I've seen "Inside every revolutionary, there is a policeman" be attributed to Gustave Flaubert a lot (particularly Orlando Figes 'A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924'), but it's never actually sourced. Is there any evidence he actually said or wrote that?

One gag I wish The Boys committed fully to was the idea that Homelander's a Film Guy. Should have a scene where he forces The Seven to watch Rio Bravo with him or reveal he's got a secret Letterboxd account with takes so chaotic that it's actually popular.

Started reading Murder At The Black Cat Cafe, the newest English translation of Seishi Yokomizo's Kosuke Kindaichi series. Hadn't realised it was actually two short stories paired together. Just finished the first chapter which promises a spin on the "faceless corpse" concept.

Finished The Judas Window by John Dickson Carr (republished by British Library Crime Classics'). One of the 'big' Carr books & a very, to use the novel's own phrasing, 'mechanics'-heavy whodunnit. Definitely recommend if you're interested in the puzzle-solving side of mystery.

Watched One Battle After Another. It's going for a lot more Heroic story than Vineland's more laidback vibe. Almost zero flashbacks too. Whoever called it a fatherhood movie was right. A lot of "maybe the kids will be alright...but they should also get off their damn phones"

Finished Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell trilogy. Unsure if a hot take or not among fans but all three felt undercooked compared to Amazing Maurice or the Tiffany Aching books.

"E.T. shoulda stayed home," Elliott muttered as he grabbed the hammer off the shelf.

Love that Nozomi's unhinged enough to spend her birthday eating cake in front of a picture of her dead mother being like "this cake is so yummy! Bet you feel real dumb being dead now, huh?"

Watching Lost City of Z *after* Ad Astra really shaped how I saw the former because it feels like James Gray imagined Percy Fawcett as somewhat a villain. Compare how the complicated father/son relationships are concluded in each.

Yo Jimbo

Watching Amadeus for the first time made me see its influence on Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan directly cites it as such), but only realised on re-watch it's the same for The Prestige too. Big difference though is Amadeus is Toxic Yaoi while The Prestige is Toxic Shonen Rivalry.

Not to be "you know what's underrated? Oscar-winning movie Oppenheimer" but reading American Prometheus makes me appreciate it much more. The moments of artistic licence perfectly fit the film's intention to be Nolan's own perspective on Oppenheimer's subjective memory of things.

It is funny how the closest thing the Star Wars universe has to objective morality considers Anakin Redeemed. The Force judged his soul lighter than a feather. Trying to think if there's any in-universe reaction other than Luke's to that fact.

My Lunches With Orson ends so depressingly. Welles and Jaglom realising that Lear and Dreamers are never going to happen and not even advertising wants him. Although it is funny that Welles by the end believed cinema's future was what we now call 'video essay guys'.

My Lunches With Orson Chapter 1: Orson Hates The Irish(-Americans).

Little Shop of Horrors 2.

You can tell My Lunches With Orson knows the reader's in this for juicy gossip because the first page casually drops that Welles hated Hitchcock's Vertigo.

On re-read, the Confederacy chapter is Schivelbusch's strongest. Goes into how the Lost Cause took root not just in the beaten South but also the victorious but disillusioned North. The Germany section's the weakest IMO. Second half loses focus and sprawls.

Nearly all of J.G. Ballard's books carry the firm belief that the bourgeoise bay for barbarism and the shedding of blood, most especially their own.

Funny Sean Astin story is how he just laughed off Terry Pratchett (who'd opposed his casting in Colour of Magic) walking up to him during early production to say "You are not Twoflower." Later wholly won Pratchett over with his performance.

Love how every ten minutes in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has someone face the camera to either say "Britain's only sin in the past 50 years is being too nice to Lock In" or "why can't the Germans simply be Normal?"

Every Sabrina adaptation is lesser if he's not hanging around every episode.

Reading Schivelbusch's 'Culture of Defeat' again. Read it last about 6 or more years ago and so much of it stands out on re-read. Had not realised its impact on my writing after the first time. The theme of victor's remorse especially coupled with the defeated's dreamland.

Finished 1587: A Year of Remembrance (saw @jonathonpsine.bsky.social recommend it). A bureaucratic horror-tragedy of how Ming China from the top-down became captive to ceremony. Impotent emperors who can only quit-quiet and individual moral sophistry compensated by outward absolutism to dogma.

Civil War's problem is Garland wanted it to be about how journalism matters & the film does the opposite. It's best when it leans into morbid mundanity. Jesse Plemons, the crashed helicopter in the parking lot, the torturer casually noting he went to high school with his victim.

Red Rooms is such a wonderfully evil detective movie.

The Knives Out/Benoit Blanc mysteries also have this reputation for having "eat the rich" messages when they're actually more "diversify the rich."

