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notbecauseofvictories · 9 months

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I think I saw you shared a list of books you’d read a couple years ago and was it you who read something like 350+ books in a single year? If so that’s absolutely remarkable and I’d love to see a list of top ten (or twenty or whatever number) of books you’ve read this year that you recommend

Don't be ridiculous, I only read 303 books in 2021! That's much more reasonable than 350. And I've read fewer and fewer each year since---this year I don't think I'm going to crack 50, though I still have a couple days.

Still, always happy to talk about what I enjoyed. Books are listed in vaguely chronological order, though I make no promises.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle, Samantha Allen

I've mentioned this book before, but essentially I put in the library request solely for the improbability of the premise---The Bachelor heads to the PNW and encounters Bigfoot? Fortunately, it delivered on that promise magnificently. A breezy and delightfully gruesome little novel with a bodycount.

Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel

I didn't viscerally connect with this one as much as "Fun Home" but I think it might be because it's…closer to the bone for me. When Bechdel writes about the longing for a mother that can't be answered, pulling back, pleasing, an anger that becomes unspeakable, re-routed to anxiety…it's uh. well it's churned up the silt, let's put it that way.

Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt

I love short stories, but finding those authors who hit the right notes unerringly, in such a brief space, can be tricky sometimes. Wehunt is the rare exception, strange and unique as a writer, dream-like in his descriptions and images. "October Film Haunt: Under the House" was my favorite, though I can't say for sure whether it's because I recognized the framing device or it was just fun to read…

Running with Scissors, A Wolf at the Table, Lust & Wonder, Augusten Burroughs

I read these out of order (Lust & Wonder first, then the other two) but even so, I was wildly impressed. Lust & Wonder was a revelation; I stumbled on it in the library and walked out with it the same day. No wonder people tell you to read his books, he's got such a clear-eyed meanness, an interesting sort of canniness to his depiction of himself, the people in his life…it really does demonstrate that there is no such thing as a boring life, just a boring narrator. But if Lust & Wonder is Burroughs at the height of his power, Running with Scissors and Wolf at the Table are the necessary steps up to it. More unfinished, more raw---a litany of horrors, not even leavened by that same canny, mean humor that flashes through L&W. It's just horrifically sad to watch every person around this kid fail him, leave, or both; terrifying and unexpectedly funny and yet tender as a sucking wound.

The Princess Bride, William Goldman

I picked this up entirely by chance and ended up being deeply charmed. I don't know what I was expecting---well, no, that's not true, I was expecting the film. But what I got instead was something almost real, pleasantly rough around the edges as Goldman's caustic narration winds its way from Florin to the machinations of S. Morgenstern's lawyers, to his struggles with raising his son. (One of the funniest scenes was when he goes to meet S. Morgenstern's lawyer, and the ravishingly beautiful attorney becomes a horrible old hag the more she talks about how he won't be granted a license.) I was afraid the book would be twee, but at the center of it is a pure (if slightly embarrassing, but truth generally is outside of Florin) love of stories, and wanting stories told.

In the Woods, The Likeness, Broken Harbor, Tana French

As I've said before, I started reading this series because I was traveling to Ireland and thought it seemed appropriate. I didn't go too deep into French's oeuvre, mostly because I couldn't shake wanting the books to be urban fantasy rather than gripping psychological portraits with a decidedly noir sensibility. Still, the books themselves are taut and fascinating, the portraits they paint of the Dublin Murder Squad (all of whom are staggering, wounded in their own ways) and the blighted, post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, are deeply compelling. Also, I do still think The Likeness is a perfect answer to The Secret History.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Kim Fu

There's something truly powerful in a short story that doesn't answer any questions or provide you with any sort of guidance---just walks in and rearranges your photographs so they're slightly off-kilter, leaves you with that destabilization. It's almost spiritual, that sense. In particular, there's a story in the collection about the world's sense of taste disappearing; a woman begins crafting art installations to try and recreate the experience of eating a pear, what your favorite family meal tasted like. Short stories are like that.

Perilous Times, Thomas D. Lee

I was surprised by this one. I know that's how I've described half the books above, but truly, this surprised me---not so much the rising action or plot (there's a sleeping king, knights around a table, a dragon) but I loved the setting so much. The depiction of a slightly-futuristic UK as drowning land sold off for parts; figures like immortal spymaster Marlowe coexisting with reborn Lancelot and Kay; the fay hovering around the edges; and then just….all the factions, the Welsh royalists and men's rights group propped up by military contractors; environmental activists, the references to the hodgepodge that existed in the 4th century AD too. More than anything, the novel conveyed how Britain's always been a place of change, the movement of people and permeable barriers, and that more than anything worked for me. (Also, it's a small thing but I loved how the Camelot crew translated modern concepts and objects into their language and knowledge of the world. It was always shown as hesitation rather than total shock, and I found it both moving and persuasive.)

A Cup of Salt Tears, Isabel Yap

I read this in a series of speculative novellas, which impressed on me yet again how hard it must be to write novellas. (Last year, one of my least favorite books was a novella; I still think about it with joyful hate.) However, Yap takes care to focus on single, brief narrative, concerns herself solely with the very small yet very significant issue of a woman, her husband, who and how she loves, wrapped up together with a kappa. Excellent, haunting.

Books of 2020 | Books of 2021 | Books of 2022

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ccthewriter · 1 year

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CC's New Watch Ranking - June 2023

Every month on Letterboxd, I make a list of the 10 best films I’ve seen for the first time. It’s a fun way to compare movies separated in time, genre, and country of origin, and helps me keep track of what I’m watching! This is a breakdown of those films.

June! An exhausting month. We wrapped on the movie after a number of 12+ hour days. That, on top of two new jobs that picked up this month, turned June into a stressed mess for me. I spent a lot of time in bed and in the garden, trying to quiet an overstrained brain. For the first time in three years, I have seen only the 10 films on this list this month! That’s why Zaslav felt safe firing all the TCM folks, he knew I was away. But this gives me a chance to discuss some movies I wasn’t crazy about and explore why. There’s something to be learned from every film, even those that don’t please. (I am going to yadda-yadda through some entries, though.)

Click below to read the breakdown! Click HERE to view the list on Letterboxd!

10. Night Moves

1975- Arthur Penn

Was kind of disappointed that this didn’t move for me as it does for others! It reminded me too much of this schlocky film I watched earlier this year Stick. Stick had Burt Reynolds going to Miami to be a double-agent chauffeur for the mob. Or something. Night Moves had the exact same thing happen? Or something? Maybe that’s on me for not paying better attention.

I promised myself I would explore why this didn’t capture me. The best I got is that it’s a slow moving mystery centered on a rather boring figure. Next!

9. Bringing Up Baby

1938 - Howard Hawks

See, I heard about this movie a long time ago. Never in my life did I think the ‘Baby’ in the title was a leopard! This is a fun slapstick comedy about a man who fumbles his hot paleontologist wife for a pathologically lying Katherine Hepburn. I get it, who wouldn’t do the same in that situation, but I was surprised there wasn’t more back and forth between Hepburn and Grant’s fiance. Not quite as charming as another slapstick comedy on this list, but still immensely satisfying.

Cary Grant in a fluffy nightie? 👀 Reeks of gender.

8. Bend of the River

1952 - Anthony Mann

The river! It bends! I find myself watching a lot of pre-1955 movies while I’m doing other tasks. Cowboy flicks and noirs make great background noise. Their rhythms and plots can be so predictable that you can fall right back in if you lose attention for a few minutes. This one gripped me, though. My cinematic nemesis James Stewart plays a black hatted cowboy trying to reinvent himself, escorting a group of settlers to their new home in Oregon. The supplies they ordered don’t arrive in time, so before winter sets in he rides to find what happened to them, visiting the den of villainy and sin known as… Portland. It’s very funny to see the city depicted as a town full of drunken gold miners and thieves, when in a century it will be home to queer witches and their burlesques. (Hi Caity <3) Fun plot, a few interesting reversals, and more colonial assumptions than I can typically stand. It’s no McCabe and Mrs. Miller, but if you’re in the mood for a PNW Western, look no further.

7. Step Brothers

2008 - Adam McKay

A movie so culturally dominant that I knew a huge amount of lines without ever having to see it. It was fun! Will Ferrell and John C. Riley have perfect comedic chemistry, and embody this strange energy of 15 year olds trapped in 40 year old bodies perfectly. The entire film works off of their performance. Just like last month’s Face/Off, two actors giving singular, unique performances is all you need to make a memorable picture.

6. Battling Butler

1926 - Buster Keaton

It’s Buster Keaton! It was fine. I don’t have any more interesting thoughts on him in this movie than I would have in the next one.

5. The Cameraman

1928 - Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick

Extremely fun. Buster doing a bit of metacommentary on how artists are valued, and the systems they have to engage with in order to find work. Extra satisfying to view amidst the writer’s strike. These studio heads would have nothing without the footage that the people on the ground capture. The Tong War battle at the end is particularly engaging. It’s the sort of Looney Tunes/Roger Rabbit comic energy that I adore, able to float through a conflict without any worry or care. Satisfying, destiny-bound ending.

4. Once Upon a Time in America

1984 - Sergio Leone

Now we get to the good stuff. Sergio Leone is synonymous with the Wild West - why is it so surprising that he would take on another classic tale of Americana? A gangster drama, an immigrant story, a distinctly East Coast experience of the twentieth century and the superpower that defined it. Where his cowboy movies focus on the mythic qualities of its protagonists - framed among giant landscapes, attention drawn to their weapons and horses - the protagonists of this film are framed within a series of relationships. It is their association with the people around them, the space between their bodies, that Leone captures so well. It is a promise of genius from a filmmaker whose career ended too early. This is a freewheeling biopic of a Lower East Side urchin who rises up towards the top, intersecting with high levels of power and upheavals in his closest bonds. Framed by an opium dream, not afraid to break free from logic, this is a masterful exploration of a cinematic space from one of our best directors.

