Film of the Day
Far from the Madding Crowd
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 11 January Thomas Hardy dies, 1928 On this day in 1928, the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy died. He was 87 and this Victorian writer had survived into and almost through the age of the formal modernist, such as Joyce, with whom he had little in common, though he was an informing influence on writers with a more earthy, carnal and rural inclination, such as DH Lawrence. Hardy had trained as an architect in the 1860s but didn’t enjoy life in London and as soon as he became established enough he moved back to the West Country (Somerset, then Dorset) where … Read more
The Bourne Identity
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 15 January The Pentagon dedicated, 1943 On this day in 1943 in Arlington Virginia the Pentagon was dedicated. At the time it was the largest building in the world. The home of the US Department of Defense, it was originally intended to be built on an irregularly pentagonal piece of land at Arlington Farms. When it was learnt that this location would obstruct the view of Washington DC from Arlington Cemetery, where soldiers fallen in conflicts since the Civil War have been buried, the location was switched to the site of the defunct Washington Hoover Airport. The design stayed pentagonal but … Read more
Elf
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 17 December Saturnalia first celebrated, 497BC On this day in 497BC, the Romans consecrated the new Temple of Saturn and celebrated the feast of Saturnalia for the first time. Saturn was believed to be the god who had ruled in the golden age, when labour could be carried out without back-breaking work, when human beings were not plagued by iniquitous social division. The festival was celebrated with a sacrifice, feasting, partying and gift-giving and continued from 17 to the 23 December. It was a time of free speech and role reversal, of dressing up and hats, of masks and other disguises. … Read more
The Italian Job
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 21 January Benny Hill born, 1924 On this day in 1924, Alfred Hawthorn Hill was born in Southampton, UK. One of those children who “always wanted to be in showbusiness”, Alfred had managed to become an assistant stage manager in a touring company before joining up to serve in the Second World War, aged 18. He changed his first name to Benny as a tribute to his hero, Jack Benny, though in fact it was the British music hall that really provided the inspiration for Benny Hill’s act. Earlier to understand that music hall’s days were numbered than many of his … Read more
The Doors: When You’re Strange
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 16 August Elvis Presley dies, 1977 On this day in 1977, the King of Rock’n’Roll, Elvis Presley, died, an old man culturally and physically at 42. He had been physically in a steep decline since 1973, having overdosed twice on barbiturates that year. By 1977 he was fat and so dosed with drugs that he could barely talk on stage. He was suffering from glaucoma, liver damage, an enlarged heart and an enlarged colon. On the afternoon of 16 August, Elvis’s fiancée, Ginger Alden, found him on the bathroom floor dead. A lab report found his body contained 14 drugs, ten … Read more
Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 4 May Adam Yauch dies, 2012 On this day in 2012, Adam Yauch, one of the Beastie Boys, died, aged 47. He had formed the Beastie Boys in high school in 1981. The band was originally a punk band but, losing two members, original members Yauch and Adam Horovitz gained a third, Michael Diamond, and switched to hip hop in 1984, taking on hip hop names en route – MCA, Ad-Rock and Mike D respectively. A string of singles followed, then came a tour with Madonna, before the band released their debut album Licensed to Ill, which was a monster hit … Read more
Ivansxtc
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 09 September Leo Tolstoy born, 1828 On this day in 1828, Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born. A gambler, womaniser, brawler and university dropout in his youth, he took a turn to the spiritual as he got older, sometime after having already written War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Indeed, he became something of an ascetic anarchist, choosing to live a life of simplicity and pacificism. He was an advocate of non-violence and extremely influential on Mohandas (ie Mahatma) Gandhi, who named his second ashram in South Africa the Tolstoy Colony, and on Martin Luther King Jr. A prodigous essayist … Read more
The Infidel
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 21 March New Year’s Day, Bahá’í calendar If you’re a member of the Bahá’í faith, today is the first day of the new year. A religion that believes in one god, one spiritual source for all religions – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, whatever – and the equality of mankind, Bahá’í was only founded in the 19th century but has around five- to seven-million followers worldwide, spreading outwards from its foundational source in Iran. The largest grouping of Bahá’ís is in India. Right now it is probably the fastest growing religion in the world. It uses a solar calendar of 19 months of … Read more
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 27 November James Pratt and John Smith executed for sodomy, 1835 On this day in 1835, the last two men to be publicly executed for buggery in England were hanged outside Newgate Prison in London, where a fairly large crowd had gathered. James Pratt, aged 30, and John Smith, aged 40, had been discovered in flagrante in the room of another man, William Bonill, by Bonill’s landlord, who had become suspicious about the string of men who would visit him. By climbing into the loft of the next door building, the landlord had been able to catch sight of what Pratt … Read more
Parkland
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 30 March Ronald Reagan shot, 1981 On this day in 1981, after just over two months in office, President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton. His would-be assassin was John Hinckley Jr, whose attempt on the president’s life seemed to be part of a plan to impress Jodie Foster, with whom he’d become obsessed after seeing her in the film Taxi Driver. Hinckley’s intention was not to kill Reagan but the President – he’d been focused on killing President Jimmy Carter when Carter was in office until being arrested on a firearms charge. Reagan just happened to be the … Read more
The Snowtown Murders
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 17 February Jeffrey Dahmer sentenced, 1992 On this day in 1992, Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, aka the Milwaukee Cannibal, was sentenced for the murder of 15 men and boys. Dahmer had pleaded guilty at the trial and the case had revolved around the question of his sanity. The jury had found him sane, and that his cannibalism and necrophilia were a result of badness rather than madness, a verdict Dahmer entirely agreed with. Dahmer had committed his first murder aged 18, and over the following years was frequently arrested on charges of indecent exposure and sexual assault, all the while luring men … Read more
The Queen of Versailles
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 5 June John Maynard Keynes born, 1883 On this day in the 1883, the economist John Maynard Keynes was born, in Cambridge, to an economist father and a social reformer mother. A mathematics prodigy as a child, he won a scholarship to Eton College, then went to King’s College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics on a scholarship, graduating in 1904. After a short career as a clerk in the India Office, Keynes resigned and returned to Cambridge, where he started studying economics. By 1909 he had published his first article on economics. By 1911 he was editor of The Economic Journal. … Read more
