movies – TOpoet

Recap May 2023

June 2, 2023 topoetLeave a comment

City of Valleys 21 sections, about 43,000 words posted so far with 88,000 approx yet to be edited then posted.

Among the movies I watched in May are: All About My Mother (1999) Pedro Almodóvar’s glossy, soap-opera tribute to All About Eve & A Street Car Named Desire. Colourful, soulful & I was happy to see it again. One of those movies in which no one has just one problem – she’s a nun, she’s pregnant, she is HIV+.

Simu Liu heads up the cast in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I’m not a fan of cgi battles so the ones here were perfect for fast forward. I enjoyed the the cultural mix of legend & super hero. Simu is a perfect photogenic hero though a bit banal as a performer. Moves so fat you don’t really care about the plot. Is his Dad really dead?

red turns to green after a few weeks of sun

Man of LaMancha was flop way back 1972. I may have seen it then but I had no memory of it so watching it recently I rather enjoyed it though it did go on & on. The music is passable. The performances are okay, Sophia Loren was the best of the lot.

Read Gerald Hannon’s memoir “Immoral, Indecent, and Scurrilous: The Making of an Unrepentant Sex Radical.” I remember his ‘troublesome’ article & the fuss it created. The book is an easy, almost chatty read, that takes one through the Toronto lgbt scene from the 70’s to the 2000’s. He is frank, direct & funny. Highly recommended.

Finished La Terre (The Earth) another in Émile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series. Detailed, emotionally over-wrought & great fun. Zola is Charles Dickens with sex. I loved it & was amazed that I could easily follow the lives of over 100 characters & their farm life struggles.

Re-read Gordon Merrick’s The Lord Won’t Mind (1970). I first read in back in the early 70’s & my recollection of it was limited, to say the least. It is unapologetically & frankly gay/queer. Not overly complex & clearly a romantic fiction. A gay male Harlequin romance with explicit sex. I have an edition of the three novels & this is a fun start to it. Gay life before disco or even cell phones – how did they manage!

Garden annuals planted, perennials all doing well & the recent heat wave has sped things along. All we need is rain to turn it into tropical forest. Health remains good – the meds have the hypertension under control, plus some dietary changes have helped keep it down.

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March 2023 recap

April 1, 2023 topoetLeave a comment

The WP map shows my hits have come from 23 countries around the world, with Ireland at #3! Most popular posts were the photo essays with a couple of my Flashbacks enlivening the archives. Even some new followers but I trim this list at the end of the year. SEO experts aren’t who I want following me.

City of Valleys is moving along nicely with 12 sections, about 25,700 words posted so far with over 106,000 yet to be edited then posted. Each section gets a fresh edit & there is a slight increase in word count.

Watched three amazing films that I highly recommended you see if you haven’t already: first is Camera Buff (Polish: Amator, meaning “amateur”) is a 1979 Polish comedy/drama film written and directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and starring the delectable Jerzy Stuhr. This is an amazing Polish film that brilliantly captures the power of creativity & the cost of it As well. The political, social context of Poland at the time is only one of the layers of this incredible film -none of which you need to know to understand it. Our hero buys a camera & it opens his eyes to the world. It changes how he sees everything around him. The most telling moment is when his wife storms out of he room his frames her exit with his fingers. This is a must see film.

one of the ‘twigs’ is actually our hydro cable holding up the branch

Another brilliant film was French: Cleo from 5 to 7 a 1962 French New Wave film written and directed by Agnès Varda starring Corinne Marchand. A perfect time capsule of Paris life that feels almost documentary like with the street scenes & settings. Fashions are sublime. Music is sublime. Lead actress is pitch perfect in her search for – well she’s not sure – great performance of sans toi. Highly recommended delight.

The third was ‘Elisa, vida mía is a 1977 Spanish drama film written and directed by Carlos Saura. The film stars Geraldine Chaplin and Fernando Rey. Saura script plays with the narrative voice so that one isn’t sure what is real-time, dream-time or imagined, Brilliant performances by the leads make this another highly recommended film.

