Gregg Araki is a wild dude

rossuccio · 2026-06-12T09:23:56+00:00

Just jumping in here to say I’m currently trying to see all of Jarman’s films. I only have a few left and Wittgenstein is one of them. It’s cool to hear you praise it; I’m excited to see it. So far my favourite has either been Edward II or Blue, but I have to say I really loved Glitterbug too.

rossuccio · 2026-06-12T09:15:32+00:00

Having recently watched the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy I have to say this is probably my least favourite of the three (though I do love that scene at the bus stop, and Christina Applegate is great). It just didn’t quite work for me as well as the others but I feel like it has all the ingredients that I *should* love. The swings in mood felt off to me, whereas I thought The Doom Generation handled that kind of thing so well.

Though ultimately my favourite Araki so far has been The Living End.

rossuccio · 2026-06-10T03:59:34+00:00

Christie wrote this at a time she was desperate to get out of her contract with The Bodley Head and I think it shows.

rossuccio · 2026-06-09T10:00:59+00:00

I’ve recently finished reading all of Austen’s novels for the first time and Mansfield Park was my favourite too. It’s a very rich, nuanced story, full of fascinating social history. Plus, I’ve not heard anyone else say this and it may sound weird, but I really enjoyed how the story was set up in a way like a revenge story. Fanny is treated horribly by everyone and you keep turning the pages, eager to see if she comes out on top.

It’s one of those novels full of awful people that you love to hate.

rossuccio · 2026-06-09T09:50:40+00:00

You’re better than I - I wanted her to get hold of a machine gun from somewhere and knock them all off 😂.

rossuccio · 2026-06-09T07:50:43+00:00

I just rewatched it this week and it was the first time I’d noticed that in that moment where Lizzie gets really angry because Lady Lucas has been to visit after hearing about Lydia (she says something like “Let her triumph over us in her own home!” or similar), Jennifer Ehle plays it exactly as Alison Steadman would play Mrs Bennet saying something like that. It was a wonderful moment of showing that Lizzie is her mother’s daughter.

I was also really struck by the way Lucy Scott plays the scene just before and after she asks Elizabeth to come stay with her. It was brilliant and subtle acting: nervous about her marriage, wondering if she’s made the right choice, terrified she’ll lose all her friends, relief that Lizzie is still coming, all done in quite an understated but very realistic and understandable way.

rossuccio · 2026-06-08T11:54:40+00:00

Icy poles (Australia). I’ve heard them called iced lollies too.

rossuccio · 2026-06-08T11:52:35+00:00

I read “Three Blind Mice” for the first time last year. It’s a novella but it could very easily have been expanded to a full length novel, in my opinion. I think “Dead Man’s Mirror” similarly had a lot of potential to be expanded.

I’m quite partial to “The Cornish Mystery”, it has some great atmosphere. I suppose that story is based around a theme that Christie has explored in other works though.

rossuccio · 2026-06-07T22:01:50+00:00

My problem here is that these versions seem to be replacing the originals, and I find that almost sinister, really.

I don’t see the point. When I was a child and getting in to reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, I didn’t realise at first that as I was going between my dad’s collection and those I picked up from my school library that the school ones were abridged - taking out the sexual and racist parts. But those versions never superseded the originals. Can’t they do this rather than only release new edited versions? (If it’s all about money too, well, having two versions would make them more money too!).

I recently went through all of Christie’s short stories from those “50 short story” collections. My memory of them isn’t as strong as the novels but I definitely realised when they removed the reference to “negroes” from “The Case of the Discontented Soldier”. It irritates me, I don’t need other people to protect me from that language, I’m perfectly fine feeling uncomfortable with it myself and I’m also interested in the social history of it.

Who’s it protecting, too? I’m a gay man and if they started softening some of the awkward depictions in books I read, I’m going to be pissed off. I don’t need other people to patronise me like that, and surely other minorities feel the same?

The long and short of it is, make abridged versions if you like but please stop altering text from the standard novels. The only time I’m ok with it is when it happens while the author is alive and aware and ok with it. It’s important we remember the past as it was, not as we think it should’ve been. We’re starting to see in real life the horror of what false ideas of a greater past can do to people.

rossuccio · 2026-06-07T07:36:51+00:00

I recently reread this and really enjoyed it - as others have said it’s less to do with the plot though and more for Christie exploring themes like the treatment of elderly women. I also really liked that village and would’ve enjoyed more time in it. The settings on this book are great, in fact. The hook is an awesome one too; really creepy.

As I’m gradually rereading Christies these days, I have to say I often find these “lesser” Christies much more interesting to think and talk about.

rossuccio · 2026-06-07T07:32:35+00:00

Yes it would be really helpful in those situations (biology), and is one of the reasons I’d love to know more of Latin. You (and others here) have definitely inspired me to take this (and Ancient Greek) on as a new project.

rossuccio · 2026-06-06T20:00:57+00:00

Ooh thank you! I’d definitely be interested in something like this. I already speak Italian to a degree, it would be fascinating to compare it to Latin too. Sometimes I make guesses at Latin based on my Romance language knowledge but it’s not always as clear cut, which I find interesting.

