🎥 Drugstore Cowboy (1989) ★★★★
Beautiful, raw film by Gus van Sant. Matt Dillon and William S. Burroughs (as a wacky old junkie) stole the show.
“I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.”
Made a remarkably easy – and remarkably tasty – dinner tonight, with gnocchi, Brussels sprouts, pesto arrabiata, vegetarian chicken, cottage cheese and lemon. Gnocchi taste so much better when baked instead of cooked!
🎥 Tucker: The Man and his Dream (1988) ★★★½
A young Jeff Bridges shines in this lesser known Francis Ford Coppola film, a great critique of corrupt capitalism while also about not giving up on dreams.
🎵 Two Pages by 4Hero (1998) ★★★★★
This is perhaps one of the best albums of the 90s, but I somehow missed it at the time, or for some crazy reason may have forgotten about it. A classic that still sounds remarkably contemporary today.
🎥 Thor: The Dark World (2013) ★★★
🎥 Thor: Ragnarok (2017) ★★★½
I liked this one better than the first two Thor films, mainly because it is just incredibly funny. Can you ever go wrong with Jeff Goldblum? But the ultimately tragic character of The Hulk, making silly jokes was a bit overkill in this regard.
🌱 Cuttings from our white butterfly bush, for planting out in the school garden later this year. A bit early in the season, but since new leaves already started to appear, I took my chances. 🤞
🎥 Zulu (1964) ★★½
I liked it for its beautiful cinematography; this must have been an epic challenge for director Cy Endfield, and very demanding for cast and crew. But otherwise I found it a very problematic celebration of colonialism.
🎥 The Heroes of Telemark (1965) ★★½
In spite of some dubious directing choices (Kirk Douglas as a womanising scientist just didn’t fit) I certainly enjoyed this men-on-a-mission movie, if only for the loose historical reenactment (and a great skiing chase scene halfway).
🎥 Alita: Battle Angle (2019) ★★
Our first take on baking simple white bread rolls didn’t turn out too bad!🍞
🎵 I recently added a new musical instrument to my collection: a traditional Indian Bansuri flute, and I’m very eager to learn to play it! I like the adventurous process of discovering a new instrument and all of its beautiful sounds and hidden secrets.
Currently reading: Mirror, Mirror & A History Of The Human Love Affair With Reflection by Mark Pendergrast 📚
🎥 House on Haunted Hill (1959) ★★★½
Fun little murder mystery horror movie. Enjoyed the music as well.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that my recently re-discovered e-mail archives from 2000 - 2003 (Eudora anyone?!) got imported in MacOS Mail without any complications at all! I now have an almost complete e-mail archive spanning more than 20 years in one place!
“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”
Susan Sontag 💬
Also at MuHKA was an exhibition on sound art and the ways the museum historically paid attention to this emerging art form: A NON-U-MENTAL HISTORY OF M HKA – Part 2: What must be heard. This letter from Laurie Anderson to the museum stood out the most to me.
Due to Corona restrictions our Dez Mona & B.O.X. concert in Antwerp got postponed. Since the hotel was already booked we went anyway and visited the excellent Eurasia exhibition at M HKA, with (a.o.) a very confronting and moving work by Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide).
🎥 Ben (1972) ★½
Watched this one out of pure nostalgia, and was pretty sceptical beforehand. I remembered ‘not getting’ the movie at the time (when I was around 8 years old), but it turned out to be even worse than I thought. One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. (Twice…)
🎥 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) ★★
🎥 Matilda (1996) ★★★★
I didn’t see this great comedy at the time and I also kind of regret that I didn’t read more books by Roald Dahl in my childhood. This adaptation by and with Danny DeVito was more than worth the watch. And the whole family agreed.
I love slow television. Watching the full re-broadcast of the last held Elfstedentocht from exactly 25 years ago. Since it’s such a rare event, its declaration creates a national near-frenzy in the Netherlands.
Enjoyed preparing an Asian meal today (the last normal one this year..!), with an attempt on my own vegetarian version of the national dish of Laos: Laap. Luckily, it was to the liking of the family.
🎥 Spider-man: Homecoming (2017) ★★★½ & Spider-man: Far From Home (2019) ★★★
Yesterday we watched the first two Spider-Man movies by Jon Watts in preparation for the most recent one that just came out. If all the reviews are to believed, it will not be disappointing.
🎥 Encanto (2021) ★★½
Great story, but too ‘musically’ for me. My daughter didn’t agree.