On the domestic front reservations for three Stratford shows have been mades: Spamalot, King Lear, & Les Belles-sœurs. We plan to see at least one more but won’t reserve until after we’ve seen Spamalot.

After a wind/snow storm early this month a branch from a city tree came crashing down & blocked out front door! City came a few days later & removed it. Lots of tree debris to clear up, most of which I’ve done in the past couple of weeks. The big event on the home front was a hypertension incident. I spent a couple of nights in a nearby hospital getting my BP lowered. More on that in a blog post later this week.

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Saturday Night Inferno

March 15, 2023 topoet2 Comments

The Saturday Night Fever (1977) soundtrack is one of the best-selling albums in history, and remains the biggest-selling soundtrack of all time, selling over 45 million copies worldwide. It produced 4 #1 singles & became the catalyst for the ‘hate disco’ ‘disco sucks’ movement. The soundtrack & the movie both capture a time & place perfectly.

The Bee Gees were big stars & this propelled then briefly into superstardom. I don’t think anything they recorded after this was as ‘compelling’ or as catchy. I do have some of their early work before they went supernova but am not a fan. The songs here are well-crafted & engineered. For me the standout cut is Disco Inferno which really captures the power of disco but was too dangerous at the same time – the Bee Gees were safe & never dangerous.

It also features some Walter Murphy – his updated disco-fied classical spawned a trend for this type of cover work that quickly became pure kitsch with disco maulings of big band, tangos, Gregorian chant – who remembers the slamming version of Carmina Burana?

Another disco movie sound is Thank God It’s Friday (1978). Unlike Fever this has no real plot, no family dynamics just pretty people dancing at the disco. A more representative collection & more gritty than Fever plus Donna Summer – real disco star belting out Last Dance which went on to win her an Academy award for best song. Both soundtracks are worth having & well make you want to dance dance dance.

Disco Revolution

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February 2023 Recap

March 3, 2023 topoetLeave a comment

The WP map tells me my hits have come from over 20 countries around the world. The map shows the top 10 countries. I’m pleased to see Mauritius & Kenya still in the top 10.

Most popular posts were the photo essays. People clearly can’t enough of snow people. all are recent posts but there have been dips into the archives. One was a surprise. My post about Sengalese director Ousmane Sembène (https://topoet.ca/2019/10/07/ousmane-sembene/) experience a a handful of looks. I guess someone is teaching a film course on obscure African film directors. Rereading the blog makes me want to see the movies again.

Really enjoyed CBC’s BollyWed & look forward to season 2. It is a fun, humorous look at life in Toronto’s Gerrard St E, Little India. I like the fact every line isn’t a punch line & the fact that characters aren’t bent on out-joking one another. Happy Best in Miniature has returned for another season of tiny jars of pickled plums. I find myself squinting by the end of each episode lol.

Watched: The Ring (1952) a surprisingly direct film about anti-Mexican racism with hood performances, decent fight scenes & a sort of happy ending. Early Rita Moreno & Spanish dialogue without subtitles. Excellent.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) Intense Japanese b/w soap opera about Kabuki hierarchy & class. He falls for a servant girl but they can’t marry as it will bring shame to the family & in the end she sacrifices her own happiness so he doesn’t sully that family name. Fascinating with some wonderful real Kabuki scenes.

Dulces horas (1982) Spanish – Malena 2000 (Italian) – two excellent films about childhood, memory & fantasy. In the first a playwright write a play about his childhood & casts a woman who looks exactly like his mother. It drifts from memory to the play to romance. In the second am adolescent boy had crush on stunning woman whose husband is at war. Tender, emotional & sad. the leads are so beautiful it almost doesn’t matter about the plot lol. Both owe a lot to Fellini in their observations of village life & sexual obsession.

