One Last Visit from Janus, and Three Quickie Movie Reviews

Remember my reference to the ancient Roman god Janus last week? Well, I thought that we would pay one last visit with him before we get too deep into the month of January, if we haven't already.

BOOKS

In 2024, I read thirty books.  I'm not going to do a Top Ten list for those books, but here are three of them that I would highly recommend that you read, if you have not already done so:

• "The Big Time, How the 1970's Transformed Sports in America" by Michael MacCambridge
• "When Harry Met Pablo" by Matthew Algeo
• "The Demon of Unrest" by Erik Larson
• "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
• "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White

The first four of these books are non-fiction.  "In Cold Blood" was  published in 1965, and I first read it when I was in high school.  My friend Matthew Algeo, whose name you see above, told me that he re-reads this every three or four years just to appreciate the terrific narrative writing of Truman Capote.

"Charlotte's Web" is a children's book that I read when I was in third or fourth grade.  Chance's are, you read it, too, when you were that age.  Read it again as an adult.  You will get an entirely new appreciation for it.

I have linked all of my original posts on these books to the titles above.

I wish that I would have read more in 2024, but thirty is a nice round number, and that is the number for which I will aim in '25.

Rounds of Golf

I played 17 rounds of golf in 2024, well short of the twenty-five rounds that I had hoped to play.  Some unexpected surgery last spring curtailed my play for several weeks, and some bad weather on Tuesdays also played a role.  I am going to aim for twenty-five rounds once again, but some elective surgery scheduled for June and some travel plans I'm May and September may cause me to come up short once again.  

I am just thankful that at age 73 I am still physically able to consider twenty-five rounds a year to be a reasonable number!

Pirates Games

Last year I set the goal of seeing twelve Pirates games for the season.  I ended up seeing ten, wherein the Bucs went 5-5.  I am going to shoot for twelve once again.  Why do I want to subject myself to Bob Nutting's torture chamber like this?  Chalk it up to a propensity for self-flagellation.

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Okay, I promised three quickie Movie reviews.

This movie about two cousins on a road trip to Poland to visit the birthplace of their late grandmother has been getting some Oscar buzz.  Jesse Eisenberg directed, wrote, and stars in it, and Kieran Culkan won a golden Globe for his performance in it.  It was a good movie, not a great one.  The scene where the tourists visit a concentration camp was quite jarring and good.  Culkin's character was kind of irritating.

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

You may already know that Kieran Culkin is McCauley Culkin's younger brother, but did you know that he played Kevin's cousin Fuller in "Home Alone"?  He was the kid who always wet the bed.

This is a documentary produced and directed by actor Andrew McCarthy wherein he tracks down his fellow actors who were branded as "The Brat Pack" back in the mid-1980's when they were all in their early twenties and starring in teenage coming-of-age movies such as "St. Elmo's Fire" and "The Breakfast Club".  McCarthy got Emilio Estavez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Mare Winningham, and Rob Lowe to speak with him.  Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson took a pass.

It was mainly a 1 hour and 40 minute self-therapy session for McCarthy.

One Star from The Grandstander.

I admit that it was the Bob Dylan biopic, "A Complete Unknown", that spurred me into checking out this 2023 documentary about Joan Baez.  I liked it.  You get to hear Joan Baez sing, see vintage clips of her with Dylan, and see how remarkably well that she has aged (she was 79 years old when this film was made).   I loved her one line when she said that she was never good with one-on-one relationships, but she was great with one-on-six thousand relationships.

For those of you under age fifty or so who have no idea who Joan Baez is, you could do a lot worse that watching this and learning about a remarkable women who was a symbol and an icon of an era.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.