''t know if the movie was supposed to be supernatural or what, and this was adding another layer of uncertainty.
2025-02-18#
I got tired of listening to my old yearly lists. Time to listen to new things.
2025-02-19#
Each post here which is longer than 500 characters and needs to expand into a thread is a failure of brevity.
I feel like I should write comments or at least mentions of current events, even if for context for other posts. Now it might seem irrelevant, but could be interesting years from now. I don't think that I have valuable insights otherwise. But also, and this is a comment itself, this might not be the best moment of history to focus on obscure movies.
Every day, dumber and dumber things happen, and we're at the point where I need to check if that's not an Onion-like satire. (It's not). Like when I heard Donald Trump saying that Ukraine shouldn't have had started the war. Sadly, this doesn't bode well.
When I don't sleep enough, my sight becomes blurry. While it feels like a recent thing and it's easy to blame it on growing old,I do remember failing an eye exam 8 years ago because of that. But it would take days of poor sleep before, while now just a couple of them cause that. So, growing old, after all.
2025-02-20#
My parents are over and we don't watch TV, and I read more. I finished a 300-page book (okay, I admit, there are a lot of pictures) and started another one. I suspect that my life would be better without all these shows but with books. But then my parents will leave soon. :D
I switched to the Internet after a book, and oh boy, I could feel the difference. Mainly, the book was more refined, more thought through, whereas articles and social media posts were more rough, more raw.
It reminds me of when I was reading all the Dexter books, and it was too many to do that in the row (7 at the time), so I would put something else in between. That's how I came to read William Gibson's "Tha Peripheral" and then Dexter, and it was actually painful. Suddenly, whole pages would be about a single thing, whereas for William Gibson, a paragraph would suffice.
(I still like books about Dexter, but they are linguistically inefficient. Though, maybe it's Dexter's thing, not the author's.)
2025-02-21#
Checking my weight daily motivates me to avoid snacks in between the meals.
Memories belong to the one who remembers them.
2025-02-23#
"Lost in the Funhouse" is John Barth's experimental stories collection (he calls it a cycle), which I found through AI chat "hallucinated" bullshit. It's interesting at times (especially, Ambrose's stories) and inspired me to think about a story where the main character knows he's the narrator of a story. Overall, however, I found it hard to get through and it reminded me of "Naked Lunch," which was a true torture to maul through. But I'm glad I read it.
I use alt accounts on social media to create and workshop certain types of characters to use later. They help me with seeing how others can react to them.
"Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht" from 1979 is Werner Herzog's approach to Murnau's classic. It's the third time I saw this movie, and I was reluctant because I always found it boring, but this time around, it actually won my heart. And I forgot the ending. Sparse dialogues and showing everything instead of telling it is something I missed the other times. Slow burner with Dracula not being some sort of absolute evil but rather a prisoner of his own fate. Probably not a movie for everyone.
A screenplay for "There's Something About Mary" was the first comedy I've read. I recall reading somewhere years ago that if you don't laugh while reading it, you're not gonna laugh while watching it. So I was curious. And I laughed, but less than I would hope so. Funny how Pat Healy seemed to be written for Matt Dillon, albeit, not being the first choice.
"Cien Años de Soledad" is an adaptation of a very famous book from Gabriel García Márquez. It seems that Netflix ran the first half of the season, but so far, so good. It treats the source material with respect and I read it 25 years ago, but it seems to be not taking unforgiving shortcuts. It was interesting to see this differently to how I imagined it. To think that a couple of decades ago, they would probably try to squish it into a 2-hour movie. Inconceivable!
The third season of "Ozark" gets even denser with various plots accumulating around the Byrde family. I really like this speed chess of changing circumstances which puts almost ever calm Marty in a tough spot after a tough spot. There's always a risk of Flanderisation here, but "Ozark" manages to stay on the working side. I am looking forward to seeing the last season later this year.
I got BareFoot shoes, and they are fantastic. I walk my dogs in them only. And generally use them whenever I can. I'll need to get a more elegant variant for the office. Also driving a car is fine, a bit weird in the beginning but giving more sensitivity to pedals' position.
But the biggest surprise came yesterday when we drove to the beach, and never have walking in the sand been more comfortable.
2025-02-25#
Sleeping is like a diet: you cannot cheat on it. If I have a couple of days of little sleep, I literally feel it. My eyes are tired and my immune system begins to lack. Just like Jocko Willink said, the shortcut doesn't exist.
It's time to face the truth. I have little priority to sit down and write, either because there are other priorities or I'm tired at the end of the day. I might also simply lack motivation. Thus, I might put more effort into Mastodon, which is more affordable and later translates to my website. It's time to master the 500-character form.
2025-02-27#
We went hiking yesterday, but it turned into climbing at some point. I have a fear of heights, so I decided to challenge myself and got almost to the top. Not terrible, not great.
"The numeral system originates from an ancient Indian numeral system, which was reintroduced during the Islamic Golden Age in the book On the Calculation with Hindic Numerals written by the Persian mathematician and engineer al-Khwarizmi, whose name was Latinized as Algoritmi."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabic_numerals
2025-02-28#
Pizza 30 cm costs 10 euros, but a 40-cm one costs 17 euros, which seems counter-intuitive because it's "just 10 cm." However, the area of smaller pizza is 707 cm², while the bigger one--1257 cm², which makes the smaller one 56% of the bigger one. But I wonder how many people dismiss it as over-pricing them.