Kiss Me Kate (1953) was a joy to watch with its amazing colours, energetic dance & marvellous songs. The backstage plot was busy & the romantic subplot of ex’s was tedious. Performances were excellent. I loved ‘True To You’ as an ode to infidelity. Cole Porter at his finest. I couldn’t believe he got away with the the chorus of Dick Dick Dick searching for Dick. Ann Miller at her best, plus Bob Fosse in tights.

Finished Whistle, the final book in James Jones WWII trilogy. (From Here To Eternity; The Thin Red Line) The injured soldiers back in the USA, recovering in a military hospital & returning to a ‘normal’ life. I love his soapy style, varying points of view & the immersion into masculinity & the inner psychology of soldiering.

Dove Season by Robin Brande Books 1-4 – this is a fun, elaborate sci-fi series about the secret alien occupation of Earth. The initial character is a woman who can fly – she’s flies as I often do in dreams by taking a few running steps, flapping arms & lifting off. Her ability to fly is the result of an ancient ceremony (or is it?) The series take off from there with an endless array of characters, aliens, alien technology & conspiracies. Book 5 has yet to be released.

Recap 2022

January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 topoetLeave a comment

Over the past year my TOpoet.ca following blog grew from 468 to 470! Doesn’t sound like much but I did a major cull of followers who are no longer active on WordPress or who have never ‘liked’ a post. The WordPress map show my hits have come from over 70 countries around the world. USA still tops the list but that China & Bangladesh are in the top 10 is a surprise. Nigeria in the top 20 – but behind Malawi! Kazakhstan! Still no hits from North Korea 😦 My Tumblr is at 346 followers. 229 Twitter followers.

My top ten posts of the year includes 1 out of the archives! I also started a new blog – Second Sight – where I’m posting about my Wiccan/Druid explorations. Fewer photos & fewer posts as well.

In 2021 I did 227 posts; in 2022: 231 blog posts plus several on Second Sight. I’m not counting the posts from ten years ago I resurrecting as Flashback Friday. Four posts a week is enough for me to deal with. So far no complaints lol.

Picture Perfect finally came to an end in September with just over 188,00 in 133 sections! It may get another edit before I ‘release’ it as an PDF. I plan to repost ‘City of Valleys’ from 2012 starting in 2023. It only runs at 130,000, but who knows what a fresh edit after all these years will do to it.

I watch endless movies & documentaries. One that I have rewatched & kept to rewatch again is the documentary ‘Firestarter – The Story of Bangarra’ which starts as history of the Australian aboriginal dance company but becomes a powerful mediation on the cost of creativity. The dancing is stunning, the music is incredible & the cost of creativity is heartbreaking.

Memorable was ‘Eijanaika or Why Not?’ a 1981 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. This is an epic period piece about ordinary folk, in spectacular colour. A plot too complex to sum up but the ‘carnival’ world is amazing. Another an incredible Japanese movie written & directed by Kurosawa was ‘I Live In Fear’ from1955 – starring Toshiro Mifune. A devastating look at how the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki affected the emotional climate of Japan. Despite bad aging make-up Toshiro Mifune gives one of his best performances. Worth searching out. Both of these via TCM

reproduction of robe from 1953 production of Richard III

I also watched the DVD of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry – the follow up to The Dance of Reality. Both are autobiographic film journeys though his creative path. Surreal, imaginative, constantly surprising – for example, his mother’s dialogue is all sung bel canto. On the extras he rants about the loss of ‘art’ in mainstream cinema & difficulty of getting funding for his type of film. Will there be a part 3? Depends on crowd funding.

As usual no English-language films made the list. But I did see some plays in my native tongue (lol). We got back to the Stratford festival & throughly enjoyed all that we saw. In particular their production of Richard III that was staged perfectly & performed with energy & passion. Also I loved Hamlet 911 – highly experimental & multi-layered.

I read dozens of books over the year but the one that stands out is The Masterpiece’ Emile Zola’s powerful exploration of the creative drive, the emotional & psychological cost of both success & failure. Why isn’t Masterpiece Theatre making films from these classic novels. How many versions of Persuasion do we need?

