Best Theatre of 2024

I have to admit, I didn't do a great job of keeping track of, and certainly not reviewing, what I saw this year, but I did see a lot of theatre, most of which was good or even great.  Let's see what I can reconstruct for 2024.

Jan.

i am your spaniel by We Quit Theatre @ Buddies.  (This was very good, but I did not like the other two plays put on by We Quit Theatre.)
Better Living by George F. Walker @ Alumnae
Diana and Casey @ Soulpepper.  (It was ok, but not really my thing.  I found many elements of the play to be predictable and/or emotionally manipulative.  A few critics put this on their best of lists.)
Two Noble Kinsmen by Shakespeare @ Shakespeare Bash'd (A good production of a minor play.)

Feb.

MacBeth: A Tale Told by an Idiot @  Eldritch Theatre/Red Sandcastle Theatre

(I saw something else at Theatre Centre in Feb., but didn't care much for it.)

March

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard @ Mirvish

April

The Inheritance @ Canadian Stage (Technically, Part 1 was in March...)
Staged reading of The Knight of the Burning Pestle - Shakespeare Bash'd
shaniqua in abstraction by bahia watson @ Crow's Theatre
Mad Madge @ Theatre Centre
El Terremoto @ Tarragon
Huff by Cliff Cardinal @ Crow's Theatre (This almost didn't happen because he had to cancel a performance, but I was able to catch one the next day.)

(I actually traveled out to Hamilton to see Lobby Hero, but it was so cliched, not a good play at all.)

May

First Métis Man of Odesa @ Soulpepper
The Wrong Bashir by Zahida Rahemtulla @ Crow's Theatre
Seven methods of killing kylie jenner @ Obsidian/Crow's Theatre (I didn't love this, and it would have spoken much more to my son who is deep into social media, but it had it's moments)

June

Age is a Feeling by Haley McGee @ Soulpepper (I liked this so much I went back a second time and saw nearly all of the segments I missed on my first viewing.)

July

Toronto Fringe - I liked Gringas (aside from the ending), James Roque in Champorado, the improv show Before We Go, All of Our Parents are Immigrants, and You Lost Me.

Aug.

Hamlet @ High Park/Canadian Stage (The acting was terrific, though the director's vision for the play was completely warped and made this an inferior experience.)

Sept.

Fierce by George F. Walker @ Alumnae
London Assurance @ Stratford
Twelfth Night @ Stratford
Girls Unwanted by George F. Walker @ King Black Box (Amazing.  Probably the single best thing I saw in 2024.)
Infinite Life by Annie Baker @ Coal Mine (This really dragged, and the plot was unusually thin even by Baker's standards.)

Oct.

1939 @ Canadian Stage (This was ok, though I couldn't believe how much attention they gave to the priest's flatulence.  I mean really?)
Who's Live is it Anyway @ Massey Hall (the improvising was amazing, but the seats were terrible)
This Feels Like the End @ Buddies/Toronto Fringe (I just couldn't get past the premise that the sun would disappear but plants would keep growing and the moon would still be in the sky.  In general, the acting was solid but the ending was completely confusing.  So I guess not a success but still interesting.)
Something Rotten @ Stratford (The bus ride was totally horrible, but we made it just in time and the musical was terrific!)
Goblin Macbeth @ Tarragon (Also terrific.)
Wonderful Joe by puppeteer Ronnie Burkett @ St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts (it is astonishing how much emotion Burkett conveys through his puppetry)

Nov.

Staged reading of Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy - Shakespeare Bash'd
I Don't Even Miss You @ Factory (Again, the SF premise was completely implausible and really took me out of the play.  Too bad...  And I really thought the talk-back would focus much more on environmental disaster and theatre and instead it was almost entirely about artistic process and making art as a couple.  Sigh.)
A Case for the Existence of God @ Coal Mine
Interior Design @ Tarragon
Playing Shylock @ Canadian Stage
Dead Broke by Will King @ Theatre Centre (I didn't feel this ghost story was sufficiently grounded, and the "internal rules" of the play kept shifting)
McNeal by Ayad Akhtar @ Lincoln Center, NYC (The main reason to see this was to catch Robert Downey, Jr. in the flesh, though Andrea Martin was also quite amusing.)
The Bidding War @ Crow's Theatre
Erased @ Theatre Passe Muraille (This piece had very strong connections to Caryl Churchill's Far Away.  I didn't see a single review that pointed this out, which seems bizarre.)

(I was supposed to see Timon of Athens at Theatre Centre, but I just had too many things to deal with before my trip to NYC and DC; I ended up forfeiting the ticket, which is extremely rare for me.)

Dec.

Big Stuff by Baram and Snieckus @ Crow's Theatre  (Very moving show about grieving for lost relatives and having trouble letting go of things that are reminders of them.  Suggestions from the audience are woven into the narrative.)
The Master Plan by Michael Healey @ Crow's Theatre/Soulpepper (I managed to score rush tickets to this remount of The Master Plan at Soulpepper.  Almost the entire cast returned, though Healey himself joined the cast and plays a tree!)
It Sees You When You're Sleeping by Phil Rickaby @ Red Sandcastle (A creepy cautionary tale on why parents should avoid bringing Elf on the Shelf into their homes.)

