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That is very unfortunate, given that the pressure to cut costs was already pretty evident... The Trib went really big into paywalls a few years back and I basically lost touch with what they were publishing. I thought it was a shame that they couldn't work out a deal that arts reviews were more visible or that arts organizations could quote longer sections in their own publicity. Is Chris Jones, the theatre critic, staying on?

I think it depends what you mean by know. In terms of close friends of course not. But I've lived in five different metro areas and had 7 different jobs where I interacted with roughly 100-200 people (maybe more like 50 on a weekly basis). Now I also don't stay in touch with many people after I've moved on, but certainly some. The working together bit to me is a bit deeper than Facebook friends, and that is definitely close to 500. However, I would concede that some of my LinkedIn connections are not as close as they could be...

I would think probably a majority, esp. people living in cities who just interact with more people. For me the bigger question is how many people will have lost someone in their extended family. I remain very worried about my cousin in Brooklyn and my wife's parents in Chicago. So far, no one has caught it.

Absolutely, I've been astounded watching the shipping price from US to Canada go up (was always higher Canada to US). There can be a few deals to be found here and there, esp. with private sellers on Amazon, but I always pay attention to shipping prices now and I didn't before (10+ years ago) unless it was India to US or something otherwise unusual. Recently I managed to get quite good rates from Network and BFI (direct, not through Amazon.co.uk).

Not specifically Brexit-related but the shipping costs from Amazon.co.uk to Canada and presumably US have gone through the roof . Will probably never order direct from them again but some of the individual sellers have rates more in line with what I used to pay.

So very sorry to hear this, though am absolutely amazed at the caregiver! Will make donation later tonight.

I probably won't get to the actual film for another week or so, but I was watching the extras and was intrigued to learn that Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort was simultaneously shot as a French version and an English version. There are some behind the scenes shots of the choreographer speaking to the principals in English! And quite a bit of dubbing during the songs. It doesn't appear that the English version is available anywhere, which seems quite unfortunate. It surely would have fit on the Criterion Blu-Ray as a bonus feature.

I think there was some confusion in the thread. People were talking about both Ambersons and Touch of Evil (where at the time the Restored version had supplanted the theatrical version). I was focusing just on Touch of Evil. This is the 50th Anniversary version - https://www.amazon.com/Touch-Evil-50th-Anniversary/dp/B01M8PP7EV/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=touch+of+evil+50th&qid=1609996760&sr=8-2 This Blu-Ray also has all 3 versions - https://www.amazon.com/Touch-Evil-Blu-ray-Orson-Welles/dp/B07G2D87JH/ref=pd_sbs_74_1/146-4348742-9713367?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07G2D87JH&pd_rd_r=d21e9e01-9d9f-4465-87bd-c20813c2e60c&pd_rd_w=xChgZ&pd_rd_wg=kPzzY&pf_rd_p=3ec6a47e-bf65-49f8-80f7-0d7c7c7ce2ca&pf_rd_r=29GFN26WNQ744CYP47EB&psc=1&refRID=29GFN26WNQ744CYP47EB The Preview version was longer than the theatrical release. It was discovered in 1976. Some of the extra material was shot by Orson and some by a director the studio brought in for some reshoots after Welles was off the picture, but it is generally closer to what Orson Welles wanted. Then 20+ years later Rick Schmidlin tried to recut the film according to Welles infamous memo to the studio, using material from both versions (and perhaps additional found footage - you'd have to go through the documentary to get those details). That is the Restored version. Apparently the opening shot is quite different (not as much Mancini and no titles to interfere with the extra long shot). It does sound like the Restored version is in this case much closer to what Welles wanted. I'll try to at least get through the first few minutes of all versions over the weekend.

While I'm sure people that are interested found this out long, long ago (2013 to be exact), there is in fact a "50th Anniversary" 2 DVD set that has the theatrical release, plus something called the "Preview version" plus the "Restored version" (with completely different commentaries on all 3!). As well as some quite interesting documentaries on the film. It looks like the main Blu-Ray release from 2018 also has all three versions. I managed to pick up a copy of the DVD set recently and am debating where to start. The Preview version does seem to have the most interesting commentaries but I think I am still leaning towards watching the "Restored version" first.

Still on a bit of a Criterion binge. Had a chance to watch this dark comedy for this first time tonight - The Inheritance by Masaki Kobayashi. Really interesting. Pretty much everyone hatches a scheme to get part of the dying man's inheritance. There was one plot twist that I did catch but I missed whether another character was also plotting or was actually innocent, more or less.

This is the one on Bandcamp, I think. I kept meaning to pick it up on a Bandcamp Friday but kept forgetting. Will try to get to it soon in the New Year. Currently listening to Misty Thursday by Duke Pearson. In general, I've been revisiting a bunch of Whatmusic.com CDs I picked up back in the day (mostly Brazilian music but also Collier's Deep Dark Blue Centre). The label seems to have gone out of business. Most but not 100% of the catalogue has migrated to the streaming services.

I've had Chimes at Midnight as a Spanish import for some time, but finally had a chance to watch the Criterion version (which came out in 2016) where they really got it cleaned up and the sound synced a bit better. https://www.criterion.com/films/28756-chimes-at-midnight I'll probably have to watch it another time or two to decide if it really is up there with Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil, but likely so. Anyway, definitely worth checking out the interview with Beatrice Welles (his daughter who had a role in the movie though apparently they dubbed her voice...)