The return to ‘normal’ life has been simple enough. I continue to mask when shopping, travelling on subway, going to plays, I’ve had all my shots & boosters. My health remains consistent. At the first sign of a cold I do a covid test home test to be sure. I’ve resisted the push to go back to f2f recovery meetings beyond one, that is a short walk from house & everyone there remains masked. Zoom continues to pick up the slack – many meetings have closed but some have become so established they re still getting between 80 & 180 people showing up.

No major plans for the coming year, though I do have a lotto max travel list – nothing international: who wants to get stuck in an airport for a week when a flight gets cancelled 🙂 We’re eyeing some of the coming Stratford season & will be booking a few shows, soon.

October 2022 Recap

November 4, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

My October hits have come from 24 countries around the world. Mauritius & Romania in the top 10! Kenya there as well. The most popular posts were Hurt People Hurt People & Election Fever. Yes, I did vote in the recent municipal election lol.

Watched an amazing Japanese movie written & directed by Kurosawa ‘I Live In Fear’ 1955 – starring Toshiro Mifune, in perhaps the most emotionally complex role I’ve ever seen him. Set in the early 1950’s, clearly made after the American occupation ended – it deals with the emotional fallout of the H-bombs dropped on Japan. Mifune’s character is suffering from severe ptsd. A chilling performance in a movie unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended.

American Horror Story is back for a new season – set in New York in 1981 & focused on gay murders with a particular emphasis on the leather, s&m, community. As always, an excellent cast, stunning photography, handsome young men, spot on acting but why is it, so far, boring? The best moments have been the majestic Patti Luponte singing in a steam bath. Joe Mantello & Russell Tovey as the leads give excellent performances making the most of the repetitious domestic arguments they are saddled with.

The police indifference to violence directed at the gay community is tired, the cop in two closets (or is it three) is boring. Two serial killers or is it three? The s&m is exploitive & almost laughable in its attempt to be shocking – but the brain pills in the last series that made gifted people super smart & turned the not-so-gifted into zombies, were truly shocking. The fact that AHS has stepped back from endless explicit gore is fine by me but we already have ample police procedurals so I hope this season become less pedestrian as it has been in the first four episodes. Episode Five really steps up, for me, with great interaction between Bernhardt & Luponte. My hopes are now higher for the rest of the season.

Read: The Color of Summer – Reinaldo Arenas – this a phantasmagorical tour de force overloaded with wild sexual images & blistering political satire that would makes James Joyce jealous with its use of drama, poetry, diary entries & letters as Reinaldo tells us, of amongst other things, having to rewrite this novel as every draft gets seized & destroyed for being subversive. Breathtaking.

Stratford 2023 season has announced & I can’t wait to see Spamalot (sadly they aren’t doing it as a mash up with Hamlet).

Hurt People Hurt People

Hurt People Hurt People

Election Fever

Election Fever

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September 2022 Recap

October 2, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

The WP map shows my hits have come from 23 countries all around the world. From the tiny island of Mauritius to the expanse of Russia. Ghana returns to the top ten! Now that I’ve put Picture Perfect to bed, for the time being, I’ll be posting random events & thoughts on Talky Tuesdays. Post any questions for me in comments here & I’ll try to answer them on Talky Tuesdays.

This year autumn showed up overnight with unexpected single digit temperatures – so sudden the trees hadn’t had time to develop their reds & oranges. I don’t mind cooler days & my garden appreciates it as well.

Saw two excellent shows at the Stratford Festive. All’s Well That Ends Well and Hamlet-911. Driving for both was pleasant enough but getting back into Toronto is stressful & tiring. The drive to the Festival takes us about 2 hours, the drive home can take up to 4 hours. A Lotto Max win probably means helicopters – I wonder if Stratford has a helipad?