The single best play was Walker's Girls Unwanted, but Age is a Feeling, Goblin Macbeth and Big Stuff were also terrific, as was The Master Plan, though this was my second time 'round seeing it, so there wasn't the same element of surprise.  The best (and quite possibly the only) musical of the year was Something Rotten, which I saw at Stratford.  I just don't have the energy right now to do more fulsome reviews, but I do think I managed to track down pretty much everything I saw in 2024, with a few strategic omissions...

Sing-for-Your-Supper showed up for 3 months or so at Assembly Theatre (I made it twice), then the new custodians got burned out and pulled the plug right around the time of the Toronto Fringe (which was a pretty solid season, btw).  They may restart in 2025, but I'm getting a little tired of being jerked around and may just go off and do my own thing to have some sort of creative outlet.  Mostly, I just need to find the time to write down everything I've jotted down while at the Rex, and then I suppose I can worry about what to do with it all.  Not the worst problem in the world to have...

Last 2024 Updates

Generally, 2024 was a dumpster fire with the U.S. election just the icing on the cake, leading to what will clearly be a shitty 2025 and beyond.  I've certainly lost what remaining respect I had for Americans, and there certainly wasn't much left to begin with.  Probably it's just as well that Jimmy Carter passed away in time for Biden to give him a dignified farewell, since the Orange one would have been his typical graceless, asshole self.  I cannot wait for the day we hear of his passing.  I was going to throw a party when W. passed away, but it will have to be an even more massive party when Trump leaves this planet, hopefully soon.  I'll have to make more friends just to invite them...

I don't think I'm going to do a full year-end review of all the concerts I saw.  I'm just a bit too tired.  On the classical side, I saw Kronos Quartet (the last time with the classic line-up of Sherba and Dutt!), and they were amazing of course.  Laurie Anderson came to town in April, and she was incredible.  (I do hope she brings her new show to Toronto!)  I actually travelled to NYC to see Pacific Quartet, to make up for getting shafted and having to give up my tickets to see them in Toronto.  I was supposed to see Sheku Kanneh-Mason play at Koerner Hall, and, due to the idiocy of Air Canada, they had to cancel and reschedule the concert for June 2025!  This briefly hit the national news.  It certainly didn't help that the news of the cancellation went out at 5:30 pm that day, so I showed up with almost everyone else to hear the bad news.  

In other bad concert fiascoes, Neil Young cancelled his second show at Budweiser Stage.  I guess The Fixx cancelling their show due to a medical emergency actually happened in 2023, but Kronos cancelled a show in Montreal (that I had tickets for!), and then Perry Farrell essentially decided to break up Jane's Addiction in the middle of a concert, leading to the cancellation of the rest of the tour.  I didn't really care about seeing Jane's Addiction, but I did want to see Love and Rockets (again).  So frustrating!  Still no word if Love and Rockets will tour in 2025 or indeed if The Fixx will make up any of their concerts, let alone come over to Toronto.

The single best rock concert of 2024 was probably Squeeze with The English Beat opening, but I also enjoyed Spoon (as headliners at Danforth Music Hall), 54-40 (also at Danforth), Steve Earle (ditto), The The (Massey Hall), The Killers (though I hated having to stand for the full set!), Sarah McLachlan (the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy tour), Skye Wallace (once at the Great Hall and then 2(!) secret shows), Elvis Costello, and the Psychedelic Furs (though I definitely could have skipped The Jesus & Mary Chain).  Nick Lowe's show was surprisingly good, though I also had to stand for the entire set, partially made up by the fact I was standing near Rob Baker of the Tragically Hip!  I found out at the last minute about a Lowest of the Low gig at the Rivoli (I don't think I had been there before) and actually had to sign up for a spot on the wait list, and I got a ticket at the very last minute.

I really saw a ton of Pedro Almodovar films and enjoyed most of them a lot.  The best one (new to me) was probably Volver, followed by Broken Embraces and then I suppose The Flower of My Secret.  I liked the flashback scenes from Julieta but not the story set in present day, which pretty much matches my feelings about the underlying Alice Munro stories.*  (This more than made up for getting the TIFF membership, but I still fundamentally disagree with the way they run things there and won't be renewing for 2025...)  There are lots of interesting parallels when watching them back to back to back, and I'll try to mention at least a few of these connections at some point.

It looks like I have now managed to see all but 5 of Almodovar's films: Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas, What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Matador, High Heels and Live Flesh.  I suspect the best of the bunch is What Have I Done to Deserve This? (and I am definitely regretting that I went to see Sing-Along Messiah instead, as that didn't turn out particularly well, but I had no idea of course that my son would have gotten so stressed out over it).  I'll see if I can make a bit of a push to watch these in Jan. or Feb., just to wrap up my deep dive into his work early in 2025.  I keep looking to see about getting a t-shirt or magnet celebrating his work, particularly All About My Mother, but am really turned off by the shipping prices.  Maybe I should just bite the bullet and not think about it too much.  (I did save a lot by shipping several books and DVDs to my step-mother in the States, and I now have everything in hand except the massive Bergman box set from Criterion.  I just don't think it would be worth sending a t-shirt for her to bundle together would make a lot of sense...  Now it probably would make sense to send a Mosaic box set, but honestly I think I am done ordering from Mosaic.  I just don't listen to music obsessively the same way anymore, and it would just be a waste of money -- and shelf space.)

I bought a few pieces of art in 2024 and have my eye on one or two more pieces, though really I just don't have much free wall space any longer!

Probably the best art exhibit I saw was the Henry Moore-Georgia O'Keefe exhibit in Montreal in early 2024. 

I also went to Buffalo twice in 2024!  Early in the year to see the Clyfford Still exhibit at the Albright-Knox, and then back again late in the year to see Marisol.  (I had also seen Marisol in Montreal in 2023, but they did change it up just a bit in each venue.)

Marisol, The Jazz Wall, 1963

Marisol, ABCDEFG & HI (with The Family in background), 1961-62

Marisol, The Party, 1965-66

Somehow I keep forgetting that I made a lot of travel for work, including two trips to Edmonton (where the museums are generally dire, though the art gallery does have two terrific Alex Janvier paintings).

Alex Janvier, Lubicon, 1988

Alex Janvier, Grand Entry, 1980

I also made two trips to Vancouver (once for a conference), a trip to northern California, where I was able to take an extra day and hang out in SF (and of course  check out a bunch of museums) and then a trip to Baltimore for the TRB Equity conference.  The equity conference was terrific, but not only did I catch COVID at the end, though the symptoms passed quickly, but the Crowdstrike IT meltdown ended up stranding me in Atlanta!  Ultimately, I took a Greyhound bus back to Detroit and then Flixbus on to Toronto.  I may be conflating trips, but I think this is also the trip where my iPod finally gave up the ghost.  I tried several things to try to reboot it and resurrect it, but I think it is completely dead.  I'm not entirely sure if I would replace it even if I could.**  Generally, these trips are not documented very well, at least on the blog.  I do have well over 3000 photos from all these trips, and I could probably throw at least a few of them up here.  

I guess I sort of forgot that I went to the Banksy exhibit in the fall.  

Banksy, Grim Reaper, 2005

Banksy, CYW Green, n.d.

It was fine, but it certainly wasn't the most interesting local art exhibit.  That honor would go to Keith Haring at the AGO.  While it opened in 2023, I saw it several times, including in March 2024 right before it closed.

Keith Haring, Red Room, 1988

I haven't documented it well (yet), but the recent New York & Washington DC trip was completely over-stuffed with trips to museums of all sorts, and indeed my legs were really hurting by the third day, which is a new (and most unwelcome) development.  Getting old does suck...  Maybe I will soften my stance about not going back to the States, but it felt like a bit of a farewell trip, and I am assuming I won't go back until the Orange one is out of office, one way or another.

I guess this is the last day to give to charity, though I did hear that the feds may extend the deadline.  I gave to quite a few charities on Giving Tues.  I really had meant to give to Coal Mine, but then just missed the deadline for matching donations by a day.  I guess in the end it doesn't really matter, but it does irk me.  I should probably go back through the list of charities I typically give to and see if I missed any.  I don't make resolutions any longer (like to be more patient or understanding of others), though I have generally been keeping to my exercise regime (though I probably should add back one more trip to the gym or swimming pool per week now that I am barely biking) but not really to any sort of diet.  I am supposed to try to lose another 10 or 15 pounds, but that clearly won't happen until I buckle down and stop eating excessive carbs and/or junk food.  Sigh.

While I clearly have very low hopes for 2025, hopefully I am wrong and it ends up being a decent year after all.


* And of course, 2024 did Alice Munro no favours.  It was only a few weeks after she passed that we learned what a miserable mother she had been.  No question she is already cancelled in the hearts of many of her strongest admirers, and I expect her legacy will remain forever tarnished.  What this means in terms of her place in the Canadian cannon is yet to be determined, but it certainly can't help.

** I did have to replace my phone at some point.  While I did appreciate the much better camera (and storage for photos and video!), I do not like the fact that this messed up the interface between Ticketmaster and Google Wallet, which still isn't resolved and is a total drag.  At least Google Wallet works for other events that are not connected to Ticketmaster.

Best Books of 2024

2024 started off pretty well in terms of what I was reading but then I found quite a few books that didn't live up to the hype, including Koestler's Darkness at Noon.*

Top books for 2024:

Lucia Berlin A Manual for Cleaning Women
Tim O'Brien America Fantastica
Dawn Powell The Golden Spur

These two are just on the cusp, but I didn't really care for the way they ended:

Salman Rushdie Fury
Joy Williams The Quick and the Dead

Here are a baker's dozen of other novels that I found somewhat interesting and/or enjoyable throughout the year:

I.B. Singer Scum
Eric DuPont Songs for the Cold of Heart 
John Steinbeck East of Eden 
James Baldwin Go Tell It On the Mountain
Edna O'Brien August is a Wicked Month
Mary McCarthy The Group
Naguib Mahfouz Fountain and Tomb
Margaret Drabble The Ice Age
Camilo José Cela The Hive (perhaps a bit unfair to place it here as this was a second reading, though the first time reading the uncut version of the text)
Rebecca Rosenbaum These Days Are Numbered (more of a Facebook scroll/journal than a novel)
William Kennedy Ironweed
Kathryn Ma The Chinese Groove/Gish Jen Typical American (these two are almost the same novel!  I liked The Chinese Groove better)

The best book re-read was Barbara Pym's Excellent Women.

However, I also enjoyed going through Boccaccio's Decameron for a second time at least most of the time.  Some of the stories are very amusing, though if I recall it ends with Patient Griselda, and this is a tale I don't care for at all (nor does Margaret Atwood for that matter...).

I'm going to start off 2025 with Rulfo's Pedro Páramo after all, as I was able to dig it out of a box in the basement without too much trouble.  I'm also going to be alternating the 7 books of Mutis's Maqrol with short stories, wrapping up Munro's Runaway and then turning to Joy Williams's Taking Care.  

