gifts given, gifts received, and sad news on the relative front

Thursday night visit to my #3 Ajumma's place.

Meeting #3 Ajumma means giving gifts and receiving gifts. She seemed happy to get my two types of cookies (I later texted her a warning that the oatmeal-raisin ones were fairly tasteless; she texted back that the chocolate-chip cookies were delicious), and she seemed delighted to receive my homeschooling book. I know she's a voracious reader: years ago, she grabbed my copies of Hyon Gak sunim's Korean-language book 하바드에서 화계사까지 (Habadeu-eseo Hwagyesa ggaji—From Harvard to Hwagye Temple), the story of the American monk's journey from an American Catholic background to Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhism. I'm hoping she'll read my book with equal zeal.

Being a dedicated Christian and the only relative who talks with me to any extent; Ajumma is my relative through marriage, not a blood relative: her equally Christian husband—one of my mom's cousins—had died a few years back from liver cancer (January 2019). Ajumma is now 82, and just this past December, she moved to a new apartment—one that's actually a couple of subway stops closer to where I am. I didn't ask her why she had moved, but I was worried, at first, that she'd been placed in an old-folks' home because part of her new apartment's name is 상떼/sangdde, a hangeulized rendering of the French word santé, which means "health." But her apartment's name also contained a more pedestrian 빌/bil at the end, the Korean rendering of -ville, a common ending for many apartment-complex names, big and small, in Korea. No senior-home vibe there.

I asked Ajumma whether family had visited her over vacation, and she said her elder son had come by with his wife and son, and so had some of her other relatives. Her younger son, who lives and works in Germany, will be coming by this August as part of a one-month travel plan. According to Ajumma, he'll be spending a week in Korea, then tooling off to Fiji (or somewhere) with his family, then visiting somewhere else, then spending another week in Korea before returning to Germany.

There was little I could tell Ajumma about my brothers because they almost never write back (I write them monthly). Since I hadn't talked with Ajumma since 2024 (when I was employed), I updated her on my current freelancer status and told her I would likely be returning to the university system later this year. I also had no updates on my dad, about whom she remains morbidly curious. I told her I have no idea whether he's alive or dead. She also asked about my aunt in Texas—my mother's ornery big sister. I passed along the sad news that my aunt's mind is going, and that she's forgotten that Mom died of brain cancer. This senility has been the case for a few years now; when my brother David visited my aunt a few years back, she happily asked about how Mom was doing. I don't know how David answered, but I imagine he didn't remind her of the truth. I told Ajumma that my aunt (the Korean title is imo/이모, i.e., mother's big sister), who had been combative all of her life, is probably happier now than she's ever been, now that her mind is going.

A tour around Ajumma's new apartment was part of my visit. The new place seems a mite smaller than her previous one but certainly spacious enough for just her plus whatever guests happen to come over. She even has room to store her many paintings, as well as a room now serving as her studio. I asked whether she was hoping to sell her art, and she said yes. I had to wonder how she planned to do that, especially since she has no computer.

Ajumma also gave me the sad news that my #2 Ajeossi just passed away. #3 Ajumma's husband was my #3 Ajeossi (which is why Ajumma earned the #3 label)—the one who died of liver cancer. Ajumma also told me that #1 and #4 Ajeossi didn't attend #2 Ajeossi's memorial service (he had converted to Christianity years ago—back in the day, a lot of Koreans did this to establish business networks), and neither did #3 Ajumma, who's been in a long-standing feud with #2 Ajeossi's family for years. I asked her why, and she talked about bad things people had done to her as well as money-related problems between and among the four brothers. But now, my #2 and #3 Ajeossis are gone; only #1 (who lost his wife some years back) and #4 (who had lost a son almost thirty years ago) are left. And so it goes in a family with a lot of siblings. You get old, then you drop off one by one, and only the Fates know the order in which you'll be toppling off the ever-advancing conveyor belt of life.

Before I left Ajumma's place, she loaded me down with carby gifts as well as the typical lunar new year's envelope of cash. I got a bag of frozen mandu (dumplings), a bag of frozen ddeok (rice cakes, important for the new year), a bottle of milk, and three big, fat oranges, probably from subtropical Jeju Island given that it's winter. As if she were talking to a teenager, Ajumma told me to keep the cash envelope out of sight, so I slipped it inside my coat.

Here's a partial shot, below, of the soup I cobbled together thanks to Ajumma's contributions. You can see the mandu clearly, but some ddeok is also visible. I have a ton of beef and chicken bouillon (both vegetarian and not), so I made a quick broth out of that, then added two eggs and a big glop of kimchi to give the broth a bit more character. A humble, not authentically Korean, but still rib-sticking late dinner. I pronounce myself stuffed.

very makeshift and inauthentic ddeok mandu-guk

And with that, I think I've discharged my visitation obligations to Ajumma for this year, but I do feel bad when I think of her sitting alone in her apartment—no husband, no kids, nothing but church and TV and her painting to comfort her. At least there's the painting, and she's a talented artist. She may be a relative only through marriage, but I still feel irrationally lucky to have artistic people on both sides of my family (my great aunt used to be a singer/performer, and my great uncle used to be a locally famous painter in Monmouth County, New Jersey). At 82, Ajumma is a year younger than my mother would have been. All of my older relatives and "relatives" (like my French Maman and Papa) are getting up there in years. They'll all be toppling over the edge of the conveyor belt soon. Then it'll be my/our turn.

But I can't dwell on that. It's now technically Friday the 20th, which means I must now switch gears and get back to creating content for Substack to last through April. I hope to finish this content creation by the end of the first week in March. We'll see how that goes.

Adam reviews a dino movie

This sound like a giant turd. But the review is funny.

battle of the pubs

a clash of ideas and values

post-holiday

The holiday is over. For people who work at a company, today is the first day back in the office. For me, it's another day of work with little to no pay. My Substack account is getting increasingly swarmed by bots that leave "like"s. I get four to nine bot visits per day, even on supposedly inaccessible paid content. There may have been one human among their number, though, because I gained a free subscriber the other day (from Nigeria, i.e., not trustworthy, especially since her photo looks like that of a busty American white girl).

