Junk Journal Week 24

Martin Gayford’s book about what it was like to sit as a subject for a portrait by Lucian Freud is worth reading. There is so much material about Freud and his methods and about the nature of art and images more broadly.

About movies.

I have been trying to watch less TV and see more movies lately.

Patrick DeWitt wrote the screenplay for the charming picture Terri. He has since written the novels French Exit, The Sisters Brothers, and The Librarianist.

Black Bag is the latest spy thriller from the continually prolific Stephen Soderbergh.

There have been many screen adaptations made from Patricia Highsmith’s fictional character Tom Ripley. My daughter and I enjoyed this picture.

The Criterion Channel is having a Johnnie To festival. To directed a whole series of Hong Kong crime movies including PTU and Election. Election, in particular, is a remarkable picture about a Triad crime family election for a new leader. As can be expected, tradition and capitalist greed collide in violent ways.