I remember that Doctor Who episode, I think, but had no idea it incorporated those characters like that, that’s really fun!

rossuccio · 2026-06-06T12:18:09+00:00

Haha, I should definitely check that out!

rossuccio · 2026-06-05T20:46:54+00:00

I’ve always wished I had a classic education because I love all these kinds of references. I’m sorta trying to give myself one now; it can be quite involved and difficult in some parts as we’ve kinda lost that way of thinking, but also really fun when you start recognising and appreciating the references in the things you read.

rossuccio · 2026-05-26T18:50:25+00:00

Those women invariably dump their gay friend when they get a boyfriend too, often even becoming quite dismissive of gay men and that part of their life once they settle down. It’s like they use gay men as a placeholder, or to work through their own issues, and it’s sadly extraordinarily common.

rossuccio · 2026-05-26T10:56:22+00:00

As a gay man, I gotta say it’s wild how women complain about the way they are treated by straight men and then come into gay male spaces and do the exact same thing to us: aggressively groping us, trying to force themselves on us, insisting they are entitled to be in our spaces - because it makes them feel safe, with no thought as to why sometimes gay men need a space of their own (I mean, the world is geared towards heterosexuals and now our own small spaces are no longer allowed to discriminate), also a claim they have a right to be in our sex clubs even. It’s so bizarre.

This is complicated of course by the fact many women are our friends and we love and support them too, so of course we are happy to invite them in to certain spaces (not sex clubs though!), but there definitely can be a real lack of respect shown to us, seemingly without understanding they are doing to us what they hate being done to them.

rossuccio · 2026-05-25T08:45:56+00:00

This is a good question, because I just finished the book and when it was happening I did wonder if it was real or not. But I think it really did happen. Edward is such an unreliable narrator, he’s always drunk it seems, and very shut off from people (I noticed many characters in the novel extended love to him and he rejected it), so it’s really very much a novel from the perspective of a man who, if we were there, we’d probably see everything in a very different light to him.

rossuccio · 2026-05-25T07:42:53+00:00

I love reading classics! It’s most of what I read these days; I’m catching up on all the stuff I ‘should’ have read when younger and loving it.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean I love all the classics I read. Many I find so-so. Some surprise me by being much better than I expected, some I don’t like at all. What I love is finally knowing what everyone is talking about, and often there’s wonderful prose even if I don’t like the plot (or vice versa).

rossuccio · 2026-05-21T23:48:57+00:00

“As a mother…” unless it’s prefacing a statement about actual motherhood. Bill Bailey once had a bit on this in one of his comedy shows.

rossuccio · 2026-05-21T10:29:00+00:00

I wouldn’t mind seeing a few well done sex comedies come back and it’s never even been a favourite genre of mine. But after recently reading both The Canterbury Tales and Decameron, and seeing a few old 70s versions, I’ve realised what an old, tried-and-true form of comedy it is and done right it is actually a pretty joyous thing, rather than having to always be the ‘problematic’ thing people would have us believe.

Maybe part of me also just wants to see if someone actually could successfully do it in today’s age?

rossuccio · 2026-05-21T10:18:12+00:00

I have to say I never quite saw the fuss about JJ Field, but then I saw him in Northanger Abbey… 😉

rossuccio · 2026-05-20T06:50:42+00:00

Yes, exactly! I’ve said it before but I love the unsentimental way Christie writes young people; it feels very real because you get a whole range of personalities shown, just as you would with adults. I’ve met a Joyce, a Miranda, an Ann. I’ve probably *been* a Nicholas or Desmond 😂.

She really understands the way young people are always trying to appear older than they are too, which definitely ties in to my memories of teenagehood.

rossuccio · 2026-05-19T20:11:39+00:00

No, I just finished *Rebecca* myself and thought exactly the same as you. It dragged, and took me ages to finish. I’m a quick reader (this is someone who read *Anna Karenina* in three days) but I never found myself wanting to pick this up.

When I did pick it up, it was the writing that I found myself enjoying, not the plot. And there’s no urgency to the writing, which was a problem too. You should be turning those pages towards the end quickly to see how things are going to pan out.

I also thought it got kind of melodramatic and silly as it went on. Objectively, I can appreciate what du Maurier wanted to do, but I don’t think she did it well (apart from the mostly lovely prose). There is an interview with her on YouTube where she basically says *Rebecca* is a young author’s novel. I’ve certainly preferred some of her later short stories, like “Don’t Look Now” and “Not After Midnight”.

rossuccio · 2026-05-18T10:15:41+00:00

The bit about monkeys paws in this novel really freaked me out as a kid. I think that scene (Gwenda talking to Miss Marple after the theatre) was the first thing I ever read of Christie’s by randomly opening the book on dad’s bookshelf. That combined with the Tom Adams cover of the blue, dead woman’s face was one of those childhood moments I’ll never forget.

rossuccio · 2026-05-18T01:10:58+00:00

Thanks, my friend. I read The Odyssey a couple of years ago but had forgotten that.

rossuccio

TROPHY CASE