* I actually just wrapped up Yasmin Zaher's The Coin, and I did not like this at all, much like Han Kang's The Vegetarian, which was grossly overhyped and made for an extremely unpleasant read.  In both cases, they are at least were short novels.  In a general sort of way, I am glad to run across an immigrant novel that takes chances and shows the main character not as sort of a secular saint, but a fairly pathetic, often petty person, who in this case suffers some weird psychic meltdown generally reserved for WASPS.  To be completely fair, this passage near the end is solid:

I guess it {the button} had found its way into the locked park, into the roots of the bush, and then back to me. That’s what it was all about. It was karma. It was spiritual, but also physical. Whatever you put out there in the world, it came back to you. It was a closed system, a reinforced planet. Garbage circulated, the same people kept showing up on the subway platform. We think the possibilities are endless but it’s an illusion. The Federal Reserve keeps printing money, but otherwise there are a finite number of particles in this world. We are mortal, but matter is constant.

Anime for the Holidays

As mentioned, Toronto theares (at least the Revue and Carlton) have a bit of a tradition of showing Tokyo Godfathers at this time of year.  I took my son to it yesterday, and he enjoyed it.  I focused more on all the incredible near-death experiences the characters faced.  Anyway, it really is quite solidly entertaining.  No one I have been chatting with seems to be aware of this holiday tradition.  It's definitely worth checking out if you have never seen it.  Now whether I go myself for a third or fourth viewing, i.e. really making it a holiday tradition, is definitely up in the air.

Clearly, programmers at both cinemas have a strong interest in anime.  As far as I can tell, the folks at the Revue are not too interested in the Ghibli Studio films.  While Carlton Cinema was shut out of the 2023 Ghibli Fest (so I had to trek up to Richmond Hill to see several of the films!), they show the individual films once in a while.  I am still hoping that they will show Howl's Moving Castle in 2025, and will keep an eye out.

While I missed seeing Akira in its most recent showing at Carlton, I did catch Perfect Blue and Paprika there.  This may have been how I heard about Tokyo Godfathers in the first place, and then while researching it, I found that it was often shown in Toronto in Dec.  I watched it the first time at the Revue, but from here on out, I would most likely just see it at Carlton.

As far as I can recall, I have not seen Kon's Millennium Actress.  Somewhat surprisingly, Robarts (which does have a fair bit of anime in its collection) only has a link to watch it on Criterion on Demand, which I won't have access to.  So I will just have to see if Carlton (or the Revue) show it in 2024.  I would probably watch Paprika for a second time.  I'm not as sure about Perfect Blue.

I saw that Kon was involved in a TV series called Paranoia Agent.  I have to admit, the mini-review doesn't really grab me, and I am generally avoiding picking up any more TV series to watch.  

Now I keep missing the original Heavy Metal film from 1981, so will make a bit more of an effort the next time it comes around.  Heavy Metal 2000 is showing over at the Revue, but the reviews are pretty weak.  What is a bit intriguing is that the people involved in Heavy Metal 2000 then came up with a series (apparently on Netflix) called Love, Death & Robots that may be worth checking out.

One thing that I really do need to sit down and watch (maybe after I have wrapped up the last season of Futurama that is currently available) is Cowboy Bebop.  I picked up a box set of the series a while back, and I probably have the movie floating about somewhere.  I should see if I can dig everything out to have it ready to go (when I actually have some time...).  I have a note from Google that Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001) is set between episodes 22 and 23 of the original Cowboy Bebop series, so I'll keep that in mind as well.

Anyway, at the end of Jan., Carlton is showing The End of Evangelion.  Some Googling tells me that this is sort of a reworking of the conclusion Neon Genesis Evangelion series -- and that I would probably want to watch the clip show Evangelion:Death beforehand to really understand the movie.  I might do that, and Evangelion:Death seems to be on Netflix.  What is particularly strange is that the main creator then went back and redid the whole series as Rebuild of Evangelion.  I probably won't feel compelled to watch this, however.  Oddly enough, three of the four DVDs in Rebuild are in the TPL and the last one is available on Blu-ray at Robarts.  So never say never, I guess.  Anyway, I need to get some real work done today, so I had better split for now. 

Year Winding Down

I've been sort of updating my 2024 reading list in the background.  It's going to be a lot harder for me to recreate all the theatre (and concerts) I saw in 2024, but I can probably do it.

Unfortunately, work has not slowed down this week, though most of my co-workers did take off, leaving me to try to do a lot of error checking and rebuilding files that were not left in very good condition.  I was not happy about that at all.  Indeed, the receptionist and I were the only ones to come in to work today, though two of my team members were remote at least part of the day.  But no point dwelling on that.  I will try to do at least one fun thing tomorrow (aside from opening presents) and on Boxing Day.  As it happens, my computer is dying, and one of the things I did was buy yet another external hard drive to back up everything, which I have done now.  I might as well see if there are some Boxing Day sales on desktop machines.  I really don't want to have to transfer over all my programs and tweak them.  I remember that the "official" update of Kindle doesn't work for me, so I have to find on which version I finally landed on.  Maybe I will get lucky and the new version of MailStore will work with Bell.  Still, it's going to be a huge drag, and I am dreading it.  In addition, my wife's laptop died overnight, so this morning we ran over to the mall to get a replacement at Staples, then I headed off to work.

