August ended with a surprisingly abrupt break from the intense heat and humidity that usually mark this period in Alabama: a cold front moved in, and as our air-conditioners suddenly turned off for the first time since May we sat and marveled at the strange silence. I even got to sit outside and read, something I haven’t done since spring gave way to the Great Sticky Siege. Reading-wise, I opened the month by rereading Roswell High, a series I read in middle school, and then began making amends to my nonfiction queen by switching to history. There were some more SF titles in there, too, meaning fiction is again beating nonfiction. We’ll see if September can correct that. Nothing was done on any challenges, I’m afraid, and the heat’s been such that I didn’t even get out and about to get any interesting photos, hence my using a funny Strange New Worlds meme I liberated from Facebook. I don’t think I’ll finish anything tonight- – I could finish a book on Atlanta’s homeless population, but it’s so depressing I keep reading of Hurricane Katrina and Chernobyl instead — so I’m posting the monthly review today.

New Acquisitions

I preordered Against the Machine: The Unmaking of Humanity by Paul Kingsnorth, which will be released in the latter half of September.

Coming up in September

No firm plans, but I do have one title checked out for 9/11, one focused on Windows on the World, and I might do a science push. I’m also anticipating the release of This is For Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee. Will be interesting see how similar or different it is from How the Internet Happened.

Moviewatch August 2025

As mentioned previously, my cinema buddy who I’ve been watching 2-3 films a week ever since 2022 has left town. I figured my movie-watching would crater this month, but it appears that three years of regular movie-watching have created a bit of a habit. I watched as many movies as I’ve been watching, but now they’re less….random, I’d say, and more representative of my tendency — in books or movies — to go off on a tangent for a bit. I went on several genre and actor streaks as the month wore on.

Men in Black III.   I watched the original movie when it came out, of course, and tolerated the second one, but it wasn’t until that I saw Josh Brolin’s Tommy Lee Jones impersonation –  which he does throughout this film – that I thought, holy WOW do I need to see this.  Will Smith is “J” and is thrown back in time to 1969 to help his partner K (Tommy Lee Jones/Josh Brolin) knock off an alien who wants to destroy Earth.  This involves manhandling Andy Warhol and putting a thingy on the Apollo 11 Saturn-10.  Such a good film, between the acting and the raygun gothic tech. 

pastK: Okay, future boy, where to?
J: Uh…wherever you went to last time.
pK: I didn’t tell you where I went?
J: We don’t really …talk.
pK: What kind of partners sit in a car every day for fourteen years and don’t talk?
J: EXACTLY.    It’s dysfunctional. 

J: The hell happened to you, man?
pK: I don’t know, slick, it hasn’t happened yet. 

Buzz Aldrin: If we call this in, they’ll scrub the launch.
Neil Armstrong: I didn’t see anything. 

The Naked Gun, 2025.   Starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, this is a sequel-in-spirit to the Leslie Nielsen movies. I haven’t seen those (Yes, I’m serious, and don’t call me Shirley), but I was laughing the entire time throughout this one. Could have done without the graphical-suggestive sex scenes.

“It says here you did 20 years for man’s laughter. It must have been quite the joke.”

The Naked Gun, 1988. The Lelsie Nielsen original, in which the detective foils a plot to knock off Queen Elizabeth by…serving as umpire in a baseball game.  KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! also appears.

Loaded Weapon, 1993.  Emilio Estevez (Coach Bombay) and Samuel L. Jackson feature in this cop-movie spoof that has a loaded cast: William Shatner and Tim Curry are recurring characters, and Jimmy Doohan (Scotty) and F. Murray Abraham both make  cameo appearances.  There was an unexpected Silence of the Lambs reference. 

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.  Last month I watched the second in this set of French movies  parodying James Bond,  with an agent who is suave and potent but largely oblivious to context. This is the original of the modern movies. 117 is sent to Cairo and has no idea that Muslims frown on alcohol, for instance – and is so annoyed by the call to prayer at oh-dark-thirty in the morning that he accosts the nearest rabble-rouser and unwittingly inspires a jihad.  Quite amusing but the Lost in Rio mocking of 1960s counterculture was funnier.  Evidently there were films in the 1950s and ‘60s where the character was much more serious, but here he’s a delightful caricature. 

My Cousin Vinnie, 1992.  A fourth or fifth rewatch for me.  Joe Pesci plays a newly minted lawyuh from New York who comes down to Alabama to save his cousin and his friend who  were arrested for murder in what has to be a case of mistaken identity.   The movie is noted for its courtroom accuracy and is one of my favorite comedies for its “fish out of watuh” antics, plus the lovely brilliance that is Marisa Tomei.  Fred Gwynne also nails the slightly aristocratic southern judge.  Lane Smith did a solid job, as well. As a fan of real grits, I love that the evidence hinges on how long they take to cook.

Devil’s Advocate, 1997.   A movie I’ve watched repeatedly, both for its disturbing nature and its acting talent. Keanu Reeves plays a hotshot attorney who makes a bad moral decision to maintain his winning streak and is thereafter tempted by the Devil, in the form of a senior attorney, John Milton.  One of the more disturbing bits is the ending, in which Reeves’ character is given a second chance, pursues good, and is nonetheless targeted by Milton.  

Cowboys & Aliens, 2011.   An outlaw, the sheriff and his posse,  a bunch of brigands, and even the Apache have to team together to take out a buncha illegal aliens who want to take our gold.  