Rewatched Knives Out earlier and it is funny how it partly feels like Rian Johnson read Taken At The Flood and wanted a nicer ending for Rosaleen. Same thing with Glass Onion and The Last of Sheila.

I like how Highest 2 Lowest's second half is Spike Lee fanboying over how Denzel Washington is the GOAT. Reminds me of the bit in Bamboozled where the main character suddenly goes "you know, Denzel would never sell out like this. Too proud and noble a man."

Saving Private Ryan's cynicism is "The Brass sent a squad to die because The Good War seems uncomfortably as bloody & miserable as every other war." Its idealism is "risking many so at least one son comes home *is* the point of this war & the squad need to get over themselves."

I completed Hundred Line: Last Defence Academy. So many fun routes that make the game such a wild ride for the player as much as for Takumi and the rest of our good friends in the Special Defence Unit. So glad it sold well enough that more's on the way.

Got a huge book backlog already so it'll be a while before I get to them, but planning to get into US Civil War. Lined up so far for the future Lincoln by David Herbert Donald Robert Lee: A Life by Allen Guelzo Grant by Jean Edward Smith Sherman: In Service of My Country by James Lee McDonough

Can't believe I'm so close to the end of Hundred Line.

Wondering if it makes a substantial difference whether I get Robert Dallek's 2-volume or 1-volume biography of LBJ. "Why not go for Robert Caro?" It's over three thousand pages and still isn't finished. I'm not that invested in the man.

Maybe watching it again will change my mind, but Saving Private Ryan is both very cynical and very idealist except it fails to synthesise the two duelling tones the way it attempts to.

Kurara and Takumi when it's time to watch One Battle After Another VS Kurara and Takumi when it's time to fight One Battle After Another. #hundred_line

It's a take cold as the Artic, I know, but the Iroh segment in Tales of Ba Sing Se always gets me.

On Romance Route in Hundred Line. Fun so far even if the set up is rather grim given (Hundred Line rot13) vg'f nyy ohg fnvq gung Uvehxb xvyyrq urefrys nsgre ernyvfvat fur'q fubirq Gnxhzv bss gur ebbs. Jurgure vg jnf gb erfrg ure gvzr-ybbc be sebz erzbefr, gung'f cerggl gentvp.

Finished Slasher Route. Just need to play the 'Don't reveal' routes (excluding the story-locked one) and I'll have completed Hundred Line.

I think the former can work in certain contexts. Either "I don't have the right to execute you, that's for the courts because we're not laws unto ourselves" or "I'm not giving into the heat of the moment." A sense of greater personal, structural, or ideological victory beyond hardline pacifism.

t's a fun feature. @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social 's Rachel Savernake series include those too, IIRC. The passage also reminds me of an article I read on Poe & Borges as both detective and cosmic fiction authors. How their affection for logic puzzles spoke to their views on the universe & Divine.

The Macbeth Murder Mystery by James Thurber (author of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) is one of my favourite short stories. A tale of how any story can be detective fiction if looked at the right way. Some Poirot & other, more obscure, Golden Age references for mystery fanatics.

Gaspade realising from the start that he's making a terrible decision but for whatever reason takes the job.

I have found some real head-scratching #nukesky deep lore. At some point between 1942 and 1944, the Manhattan Project plutonium chemists at the Chicago Met Lab were bored enough to invent an alchemical symbol for plutonium. They chose...this emoji 😐 wearing an eye patch? I want to know why.

Robert Dallek's biography of FDR is fantastic, but having read Taylor, Pantsov, Mitter, it was wild to see a relatively recent history book trot out the traditional pro-Stilwell narrative.

Apparently The Girl Who Was Death is about the same quality as Don't Forsake Me Oh My Darling & Living In Harmony so tempted to skip ahead to The Prisoner's two-part finale for now. Not sure though. Is it worth watching it before Once Upon A Time, @minovskyarticle.bsky.social, @strucci.bsky.social?

Favourite joke in Barton Fink is the subtle reveal that he only knows how to write one story and it's the story of how Barton Fink is a Great Man destined to do Great Things.

Hit a rough streak with Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling & Living In Harmony. Although I'm now an episode away from Once Upon A Time & Fall Out which is meant to be either The Prisoner's peak or its nadir.

About two-thirds through watching The Prisoner. The "why did No. 6 resign?" plotline quickly takes a backseat for the "individualism vs collectivism" theme. Schizoid Man & The General are the turning points where No. 2's objective changes from acquiring specific information to breaking 6's self.

Been meaning to play this. Want to finish off Hundred Line and some other projects first though. Apparently there's a Merchant class. Slaying your enemies with the mystical might of the bourgeoise.