I went to London with my parents and sister in February. Ostensibly to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday earlier in the month, we had a week in the city, visiting local sites like Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the National Gallery, the Tower of London, and the British Museum. We also took in tea at the Savoy, as well as productions of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Phantom of the Opera.
I posted a whole bunch of other photos here:
A few random photos from my trip this past week to London pic.twitter.com/NxJCeQK53m
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 29, 2020
Meanwhile, I read 6 books in February:
- This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki
- Giant Days (Vol. 1) by John Allison
- Zero (Vol. 1) by Ales Kot and others
- Bitch Planet (Vol. 2) by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro
- March (Book Two) by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
- Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker
I didn’t read as many short stories—that week of travel is partly to blame—but there were a few I particularly liked:
– "Across the Ice" by @xasymptote (@strangehorizons)
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
– "And All the Trees of the Forest Shall Clap Their Hands" by @pensyf (@UncannyMagazine)
– "A Statement in the Case" by @theodoragoss (@LightspeedMag)
– "A Hench Helps Her Villain, No Matter What" by @izzyxen (@escapepodcast)
And I watched 23 movies in February.
Not everything about LAST ACTION HERO is terrible, just most of it. Obviously I’m late to the game on that opinion—it was a well-publicized bomb in 1993—but sometimes you just have to see these things for yourself. pic.twitter.com/mR7eK7HU3L
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 2, 2020
PARASITE is wonderfully strange. Not a wholly unexpected thing from a Bong Joon-ho film, but I really liked it a lot. pic.twitter.com/6r1a91Qeuu
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 2, 2020
I’m not gonna lie, I really liked 1917. Does it have much of anything to say _about_ WWI—except, you know, maybe that it was _bad_? Probably not. But it’s beautifully shot and genuinely thrilling. I’m glad I saw it in theaters. pic.twitter.com/RgLyUevsUH
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 9, 2020
Cocteau’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is full of sublime beauty shining through its low-fi effects. It's not hard to see how it's a movie that would have enraptured a young Martin Scorsese or Guillermo del Toro. pic.twitter.com/a25epR793x
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 9, 2020
The best thing about CAT PEOPLE is the David Bowie song, which doesn’t play in anything approaching its entirety until the end credits. Managing to be lurid but not sexy, grisly but not very good, it’s an unconventional approach, to be sure, to the Val Lewton classic. pic.twitter.com/9vUUrYnyUS
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 9, 2020
Antonio Banderas is fantastic and heartbreaking in PAIN AND GLORY. pic.twitter.com/NKZbS0uluW
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 9, 2020
There are a lot of great performances in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, not least of all by Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner. It’s the classic Hollywood story about itself…but you know, on Oscar weekend, so soon after Douglas’ death, perhaps you’ll indulge me? pic.twitter.com/W7iDdqXWYO
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 9, 2020
I LOST MY BODY is a strange and sad and sometimes surprisingly scary journey, completely unique. pic.twitter.com/SaHtyRLk3G
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 9, 2020
I have a certain strange fondness for Suicide Squad, despite it being an ugly mess of a movie, and a whole lot of that fondness comes from Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn. So it’s not exactly a surprise that BIRDS OF PREY is a whole lot of fun. pic.twitter.com/KQeLKJ8EGR
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 16, 2020
My only problem with 1968’s OLIVER—and I’m going to admit, this might be a big problem for a musical—is that I don’t much like the music. pic.twitter.com/gWZ9MZgkYY
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 16, 2020
FORD V FERRARI is a very good movie. Is it a great movie, or even Oscar-worthy? Maybe not—it’s hard to deny the stakes are pretty low or root for the “underdog†of the Ford Motor Company—but it’s cannily directed, both lead performances, particularly Bale’s, are terrific. pic.twitter.com/SDJdmeehm0
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 16, 2020
Sidney Poitier notwithstanding, TO SIR, WITH LOVE is not a very good movie. It's hard to imagine it was even before it felt so dated. If it’s remembered largely for the title song, that’s partly because it’s over-used in the movie, but also because the rest isn’t very compelling. pic.twitter.com/eK5A8wWVsU
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 16, 2020
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (said George Pal to his bride) is a little boring, to be honest, and its Oscar-winning special effects are more than a little dated. But it has some 1950s sci-fi charms (if few genuinely terrible thrills). pic.twitter.com/xXn85PRW9k
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 16, 2020
“Movies like [BREAKING AWAY] are hardly ever made at all,†wrote Roger Ebert in his original review; “when they're made this well, they're precious cinematic miracles.†pic.twitter.com/nBgdW5ZGlN
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 16, 2020
1982’s THE ENTITY is an odd and unnerving movie, helped enormously by setting its terrors against the banal, and by the central performance by Barbara Hershey. Martin Scorsese didn't name it one of his favorite scariest movies for nothing. pic.twitter.com/jW1yKXZXbI
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) February 16, 2020
I honestly don’t have anything to say about I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG, but I enjoyed it. pic.twitter.com/LVFTO6WTd8
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
VILLAINS wouldn’t work half as well—or well at all, maybe—without its cast. It’s an entertaining enough black comedy. pic.twitter.com/G0Hrikl4Uk
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
I don’t think you need me to tell you A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM is entertaining, but it is. pic.twitter.com/AL6YgroMd6
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
I started out not enjoying JOJO RABBIT. I’m all for making buffoons out of Nazis, but that’s all it appeared to be doing at first—almost letting them off the hook with a "get a load of these idiots!" But somewhere along the way, the movie deepened quite a lot for me. pic.twitter.com/OzseWOAhQD
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
Julie Christie is very good in DARLING, for which she won an Oscar, but the movie has since become more than a little dated (if it wasn’t already at the time), and it’s of more interest as a time capsule than a film. pic.twitter.com/GUS37i8kgM
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
Despite a game cast and of the occasionally well-staged set-piece, 2019’s CHARLIE’S ANGELS isn’t particularly good. While it’s easily a step up from the 2000 and 2003 versions (of which it’s absolutely determined to be a sequel, not a reboot), that isn’t exactly high praise. pic.twitter.com/KLPG02cRfQ
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
Jessie Buckley gives a fantastic, what-they-used-to-call-star-making performance in WILD ROSE. pic.twitter.com/Ivu81kzmPh
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
Perhaps the strangest thing about ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP is that it exists. Can we expect another random sequel to this now-franchise in 2029? It’s entertaining enough for what it is, recreating the barely remembered comedic thrills of the first, but it’s nothing more than that. pic.twitter.com/eFWE4p0UBQ
— Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) March 1, 2020
And finally, here’s the music that was new to me in February: