The third album by the Joe Policastro trio focuses on movie and TV themes (with one exception) and is, in some ways, even more fun than their second record. Certainly, it’s even more diverse. This time the material is just as varied, if not even more so. I’m particularly delighted by the presence of the …
Author: rnhaas
Pops! (2016) by the Joe Policastro Trio
So I saw these guys live before I ever listened to a record, and that has really predisposed me to like them. I had only heard one cover they did and was not prepared for how much fun they were live. I have no idea what I would have made of this record if I …
Merchants of Doubt (2010) by Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
This is a thorough and damning account of the so-called “Tobacco Strategy” and the “improvements” upon it, in which larger corporations fund think tanks and pay real scientists to discredit the work of other scientists which threatens their products.
The Joe Policastro Trio Live at The Rex October 26, 2022
A few weeks ago, I was browsing Cover Me’s Best Cover Songs of September and I came across a fun jazz guitar cover of “Take on Me.” I liked it. Jenn liked it. So I followed the group on the socials and saw that they would be in Toronto in a few weeks.
Edvard Munch (1974, Peter Watkins)
This film was actually a Norwegian TV series that was slightly abridged for a theatrical release in the rest of the world. (Unfortunately I watched the abridged version.) It’s a typical Peter Watkins approach to a documentary about a historical subject – filmed as if the film crew had travelled into the past.
Give People Money (2018) by Annie Lowrey
Full disclosure: I’ve already drunk the UBI Kool-Aid so this book is preaching to the choir. I think I must have added this book to my list before I had been completely converted to the position. You’ve been warned.
All the Old Knives (2022, Janus Metz)
This is a spy mystery film with a fairly big dose of romance which feels like it would have been a lot less of a mystery if it had been told in chronological order.
Home Sweet Home aka Slasher in the House (1981, Nettie Pena)
We were looking for a Thanksgiving horror film and so we found our way to this god-awful mess, featuring some of the worst lighting you will ever see in a movie. The director has a single credit after this film, and I suspect it’s because nobody believes they can light a film.
When the Levees Broke (2006)
This is a detail and devastating miniseries about Hurricane Katrina and what happened in New Orleans that I have been meaning to watch for a decade and a half. It is essential viewing, even all these years later. (I might say especially all these years later given how many more serious hurricanes have hit the …
The Mars Volta Live at Massey Hall, Wednesday October 5, 2022
The Mars Volta have reunited, much like At the Drive In did five years ago. However, unlike that reunion, this is a very different version of the band, if there new album is anything to go by. So I was slightly worried about this show. But that proved to be unfounded.
The Mars Volta (2022)
When I was younger, a thing that really impressed me was a massive stylistic change from a band. It still does impress me, but not as much. And I was always less into stylistic changes that I didn’t like, i.e. into genres I didn’t like. I admire the Mars Volta for trying something different. But …
Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business (2018) by Josh Noel
This is a readable, engaging, informative and, I think, pretty fair book about the AB InBev purchase of Goose Island and the broader beer landscape in North America. I love beer, and I thoroughly enjoyed some of these Goose Island beers, and I definitely prefer independent breweries to macros. So I am clearly Noel’s target …
X (2022, Ti West)
This is a fun spin on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre style of horror movie – the young people are filming a porno – that has a fairly fatal flaw, in my book. But I liked some things about it. SPOILERS
Yuki yukite, shingun aka The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987, Kazuo Hara)
This is a bonkers documentary about one man’s quest to expose the truth about what happened to two Japanese soldiers in his regiment in New Guinea at the end of WWII. I can honestly say I’ve seen few films like it. I also think it’s a bit of a landmark as, though this type of …
Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul (2022, David Terry Fine)
This is an interesting, compelling and entertaining documentary about Tim Donaghy for most of its run, and then it runs into conspiracy territory at the end and becomes rather frustrating.
Rubicon (2010)
This is an entertaining, refreshingly slowed paced spy mystery series that I guess just didn’t capture enough attention to get a second season.
