Music? Art?

Quote:Silvesterchlausen
Andrew Norman Wilson
Silvesterchlausen is a mysterious tradition that takes place every New Year in Switzerland’s Appenzell. Groups of six men dress in ornate costumes and engage in wordless, polyphonic yodeling and rhythmic bell clanging. The ritual has been performed for at least 500 years, but nobody knows how or why it began.

Boys form groups of “Chläus” and continue throughout their lives until the members are too old to withstand the physical toll of the 18 hour days. In the preceding month, costume preparation and yodeling practice takes over. During this “Chläuse Fever,” the bonds between members of each group are more important than family/marital bonds.

On New Year’s, Chläuse sew a thread from house to house, binding the community together again each year. Villagers serve them mulled wine to keep them warm and festive.

Because the tradition lacks a definitive meaning, this film immerses viewers in its sensory dimensions.

https://letterboxd.com/film/silvesterchlausen-2025/

Nuremberg. It's a battle of wits between Rami Malik's Psychiatrist  and Russell Crowe's Herman Göring set agains the backdrop of the Nuremberg trials held in 1946. Michael Shannon is the presiding prosecutor determined to hold the first of their kind war crimes trials to make the Nazis pay for what they did.

Malik's psychiatrist is dragooned into doing psychological profiles of the 20 or so prisoners to make sure they don't commit suicide and to find their weakness for trial. Göring knows he is smarter than all of them and is looking for a way out.

The movie hops between the psychological drama and historic scenes to show what happened at Nuremberg. The worst part coming during the trial when actual footage from the concentration camp is shown. It was hard to keep watching and it seemed like it went on forever.

At the end, there is a big message about Nazis never really going away which seemed directed at the situation we find ourselves in today.

Great cast if a bit preachy. No sword fights.

Anaconda! Come on. This would have killed back in the day, sitting around with the brotherhood in one of our living rooms.

It's a reimagining of the original. Jack Black and Paul Rudd want to go back and do a remake of the original movie. They are too clueless to realize they way in over their heads as the head to the Amazon with Thandie Newton and Steve Zahn to round out the cast. Oddly, Rudd plays the Jack Black role and Rudd plays the Jack Black role. It's occasionally amusing as the cast bumps into illegal gold miners. Most of movie is in the trailer with a few scattered scenes of freshness.

It's a cheesy dumb comedy. It's a good brain off flick. And I mean way off.

Yes, The Queen is out of town. Why do you ask?

Galdikas was the last of the 'trimates' - her passing is preceded by Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. All three women were associated with Louis Leakey and each chose a different primate - Goodall: chimps; Fossey: great apes; Galdikas: orangutans. 

When we took our epic backpack across Asia trip in '97, we were scheduled to stay at Galdikas' research facility in Borneo. We gave a donation which granted us access, and we were to support the research team somehow. The info was intense. Apparently women on their periods would be picked up and raped by the orangs so it was advised to stay in the complex if that was happening. There were all these protocols for safety because we'd be out there in the jungle with the orangs, not to mention the headhunter tribes of Borneo. But as fate would have it, there was a major wildfire in Indonesia and Borneo was downwind, so the research center was closed to visitors. We had to change our plans and ended up in Bali instead, which is a whole other tale. What an adventure working with Galdikas would've been.

One half of Seals & Crofts, probably the only Baha'i rock stars. Surprisingly he was 87. Giving respect for Diamond Girl and Summer Breeze, two great 70s classics. And he played electric mandolin, which is kind of cool.

Is this thing on?

Bradley Cooper directs and co-stars in this film about Will Arnett doing stand-up one night rather than paying the cover at the comedy club. This starts him on the road to being a stand-up comic. Hilarity ensues. Or not. Arnett is struggling with his marriage to Laura Dern and most of his sets talk about his struggles. The movie charts his journey from doing open mic nights to finally getting a guest spot. 

The film would be a whole lot better if some of Arnett's comedy was actually funny. But it's not. It's all kind of sad, especially one night after a particularly egregious fight with his wife he just goes on stage and rants. The movie is based on a true story and Cooper is trying to say something about marriage, I guess. But I don't know what that is.

No sword fights.

(02-26-2026, 12:30 AM)Drunk Monk Wrote: Pretty Lethal

I liked it. It covered quite a lot of ground, was a nice tribute to Hillel, touching, sad. 

TIL: He played on the demo, but Hillel didn't play on the first RHCP album (which I thought was their best, but I learned from the doc, it has only Flea and Anthony on it). 

Recommended if you like music documentaries...

--tg

I was randomly surfing YouTube like I do and this popped up. It stars Philip Ng, who I know personally, and Yuen Qiu, who you may remember as the Landlady in Kung Fu Hustle, or the Karate girl in You Only Live Twice, or as I think of her, one of the seven Little Fortunes alongside with Jackie Chan, Sammy Hung, etc. 

Phil plays a gangster who quickly rises up in the ranks, but then is double crossed at a party where he is blinded. Yep, another blind master. Yuen Qiu is a Kung Fu master/Chinese doctor, who kills a gang boss that set up her cop husband, and gets set to jail. She quickly takes out the jail shot caller, who dominates the toilet paper market, and has a baby, who gets taken away by her jailers. That's all in flashback. Enter Phil, years later, who is tasked to impersonate her long lost son, in a long game revenge play, but then a genuine bond develops. Oh, and she has Alzheimers. 

It play snout like a Kung Fu dramedy, with some crazy juggling fight scenes and amusing over-the-top assassins (a villainess with switchblade-spiked high heels is particularly entertaining). I am biased, of course, because I always enjoy seeing Phil on screen. He gets few emotional scenes too and it's good to see his range. Yuen Qiu seems typecast now as landlady types, older women with fantastic Kung Fu, and that works. It's good to see an older women kick a lotta ass. She still moves very well. 

Mildly D00M recommended. 

Seen here on YouTube: