Oh God, Here We Go Again...
Hi, I’m sorry, how are you? I’m feeling a bit untethered, myself.
My girlfriend and I have learned that our cat is dying. The last few days have been especially rough. It’s only a matter of time now and not even much at that. Yesterday was especially bad: he tumor on the cat’s lower jaw bled twice and she wouldn’t let us wipe her off until she was good and ready. She also refused to eat her Fancy Feast last night, which was especially distressing for me since that’s how I’ve been giving the cat her antibiotics these last few days. Thankfully, she ate some fish paste with a crushed tablet in it, and ate some non-medicated wet food late last night. She had energy this morning, so that’s not nothing. Unfortunately, I will likely have to set up a Gofundme since the cat’s bills have been adding up and we still have to look into hiring a specialist for when the time comes to euthanize her. I really am sorry that I don’t have better news, but this is where I’m at. Paid subscriptions to this newsletter would also help pay the bills, especially as I prepare to move some things into storage and some other things into Jene and I’s apartment. Thanks for bearing with me.
I’ve also been distracted lately by some back-to-back blu-ray supplement deadlines. They’re time-consuming, but I enjoy the work and am happy to be asked to work on some cool projects for the good folks at Arrow, Kino Lorber, Vinegar Syndrome, and more. VS just announced a couple of box sets that I provided new audio commentaries for, including this Larry Fessenden twofer of Wendigo (2001) and The Last Winter (2006), for which I recorded a new commentary on Wendigo. They also just announced their first collection of pink movies directed by Hisayasu Sato; I did a new commentary for Re-wind (1988), or Celluloid Nightmares. There’s more and while I’ll try to be more diligent about updating this newsletter in the near future. In the meantime, I wanted to link to Kino Lorber’s upcoming blu-ray of King and Country (1964), Joseph Losey’s WW1 trial drama starring Dirk Bogarde and Tom Courtenay. I recorded a new audio commentary for that one, too. Now it’s your problem.
A pair of book projects have unfortunately fell through, so I’m back to pitching other ideas while the big one I’ve been sitting on works itself out. It is what it is, as people like to say.
Roger Ebert dot com has a few new reviews from me, including praise for the Toxic Avenger remake and War 2, the latter of which is my favorite recent entry in the Yash Raj Spy Universe, Bollywood’s answer to the MCU.
I’m also happy to report that Boorman and the Devil, my friend David Kitteridge’s new documentary about the making of Exorcist II: The Heretic, will have its world premiere this Friday at the Venice Film Festival. I’m one of the film critics that David interviewed for his movie alongside Bilge Ebiri, Joseph McBride, and Stephanie Zacharek. I’ve seen the movie and am so happy for David. It’s a good one, and I don’t just say that because he caught my good side…
I’m otherwise still sorting some things out, as you might imagine. I may do another lightning round-up of recent movies that I’ve seen in the last few weeks, but think this will have to do for now. If only there were more time in a day, then we’d surely all be happier…