The work on my movie-review book continues; I'm currently on Chapter 40-something, a bit more than a third of the way through the book's content. I have to stop after today, though, and concentrate on generating more Substack content through April so I can have breathing room to continue the book project as winter gives way to spring.

Tonight, though, I'm visiting my #3 Ajumma with cookies and a copy of my homeschooling book in tow—just some goofy gifts to give Ajumma since I haven't seen her since the September after my heart attack in 2024. Once I'm back home, I'll try to get as close to Chapter 50 as I can. Then, starting tomorrow: Substack it is, probably for a week or two.

Work, work, work.

Meanwhile, "Dana Smith" from Nigeria, thanks for subscribing.

Carell vs. Ramsay

Stephen Lang on "Sisu 2"

I might see this someday, but the clips, I've seen on YouTube don't look that promising.

a Cinema Therapy two-fer

Charles Cornell and "metal" piano

it never stops

Another "street food in Japan" video!

The Last Samurai: review

Ken Watanabe as Katsumoto; Tom Cruise as Algren 

2003's The Last Samurai is directed by Edward Zwick (Legends of the Fall, Shakespeare in Love, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) and stars Tom Cruise, Timothy Spall, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Koyuki Kato. It attracted much the same praise and criticism that 1990's Dances with Wolves did, along with all the often-contradictory accusations of being a "white-savior narrative" and an example of Japanophilia gone wild. With Cruise being featured on all of the movie posters, despite Watanabe's character being the main focus, it's easy to see where much of the criticism is coming from.

The story is told through the eyes of war veteran Nathan Algren (Cruise), who had fought in the Civil War as well as in the American Indian Wars. Now a drunkard who is part of a traveling festival touting, among other things, firearms, Algren is depressed, suffering from war-related nightmares, and on his last legs. An old friend and sergeant of his, Zebulon Gant (Connolly), persuades Algren to hear out an offer from Algren's old commanding officer, the ruthless and unethical Colonel Bagley (Goldwyn, master of smarmy-villain roles), who had more than once ordered the murder of innocent American Indians during military campaigns. Algren reluctantly meets Bagley who, along with a Japanese businessman named Omura (Masato Harada), offers Algren a large sum of money to go to Japan and help the pro-modernization Meiji government to put down a samurai rebellion (the story is partly based on the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion). Algren, who is destitute, can't say no; he and Gant depart with Bagley for Japan. Though a drunkard, Algren quietly records his thoughts in a journal.

Landing at Yokohama, Algren is met by British writer, scholar, photographer, translator, and interpreter Simon Graham (Spall), who fills Algren in on Japan's recent history: the country is opening up to Western powers, wanting to be exposed to various aspects of Western culture, and from the Americans, Japan wants modern weapons technology both for national self-defense and to help put down rebellions like the one currently being led by Lord Moritsugu Katsumoto (Watanabe). Algren and Gant are given troops to train in rifles, formations, and battle tactics, but as Algren quickly discovers, the Japanese trainees are far from ready to see battle. Bagley, once again Algren's commander, nevertheless orders Algren to take the troops into the field to defeat a group of samurai who are impeding the operation of Mr. Omura's new, modern trains. Algren takes the untested troops into a forest where the samurai were last seen; the samurai attack and, predictably, the troops break ranks and prove unable to fight. They are slaughtered, and even Sergeant Gant is killed. Algren is the lone survivor, viciously fighting despite several serious injuries. Algren kills several samurai, including one who thinks he's gotten the better of Algren. The samurai leader turns out to be Katsumoto himself; he's impressed by Algren's ferocity and grit, and he orders Algren spared and taken prisoner. Algren is brought back to Katsumoto's home village, where he convalesces and slowly recovers from his alcoholism. He is allowed to wander the village, always with a minder (whom he humorously calls "Bob"), and he begins to learn about (and write in his journal about) Japanese culture. Algren is awed by the fanatical dedication to perfection that he sees around him. He begins to learn the Japanese language, as well as some of its fighting arts as taught by the stern and initially scornful Ujio (Sanada). He also learns that he is housed with Taka (Koyuki), the wife of the overconfident samurai he had killed. Her sons take an interest in the strange-looking and bad-smelling Algren.

The rest of the movie is devoted to Algren's education as he learns more about Japanese culture and the family he is housed with. At the same time, he knows that Omura, ostensibly acting on behalf of the emperor (a young, impressionable man who has become Omura's puppet), has plans to eradicate the rebellious samurai led by Katsumoto, who sees himself as being loyal to the emperor (he was the emperor's former teacher), and loyal to feudal tradition. As you might imagine, this cannot end well, but Katsumoto has Algren at his side—formerly a prisoner, but now Katsumoto's trusted friend, and a veteran who understands the modern tactics that will be used against the samurai.

Is The Last Samurai in fact a white-savior narrative? I'd say no: The samurai aren't saved by the end, and neither is Japanese culture (an issue that is relevant even today). Does the movie fetishize Japanese culture? I'm not educated enough about Japan to say, but the movie certainly takes a positive attitude toward the society and makes the potential loss of Japanese identity through Westernization a central issue. Algren, who is our lens through which to see late-1800s Japan, proves to be tough but also smart, and he begins to learn the bushido philosophy as he's learning the language; he also engages in what Katsumoto likes to call "conversations": Katsumoto wants to understand Algren's culture, initially for "know thine enemy" reasons. (While Algren is recovering from his wounds and his alcoholism, Katsumoto, who speaks, reads, and writes in fluent English, flips carefully through Algren's journal, learning of Algren's thoughts on war and his encounters with American Indians.) The dialogue we hear between these two men, and the developing friendship we see, are at the core of what this movie is all about.

