Movies Watched -- Sour Grapes (1998)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

98 minute running time … I think this is the only full-length movie that Larry David ever wrote and directed … it is funny, lots of classic Larry David humor, but seeing it after ten seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is much raunchier and much funnier, Sour Grapes was something of a let-down. I didn’t hate it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it either.

It was my machine.

It was my machine.

Movies Watched -- Let the Sunshine In (2018)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

94 minute running time but I went to fast forward after 11 minutes … this was comically bad, very French … Juliette Binoche is beautiful and still looks pretty amazing for age 57, but dressing like a 17-year-old at 57 doesn’t work … she plays a super neurotic successful artist (er, painter of giant squiggly lines) who has a string of really repugnant “boyfriends” .. the movie is a series of completely pointless and annoying conversations, very French in other words.

She has a ten-year-old daughter we see only once and for five seconds (lives with Dad). Would a mother of a little girl behave like this? Gérard Depardieu shows up at the end to play a fortune teller for fifteen excruciating minutes. “I see someone new coming into your life, someone with a giant crooked nose.” Oh god this was awful.

Gay men inexplicably love everything that Claire Denis makes (yes, this was a Farr recommendation), but you should steer clear of this one.

Sandra Hall gets it right: “Juliette Binoche talkfest takes dive into the absurd” … “There's something morbidly compelling about the spectacle of such self-indulgence being allowed to run amok.”

From Deborah Ross’s review: “… everyone talks in endless circles, tiresomely and pointlessly.” How many French movies has she seen? lol

I'd think, “He's a bastard”... and I'd come. [yes, many lines in the movie like this one!]

I'd think, “He's a bastard”... and I'd come. [yes, many lines in the movie like this one!]

Movies Watched -- Working Girls (1986)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

93 minute running time but I think I made it 15 minutes in before going to 8x fast forward … awful 1980s soundtrack, so bad it made me cringe … a day in the life of a “high class hooker” … talk talk talk, I just wasn’t interested. A movie made by women for women, no man could sit through this. I have no idea how this ended up in my queue. Give it a miss.

Let’s play a game….

Let’s play a game….

Movies Watched -- Deep Cover (1992)

Added on by C. Maoxian.

107 minutes so at least 20 minute too long .. I added this to the queue on the news that Criterion will re-release this, but it was super low budget and I wasn’t thrilled… stars young “Larry” (not Laurence) Fishburne, directed by Bill Duke. Criterion called it an “unsung gem of the nineties’ Black cinema,” but I didn’t think it was particularly Black though it was definitely 1990s. There are better cynical movies about the drug trade and politics than this one, you can give it a miss.

In that case I’ll take two of them

In that case I’ll take two of them

Twitter Cleanup April 2021

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I recently hired a Russian programmer to make me a new interface for Twitter since I needed a better way to use the service … I found a lot of “dead” accounts that I follow and wanted to make a note of them here for reference:

  • CoffeyGrinds @exit50 — after Twitter ban, possibly gave up trying to re-build following?

  • Short VIX Capital LLC @yincity — no original tweets, just occasional retweets now

  • Candice Choi @candicechoi — no original tweets, just occasional retweets now

  • Rachel Beitarie @Bendilaowa — tweets almost exclusively in Hebrew now

  • Jeremy Justice @jeremyjustice — no tweets since January

  • Joe Cool @SnoopyJC — just tweets opening and closing trades, no value

  • Shanghaiist.com @shanghaiist — last tweet July 2020