Ordinary Human Language

2012

by Brian Crane

December 2012

Daniel Day-Lewis Edition

Two extraordinary movies and Daniel Day-Lewis is simply incredible in both of them: Lincoln and My Left Foot. Watching the...

Full Post • Posted December 29, 2012


Arrow

So I’m not sure if the Christmas episode is the end of the season or not, but I’ve watched all...

Full Post • Posted December 29, 2012


The Hobbit

I saw The Hobbit with my brother the Friday it opened. We saw it in 48 fps XD digital. My expectations were...

Full Post • Posted December 27, 2012


Round Up

Without realizing it, I’ve watched quite a few TV seasons recently. I suppose the seasons rack up when you watch...

Full Post • Posted December 27, 2012


Dark Place Edition

So in the dark months of autumn, movies offered little solace. I was watching: Cromwell, Bernie, Stories We Tell, Spider-man....

Full Post • Posted December 26, 2012


Déjà Vu Edition

So the Beav and I saw the new Anna Karenina, thought it was ok, then went home and watched the Garbo version....

Full Post • Posted December 26, 2012


Dragonflight

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Part of my year-long effort to become familiar again with science fiction and fantasy books. This one was well done....

Full Post • Posted December 26, 2012


Family Christmas

Riding on reindeer in Christmas suits....

Full Post • Posted December 22, 2012


November 2012

Picard on Being Yourself

If we are going to be damned let us be damned for what we really are. — Jean-Luc Picard, "Far...

Full Post • Posted November 28, 2012


Notes from Underground

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I've justreread_Notes from Underground_ for a class I'm teaching and it remains as troubling and fascinated as when I first...

Full Post • Posted November 21, 2012


James, Clive: Windows is Shutting Down

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are On their last leg. So what am we to do? A letter of...

Full Post • Posted November 20, 2012


Waiting for Dogs Not to Die

Post wipe, sitting with Neith waiting for respawn so we can wipe again. Damned dogs…...

Full Post • Posted November 12, 2012


The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Watched this with the Beav out of the blue, and it was ok. It is a John Hughes reprise, a Pretty...

Full Post • Posted November 8, 2012


October 2012

Milton- Poet, Pamphleteer and Patriot

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I found Milton interesting early in his life, but as he got older, I was less and less interested in...

Full Post • Posted October 28, 2012


The Master

I wait for P. T. Anderson’s movies and, aside from Punch Drunk Love, have never been disappointed. Magnolia is one of the best...

Full Post • Posted October 27, 2012


Panda-manium!

Panda-manium! (On a camel!)...

Full Post • Posted October 21, 2012


Two Gems, One Classic and etc.

Immortals, Margin Call, 12 Monkeys, In Time, Kattpacalypse  ...

Full Post • Posted October 21, 2012


Changes in the Land

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A history of the Massachusetts colony’s early years that focuses on the way English colonization altered Native Americans’ and the...

Full Post • Posted October 21, 2012


How Much Is Enough?

What is the good life? This book looks through the humanistic tradition–mostly the European but with passing attention to the...

Full Post • Posted October 21, 2012


September 2012

Cavell on Anti-Anti-intellectualism

It is no failure in a human being not to be an intellectual. — Stanley Cavell...

Full Post • Posted September 13, 2012


Beasts of the Southern Wild

Great film that I really enjoyed. I reviewed it for a friend at Fruits Unheard Of. You can find my...

Full Post • Posted September 12, 2012


Words of Wisdom from the Beav

On n'est plus au XIXieme siècle. Tu ne peux pas écrire les romans de 650 pages qui parlent de lovely...

Full Post • Posted September 9, 2012


Old School in a New World

Back to Stormwind for a relaxing night of brother time....

Full Post • Posted September 7, 2012


The Hunger Games

Fair warning: I really didn’t like this movie. I just don’t see the appeal of a movie that offers up...

Full Post • Posted September 5, 2012


August 2012

Why Superhero Movies

I was flipping through my movie log for the last four or five months and was shocked to see how...