On the level of politics, The Last Samurai can be read in both a left-leaning and a right-leaning way. On the left side, we see the corruption of a culture through Western influence (West = bad), but paradoxically, since the left is also currently pro-globalization, Japan's acceptance of foreign trade and foreign values as it "joins the civilized world" can be interpreted as consistent with the globalizing spirit. Algren's partial rejection of his own culture and his admiration for Japanese culture can also be viewed as appropriately anti-Western. The villain Omura can be seen as a plump, well-fed symbol of the rapacity of businessmen who care only for comfort and nothing for their own culture, so willing are they to become Judases for the sake of modern conveniences. A modern, right-leaning interpretation would focus on the Japanese emphasis—especially at the end of the film—on retaining national and cultural identity, not because the West is inherently bad but because nationalism and cultural integrity are net goods that should not be lightly thrown away. Algren's openness to Japanese culture also reflects the currently in-vogue idea that foreigners who enter a different culture should respect that culture and not expect to be accommodated by it in the spirit of what many conservatives call "suicidal empathy." The flip side of The Last Samurai is that a Japanese person who spends a long time in the United States should acquire the language as well as a level of respect for American values. So all in all, I think the movie is fairly balanced in how it can be interpreted.

All of which makes the political discussion surrounding the movie irrelevant to me. A more important question is: Is it a good story? It is: it's well written, well acted (except for Tom Cruise's annoying, buck-toothed mouth-breathing in almost every scene), and thrumming with profound emotion—almost melodramatic in the way of so many East Asian films, with plenty of flowing tears. At the end of the final, bloody battle, with Algren and Katsumoto lying together on the battlefield, Algren tells Katsumoto that he will miss their "conversations," which were the verbal exchanged bonds of friendship between two men who understood war and therefore understood each other.

Other aspects of the movie were good as well. Hiroyuki Sanada as Ujio the fighting master is perfectly cast for the part. Koyuki, as the wife of a samurai killed by Algren who at first wants revenge, then later develops mixed feelings for him, plays her role soulfully and well. The film's beautiful cinematography evokes old Japan, with images ranging from busy streets to Buddha statues to blossoms. This is also one of the smarter screenplays I've encountered in recent memory, with plenty of satisfying setups and payoffs.

I can only imagine, though, that The Last Samurai was mocked, when it came out, for being a Japan-inflected version of Dances with Wolves. The parallels are obvious: former US soldier goes native, keeps a journal, then turns against his own people, etc. Even in recent years, this trope appears in films like the Avatar series of movies or the Shōgun streaming series. Maybe it's a trope that's destined to appear and reappear in modern, industrialized cultures that deal with their own guilt. Or maybe it's destined to reappear in a specifically American context given America's unique historical circumstances.

What I can say for sure is that "the last samurai" is not Tom Cruise even though he's prominent on the movie posters. Online critic Chris Stuckmann offers up the idea that samurai is being used in the plural here: The samurai whom Cruise meets are the last of their kind as new laws forbid the carrying of swords and the wearing of topknots. In fact, some 2003-era Japanese viewers apparently felt the movie glossed over how corrupt and selfish the samurai had become by that time. In other words, some modern Japanese think that what truly motived the real-life Satsuma Rebellion was not the passing of a noble age but rather the loss of power and influence for a certain class of people as Western notions of egalitarianism began to filter into Japanese society. Then again, how's that battle of the values going, really? How successful has the infiltration of new values been? Is Japan now totally egalitarian? Is societal hierarchy no longer a thing? Anyone who believes that about today's Japan is woefully naive. Many of the old societal structures and concepts still exist in Japan, just as they exist in China and Korea. Modernization can't change everything. Old values persist.

Regarding those old values: Just this year, Japanese conservatives recently won a sweeping parliamentary victory in their lower house. In the future, we may see a Japan that is stricter about the presence of foreigners, foreign culture, and globalization in general. This new Japan may decide to rearm itself more fully against the looming threats of China and North Korea, and the influx of conservatives into the Japanese parliament may have been at least partially inspired by the heretofore-tolerated proliferation of obnoxious streamers like Johnny Somali, who wreaked havoc while he was in Japan and is now trapped in South Korea as his trial plods slowly onward. The Last Samurai is, if nothing else, both a heartfelt meditation on cross-cultural friendship, the clash of civilizational values, and the tension between old and new. For a 2003 film, it remains remarkably relevant in 2026, a reflection of the times we live in. See it with my enthusiastic blessing.

one reason why I'm not against the occasional vegan dish

Because vegan can look and taste damn good!

another subscriber

Wow. After about eight months of being active on Substack and gaining twenty subscribers within my first week on board, I finally got my twenty-first subscriber, and there's no guarantee that she'll stay. For the time being, though, I'll just keep chipping away, slowly building the sculpture whose final form is unknown even to me. At least until May.

the flare-gun thing

Cullen on Kultur

These are now a bit old but still good:

I kind of like these

AI might not be good for much yet, but it's not bad when it comes to the ridiculously surreal.

ululate!

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, who gained fame as an early civil-rights leader alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, has passed away at the age of 84 after "a long illness," which may mean complications from PSP, or progressive supranuclear palsy. Jackson's legacy as a firebrand is intact, but his legacy as a man of integrity is debatable given his deep involvement in politics and his race hustling (which Dr. King would not have approved of). I imagine there are many who will say, over the coming days, that Jackson impacted their lives. For me, the man became little more than an unpleasant footnote, a mere shadow of leaders like Dr. King and Malcolm X. "You either die a hero [or live long enough] to see yourself become the villain."

