Category: Uncategorized

  • Eras, golden ages, long decades – periodising the movies

    I wrote this to avoid writing about Disney’s big hit of 1946 — Here’s another post lifted from my cinema history newsletter GROSS. I’m reviewing the top-grossing Hollywood movie from…

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  • Apex capitalism

    The Apple Vision Pro represents the end of something. Or possibly the beginning. It’s an apex product from an apex economy. — (updated on 10 June with some new market…

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  • La Calahorra, Andalucia, 1982

    A beautiful village on the edge of a dusty plain on the Northern edge of the Sierra Nevada in Southern Spain. More on Flickr.

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  • On the spectrum

    Two novels, one small and mean, one vast and generous, both magnificent — This year I started a bookclub in our house – with mixed results if I’m honest. It’s…

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  • Skycaps on a break

    From the archives. At JFK, 24 April 2005. They’re telling me about the previous Friday night’s $205M Michigan lottery win.

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  • Offset

    More like this on old-school photo-sharing site Flickr. And, incidentally, I’ve been sharing my pics to Flickr for twenty years, which is making my head spin a bit. Still the…

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  • Three films that are not one hundred years old

    My Substack newsletter is called GROSS. I’m writing about all the top-grossing films since 1913 – but I’ve made an exception for the new year and reviewed three films from…

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  • Final act for the streamers

    Netflix introduced ads and now Amazon Prime too. It’s your fault. — It’s a three-act drama — In act one it’s about growth—extravagent, out-of-control, venture-funded growth—you remember that. Piling on…

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  • ‘Working class golf’ – the posh media will never understand it

    Broadcasters and journalists – please stop trying to explain darts. — I know you were privately educated and find darts to be kind of exotic – like chicken shops or…

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  • No not that one, the other one

    NAPOLEON, ABEL GANCE, GAUMONT, 1927, 330 MINUTES. — I’m publishing the occasional post from my newsletter about the history of film here on the blog. This one concerns the biggest…

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