Space Truckers (1996, Stuart Gordon)
This is not one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen but it is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen with a cast this notable, which, for me, makes it feel worse.
The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt (2018) by Ken Krimstein
This is a compelling, somewhat amusing, educational, and occasionally moving brief graphic novel about the life Hannah Arendt. When I was in my 20s, Hannah Arendt was my favourite philosopher. I’ve read The Human Condition three times, many of her other books, and the first of the major biographies written about her. She’s influenced the way I …
The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival
This was my first time attending TIFF in person in 3 years. It was a little exhausting, given how far out of downtown we now live but, once I got the hang of it, I fell back into the rhythm of it and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It also helped that, after a few movies that …
Project Wolf Hunting (2022, Hong-Sung Kim)
This is an extremely gory, bloody and bonkers action/horror film about a ship of inmates travelling from the Philippines to Korea. The theme of it is basically overkill – don’t just hit somebody once, do it seven times. Why shoot at someone once when you can use the entire magazine? It’s quite funny and entertaining …
Chevalier (2022, Stephen Williams)
This film purports to tell the story of the first major black composer. But it’s a fantasy, not a real biography, and it spends much of its runtime obsessing about a made up love triangle and focusing on the friendships of the composer that are likely also made up. It’s a ridiculous movie. SPOILERS
The Banshees of Innisherin (2022, Martin McDonagh)
This is an extremely funny dark comedy that takes a turn for the tragic. It was introduced to us as a fable, and I think it has to be viewed that way given the basically inexplicable behaviour of Brendan Gleeson’s character. SPOILERS
Undisclosed (2015)
Undisclosed ended in March. I found out more recently because I’m perpetually behind in my podcast listening. It’s kind of hard to sum up this podcast, because there are so many cases and I cannot remember all of them over the last seven years, but I wanted to mention something about them for the simple …
Triangle of Sadness (2022, Ruben Östlund)
This is a satire cum gross-out comedy about the world’s 1%, broken up into 3 parts with a prologue. It won the Palme d’Or so there was more than a little hype going into it. What I can say is that it is very funny and it is breezy 147 minutes. So that’s something.
The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy (2018) by Paul Myers
Full disclosure: The Kids in the Hall are among the most formative cultural influences of my life. I was too young when their show premiered, as I was 7 when the pilot aired and 8 when it premiered. However, I was old enough to watch it before it went off the air. (My guess is …
Holy Spider (2022, Ali Abbasi)
For most of this film’s run-time, it’s a conventional, perhaps a little contrived, serial killer film, with a great opening sequence, that is otherwise mostly distinguished by the fact it is set in Mashad, Iran. And then it goes to a place that these films don’t. But that’s a spoiler so SPOILERS
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022, Laura Poitras)
This film tells the story of the (formerly controversial) photographer Nan Goldin through the lens of her crusade to convince the major art galleries of the world to stop receiving money from the Sacklers (the former owners of Purdue Pharma) and to remove the Sackler name from their institutions.
Free Money (2022, Lauren DeFilippo, Sam Soko)
This is a brief but reasonably compelling and entertaining documentary about a UBI experiment in Kenya by the charity GiveDirectly. Full disclosure: I have complete drunk the Universal Basic Income Kool-Aid so I am not going to be the most critical reviewer of anything about UBI. You have been warned.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2022, Aitch Alberto)
This is a coming of age drama about two teenage boys in El Paso in the late 1980s. Jenn and I were not warned it was based on a YA novel and so we did not know what we were getting into. (To clarify: we knew it was based on a novel, we just didn’t …
R.M.N. (2022, Cristian Mungiu)
This is a film that analyzes xenophobia in a small, multiethnic town in Transylvania in Romania. “R.M.N.” is apparently the Romanian acronym for MRI, so I guess Mungiu views this as an MRI of xenophobia is his native country. (Also, a character does get an MRI and MRI images play a role.)