That said, RIP.

cookies, distributed

The cookies have been distributed. Some joy has been shared. I doled out two types of cookies to the people I saw: at the downstairs grocery, there were two people, so I gave those cookies out immediately. I asked one lady at the grocery how many staffers there were in total, and she said there were about fifteen. I grimaced and told her I could afford to hand out ten pairs of cookies (one ketoish, one standard American Toll House), so in theory, if some staffers get only one cookie, then fifteen people can receive cookies. I hope those people are happy with whichever cookie they end up with, be it almond flour or Toll House.

almond cookies, stored for the night before placement into plastic sleeves

This morning, I ended up having to bake another batch of Toll House cookies (remember the previous batch?): like an idiot, I had forgotten to add the damn butter last night. The wages of senility. I had warmed/melted the butter in the microwave, then I had combined all the other ingredients to make the cookie dough, and I had somehow forgotten to take the butter out of the microwave to add in. The lack of butter affected the cookies' texture and taste: the cookies, once baked, tasted familiar yet bland, and I recall thinking that the cookie dough, when I'd put it together, looked too sturdy—too much like the almond-flour dough that I've made over and over lately. Later last night, while I was stewing about the cookies' strange taste and texture, something prompted me to open the microwave, and voilà—there in the 'wave was the goddamn butter that I'd forgotten. Fuck. My mind raced through alternative scenarios, and I almost settled on blitzing the baked, butterless cookies up, then adding those crumbs and chunks into a second batch of cookies. The result would have been way more cookies: a superbatch. But in the end, I simply made a second batch of cookies and was extra careful, this time, to include the butter. And this time around, with the butter in place and nothing else forgotten, I had enough dough to make thirty regular Toll House cookies. Softened butter makes all the difference in the dough's texture, and as you see below, I must've been generous with how much butter I'd used: the cookies obviously spread a lot during baking, which was fine by me. My perfect cookie is flat, crunchy around the outside, and soft/gooey at the center. I have no regrets about the recipe or the baking method.

Enough dough, I wrote above. Ah, the perils of pronouncing -ough. 

Farmer Brown's plough churned through the field while he coughed and hawked out a massive loogie. His breath soughed in and out, and his thoughts drifted to last year's drought, which had crimped his budget, meaning he hadn't had the dough to pay all of his bills. This year was going to be rough, too.

my buttery Toll House cookies, not ensleeved yet

The new batch looked distinctly different from the butterless batch (which I still have but will never give out to anyone else). And depending on how many cookies were in any given tray, the cookies came out either a bit lighter or a bit darker in color. Personally, I loved the taste and texture after the cookies had had a chance to cool down a bit.

almond cookies, ensleeved and labeled "almond"

sleeves for the regular Toll House cookies, label "regular" (ilban)

The two ladies at the grocery store seemed happy, and after I had dumped ten pairs of cookies onto the skeleton crew, I went up to the lobby and gave the security guard/concierge enough cookies for him and his staff of four people. More smiles. The concierge was there when I had come by with cake at Christmas.

It'll be a long wait until Chuseok, when I might spread some more culinary happiness again, but there's a good chance I'll have moved by then, assuming I go back to regular work.

blame the fans

something to look forward to

🚨: The most important sky events of this decade is occurring on February 28th. 🌌 ✨

Six planets will align and put on a show of our lifetime. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn will be visible to the naked eye from almost anywhere.

Uranus and Neptune will be visible to naked… pic.twitter.com/oBhcwUu8aT

— All day Astronomy (@forallcurious) February 16, 2026

The 28th is a Saturday. Nice.

polite ragebaiting

Beware the thumbnail.

ululate!

Robert Duvall is dead at 95. What an appropriate number since I've missed 95% of Duvall's movies. Here are some that I can list randomly off the top of my head—movies in which he figured as a main character or as an interesting side character:

Let's Get Harry

Apocalypse Now

The Judge

Jack Reacher

The Natural

Sling Blade

The Godfather

The Godfather, Part II

THX-1138 (incredible film)

The Apostle (another incredible film)

I have Secondhand Lions in my queue; I might watch it today in tribute. I also need to see The Great Santini, a movie that was more for my father's generation.

Duvall was a font of acting talent, and he died the way I'd prefer to die: at home, not in a hospital. All of my childhood mainstays are dying off now.

RIP.

Happy Year of the Fire Horse (丙午)!

I would've guessed 火馬 (hwa ma, 화마, fire + horse) as the characters, but it's 丙午 (byeong oh, 병오), a label that's more about the sexagenary cycle.

So it's the year of the Horse (once every 12 years), but more specifically, it's the year of the Fire Horse (once every 60 years). The AI god says this:

The Fire Horse (丙午, Bǐngwǔ) in the Chinese zodiac represents a rare, potent, and 60-year cycle, with the next occurrence running from February 17, 2026, to February 5, 2027. It symbolizes immense energy, independence, passion, and ambition, combining the horse's natural speed with the element of fire.

Key Aspects of the Fire Horse:

Chinese Name: 丙午 (Bǐngwǔ), representing Yang Fire (Bǐng) and the Horse (Wǔ).

Significance: Known for bringing significant change, dramatic transformations, and intense, fast-paced energy.

Cultural View: While viewed as a time for great achievement, it is sometimes considered too intense or volatile in traditional East Asian cultures.

Traits: People born in this year are believed to be independent, charismatic, and adventurous, but potentially impulsive or rebellious.

The 2026 Year of the Fire Horse is regarded as a time to break old patterns and act with confidence.

My dad was born in 1942, which most people would say is the year of the Horse, but Dad was actually born on January 17, which puts him at the end of the previous lunar year—the year of the Metal Snake.

I said "year of the Fire Horse!"

I think this year is going to see some radical changes for me.

If you're not tracking the lunar new year, then Happy Shrove Tuesday (go to confession!) or Happy Mardi Gras! May your Lent be an arduous one.

Iron Chef Dad adventures

Read about Susur Lee here.

"The Fall Guy": review

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt as Colt and Jody

What the hell did I just watch? The online criticism of David Leitch's 2024 "The Fall Guy" was mixed but more positive than negative, so I went in with high hopes but soon realized I should have braced for impact. There may have been an "enthusiasm gap," though, because despite positive reviews from many major critics, the film didn't attract much business from regular audiences and ended up losing around $50 million. "The Fall Guy" is an action-comedy based on the old, 80s-era TV series that had starred Lee Majors. The new movie stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, and Stephanie Hsu (from "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once").

The story focuses on stuntman Colt Seavers (Gosling), who is dating Jody (Blunt), a camerawoman who aspires to be a director. For years, Colt has been the stunt double for pampered-asshole movie star Tom Ryder (Taylor-Johnson, who gets to do two American accents), and he breaks his back when one stunt goes severely wrong. Feeling like a failure, Colt leaves the business and disappears from Jody's life. Eighteen months pass, and annoying film producer Gail (Waddingham) calls Colt and claims Jody is now directing a movie—her dream project—in which Tom is starring, and she needs a stuntman. Tempted, Colt goes to Australia, where the movie—a science-fiction action picture called "Metalstorm"—is being filmed. It turns out that Gail has manipulated Colt into coming to Oz, not because the crew needs a stuntman, but because she and Tom need a fall guy to take the blame for a fellow stuntman's death (Tom had accidentally killed him during a drunken party). Once Colt realizes the situation he's in, he'll need the help of people like his close friend, stunt coordinator Dan Tucker, to figure out what's really going on.

The main problem with "The Fall Guy," which was billed as a love letter to the stunt community, is that it can't decide which major plot line is the A story. Is it Colt's attempt to mend fences with Jody, who is still furious about Colt's sudden disappearance eighteen months previously? Or is it solving the mystery of who really killed the fellow stunt guy and taking down the guilty parties? I suppose an optimistic interpretation of how the film proceeds is that it takes a "balanced" approach to both plots. I, however, say the movie means well and has some funny moments, but it's a confused, indecisive muddle. The John Wick tetralogy of films, despite its flaws, is a far superior tribute to stuntpeople, and director Leitch (who also directed "Deadpool 2") should have demanded a clearer, more coherent story from writer Drew Pearce. Along with being a mess, the film misses a lot of opportunities to be funnier, smarter, and more heartfelt.

Does "The Fall Guy" do anything right? I think it gets the tone and feel of the original series more or less down pat: in the movie, as with the TV show, it's often hard to tell whether we're supposed to be looking at self-aware stunt work or just plain old action. The film could've leaned a lot harder into the What is real? aspect of the original show. Also, the easy chemistry between Gosling and Blunt keeps their scenes from turning into bland mush, and the friendship between Colt and Dan—who is always challenging Colt to remember certain movie references—is a nice touch. Hannah Waddingham is also easy to hate as the movie's ultimate baddie. But none of this is enough to pull the movie out of the mire.

So in the end, I can't really recommend "The Fall Guy." It's not the worst thing you can watch, and it does feature an uncredited appearance by Jason Momoa, as well as mid-credits cameos by original-show stars Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, both of whom are looking over-surgeried, as is apparently the fate of most American actors who get sucked into the malign Hollywood vortex. I guess we can't all be natty (bodybuilding slang for "natural") like Emma Thompson or Ian McKellen. At the same time, "The Fall Guy" might be fine if you're bored and have a yen for a throwback attempt at the "zany" comedies of yesteryear. I just wasn't in the mood for zany. Haven't been for decades.

succeed! (he said to himself)

another "Avatar" not seen

"Fire in Ass":

effects, effex, FX, VFX

today's bake

I'll be making a batch of my ketoish chocolate-chip cookies later today (gotta buy more butter), then bagging them up for distribution alongside those regular cookies tomorrow. Today is the start of the lunar new-year holiday, but the actual lunar new year's day is tomorrow. Normally, if I had a job, today would be the start of a brief vacation, but as things are, it's just another work day for me. Tomorrow and Wednesday likely will be, too. The irony is to be working this hard for basically no money.

On Wednesday, I'll be making two more batches of ketoish cookies to take to my #3 Ajumma's place. One batch will be chocolate chip; the other batch will be my attempt at oatmeal-raisin. Raisins and oatmeal are both carby, too: raisins are about 80% carbs by weight; oatmeal is about 60-70% carbs (50-60% net carbs thanks to fiber). I hope that that batch of cookies at least tastes tolerable. If it doesn't, I won't take any of them to Ajumma—just the chocolate-chip ones. What are you doing for the lunar new year?

Oh, Henry!

sorry for the bad timing

Putting up a gun video right after a Charlie Kirk video is in poor taste. Sorry. I'm just going in the order of how I'd saved everything to my playlist. I hope that's not too Eichmannesque of an excuse (reference if you don't know who Adolf Eichmann was).

the Kiffness on Charlie Kirk

Compassionate or rabidly political?

cookies

These are normal cookies: wheat flour, real sugar, the works. The ones with the weird corners had spread out into the corners of the small baking trays I use in my small oven. I can slap on about eight cookies per large tray. In my small, square trays, I can barely fit five dollops of dough, and as the cookies bake, they all start to spread into each other.

The recipe claimed it would make four dozen; I made exactly two dozen.

On Lunar New Year's (Tuesday, but the holiday starts tomorrow/Monday), I'll go around to different places in my building, doling out packages of cookies in pairs: one regular cookie and one ketoish, almond-flour cookie (real chocolate chips, but almond flour instead of wheat flour and Truvia instead of regular sugar). The almond-flour cookies will be soft; the regular cookies will be a mix of textures largely because of the omnipresence of chocolate chips.

I bought little, plastic sleeves/envelopes in which to wrap individual cookies; I hope that gives my gifts a sort of bakery-like feel. Koreans are often weirded out by sudden gifts or gestures from strangers, but the places I'll be visiting on Tuesday are staffed by people who all know me. If all goes well, I'll give you all an update.

paintball collisions—the Amurrican version

Remember when I'd slapped up the British Slow Mo Guys video about colliding paintballs? Here come the Yanks with their own trick-shot twist.

8:5, 5:3

Roughly speaking, it's about 8 km for every 5 miles, or 5 km for every 3 miles.

So if someone says he walked 25 miles, you can use the 8:5 ratio—

25 = 5 × 5, so 8 × 5 = 40 km.

If I walk from Yangpyeong Station to Yeoju's intercity bus terminal, that's 33 km.

5 km × 6 = 30 km, so 

3 mi. × 6 = 18 mi.

If I add another 3 km to the above, how many miles am I adding? Well, from the 8:5 ratio above, I can see that 4 km = 2.5 miles, so 3 km is a little less than that. Let's round the figure and say it's about 2 miles. Therefore:

18 + 2 = 20

So 33 km is about 20 miles.

Google says 33 km is 20.5052 miles. I'm off by a half mile (or about a kilometer).

If we use the 5:3 ratio, we get very similar numbers.

5 km = 3 miles

10 km = 6 miles

20 km = 12 miles

30 km = 18 miles

Converting from round-numbered kilometers is easy.

And with the 8:5 ratio, converting from round-numbered miles is easier:

5 mi. = 8 km

10 mi. = 16 km

15 mi. = 24 km

20 mi = 32 km (as we see above, it's closer to 33 km)

Here's why 8:5 and 5:3 are so similar. If I divide 8 by 5, I get exactly 1.6. If I divide 5 by 3, I get 1.667—almost 1.7. These ratios work for very rough calculations, but if your cell phone's calculator has unit conversion, as mine does, just use that for more exact numbers. Failing that, if you have access to Google, just type in "km to mi" or "mi to km" to convert distances. (You can also do this for temperatures: Google "f to c" or "c to f," for example. Google will even convert between units that are not easily convertible, e.g., about how many grams are in 2.25 cups of all-purpose flour? That's taking a volume measurement and coming out with a weight measurement. I Googled "2.25 cups all-purpose flour in g" for the answer.)

Am I preaching to the converted?

and how are your huevos today?

It's the day after Valentine's Day! And how are your huevos doing?

En USA, un tipo le puso picos eléctricos al asiento de sj bicicleta y grabo como los fisuras que querían robarla se electrocutaban los huevos pic.twitter.com/SfXSDiDCdJ

— ElBuni (@therealbuni) February 13, 2026

unasked-for "Dr. Who"

comment seen on YouTube

This will have to appear on Substack as part of my Bad Online English series.

There's stories about William Wallace charging into battle constantly swinging his sword over his head which was nearly 6 feet long.

So Wallace's head was six feet "long"?

Freeeeeedoooooooommmmm!!!!

as I've said...

I've repeatedly said that AI doesn't have to be conscious or intelligent to be dangerous.

From here:

The artificial intelligence model Claude, developed by Anthropic, played an active role in the military operation that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro last month, according to multiple reports citing people familiar with the matter. The revelation marks the first confirmed use of a commercial AI model in a classified Pentagon combat operation and has ignited a behind-the-scenes battle over how far Silicon Valley’s AI safety guardrails should extend into America’s most sensitive military missions.

Rule 34 of the Internet says that, if something exists, there is porn of it. We should develop a Rule 666 based off the David Marcus quote from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," in which Dr. Marcus says, "Scientists have always been pawns of the military."

Rule 666: New technology will be militarized.

Why science fiction matters: because it's a peek into, and a discussion of, the future.

retro Babish (ft. Olivia!)

bad puns even from famous writers

Seen on Instapundit:

the Robo-Rober goes up against Ronaldo

for my Tolkien nerds

that 70s show

thirty in

I'm thirty chapters in with my movie-review book. I just spent hours restocking scheduled posts for the blog; I'm going to work on some more chapters this evening, then spend Sunday tinkering with the code for my Do You Deserve to Vote? app and baking some celebratory new-year's cookies for certain people in my building (as I'd done with chocolate cake this past Christmas). This coming week, Monday through Wednesday, I'll be spending the lunar new-year holiday working on the movie-review book. On Thursday, I'll take a batch of keto chocolate-chip and oatmeal-raisin cookies to my #3 Ajumma for an after-holiday visit (I don't want to show up when the whole family's there, hence Thursday). Ajumma will get cookies as well as a copy of my homeschooling book. On Friday, I'll have to shelve all of my current efforts and get back to generating content for Substack to last through the end of April. Once that's done, I'll get back to the movie-review book—the first of what I see to be three volumes: 2004-2015, then 2016-2018, then 2019-2025 (that last one might have to be broken up into two or three volumes: my reviews have gotten progressively longer, on average, over the years, and I don't want any single volume to be more than 300-350 pages long).

Having found yet more formatting problems yesterday, I uploaded version 3.0 of the homeschooling-book's manuscript (sorry, Neil, but the second book I sent you from Amazon has defects you'll see pretty quickly). This third version seems to have all of the remaining difficulties ironed out of it... but you never know. The work goes on.

dour Matt versus restaurant decline

pop that tart (that came out wrong)

get down Trek-style

let's start off Valentine's Day with some combat!

I love you thiiiis much!

As with most of these compilations, the situation shown in the above thumbnail isn't in the video. If you want trustworthy thumbnails, watch Ozzyman videos.

when you gotta go, you gotta go

Ephesians 6:11-18

AI and consciousness

Dr. V tackles the question of AI and consciousness, primarily through a Platonic-Kantian-Husserlian lens. He emphasizes the unity of consciousness—a unitary substrate that holds all past sensory phenomena together such that we are able to perceive things like melodies (which are not merely series of successive notes, chords, etc., but those things in their entirety), and he doesn't see how AI, at least in its current form, possesses that unity.

Suppose my mental state passes from one that is pleasurable to one that is painful. Observing a beautiful Arizona sunset, my reverie is suddenly broken by the piercing noise of a smoke detector. Not only is the painful state painful, the transition from the pleasurable state to the painful one is itself painful. The fact that the transition is painful shows that it is directly perceived. It is not as if there is merely a succession of consciousnesses (conscious states), one pleasurable the other painful; there is in addition a consciousness of their succession. A succession of consciousnesses need not amount to a consciousness of succession.

In the example given, there is a consciousness of succession. For there is a consciousness of the transition from the pleasant state to the painful state, a consciousness that embraces both of the states, and so cannot be reductively analyzed into them. A consciousness of their succession is a consciousness of their succession in one subject, in one unity of consciousness. It is a consciousness of the numerical identity of the self through the transition from the pleasurable state to the painful one. Passing from a pleasurable state to a painful one, there is not only an awareness of a pleasant state followed by an awareness of a painful one, but also an awareness that the one who was in a pleasurable state is strictly and numerically the same as the one who is now in a painful state. This sameness is phenomenologically given, although our access to this phenomenon is easily blocked by inappropriate models taken from the physical world. Without the consciousness of sameness, there would be no consciousness of transition.

[ ... ]

May we conclude from the phenomenology of the situation that there is a simple, immaterial, meta-physical substance that each one of us is and that is the ontological support of the phenomenologically given unity of consciousness? Maybe not! This is a further step that needs to be carefully considered. The further step takes us from the phenomenologically given unity of consciousness to an underlying immaterial soul substance which is the ‘seat’ of consciousness and the ultimate subject of consciousness. I don’t rule this move out, but I also don’t rule it in. I don’t need to take the further step for my present purpose, which is merely to show that a computing machine, no matter how complex or how fast its processing, cannot be conscious. This is because no material system can be conscious.

Another example is provided by the hearing of a melody. To hear the melody Do-Re-Mi, it does not suffice that there be a hearing of Do, followed by a hearing of Re, followed by a hearing of Mi. For those three acts of hearing could occur in that sequence in three distinct subjects, in which case they would not add up to the hearing of a melody. (Tom, Dick, and Harry can divide up the task of loading a truck, but not the ‘task’ of hearing a melody, or that of understanding a sentence.) But now suppose the acts of hearing occur in the same subject, but that this subject is not a unitary and self-same individual but just the bundle of these three acts, call them A1, A2, and A3. When A1 ceases, A2 begins, and when A2 ceases, A3 begins: they do not overlap. In which act is the hearing of the melody? A3 is the only likely candidate, but surely it cannot be a hearing of the melody.

This is because the awareness of a melody involves the awareness of the (musical not temporal) intervals between the notes, and to apprehend these intervals there must be a retention (to use Husserl’s term) in the present act A3 of the past acts A2 and A1. Without this phenomenological presence of the past acts in the present act, there would be no awareness in the present of the melody. This implies that the self cannot be a mere bundle of perceptions externally related to each other, but must be a peculiarly intimate unity of perceptions in which the present perception A3 includes the immediately past ones A2 and A1 as temporally past but also as phenomenologically present in the mode of retention. The fact that we hear melodies thus shows that there must be a self-same and unitary self through the period of time between the onset of the melody and its completion. This unitary self is neither identical to the sum or collection of A1, A2, and A3, nor is it identical to something wholly distinct from them. Nor of course is it identical to any one of them or any two of them. This unitary self is co-given whenever one hears a melody. (This seems to imply that all consciousness is at least implicitly self-consciousness. This is a topic for a later post.)

What I find interesting is how Dr. V makes his argument without ever once using the word memory. But has Dr. V inadvertently made an argument for how the tune-identifying app Shazam works? Most apps these days can handle chronologically sequential data, like musical notes (or medical data, or economic trends), and find patterns in that chronological sequence. Granted, Shazam isn't conscious of anything and therefore has no unity of consciousness, but it is nevertheless capable of identifying many tunes after only a few notes of music. 

A philosopher of mind named John Searle (1932-2025) once made an argument now known as "the Chinese room." Searle's point was to show how consciousness can be simulated without actually being there. In this scenario, you've got a Chinese-knowledgeable person who comes up to a closed room. He writes a question or statement on a piece of paper and slips it under the room's door. What he doesn't know is that, inside the room, there's a guy who doesn't know any Chinese, but who has a rulebook or program that shows the responses to the patterns of the Chinese characters slipped under the door. The guy inside the room finds the appropriate pattern for the response, then outputs that response. From the perspective of the guy outside the room, it seems that "the room" is conscious and has successfully communicated with him, but we observers know that "the room" (i.e., the guy in that room) has no knowledge of Chinese.

This thought experiment, Searle and Searlians contend, shows that consciousness can be simulated without actually being consciousness. But there are at least two responses to this: (1) What if the Chinese room proves too much? What if it proves that we ourselves aren't conscious at all but merely "zombies" that process reality in a way that we label "consciousness"?* And (2) Going in a completely different direction: Couldn't it be that the Chinese-room scenario is indirectly harboring consciousness in the form of the rulebook for Chinese? Some conscious minds had to create the rulebook, right? So consciousness was at least indirectly involved in the outside man's interaction with the inside man.

If we follow argument (1), well, that's the Shazam argument. You don't need consciousness or a unity of consciousness to process auditory data and find patterns. If Shazam can do that without being conscious, why should our ability to perceive melody be seen as proof of consciousness? If we follow argument (2), we see a reflection of the sticky situation we're in today, which mirrors the rebuttal to Searle's Chinese room: consciousness has already been smuggled into the scenario. People can say with assurance that "AI isn't conscious" (a statement I agree with), but in truth, it's people's consciousnesses that are helping to form AI. Consciousness factors into everything as we inevitably assume the godlike role of creating things (eventually, beings?) in our own image and likeness. We ourselves can do parkour-style standing backflips. We now have robots that can do the same, and they can recover from the flip with an inbuilt "sense" of balance. Robots can cook, clean, etc., and soon, they'll be able to do all of the physical labor that we can do, just better because the robots will be faster, stronger, and unable to experience fatigue, frustration, and anger. (The extent to which we can "program emotion" is an interesting question for a different discussion.)

So—is AI conscious? Not yet, and probably not for a long time. But we are using consciousness to build aspects of consciousness into the machines we're creating: balance, dexterity, pattern-recognition, reactions to changing environments—these are all features of consciousness. It won't be long, I fear, before the answer to the question Is it conscious? will no longer be a simple yes or no.

* * *

As an unrelated side note, did you see the grammar error here?

Passing from a pleasurable state to a painful one, there is not only an awareness of a pleasant state followed by an awareness of a painful one, but also an awareness that the one who was in a pleasurable state is strictly and numerically the same as the one who is now in a painful state.

