30 January 2017

The real-life Henry James and his friend (boyfriend? lover? manipulator?) Hendrik Andersen, characters in The Master

23 January 2017

What is it? A film, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift (who kept reminding me of Anderson Cooper with dark hair) and Katharine Hepburn, based on a play by Tennessee Williams. Released in 1959. What is it about? A psychotherapist is instructed by a rich woman, Mrs. Venables, to lobotomize her niece in return for a large financial contribution to his hospital, but the one who's nuttier than a fruitcake isn't the niece. What did I think? Wonderful!...

16 January 2017

What is it? A novella, originally published in German in 1912, first published in book form in English in 1925. What is it about? Do I really need to tell you? Oh boy, does that sound snobbish?! (An aside: Have you ever noticed how, just because someone knows about something, they assume everyone knows about it?) Okay, here goes: It's the story of an esteemed German writer, Aschenbach, who falls in love with and/or becomes obsessed by a beautiful adolescent boy during a visit to Venice and...

09 January 2017

Your moustache looks fine today, John. So, what is this thing you're reviewing? Thanks for the compliment. Well, it's a play, produced in the UK, script published by Methuen Drama in 2010. To be precise, I'm reviewing the script, not the play (which I've never seen). What is it about? It's an epic overview of gay life in England from the 1960s to the present day, a portrait created through interwoven fictional stories, actual historical characters (Margaret Thatcher, Mary Whitehouse), and...

01 January 2017

Statue of Saint Sebastian in Olomouc, Czech Republic, taken by me in June 2015.