Enough Said, 2013.Julia-Marie Dreyfuss is a divorced masseuse who makes a new friend and client at a party, and meets a funny guy (James Gandolfini)  to boot. Funny guy asks her out and they begin dating. New Friend keeps talking about her ex-husband.   Ex-husband and funny guy are the same man. Dramedy ensues.  My first time seeing JMD in a semi-serious role, since I was only familiar with her from The New Adventures of the Old Christine. She was in Hannah and her Sisters, another drama with some comic elements, but wasn’t the star.

Get Shorty, 1995. Where to begin? John Travolta! Frank Danny DeVito! Gene Hackman! James Gandolfini!  …okay, it’s mostly John Travolta and Gene Hackman. Travolta is a loan shark who is being pressured by his new boss (a man whose nose he once broke and whose head he once grazed with a bullet) to produce $15,000 in three days or suffer the consequences. So, he ends up in LA trying to help Gene Hackman produce a movie. Then Pablo Escobar gets involved.  A surprisingly fun crime story.

Welcome to the Rileys, 2010. A dramatic role for both James Gandolfini and Kristen Stewart. Gandolfini plays a businessman who goes to New Orleans for a conference, and encounters a young girl in distress who reminds him of his late daughter. An interesting if awkward relationship evolves between the two of them, in which Gandolfini’s character begins acting like a father toward her.  Then his wife – intensely agoraphobic – is so disturbed at his decision to have an unexplained prolonged stay in the Big Easy arrives, and things get deeper.  Good story and solid acting all around. It reminded me slightly of My First Mister,   a film starring Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks, about the unlikely friendship between an isolated goth teenager and an intensely….reserved and isolated owner of a clothing store.   Gandolfini’s relationship with Stewart is more obviously paternal, though. (Of course, it’s been fifteen years at least since I last watched My First Mister.) 

Mobsters, 1991.  F. Murray Abraham!  I didn’t realize this was my introduction to one of my favorite actors. A gangster movie charting the rise of the Syndicate,  featuring Christian Slater as Charles Luciano, who with Meyer Lansky, Benny Siegel, and Frank Costello revolutionized organized crime.   I watched this during my obsessive Mafia phase in the early-mid 2000s. (I was also obsessed with the American Civil War and World War 2 at this time, so I haven’t changed in having multiple obsessions.)   Michael Gambon also features as one of the mustache petes the Fab Four have to knock off on their way to the top. That really made the later Harry Potter movies weird for me.  Pretty sure when I originally watched this as a teenager I just loved seeing how the 1920s and 1930s “were”.

Luciano: I don’t have a wife.
Rothstein: Why not?
Luciano: Emotion…is dangerous.
Rothstein: Aren’t you human?
Luciano: Would it help?

Luciano: I don’t bend over. It’s too hard to stand up straight again. 

(Target): Jesus, Charlie, you want revenge after fifteen years?
Luciano: I’ve been busy. 

Capone: Julius Caesar never took no vote.
Luciano:  Caesar ended up dead on the street.

Carnage, 2011.   I have only watched Inglorious Basterds one time since its release, but I have rewatched every single Christoph Waltz scene more times than I can remember.  I asked ChatGPT for movies where Waltz was a similarly dominant presence, and it recommended this – a comedy wherein he features alongside JODIE FOSTER!!, Kate Winslet, and that guy from Step-Brothers who isn’t Will Ferrell.  Four parents meet in a room to discuss what to do after their respective children get in a fight that ends with broken teeth. They get into a lot of side discussions and there’s interesting shifting character dynamics: different characters side with one another in different scenes depending on where the conversation is going. (This gets…more interesting after a bottle of 18 year old single-malt Scotch is uncorked.)  This is a difficult movie to summarize, but if you’re into character drama like myself it’s quite a treat, especially with heavyweights like Waltz and Foster aboard. A plausible drinking game could be composed of the times that Waltz and Winslet take on or take off their coats and attempt to leave.  

No Country for Old Men, 2007.  I watched this for Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin. Brolin plays a hunter who stumbles upon the scene of a violent shootout, with a bunch of dead suits and deader Mexicans and a bag containing $2 mill.  Brolin takes the money, but doesn’t realize the bag has a tracker in it. Soon he’s being stalked by a dead-eyed psychopath,   a killer-for-hire (Javier Bardem)  who Tommy Lee Jones is also after. Good drama, but bleak ending. I…don’t like watching Javier Bardem. He’s unsettling. Both films I’ve seen him in (Skyfall being the other), I kept wanting him to go away.

The Mexican, 2001.  Brad Pitt is a working boy in hock to a gangster  trying to move a stolen antique pistol (“The Mexican”) that’s supposedly cursed; his girlfriend Julia Roberts wants him to give up his ways of Amateur Minionry and go work in an office managing TPS reports or something.  When Pitt arrives in Mexico, things go south: his contact gets nailed by a falling bullet from morons shooting their pistols into the air to celebrate  some Mexican holiday, and then some random hoods steal his car that has the priceless antique in it. Gandolfini plays an oddly empathetic hitman who wants the pistol back, so he kidnaps Julia Roberts. Then he picks up a postman in a bar, and the three of them have a merrie old time  dancing and talking about relationships while Brad Pitt is trying to find “The Mexican” and not get knocked off by his bosses or a legion of people in Mexico who want it.  It’s an interesting mix of action-drama and comedy.

If I do watch anything tonight, I’ll just add it to September’s list.