At least I don't have to scurry around wrapping presents.  I did all that Saturday evening, and then only had to get the last of the stocking stuffers ready and sign a few physical cards.  Most people get e-cards, of course.  Since we actually did put up the tree this year, unlike last year, I decided to show it off a little bit.

I have a fairly long list of former co-workers that get the cards, though I guess I have dropped a few people over the years.  It is kind of sad that very few people reach out to me first.  Anyway, most people got them in the first wave of cards that went out last Friday.  Then another wave over the weekend, and a few Monday evening.  I do blush to admit that the very last wave went out this evening.

I have convinced my son to go with me to see Tokyo Godfathers at Carlton tomorrow, as almost nothing else will be open.  I don't think I'll end up making this an Xmas tradition, but I guess you never know.  I think I mentioned already that I am taking him to an Almodovar film (Talk to Her) on Boxing Day, and then to see Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on Friday.*  (I wish I could remember where/when I saw Talk to Her, though the most likely case is I watched it on DVD.)  I'm seeing All About My Mother on Sunday (after The Room Next Door!), and I even got an extra ticket to try to bring a friend, though unfortunately the seats are not together.

It's probably worth noting that Mirvish is running a Boxing Day sale on their main shows, including Come From Away, where if you buy one ticket you get the other one for $1 (though there are processing fees as well, of course).  So I bought two tickets (together) for Come From Away in mid Jan.  I plan on inviting someone from work, but I have a few other friends that might be interested if that doesn't work out.

I'm definitely starting to see a few more shows at the Revue, despite it being pretty inconvenient for me to get to, so I don't think I will get a membership there.  I'm definitely going to see La Dolce Vita.  And maybe Waking Life on Jan. 1 (when there is so little else that is open...).  And very possibly Linklater's Before trilogy in Feb., though I need to find out if there are any discounts for seeing all three films in one go.

I'm also intrigued to see that HotDocs is doing a few more screenings of regular films, i.e. not documentaries.  There is a small chance I'll go see Scott Pilgrim at HotDocs on Sat. and a very good chance I'll go see The Big Lebowski on New Year's Eve, most likely going from there to the Tranzac Club to ring in the New Year.

I'm almost certainly going to get through Kennedy's Ironweed and Osipov's Kilometer 101 by the end of the year.  I did finish Munro's For Love of a Good Woman, though didn't like the stories all that much.**  I've sort of put Mutis's Maqrol on the back burner.  I kind of hoped the misadventures of a grifter in Panama and various parts of the West Indies would warm me up (when I am struggling a bit mentally facing up to winter), but it hasn't done so.  It's not that I don't like it, but it doesn't demand to be read (and it's long).  I will probably finish up Zaher's The Coin next and the second half of Munro's Runaway before I return to and wrap up Maqrol.  After that, it will probably be Joy Williams's Taking Care and maybe something by Edna O'Brien and/or Craig Nova.  I should probably just go back to this reading list, and maybe pick a couple more from there like one of Gide's novels or Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time.  And before 2025 is over, I probably should try to get to Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, since I skipped over that to read Runaway.

I think between squeezing in a lot more movies than I have seen in years and some theatre here and there and then reading and essentially rebuilding my computer (and then working too much as always), I probably won't have too much time for anything else, but I guess we shall see.

Happy holidays...

* I don't want to dwell on it, but it turns out he really didn't enjoy Tafelmusik's Sing-Along Messiah because he wasn't really taught to read scores in choir and felt stressed out because he wasn't sure what (and when!) he was supposed to be singing.  I was also pretty lost.  I can read sheet music, though I am extremely rusty, but I was a bit more willing to go with the flow.  I wish I had known he wouldn't have liked it, since I could have seen an Almodovar film instead.  Qué mal...

** I also finished Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women and liked most of the stories, though some were very depressing.  Interestingly, I had also just seen a movie, Mary Go Round, about an alcoholic addiction counsellor who moves back to Niagara Falls to help her estranged father with his struggle against cancer.  The film overall seemed to pair well with Berlin's stories (and life).  Interestingly, Almodovar was supposed to direct a film based on A Manual for Cleaning Women, and it is a bit hard to know how that would have gone, though I suppose there likely would have focused on her reconnecting with her sister who was dying of cancer in Mexico, but it is really hard to say.  At least according to IMDB, Almodovar actually wrote a screenplay with Berlin but then withdrew from the project.  I wonder if he might return to it one day.

Futurama Lives On

I see that 4 years ago, I was writing about how Futurama had been cancelled and even the Futurama comic book had come to an end.  I thought that was the end of the road.  However, somehow the fates aligned, and the show was brought back from the void.

I'm pretty sure somewhere in the blog, I mentioned that Hulu had renewed Futurama (and there was some kerfuffle about the voice actor for Bender holding out for more money, though I don't think he actually got it...).  I have a 3 month trial subscription to Disney+ which is how Canadians watch the show.  I have managed to watch the first "new" season and am two episodes in to the second.  I'll give a few thoughts below.  I am not getting through them quite as quickly as I thought, and I imagine I'll get stung with paying at least one more month for Disney+, though I am definitely going to cancel, unlike a few other things that I seem to forget, like Crave which I never watch.*  (I did, however, cancel Amazon Prime in time...)