Full Post • Posted August 25, 2012


Ghost Rider

Sometimes the hardest thing about keeping this movie log is just naming what it is I actually saw because what...

Full Post • Posted August 22, 2012


To Rome with Love

So I haven’t seen a Woody Allen film since Matchpoint, which I liked quite a bit. This one is fine. I...

Full Post • Posted August 15, 2012


The Sisters Brothers

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Oddly light book. Reads fast and is fun enough. What interests me is this: the book reads like something written...

Full Post • Posted August 15, 2012


True Grit

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I wanted to read some westerns on my trip through the southwest, and this one was on my shelf from...

Full Post • Posted August 12, 2012


Snow White and the Huntsman

As summer draws to a close, this is on my short list of the best movies I saw. I know,...

Full Post • Posted August 11, 2012


Superhero Catch Up Edition

Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Dark Knight Returns Batman was disappointing. A rough mash-up of the Bane story and Miller’s The...

Full Post • Posted August 11, 2012


Terri

Solid movie. The disaffected outcast indie movie is one of the most mannered around, but this take finds air to...

Full Post • Posted August 11, 2012


Total Recall

Paul Verhoeven‘s film is much better than I remembered. It moves quickly and really highlights how much movies today–however flashy...

Full Post • Posted August 11, 2012


Periodic Tales

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Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements from Arsenic to Zinc was a spontaneous purchase in the airport. And...

Full Post • Posted August 11, 2012


Robinson Crusoe

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Rereading Robinson Crusoe, I have the same reaction I had the last time: I get to the point where he’s about...

Full Post • Posted August 11, 2012


July 2012

Daybreakers

Daybreakers Watched this for the second time with my brother on vacation. The futuristic vampire angle seemed spot on given...

Full Post • Posted July 9, 2012


Laurence Anyways

Laurence Anyways This movie accomplishes more than any movie from Québec in the past year. And it attempts even more....

Full Post • Posted July 9, 2012


Les Adieux à la reine

Les Adieux à la reine A costume drama about Marie Antoinette’s lectrice in the three days surrounding the storming of...

Full Post • Posted July 9, 2012


Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom The Beav loved this movie. And that’s good enough for me....

Full Post • Posted July 9, 2012


June 2012

How to Live

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I’d wanted to read How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer but...

Full Post • Posted June 19, 2012


End This Depression Now!

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Paul Krugman is a public intellectual of the first order. It’s good to see that the type isn’t lost to...

Full Post • Posted June 18, 2012


Life Is a Miracle

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I admire Berry and enjoy his essays. He is a conservationist in the way I wish more environmentalists were (cf. A...

Full Post • Posted June 18, 2012


Shortchange Edition

So I’ve seen a series of movies recently, all of which deserve more attention than I’m going to give them...

Full Post • Posted June 15, 2012


True Blood Season One

A couple weeks ago, I rewatched this season on a tear. Now I’m not saying it’s any good, but it...

Full Post • Posted June 15, 2012


May 2012

Big Medicine Goes to the Outlands

Taking Big Medicine to the Outlands, the Dwarven Throne Room, then some Diablo....

Full Post • Posted May 28, 2012


Housekeeping

Mildred Pierce, Galaxy Quest, Toucher le ciel I can never be accused of lacking variety. And yes, I watched these...

Full Post • Posted May 28, 2012


Cultural Literacy

Housekeeping. Read this because I hadn’t. Interesting. ...

Full Post • Posted May 28, 2012


Swimming in the Monsoon Sea

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A book we read in one of my classes. A well-done young adult novel that went over well but sent...

Full Post • Posted May 28, 2012


April 2012

Spring Catch Up

A Separation, Young Adult, General Orders No. 9, The Laramie Project, The Celluloid Closet, The Silence of the Lambs ...

Full Post • Posted April 29, 2012


James on Novels and the Artistic Mind

…the only classification of the novel that I can understand is into that which has life that which has it...

Full Post • Posted April 27, 2012


Lord of the Rings (1978)

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The Lord of the Rings Watched this out of curiosity and liked it actually. This adaptation faces the same challenges...

