In Russian. 87 minute running time … sort of a contrived story where a Chechen mercenary and Georgian soldier are injured and then nursed back to health in an old Estonian guy’s house in Abkhazia … it’s not terrible, it’s just sort of unrealistic and preachy. Farr wasn’t annoyed by this “pointed allegory,“ but I say give it a miss.
I’m sorry, Ivo
Dominique Fils-Aimé with Old Love … I dig it:
Pete Josef … I dig it:
94 minute running time … strange movie, depressing … about a 13-year-old autistic boy who doesn’t go home after school (in Rockaway Beach, Queens) and instead rides the New York City subways continuously for several days in a row, experiencing all the insanity and weirdness and violence and conflict and rare kindness that surrounds him (including a great break-dancing routine by a trio of kids — the highlightof the movie for me) … his Spanish-speaking mother (an illegal Mexican) is worried sick and is desperate and sort of stuck with no money or contacts or friends, her husband is working upstate (possibly milking cows) … the whole thing is kind of hard to sit through and believe me I fast forwarded through a hell of a lot of it … but I could sort of understand what the filmmaker was getting at (about alienation and loneliness and confusion and terror and the horrors and wonders of life in the Big CIty, etc.). It wasn’t terrible, just a major downer.
From Stephen Holden: “Throughout the movie, you are forcefully reminded that time spent on the subway may be the ultimate New York grounding experience. You feel the city’s collective pulse as the entire spectrum of humanity pours around you … It stays with its characters to a wonderfully witty and understated ending.“ I didn’t find anything witty about the ending and have no idea what Holden is talking about … but it’s a capital A.R.T. art movie for sure.
From Richard Brody: “Fleischner empathetically but unsparingly depicts the fears, indignities, and degradations that Ricky endures in his largely subterranean wanderings, and movingly captures his fixations on ancillary details and incantatory phrases”
Ricky is a smart boy
Yasmin Williams, yowza … encountered “Guitar Hero” at age nine:
In his interview with Philip Taubman on the development of the U-2 spy plane and reconnaissance satellites:
LAMB: … what did the "U" and the "2" stand for?
Submitted without comment:
From Joseph Persico’s interview on Booknotes:
“… what you're referring to is the fact that Sumner Welles, who was the undersecretary of State in the Roosevelt administration and who was an important figure, he was Roosevelt's man. The secretary of state was Cordell Hull, and Roosevelt pretty much circumvented him and--and worked through Sumner Welles, who was an old family friend. Welles had made some sexual advances on trains, part of his--his business trips, to black porters on these trains, who reported him. This was concealed for a long time. It was two or three years before it finally erupted. Roosevelt is under tremendous pressure from people who fear that having a man with homosexual tendencies in such a sensitive position at State--we have to remember we're not talking about the current world; we're talking about the attitudes of the--of the 1940s. He's looked upon as a--as a--a security threat, and Roosevelt very unhappily eventually dismisses Sumner Welles.“
Neffy with “Youth” … great voice … made me stop in my tracks … thanks to the Spotify algo … you can buy the track here….
In his interview with Dana Priest on mission creep in the US military:
LAMB: I can`t leave this without me asking you why your first name is pronounced “Danna?” and did [your parents] want a boy?
