Good morning. Hello, there. It’s still morning, right? I just slept ten and a half hours. It was awesome. I would have slept longer but for bladders and a lack of curtains. Did it help? No. I am still positive. No fever, good O2 levels, no cough, just a little bit of phlegm and tired, so so tired.
The cold temperature has broken, we’re back above freezing again. The governor tells us there will be no more rolling blackouts. It is clear and sunny and the pond looks beautiful. It is very pretty when I go outside to pee.
A lot of my life this week is beverage management. There’s no fridge in my office, it’s just outside the door. The temperature has been below 32°F so I couldn’t use the outside as a fridge. So it’s been a lot of putting a mask on, going out there, figuring out what my next 2, 3 beverages are going to be, bringing them back into the office. Not too much caffeine, lots of gatorade but not too much, seltzers of various flavors. It is an extraordinarily complex business.
Been sitting in this chair for about an hour in the morning, doing my writing — which is exhausting — and my daily computer tasks. Quicken transactions, country flashcards, check the finances and my friends’ Plex accounts for new movies. This last task is very important because I am plowing through movies.
And this is what I came here to say: Movies are too damn long these days. Now, look. Back when I was young, I could go pop over to the Brattle and throw back the Dekalog in a day no problem. Even into my 30’s, when Return of the King came out, I went to the Boston Common cinema and watched Fellowship into Two Towers, timed to end right at the release hour of Return of the King. No problem. Those were in a theater, though, and I am admittedly still much better at watching long films in a theater than I am at home.
But man, I don’t got time for that no more. I am getting old. I only have so much life left in me, and this scene can be trimmed and this scene is not needed at all.
Triangle of Sadness: cut the entire intro, cut the entire part one, trim about 30 minutes out of parts two and three and you could probably have a good film in there. There are some genuinely funny moments. And there are even some good moments in the parts I am suggesting you cut. But it’s too damn long.
TÀR: Too damn long. Does the ending pay off? Yes, absolutely. Is it beautiful? Yes, absolutely. Is there an unnecessary hour of absolute tedium? Absolutely. Beautiful tedium. And I suppose when you’re in a theater and its on a giant screen beautiful tedium has its own merit and value, like a feedback solo in a song. But it is hard to endure it at home.
The Fabelmans was only a little too long, but the whole new Jersey segment could totally go. Don’t need it.
I feel like it would make sense if the cultural narrative was that as you get older you don’t have time for longer films but it feels like no one has time for longer films, the kids don’t even have time for films, but yet people keep making them. What is going on.
I was part of a Secret Santa [should “Secret Santa” be capitalized? Yes, Virginia] group where people recommended films to each other, and my Secret Santa recommended to me We Are All Going to the World’s Fair and that was such a great recommendation. First, it looked like a dumb horror film so I never would have watched it on my own, not a fan. Secondly, it was eighty-eight minutes long. Hells yeah. And you know what? They still had pacing! They still had long, lingering shots! There was an ASMR scene that was like three full minutes! You can have liesurely pacing in a slow film! It is doable!
Unpopular opinion here: I liked Amsterdam. It was funny, it was enjoyable. It was too long in principle, but I was never bored and I’m not sure what you’d actually cut.
Anyway. I should be working on my year-end tasks, but I’m just too tired. I’m gonna go sit in my comfy chair and rest again.
I am a stickler for doing year-end lists at the end-of-the-year, especially since I’m plowing through more movies this week than I’ve seen all year (this is hyperbole but only just) so I won’t get to posting my best-of-the-year and yearly Soderbergh-style consumption list until next Monday. Hopefully I have the energy by then.
There may be a day or two I don’t write you this week, forgive me. I am tired. And I am not having a lot of profound thoughts, and my notetaking has been a tad… hallucinogenic, but never say never.
I miss my daughter so much. She texts me for an hour a day and we Facetime for about 30 each evening and it is very nice and she is being so kind and telling me nice things but it sucks. This quarantine is less fun than the first one for her, for me, and especially for Emma. If any of you have any brilliant ideas of how I can make this up to her, aside from, you know, a solo month of child care which of course is happening, send em my way.
Moody and quiet one for you today. Starts and ends with two of the all time greats. Oh and there’s some Kendra and Patty in there too. And tewo new acts Spotify recently recommended to me and they werent’ wrong, they were both great — Old Sea Brigade and Rachika Nayar. Good stuff.
Till we meet again.