Posts in: Film and TV

Another thing about The Testament of Ann Lee: it reminded me visually (and to some degree thematically) of Robert Eggers' The Witch, which is my favorite supernatural(?) horror(?) film. I know basically nothing about the technicalities of film but some internet searching tells me other people noticed it as well and it has to do with lighting and period authenticity. Couldn’t prove it by me. I just know both films drew me in visually in similar ways–and something about it deeply appeals to me.

This movie is inspiring a lot of additional thoughts. I have another one brewing but I really ought to do some work today.

I watched The Testament of Ann Lee this morning—thanks to @canneddragons for reminding me of it. Could not have loved it more.

Prestige dramas are too much work

Adam Smith, “The Work of Leisure” (Local Culture, Fall 2025): For Snyder the main obstacle to the rebirth of leisure is our devotion to work. We’re so devoted to work that even our play is workaday, since play for us is recuperation for work, and “we are still toiling when we are watching television,” as Snyder notes. Watching TV is a necessary evil, like work. It’s “like recovering from an injury.

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Rachel and I are watching the X-Files for the first time. (We were around in the 90s but were busy being crazy fundamentalists.) We just watched “Beyond the Sea” and, wow, that was great. When weird stuff started happening to the guy who played Major Briggs in Twin Peaks it caused some flashbacks!

We watched The Mask of Zorro tonight for the first time in many years. What a stone cold classic. I don’t care if it makes me sound old: they don’t make movies like that anymore.

Happen Films is a great New Zealand documentary film company. Their latest is “The New Peasants,” which follows a family living mostly outside the money economy. Worth watching. The opening of the film, where they imagine their peasant ancestors, is something I’ve been thinking about lately.

If I had to, I think I could go the rest of my life with a boxed set of Fraiser, Lord of the Rings, and the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. 🎬

I’m caught up on all the available seasons of the new iteration of All Creatures Great and Small. The pre-WW2 seasons were exactly what I was looking for: low-stakes, low-drama. The onset of the war changed that, of course. But I’m totally hooked at this point, despite all the feels it gives me.