3. Asteroid City

2023 - Wes Anderson

I feel so lucky to be alive at a time when I can see Wes Anderson movies in theaters. The sheer thrill of this opening sequence…. A black and white TV format exploding into a wide frame, desert-chic phantasmagoria, a MINIATURE TRAIN MODEL title sequence… god. Irreplaceable cinematic moments. It needs a gigantic screen to be really understood.

I think a lot of the theatre-going experience, of the crowd itself, as I remember this film. It was a great sample audience. A group of teen boys who must have just started their summer break. Several pairs of old women enjoying long-scheduled friend dates. A nuclear family. Me, alone, having made use of the Value Tuesday discounts. ($1 off hot dogs!) The whole crowd laughed throughout the thing - has Anderson ever been this funny? It made me feel a lot of hope, that an audience would take such pleasure in little background beats and quiet humor. Much of movie rhetoric paints The Audience writ-large as a bunch of mindless Marvel fans who need jokes telegraphed from a mile away. How hard the subtle humor hit really made me happy.

The story itself is something I’m going to have to meditate on. Anderson is working some meta-commentary that can be hard to grasp with only one viewing. I get the sense he’s looking at his own work and his style of directing. He’s famous for his ensembles - it’s a movie about a cast making a play. He’s famous for his invented worlds - we walk backstage and meet a writer-director who literally lives in a set after the performances are done. He’s a director beset by nostalgia for times he never lived - Jeffrey Wright says to a bunch of young geniuses, “Should have picked a better time to be born.” This is why I feel such a thrill, such satisfaction, in being alive while his movies are airing. I get to witness the years, hopefully decades, of discussion that this movie inspires. I think this is already ripe for a “Underappreciated in its time despite being his masterpiece” sort of thing.

2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

2023 - Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers

God, what a lovely film to watch. My gushing excitement for this is cut by the recent revelations about its production. I spit on the names of Lord and the names of Miller, I wish them to suffer as they have made others suffer. I think of how beautiful this film is - how every frame is a gorgeous vortex, how you could hit pause at any moment and drink in one billion details that all add up to an incredible whole. I think of the well-crafted story, the nail-biting cliff hanger, the desire I had walking out of the theatre for simply MORE. And I think of how much better this could be if the artists making it were paid more fairly and given more breaks. Look at how beautiful this movie is - IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL IF THE WORKPLACE WAS LESS TOXIC. I reject any narrative about this film that says that, somehow, all the blood sweat and tears made it what it is. No. Absolutely not. This move is what it is because of hundreds of people toiling *despite* the invented hardships. It is so symptomatic of what is wrong in Hollywood, why so many people are striking now. They are being hampered from making their work excel because of these greedy people at the top who project their insecurity and petty rage all the way down.

Anyway. I love Miles. I love Gwen. I love all my Spiderfriends. Hope to see them again some day under less toxic circumstances.

1. What’s Up, Doc?

1972 - Peter Bogdanovich

I’ve been studying the screwball comedy this year. It’s an oft-used term without a great definition. It’s got romance and laugh, it has some odd personalities… but what else? Does it need an aggressive woman? A reluctant man? Do they need to be thrust together by fate? Do you *have* to have an outstanding ensemble, or does that just happen by coincidence? As I try to pick apart these elements I watch this on a whim one day and see that Peter Bogdanovich has already done all that research and found his answer. Screwball comedy? It looks like this. It’s What’s Up, Doc?

From the old-Hollywood opening credits that’s a hand turning a book, to the delightful absurdity that is its central premise - what if a spy, a jewel thief, and some dude all had the same luggage? - everything about this is finely tuned to make you laugh. Barbara Streisand is more or less literally playing Bugs Bunny. How amazing is that? There are so many things that will make you well up laughter that I hesitate to try and explain them more. Just watch this incredibly funny, charming movie. I have a private litmus test for how good a movie is. Often I’ll watch stuff with my wife sitting next to me as she plays video games. If a movie drags her attention away from the game and keeps her locked in the whole time, that is a great film. It was that way with this. Highly recommended.

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Thank you for reading! If you liked any of these thoughts feel free to follow me on Letterboxd, where I post reviews and keep meticulous track of every movie I watch. Look forward to more posts like these next month!

#movies #film #cc oc #letterboxd #movie ranking #What's Up Doc?#across the spider verse #Asteroid City #Once Upon A Time In America #The Cameraman #Battling Butler #Step Brothers #Bend of the River #Bringing Up Baby #Night Moves

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