Musei Capitolini, June 2016
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Stalags (2008)
Documentary film about the pornographic Stalag fiction books popular in Israel around the time of the Adolf Eichmann trial.
Fascinating investigation of an irritating phenomemon which can't quite pinpoint the cuase of its short-lived popularity, but does bring some insight into an early chapter of Israel's history.
New Stuff: Primo Levi
The Periodic Table is a collection of short stories by Primo Levi, published in 1975, named after the periodic table in chemistry. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it the best science book ever.
Friday, July 8, 2016
New stuff: Yann Martel
In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomas discovers an old journal. It hints at the location of an extraordinary artefact that - if it exists - would redefine history. Travelling in one of Europe's earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this treasure. Some thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist finds himself at the centre of a murder mystery. Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he comes to his ancestral village with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. The High Mountains of Portugal takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century - and through the human soul.
New Stuff: Lunar Notes
Rechristened as Zoot Horn Rollo, guitarist Harkleroad recalls what it was like to live, record and play with a temperamental genius such as Captain Beefheart on landmark albums such as Trout Mask Replica.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
First Lines: Peter Abelard - Historia Calamitatum - The Story Of My Misfortunes
Know, then, that I am from a certain town which was built on the way into lesser Brittany, distant some eight miles, as I think, eastward from the city of Nantes, and in its own tongue called Palets.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Cape Fear (1962)
A lawyer's family is stalked by a man he once helped put in jail.
Classic high tension thriller with Robert Mitchum delivering one of the best deranged villain performances in cinema history; however, the right-wing flavoring of the story stains the otherwise good impression of the movie as a whole.
Halliwell (no star): "Unpleasant and drawn out suspenser with characters of cardboard and situations from stock."
Maltin***: "Mitchum is memorably (and believably) creepy...Dated only on its lack of explicitness, but still daring for its time."