Full Post • Posted April 27, 2012


Family Dungeon

Title says it all....

Full Post • Posted April 24, 2012


Meet Speaks & Glitterstars

Me and Brother out and about with new toons, doing recruit a friend after an account catastrophe....

Full Post • Posted April 22, 2012


March 2024 2012

England: An illustrated History

England: An Illustrated History by Henry Weisser I realized that I have no sense of English history. I mean I...

Full Post • Posted March 14, 2012


Winter: Five Windows on the Season

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Winter: Five Windows on the Season by Adam Gopnik I wanted very much to like this book, but Gopnik has...

Full Post • Posted March 14, 2012


A New Hope, the Old Is New

After the catastrophe, a new toon: Speaks!...

Full Post • Posted March 13, 2012


The Dream Team

Also rolled a druid. ...

Full Post • Posted March 13, 2012


Oral Presentations

I’m rewatching the films my students will be presenting for their oral presentations in my literature class. They are: [Lost...

Full Post • Posted March 4, 2012


This and That Edition

A few films I’ve seen. Nothing special here. All movies with some one good thing in them but not great...

Full Post • Posted March 4, 2012


The World of Yesterday

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The Beav bought me this book after reading it in French. It’s a memoir of Stefan Zweig’s youth and early...

Full Post • Posted March 4, 2012


February 2012

Post #100: A Family Album

So Big Medicine has joined the crew. God save his soul…Kickin’ back and chillin’ at the inn....

Full Post • Posted February 16, 2012


These Charming Men

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I ate up a couple afternoons one weekend watching these two movies, both of which are completely worth it. Now,...

Full Post • Posted February 15, 2012


Clueless in Academe

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Picked Graff’s book up as a companion to the textbook I selected for a couple of my classes. It was...

Full Post • Posted February 15, 2012


Wild Analysis

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I read this book because it was about transference, a topic vital to teaching. I found myself remembering that Freud is...

Full Post • Posted February 13, 2012


Montaigne on Blogging

Thou hast here an honest book; it doth at the outset forewarn thee that, in contriving the same, I have...

Full Post • Posted February 12, 2012


Catching Up on the Family Album

So a few weeks ago, in a 100% family run, we all became Kingslayers. More recently, I hung out with...

Full Post • Posted February 12, 2012


Faulkner on Kilroy

Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since...

Full Post • Posted February 10, 2012


Carnage

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Carnage by Roman Polanski is based on a play whose popularity I do not understand. Everything is well acted and...

Full Post • Posted February 9, 2012


Hugo

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Hugo by Martin Scorsese is a Mary Poppins movie. It wraps a healthy dose of history education in a sugary...

Full Post • Posted February 9, 2012


Peau d'ane

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A fairy tale movie that manages to be both completely of the seventies and completely derivative of Cocteau. I liked...

Full Post • Posted February 9, 2012


Justified

The last week of winter break I watched the first season of Justified. It was on Netflix, so the price...

Full Post • Posted February 9, 2012


The Lord of the Rings, Book I

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The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien I decided to reread this book during the last week...

Full Post • Posted February 5, 2012


January 2012

Moon

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Moon by Duncan Jones I’d wanted to watch this for a while because good sci-fi is so hard to find,...

Full Post • Posted January 21, 2012


Les Plouffe

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Third Gilles Carles that I’ve seen, and I think he’s great. This film is huge and watchable. A difficult combo...

Full Post • Posted January 14, 2012


The Adventures of Tin Tin

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Still like Tintin and hope that this makes him better known in in the States. I don’t like him being...

Full Post • Posted January 14, 2012


Cummings on bodies and pleasure

XXIV i like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better...

Full Post • Posted January 13, 2012


Holiday Whatnots

-Film Poster

More holiday movies: The Devil Wears Prada was good but Streep was in it much less than I remembered. Never...

Full Post • Posted January 13, 2012


Skimming

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Over the holidays I skimmed some movies I’d already seen. Nothing much to say here. Most were disappointments. They include:...

Full Post • Posted January 11, 2012