There are certainly a number of things that I bought for myself that could be considered self-indulgent, but I think probably the Complete Blu-Ray set of Monty Python's Flying Circus is probably right at the top, namely because I already had them all on DVD (on the old A&E set)! No question that the quality is much better and they have restored a handful of deleted/censored scenes. Sometimes this is integrated right into the main episode (the more satisfying way) but when the restored elements were notably lower quality, this is usually treated as a stand-alone bonus feature. Not only did Network remove the VAT from the price, but shipping was free! (Maybe this was because I ordered right before Christmas.) https://networkonair.com/all-products/3077-monty-python-s-flying-circus-norwegian-blu-ray-edition Happy to discuss if anyone wants to buy the DVD set (which is still quite fine all things considered) at a steep discount, though shipping (even to another part of Canada) is likely to be pricey!

While I didn't learn guitar or even banjo, and I didn't brush up on my French, I decided I could actually watch a few of the Great Courses now that Toronto is going into extended lockdown. It turns out that the library has quite a few of these courses on DVD (and they still do a kind of curbside pick up for the moment at least). I've gotten most of the way through Understanding the Quantum World: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/understanding-the-quantum-world Super interesting (and spooky as Einstein said), though I wouldn't say I "understand" it much more than before. Next up is Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime: Understanding Gravity, which might be of a bit more use to my son as he heads into high school physics. (Somehow I don't think he'll need to know quantum physics for the time being.) It's even on sale, though I was happy just borrow it from the library. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/black-holes-tides-and-curved-spacetime-understanding-gravity

Fair -- the story is still developing. Possibly a bit of both... There have been a handful of doctors, including in BC, that are on the verve of having their licenses suspended because of their aggressive anti-vaccine stance. But it really takes the cake that you would try to prevent this from going to others, even if you choose (foolishly in my view) not to take it yourself.

Apparently there are more anti-vaccers than we imagined among the medical community. This is truly infuriating: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/31/wisconsin-health-worker-deliberately-spoiled-500-covid-vaccine-doses I'm glad this person was fired and hopefully will be severely prosecuted.

I do agree, but at some point someone (with questionable judgement perhaps) stuck Osby in such a list. He laughs about it in this interview: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VE0KuENK5akJ:www.jazzweekly.com/interviews/ndpt1.htm+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-b-d (I knew I wasn't completely imagining this.)

Grease would like to have a word with you...

I would say Greg Osby is often lumped in with the Young Lions, though he was musically all over the place in the 90s and 00s. St. Louis Shoes may be his most traditional album.

A Touch of the Blues showed up crazy fast - it was mailed out on the 26! I'm a little sorry I didn't add another CD or two to see about combined shipping, though my wallet thanks me for my restraint... Anyway, I'll be checking this out this afternoon.

While it wasn't a complete artistic success for me, I thought Rushdie's Quichotte had a lot going for it. Probably the best book I read was Camus's The Plague and the best book I reread was Atwood's The Edible Woman. I did reread some key Thoreau essays, and I have to say I get more conflicted each time. The strain of extreme individualism that Thoreau embodies is ultimately extremely corrosive. I also feel he comes across as cold-blooded and somewhat provincial (trying to be an island and proving Donne wrong) in his famous bit in "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For": "And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,—we never need read of another. One is enough." Now this essay tries to reclaim Thoreau by saying that he didn't really mean it that way (and he was mostly against the commodification of the news), but I find the apologists wrong-headed: https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/what-would-thoreau-think-our-24-hour-news-cycle I see no reason to believe he didn't mean what he actually wrote, and he simply wasn't that interested in other people and their fates. I do agree he would be completely aghast at today's society.

I agree with Dan. I've never found KK remotely appealing -- to the point that I would pass up free KK donuts left in the lunch room. (This was somewhat common when KK was just breaking into the Chicago market.) Somewhat ironically there are still a handful of KK outlets in Toronto, though vastly outnumbered by Tim Hortons', while, sadly, there are no Dunkin Donuts franchises anywhere in Canada at all. There was one hanging on in Montreal as late as 2018, but its franchise was not renewed...

Agreed. I put in an order and will likely have it in early Jan. Looking forward to it.

Watched Gilliam's "Final Cut" of Brazil for the first time in many years. I forgot that it is a Christmas movie, much like Die Hard... I did remember the gifts/bribes for officials, but forgot that they were presents. I definitely didn't remember one of the chief officials dressed up as Santa Claus! In my defense, I think this was in the European & Final Cut, and I have only seen the Final Cut twice (counting tonight). Growing up I saw the US theatrical release several times, and I don't think that particular scene is in there, though I could be mistaken. Never taken the time to watch the upbeat "Love Conquers All" version, but there are supposedly quite a few differences and it is much, much shorter (though with a marginally expanded role for DeNiro). Maybe I will one of these days.

I probably should have specified unissued at the time of recording. It's great that BGO has issued/reissued so much material, and this all seems available on the streaming sites. This was very much not the case in the early 2000s.