The other ‘event’ I went to was Toronto Pagan Pride Day, held in Dufferin Grove Park. Well organized, inviting & focused (unlike the Witches’ Night I went to a few months ago that had absolutely nothing to do with witches). I even bought few things.

Watched an amazing Japanese epic – the three part ‘Samurai’ starring the stunning Toshiro Mifune. Set in the early 1600’s – the plot wraps around the 3-fold path to becoming a true Samurai. Exceptional colour work, spectacular costumes – even the peasants clothing were full of pattern & colour. Of course Mifuni’s character had one of those ‘magic’ sword that kill you just by looking at it lol.

Watching the latest TV version of The Midwich Cuckoos which stretches the story out to nine episodes. Based on the novel by Wyndham Lewis that was made into the film Village of the Damned. In this take all the tension is in the music. The children have been saddled with distracting wigs. All the performances consist of staring intently. Occasionally adults wrinkle their brows. It makes me wish for an American Horror Story version.

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August 2022 Recap

September 1, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

The WP map does show my hits have come from 32 countries around the world with USA back in first place but with Turkey & Ghana in the top 10! Most popular posts was Picture Perfect 129 with the Buried Moons post from last month from last month up there too! The most interesting fact is that posts in my archives have gotten a hundred or so single hits as someone is goring though past Chapters of both Picture Perfect & Coal Dusters!

Picture Perfect: 132 sections, about 186,000 words posted so far with about 4000 more to written to wrap things up!

Read ‘The Masterpiece’ another in Emile Zola’s the Rougon-Macquart series. It is, I think, the only one in the series that is a roman a clef – based on real artists in Zola’s life & including one Pierre Sandoz, novelist – based on himself. It is a powerful exploration of the creative drive, the emotional & psychological cost of both success & failure. Like many of Zola’s novels it’s a documentary – this time about the art establishments of Paris – the grand salon & the salon de refuse. Amazing.

Reading James Jones ‘Thin Red Line.’ I found ‘From Here To Eternity’ more a soap opera than a war novel but ‘Red’ is totally different as it follows the harsh life of warfare told in vivid, action packed scenes. The combat descriptions are intense, the psychology of these men is brilliantly captured & conveyed. Yes there are even some ‘gay’ passages. Who knew it was easier for these men to get whisky than it was to get water. Highly recommended as a study of machismo & the interior lives of men under life & death pressure.

Rewatched Stalker the 1979 Russian film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I was stunned by this movie the first time I saw it several years ago. Amazing cinematography, intense performances & a wild philosophical text, which at time, I barely understood. Since that first viewing I have read the novel – highly recommended – & rather than wait for it to reappear on TCM I ordered the 2 disc Criterion edition. I watched the extras first to see what information they might add to the film. Well worth it & also highly recommended.

Coming up in September will be Stratford Festival productions of As You Like It & Hamlet 911.

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July 2022 Recap

August 5, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

The WP map does show my hits have come from 21 countries around the world. Canada takes top spot for a chance, thanks to the very popular ‘Buried’ post. Turkey in the top 10! Most popular post by far was Buried Moons Drums and Caramel https://topoet.ca/2022/07/26/buried-moons-drums-and-caramel/ – in fact it is my most popular post ever! Over 250 hits in July.

Picture Perfect: 127 sections, about 179,000 words posted so far with approx 9,000 to be edited then posted. Much of July sections were fresh writing as I flesh out my notes from the rough draft. The same holds true for the coming sections too, but some of that will be tying up some loose ends, another melodramatic confrontation & Dan finally takes a vacation.

Watched ‘The Hunger’ from 1983. Catherine Deneuve is stunning, her performance is stellar, her look is breathtaking with incredible clothes, hair stylings & make up. Susan Sarandon is an incredibly stylish biologist scientist of some sort. Hr performance is solid. David Bowie is cast because he is David Bowie. His look is fine, his acting is unremarkable.

