@benjbrantley.bsky.social
Farewell to Tom Stoppard, who as a playwright made words dance, explode, soar to the heavens and acknowledge their own limitations as they did so. And always glowing within the cerebral fireworks was a questing, rueful, empathic wonder. He took us to Arcadia and Utopia and back.
November 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Farewell to Tom Stoppard, who as a playwright made words dance, explode, soar to the heavens and acknowledge their own limitations as they did so. And always glowing within the cerebral fireworks was a questing, rueful, empathic wonder. He took us to Arcadia and Utopia and back.
Good evening.
November 28, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Good evening.
Because it's Thanksgiving, I paused to watch Kate Bush out on the wily, windy moors, a performance that never fails to make me grin like a fool. An 18-year-old genius was exactly who was needed to translate "Wuthering Heights" into pop, as a hypnotic trance of angry rapture.
November 27, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Because it's Thanksgiving, I paused to watch Kate Bush out on the wily, windy moors, a performance that never fails to make me grin like a fool. An 18-year-old genius was exactly who was needed to translate "Wuthering Heights" into pop, as a hypnotic trance of angry rapture.
Farewell to the seductive, propulsive Jimmy Cliff, whom I first saw on screen in a Chelsea movie theater at midnight amid the smoke of a hundred spliffs. The film was "The Harder They Come," with Cliff as a charismatic Jamaican outlaw; I have been dancing to his voice ever since.
November 24, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Farewell to the seductive, propulsive Jimmy Cliff, whom I first saw on screen in a Chelsea movie theater at midnight amid the smoke of a hundred spliffs. The film was "The Harder They Come," with Cliff as a charismatic Jamaican outlaw; I have been dancing to his voice ever since.
Recipe for a relaxing Sunday afternoon: Reread Tracy Lett's (superb) script for "Bug," which takes conspiracy theory logic to its extreme conclusion. Then watch Kathryn Bigelow's (superb) "House of Dynamite," which counts down to a nuclear attack. Or: Just run nerves through shredder.
November 23, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Recipe for a relaxing Sunday afternoon: Reread Tracy Lett's (superb) script for "Bug," which takes conspiracy theory logic to its extreme conclusion. Then watch Kathryn Bigelow's (superb) "House of Dynamite," which counts down to a nuclear attack. Or: Just run nerves through shredder.
A most useful new word: "gloomth," meaning a gloomy warmth, associated with Horace Walpole, the progenitor of the Gothic novel. This I learned from a piece by Jon Day in the London Review of Books. My own house is steeped in gloomth on this dark November day.
November 22, 2025 at 2:41 PM
A most useful new word: "gloomth," meaning a gloomy warmth, associated with Horace Walpole, the progenitor of the Gothic novel. This I learned from a piece by Jon Day in the London Review of Books. My own house is steeped in gloomth on this dark November day.
Happy birthday to Goldie Hawn. I interviewed her for Vanity Fair in 1989 and found her shrewd, self-aware and willfully, enchantingly delightful. Robert Towne observed that for her happiness is a "very existential thing, a deliberate choice," which doesn't mean it's not real.
November 21, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Happy birthday to Goldie Hawn. I interviewed her for Vanity Fair in 1989 and found her shrewd, self-aware and willfully, enchantingly delightful. Robert Towne observed that for her happiness is a "very existential thing, a deliberate choice," which doesn't mean it's not real.
Has any movie in recent years been as truly bad as "The Love Machine" from 1971? Paper-doll characters, push-button cynicism, acting so affectless it might be from a porn movie. It's so unspeakably bad that it's not much fun, except when Dyan Cannon sets fire to a lot of clothes.
November 19, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Has any movie in recent years been as truly bad as "The Love Machine" from 1971? Paper-doll characters, push-button cynicism, acting so affectless it might be from a porn movie. It's so unspeakably bad that it's not much fun, except when Dyan Cannon sets fire to a lot of clothes.
Farewell, Dublin, to which I came for the Abbey Theatre's invaluable conference on criticism in crisis and from which I depart tomorrow. I hardly knew ye, though I already know enough to say you're my kind of town.
November 17, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Farewell, Dublin, to which I came for the Abbey Theatre's invaluable conference on criticism in crisis and from which I depart tomorrow. I hardly knew ye, though I already know enough to say you're my kind of town.
Dropping in on old friends in Dublin at twilight.
November 16, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Dropping in on old friends in Dublin at twilight.
Watching "Casablanca" again and fascinated, as always, to watch how it confirms Humphrey Bogart as a brave new romantic lead. Everything feeds this perception: its not just how Ingrid Bergman looks at him (as he has said): it's how everyone, including Claude Rains, looks at him.