I have been poking around the internet, trying to find out if these will ever come out on DVD.  Hulu doesn't seem to be too interested in bringing things out on DVD, so that doesn't bode well, though it is possible that Groening put in a clause that said the new seasons will eventually come out on DVD.  Pretty hard to say.  I don't think there is a lot of buzz around Futurama, and some of the fans or former fans on Reddit have indicated they thought it was past its sell date.  Nonetheless, I just read that Hulu has renewed for two more seasons.  I will have to see if I can hold out until either both seasons are released by the end 2026 or renew for just a month at a time when each season hits each year.

Here are some random thoughts on the first season - some SPOILERS ahead

SPOILER WARNING

S11 E01 · The Impossible Stream - the main story about Fry binge-watching was kind of dopey, but the craziness around bringing Calculon out of retirement to film new episodes of All My Circuits was ok

S11 E02 · Children of a Lesser Bog - I generally find stories about Amy and her terrible parents pretty funny.  I do wonder if the chronology was off in terms of how old the children were supposed to be.  The part about almost all their DNA coming from Leela was an interesting twist.

S11 E03 · How the West Was 1010001 - this was not particularly good and stories featuring Hermes usually don't hit the mark

S11 E04 · Parasites Regained - this should have been better (and the worms were always an amusing species) but the ending just didn't work

S11 E05 · Related to Items You've Viewed - pretty decent, including the gag about the entire solar system now being inside a Momazon fulfillment center

S11 E06 · I Know What You Did Next Xmas - also pretty solid episode.  (I should probably queue up all the Xmas episodes over the next couple of days...)

S11 E07 · Rage Against the Vaccine - terrible, definitely the worst of the season

S11 E08 · Zapp Gets Canceled - pretty good

S11 E09 · The Prince and the Product - I didn't think the episodes of the various toy stories were too compelling

S11 E10 · All the Way Down - I thought this was quite good and a bit thought-provoking (if the universe was just a simulation being run by someone in the "real" universe).  Probably the episode closest to classic Futurama.

I've only gotten to the first two in Season 12:

S12 E01 · The One Amigo - the NFT subplot was incomprehensible (which itself was sort of the point), though the heist itself was clever.  Also, Bender connecting with his Mexican roots was not bad.

S12 E02 · Quids Game - this was actually quite good with the right mix of humor and melancholy and seeing a bit more of Fry's parents usually is a winning combination.

I'll try to get to The Temp tonight, which looks promising as well.

I think they may have regained their mojo about midway into Season 11 (aside from the terrible misfire of the Covid-inspired episode Rage Against the Vaccine).  But there's no question I have so much affection for the characters that I will keep watching as long as they keep pumping them out.  Now if only they'll put out more product, especially a shiny new DVD set, that I can buy.  

Too bad it is clearly not going to be something I can buy (for myself) this Xmas.

* One of the more annoying things that happened recently is our cable box gave out and had to be replaced.  They didn't tell us that this meant everything that was stored in PVR would be wiped out.  Now, I probably was not actually going to watch some of that, including Season 1 of The Handmaid's Tale (just too f**ing depressing these days) and the show about a Toronto library that wasn't as good as I hoped (it was basically a poor imitation of Parks & Rec).  But I really had planned on watching the extra-long Venture Bros. season finale.  It will probably be shown again on Adult Swim or Comedy Central or Cartoon Network or somewhere, but it means I need to spend the extra effort to track it down, which I am loathe to do.  I do know it's not on Disney+ or Netflix.  It's supposed to be on Amazon Prime, which my wife may have access to.  If all else fails, I can buy it through iTunes.

Almodovar Update

I never did snag a ticket further back for Labyrinth of Passion, but it was ok from the 2nd row.  Just as with Talk to Her, I realized that I watched this movie after borrowing it from Robarts, though somehow I must have been too tired, as I completely forgot the subplot of the woman from the dry cleaners undergoing plastic surgery to look like Sexilla!  I may have also watched Pepi. Luci and Bom, but perhaps not,* so I requested that again and should have it soon (unless Robarts has shut down for winter break).

I did manage to read the three stories in Munro's Runaway that inspired Julietta.  Two I liked, but I thought the third was pretty sad.  It will be curious if Almodovar covers that much of the woman's life.  He notoriously doesn't like sad endings, so I'm not sure how much he did take from the third story, but I'll find out fairly soon.

There's a pretty good chance I will wrap up both Runaway and The Love of a Good Woman this month.  I might also take on Joy Williams's Taking Care, though I still wanted to see if I could read Kilometer 101 before the end of the year.  Since I am on the TTC a lot more these days, I do get more reading in.  I did ride my bike today as it was just a bit warmer, but I regretted it coming home from TIFF, as the temperature dropped again.  I also found my glove liners, so the whole business of stopping at MEC before Brazil was particularly pointless.  I just have to keep reminding myself not to go back into MEC.

I need to wrap this up pretty soon.  I need to get some rest, since I am leaving early in the morning to take a bus to Buffalo.  I'm mostly going to the Albright-Knox to check out the Marisol exhibit, though I may make it over to Target, though it depends a lot on the timing.  I am taking a slightly earlier bus back (4:25 instead of 6:15), since I don't like hanging out at the Buffalo Greyhound, so I don't have a lot of slack time in the schedule, and I likely will end up cabbing it at least part of the time.

Anyway, when I get back, I will see if I feel up to going to the gym (I only went swimming over the weekend), and I need to wrap a few presents, and I also need to make more progress on getting my expenses into the system.  As always just a few too many things going on all at once.