The director, Tony Scott, cut his teeth on music videos & the look of the film reflects that – every room has billowing curtains – I guess the vampires create their own gentle breeze, doves show up fluttering through every window, open or closed. No room has direct lighting, even the biology lab, everyone is in shadows, plus everyone is either smoking or lighting up a cigarette – even the scientists looking through microscopes. A truly fabulous movie that surpasses its cult reputation.

Watched the captivating film Eijanaika or Why Not? (ええじゃないか), a 1981 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. An astonishing, colour filled epic set in the mid-1800’s. The carnival setting is compelling & the political subtext makes this more than a comedy. After nearly 3 hours I didn’t want it to end. Strong performances, stunning cinematography & excellent music. Highly recommended.

Finally read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum with W. W. Denslow illustrations. As a child I wasn’t much of a reader until I was about 10 & by then I felt I was too old for Oz, bides it was a girl’s book. I was inclined to Buddy & His Friends, advances to Tom Swift Jr., The Hardy Brothers. I don’t recall seeing the movie on TV until I moved to Toronto & saw it in colour. The book is a fun read, the Denslow illustrations great fun. The movie adaptation is brilliant is streamlining the too many plots in the book & making a few changes is the story line, in particular the movie ending – was it all a dream?

Coming up in August is the Stratford Festival production of The Miser.

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Recap June 2022

July 2, 2022 topoetLeave a comment

Most popular post in June was Wentworth Perk Perks Up Sydney, that I originally posted in 2012 & reposted the link & boom! over 150 hits – making it the most popular post of the year so far. On some Fridays I have been going back into my archives to ten years ago to resurrect these old post. https://topoet.ca/…/25/wentworth-perk-perks-up-sydney-2/

Picture Perfect: 123 sections, about 174,000 words posted so far with at least 12,000 to be edited then posted. I say ‘at least’ as I am nearing the end & discovered that I merely made notes for the next two climactic scenes so there could easily be another 20,000 words yet, much of them being ‘fresh’ writing.

Started a new Wednesday format, giving the monks a rest for the summer. It’ll be called Summer Reflections 2022 where I post about my old clothes, recovery memories, Wicca, & whatever comes to mind.

Watched a slew of forgettable movies & a couple more memorable ones – How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967). Wow! I can’t recall when I saw this last but wow what a fabulous film with a vibrant performance by Robert Morse, who starred in the Broadway original. The set & costume work is spot on perfection in candy colours. The songs are fun, I love ‘I Believe In You.’ Fossey-esque choreography. Recent revival had Daniel Radcliffe in the lead, another Nick Jonas.

Equally memorable is Chinese Roulette directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Vivid colours in this turgid, painfully artificial & seemingly endless psychological drama that had me snickering at everything from the hairstyles, makeup, set up & particularly the soundtrack music. It also features an amazing performance by Andrea Schobe as the ultimate manipulative child.

In June I re-read ‘Loving Man: A Photographic Guide to Gay Male Lovemaking – Mark Freedman Ph.D., Harvey Mayes – 1976 – 1st Edition’ Hardcover. I bought this book while I was still living in Sydney. I think I got it via The Playboy Book Club, as it was considered porn by customs & couldn’t be sold in Canada. It made my decision to escape Cape Breton very easy.

Reading it now I love the innocence of it – pre-HIV, pre-WWW, pre-apps – it reflects how things have changed & how they haven’t changed. Back in the day we used ‘looking for connections’ ad sections in gay magazines to meet outside of noisy smokey bars. Street cruising is now done with apps. Our current era of acceptance is still as fraught with prejudice & ignorance. Rainbow flags appear on businesses not because of inclusivity or to show support but to invite our gay dollars.

The less said about Hamlet the better – the best part was the amazing weather for the drive there & back lol. (Dull In Denmark https://topoet.ca/2022/06/24/dull-in-denmark/ )

Upcoming reviews: Rocky Horror Show (Stirling Summer Theatre! – yes Rocky is now safe for small town Ontario); Stratford: The Miser, All’s Well That Ends Well, Hamlet 911.