November 10, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Watching "Casablanca" again and fascinated, as always, to watch how it confirms Humphrey Bogart as a brave new romantic lead. Everything feeds this perception: its not just how Ingrid Bergman looks at him (as he has said): it's how everyone, including Claude Rains, looks at him.
"Isn't this wine a little bitter?" asks Joan Caulfield, a blur of blondeness. "Dry is the word," answers Claude Raines, who has poisoned her. Why did nobody tell me about "The Unsuspected"? It exaggerates the formula of "Laura," and out-camps camp. Why, here's Audrey Totter and Hurd Hatfield!
November 10, 2025 at 9:04 PM
"Isn't this wine a little bitter?" asks Joan Caulfield, a blur of blondeness. "Dry is the word," answers Claude Raines, who has poisoned her. Why did nobody tell me about "The Unsuspected"? It exaggerates the formula of "Laura," and out-camps camp. Why, here's Audrey Totter and Hurd Hatfield!
And now, Manhattan, wrapped in mist at midnight. The view from the 64th floor.
November 10, 2025 at 6:45 AM
And now, Manhattan, wrapped in mist at midnight. The view from the 64th floor.
This is where the curfew tolls the knell of parting day, and all that...
November 6, 2025 at 8:38 PM
This is where the curfew tolls the knell of parting day, and all that...
Now here's a quartet of faces to smile for. The team for the new Miss Piggy movie.
November 6, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Now here's a quartet of faces to smile for. The team for the new Miss Piggy movie.
I woke up to headlines that somehow made me flash on Cyd Charisse singing (or lip syncing) "I see a new sun, up in a new sky" in "The Bandwagon." Savor the moment.
November 5, 2025 at 2:19 PM
I woke up to headlines that somehow made me flash on Cyd Charisse singing (or lip syncing) "I see a new sun, up in a new sky" in "The Bandwagon." Savor the moment.
Trending: retrospective rue. "I regret everything I've ever done or said," says Jennifer Lawrence in a NYT interview. The restaurateur Keith McNally has entitled his (excellent) memoir "I Regret Almost Everything." Why all the remorse? Would Edith Piaf feel the the same today?
November 3, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Trending: retrospective rue. "I regret everything I've ever done or said," says Jennifer Lawrence in a NYT interview. The restaurateur Keith McNally has entitled his (excellent) memoir "I Regret Almost Everything." Why all the remorse? Would Edith Piaf feel the the same today?
And now: November.
November 1, 2025 at 10:22 PM
And now: November.
But where are the ghouls? There ought to be ghouls.
Don't bother, they're here.
Don't bother, they're here.
October 31, 2025 at 4:35 PM
But where are the ghouls? There ought to be ghouls.
Don't bother, they're here.
Don't bother, they're here.
Oh, it's evidently National Cat Day. So I suppose it's a good moment to say how much I have come to cherish and admire cats. They are so very companionable and, like us, perverse and capricious. And the luxury of just looking at a cat...A cat's acceptance of one is always flattering.
October 29, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Oh, it's evidently National Cat Day. So I suppose it's a good moment to say how much I have come to cherish and admire cats. They are so very companionable and, like us, perverse and capricious. And the luxury of just looking at a cat...A cat's acceptance of one is always flattering.
As perfect a fall day as a body could ask for.
October 26, 2025 at 5:50 PM
As perfect a fall day as a body could ask for.
"Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." I'm in a Sonnet 73 state of mind today.
October 23, 2025 at 7:10 PM
"Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang." I'm in a Sonnet 73 state of mind today.
Happy birthday to Catherine Deneuve, whose presence in film often suggests that the imp of the perverse is never more unsettling than when it hijacks classic beauty. See: "Belle de Jour," "Tristana" (Bunuel), "Mississippi Mermaid" (Truffaut), and - shudder -"Repulsion" (Polanski).
October 22, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Happy birthday to Catherine Deneuve, whose presence in film often suggests that the imp of the perverse is never more unsettling than when it hijacks classic beauty. See: "Belle de Jour," "Tristana" (Bunuel), "Mississippi Mermaid" (Truffaut), and - shudder -"Repulsion" (Polanski).
It's the birthday of the atomic Rita Hayworth, whose glamour blazed through the 1940s. When she was in "Gilda," my father, a night editor at an N.C. paper, arranged with the cinema across the street for his staff to drop in each evening to watch Hayworth sing "Put the Blame on Mame."
October 17, 2025 at 6:02 PM
It's the birthday of the atomic Rita Hayworth, whose glamour blazed through the 1940s. When she was in "Gilda," my father, a night editor at an N.C. paper, arranged with the cinema across the street for his staff to drop in each evening to watch Hayworth sing "Put the Blame on Mame."