* I actually later had some back and forth with someone at Robarts who says that their copy is Region 2 (and PAL), which is fine, and has no English subtitles, which is not.  Disappointing, and that clearly means I never did watch this and had watched Labyrinth of Passion instead.  There is one version of Pepi floating around that has burned in subs, though this is out of print.  The same version is on Almodovar Collection 1, available in Region 2.  It turns out that they have 3 of the other films in the set, so are not likely to order it.  I have 2, though I don't have Dark Habits.  I thought it was an interesting film, but probably not one I would watch very often, and I don't want to duplicate the others.  Also, Pepi, Luci and Bom is supposed to be a fairly weak offering, and not something that I would watch more than once.  Maybe I should have tried harder to see it during the retrospective.  Now if Labyrinth of Passion had been included in the box set instead of Women on the Verge, then yes I would have ordered it.  In general I am trying to avoid too much overlap and am waiting to see if Criterion or someone else puts out a truly comprehensive Blu-ray set.  Here's hoping.

Almodovar Count-down

I decided I would go ahead and just list all of Almodovar's films and then I can try to keep track of them and whether I have seen them or not.  If I am scheduled to watch something at TIFF through the end of Dec., I'll just put down TIFF and assume nothing will go wrong (always a risky assumption...).  O stands for I own this on DVD.  (While there is one Blu-Ray Almodovar set, it is mostly the early films, and otherwise Criterion only has singles, and I am trying not to go that route, as I expect one of these days Criterion will put out a Blu-Ray set of his entire oeuvre, though maybe I am just dreaming.)

Pepi, Luci, Bom 
Labyrinth of Passion TIFF
Dark Habits TIFF
O What Have I Done to Deserve This?
O Matador (Own on Almodovar Collection V.2 but not watched)
O Law of Desire TIFF
O Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (TIFF screening will be 3rd viewing)
O Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! TIFF
High Heels
O Kika TIFF
O The Flower of My Secret TIFF
O Live Flesh
O All About My Mother Paradise & TIFF
O Talk to Her TIFF*
O Bad Education Paradise
O Volver TIFF
Broken Embraces TIFF
The Skin I Live In TIFF
I'm So Excited! (Watched on DVD)
Julieta TIFF
Pain and Glory TIFF
Parallel Mothers TIFF
The Human Voice/Strange Way of Life (TIFF showed these two shorts together)
The Room Next Door TIFF

Marking it all down means I really will have seen (or can fairly easily see) all of Almodovar with the exception of Dark Habits** and High Heels.

In terms of my favorites, I rank Women on the Verge first, followed by All About My Mother, Pain and Glory and Volver.  I expect I'll like Talk to Her, which is another highly rated film, and I do hope I enjoy What Have I Done to Deserve This? whenever I finally get around to watching it.  About the only one that didn't do a lot for me was Parallel Mothers.

It's somewhat interesting that I watched Women on the Verge on its initial release (and loved it), and then was so turned off by the plot of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! that I kind of went off Almodovar through the 90s and 2000s (obviously my loss).  It really wasn't until Pain and Glory in 2019 that I started watching his films again on the big screen on their initial release. 

* I was reading something about the plot of Talk to Her, and I realized I have seen it already!  The struggle is figuring out where and when.  I thought the most likely candidate was the Paradise, but it wasn't part of the Queer Cinema Club offerings; Google doesn't appear to think it played at Paradise or at TIFF or even at Carlton either in 2023 or 2024.  It's certainly possible I broke down and watched it on DVD, but I don't recall doing that.  So weird.

** I decided to take a quick look, and while I do have a conflict with TIFF's screening of High Heels, I actually can catch a screening of Dark Habits in a couple of weeks.  (There would have been a conflict with Dark Habits, but Bad Bad No Good was asking a ridiculous price for tickets to a gig at Lee's Palace!  I suspect if this is what they think they are worth, I won't ever see them.  C'est dommage...)  In fact, I got the very last ticket to Dark Habits right after I decided to look!  Fortuitous.  I will still want to check in a few more times to see if I can get a seat a bit further back for Labyrinth of Passion.  

Movies & Books (Dec. 2024)

So hard to believe it is Dec. already!  I'm probably running a bit ahead of where I thought I would be with movies (particularly catching up with a lot I've never seen including The Shining and The Godfather 1 and 2 and then of course this amazing Almodovar festival at TIFF).  While I still find dealing with TIFF incredibly frustrating, I was persistent enough to get tickets to all the Almodovar films that caught my eye, with the exception of What Did I Do to Deserve This, where I have a conflict that just can't be resolved.  As it happens I do have WDIDtDT on DVD, so maybe a bit after the fest ends, I will watch this, as well as lobby for Carlton Cinema to show it as a $5 throwback movie.

Just a quick follow up on Almodovar.  I had totally forgotten that I saw Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on the big screen at Paradise, but not as part of their Queen Cinema Club.  So at the tail end of December I will have seen it for the third time on the big screen, but bringing my son along.  I will also watch Pain & Glory for the second time (tonight in fact) and All About My Mother twice as well.  These are probably his strongest films for me.  The same day as All About My Mother, I am seeing an advance screening of The Room Next Door, which is his first feature length film in English (with Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore).  I'll basically just have time to run between the two.  As it happens, they also added The Apartment even earlier in the afternoon, so you could run between all three.  It's sold out now, and I am wondering if I would even enjoy watching three films in a row, even though I haven't seen The Apartment in its entirety.  I might check back in at a later date.  Anyway, about a week ago, I decided I could squeeze in Kika and The Labyrinth of Passion.  It took quite a few tries, but I finally got a ticket for each, though I am in the second row for Labyrinth, and I will try to get a better seat closer to the time and cancel the one in the 2nd row (or maybe give it to a friend).

On Tues. I went and saw Brazil, probably for the first time on the big screen.  For a long time, this was my favorite movie.  I find the Sam Lowry character to be a bit on the annoying side now, though I don't know that I have any other movie that is clearly my new favorite movie, though possibly Women on the Verge...  I had left work a few minutes late, and then made a stop off at MEC to try to buy some glove liners.  What a mistake.  The place is now quite badly organized and there wasn't anyone to help me, so I had to wait in line and ask the cashier.  Then it was impossible to actually pay for the glove liners, so I just left.  MEC has disappointed me several times in the last few months, and I simply have to expunge it from my mental map as a place worth visiting.  At any rate, I showed up at Carlton at 6:49, which should have been absolutely no issue (because Brazil was actually going to start at 6:55), but there was a line out the door to get tickets to something else.  I have never seen Carlton that busy.  Even the self-serve ticket machine had a long line and didn't seem to be working either.  I asked the guy at the concession stand if I could just pay for the movie (which I think can be done at Market Square) and he said he couldn't help me.  I finally cut into the line and handed the ticket seller $5 and ran in, getting there just seconds before the pre-credits explosion.  (This is quite reminiscent of Taxi Driver where I cut it way, way too close.)  I also was sitting behind someone who was just slightly too tall.  But I enjoyed the movie.  It does make a difference seeing it at that scale, so I'm glad I went, even though it wasn't an ideal experience.

It's taken quite a while, but I finally finished Eric DuPont's Songs for the Cold of Heart.  I didn't like some of the cheap and easy postmodernism early on in novel (the grandmother sticking around forever after dying the first time) and the sheer number of coincidences at the end were annoying (similar to what turned me off on Powning's The Sea Captain's Wife).  The middle sections were pretty good.  I haven't decided if I am going to hang onto my signed copy or try to sell it off.  Probably the latter, but I'll hold off for a few weeks to make my final decision.  

I also finished off Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.  I generally found this too annoying.  I like Murakami's short stories and I remember generally liking After Dark, but a lot of his novels don't work for me, between somewhat passive characters that just let events overtake them and too much woo-woo mysticism.  And his books are too long.  In particular, I didn't much like 1985, which was much too long.  It very much sounds like his latest novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls​​, is just full of everything I don't like about his work.  I suppose I am a glutton for punishment, as I do have a hold on this at the library, though I have suspended the hold for now...

Anyway, this was final wrapping up of the books I had taken on longish trips to Stratford and then to NYC/DC (where I could have finished the book had I stayed awake on the NYC-DC train ride!).  I am planning a trip to Buffalo next week, and I am deciding between Mutis's The Adventures of Maqrol and Soseki's I am a Cat.  And I am also pretty seriously considering making a trip out to Ottawa in March (to finally see Collective Soul as well as Our Lady Peace*), and I suppose I would take the one I don't take to Buffalo if I actually do go to Ottawa.  (I was a bit more successful in finishing Oliver Twist right after my last Edmonton trip, and it didn't drag on quite so long.  Oliver Twist was much better than Nicolas Nickleby, even though the denouement was fairly weak.)

I recently abandoned Thomas Bernhard's Extinction.  It just wasn't working for me.  This blog makes an argument for Bernhard's fiction, but I am still not convinced.  Just not for me, particularly in my current mood.  The novel is just one ridiculously long stream-of-consciousness rant by an uber snob (speaking as a snob myself, he was just too much).  He spends pretty much all of his mental energy running down his recently deceased parents and younger brother.  Nope, not for me.  For a short while I was reading this while cycling at the gym because the other two books were just too long and bulky.  That isn't an issue now that I have switched back to shorter books, and indeed short stories.  I am jumping ahead to read the first 4 stories in Munro's Runaway, since Almodovar's Julieta is based on them, then I will circle back to finish For the Love of a Good Woman (and then most likely finish off Runaway), so a lot of Munro this month, even though I still find her a pretty terrible human being.  But I am interspersing with Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women, where the stories are a bit shorter.

I'm hoping before the year ends, I will actually get to Osipov's Kilometer 101, though this may not happen.  I am reading some much shorter fiction, along with everything else, but I will just have to discuss that at a later time.

Coda: While I initially balked at the dead essentially following Francis around in Ironweed, I am getting used to it, and in fact it is used sparingly in the later chapters.  This does remind me a fair bit of Rulfo's Pedro Páramo.  This novel didn't do a lot for me on first reading, but it is short (and highly praised by others), and I hung onto it.  I am wondering if maybe I should reread this right after Ironweed and then settle whether I want to keep it or not.  Some of the other short books I have in the stack are a book of Orwell's lesser known essays and then perhaps Huxley's The Devils of Loudun. I should be able to squeeze in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, though it is at the bottom of the stack, and recently I added Jelloun's The Last Friend and Azuela's The Underdogs (which would pair well with Rulfo's novel).  As always, too much to read and not enough time to do it in.

* I'm going to wait 2 more weeks to see if they add a Toronto date to this tour, but so far it seems they are only playing smaller cities, in Canada at least.