__________

*The pro-consciousness response to this is that I have access to my own consciousness, which is proof enough to me that I am a conscious being. That may be sufficient for the philosophers who take first-person subjective insights to be evidential or probative, but if we're talking about scientific standards of proof, well, that sort of proof only holds weight in a third-person objective context. And unfortunately for you (and me), your consciousness is directly available only to you. So, what's been proved, objectively speaking?

don't walk like a victim

From what I gather, it comes down to looking alertly purposeful.

more lawn ASMR

Are you as satisfied as I am to watch this lawn get brought under control? To watch the, uh... bushes get trimmed?

tentative Geumgang Trail walk schedule

GEUMGANG WALK SCHEDULE

1. Day 0 (3/15): Train to 신탄진역 (대전), walk to motel.
2. Day 1 (3/16): Cab the next morning to 금강자전거길 기점 (대청댐 인근).
3. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to 세종보 인증센터, 37 km.
4. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to & stay at 커플링 모텔, 2.8 km.
5. Day 2 (3/17): Walk from 커플링 모텔 to 공주보 인증센터, 21 km.
6. Day 2 (3/17): Walk to & stay at 금강온천 모텔, 1.6 km.
7. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to 백제보 인증센터, 25 km.
8. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to 부여전통한옥 펜션, 2.5 km.
9. Day 4 (3/19): Walk to 익산성당포구 인증센터, 34 km.
10. Day 4 (3/19): Camp at the campground, open or not.
11. Day 5 (3/20): Walk to 금강하굿둑 인증센터, 24 km.
12. Day 5 (3/20): END. Take train from 군산역 to Seoul.

In more English:

GEUMGANG WALK SCHEDULE

1. Day 0 (3/15): Train to Shintanjin Station (Daejeon), walk to motel.
2. Day 1 (3/16): Cab next morning to Geumgang Path Start Point (near Daecheong Dam).
3. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to Sejong Dam Certification Center, 37 km.
4. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to & stay at Coupling Motel, 2.8 km. (sic)
5. Day 2 (3/17): Walk from Coupling Motel to Gongju Dam Cert Center, 21 km.
6. Day 2 (3/17): Walk to & stay at Geumgang Hot Springs Motel, 1.6 km.
7. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to Baekche Dam Certification Center, 25 km.
8. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to Buyeo Traditional Hanok Pension, 2.5 km.
9. Day 4 (3/19): Walk to Iksan Seongdanpogu Certification Center, 34 km.
10. Day 4 (3/19): Camp at the campground, open or not.
11. Day 5 (3/20): Walk to Geumgang Estuary Barrage Certification Center, 24 km.
12. Day 5 (3/20): END. Take train from Gunsan Station to Seoul.

There are still some details to iron out. This doesn't look to be a convenient trail for walkers: there are huge segments at the beginning and near the end, and I won't be doing any rest days. I'll be trusting that my feet can't be that torn up after only five days' walking.

I did end up designing a modest tee shirt. Click the tee image on my sidebar to go see it and maybe buy one. I've bought one of each design for myself: a front-and-back design and a front-only design (to wear while walking).

Adam does food

Gordon Ramsay vs. the world

I wasn't there for the moment when Gordon Ramsay utterly screwed the pooch by totally fucking up a simple grilled-cheese sandwich (I have, however, since seen the highlights). But this series of match-ups, pitting Gordon against a variety of experts, is pretty interesting.

another "uncleanable" one

the crunch is coming

With a possible walk on the schedule for March, and with the end of February on the horizon, it'll soon be time for me to start generating more Substack content. This time around, I need to make enough material to get me through April. I'll stop working on my movie-review book on February 20 and start working on Substack material. I think I have a system now: churn out the easy content first (Bad Online English, creative writing, crosswords and word finds), then do the longer content in smaller chunks. Once I get all of that done, I can go back to my book projects and drag out my video equipment to start making videos through most of April. Come the end of April, though, and the crunch will start all over again. This is samsara, the painful wheel of existence. I enjoy what I do, but it's a slog.

upping the reps (and other news)

I've been doing an abbreviated form of my workout since getting back from the walk last November. Despite my resistance-band workouts en route, I got weaker during the three weeks that I was out walking, and when I got back, I took a couple weeks off from doing anything, which was undoubtedly the wrong move, but it's the sort of move to expect from a naturally lazy person. So to simplify my life, I've been doing the exact same exercises I had printed out for myself before last year's walk, but I've been doing only a single set of each exercise. If the exercise involves reps, then I've been doing only ten reps. Today, though, I decided to bump all of my "repped" exercises up to fifteen reps (except for my 10-kilogram lateral raises, which went up from five to eight, roughly in line with a 50% increase in reps).

Since I'm so busy with other stuff, this one-set workout lets me get through a gauntlet of exercises in about 20-25 minutes. I realize it's at the expense of more rapid gains, but it's nice to know that I can keep stacking the reps on periodically, and these modest sets can eventually become supersets while still taking no longer than 30-35 minutes to do.

In other news: today and again this weekend, I'm baking (not eating) cookies to distribute for Lunar New Year, which is on the 17th this year, meaning the holiday runs from Monday to Wednesday. I might do a rare thing and pay my #3 Ajumma a visit tomorrow, a small batch of almond-flour cookies in hand. Ajumma's in her 80s now. She occasionally texts to ask when I'm going to come over, but those texts have been getting rarer lately.

As for this year's long walk... yeah, I might do the Geumgang route, which at a mere 146 km is short. Depending on how I divvy up the route segments, it should take about a week. And being a week-long walk, I don't think I'll need any rest days. Which leaves me to wonder: if the walk is under 150 km, is it even worth my while to make a tee shirt? Hm. Much to ponder, and only a month to do so. If I were to shift this walk to the fall, though, I'd have more time to plan. The only problem is that, if I go back to university work, I'm not going to have time for a fall walk. But we'll see. Always in motion is the future.

they spent how much?

"you can have anything you wan' / at Andy's ol' restaurant"

shirtses!

The walk tees that I'd ordered from Spring weeks ago (January 24) have finally arrived. See below. The tee on the left has no image on the back; this is the shirt I would have worn on my walk last year had there not been a massive, months-long fuckup that prevented me from getting my order, which I had made at least a month in advance of the walk. (No rear image = safe for backpacks.) The shirt on the right has, as you see, an image on the back; this shirt is meant for everyday activity, not for long hikes with a backpack.

This year, I'm trying to decide whether to walk in the spring or in the fall. Assuming I have to get back to the life of a prole come fall, it's probably better for me to walk in the spring—maybe from about mid-March. That's next month. I haven't done a springtime walk across South Korea since my first long walk in 2017. Depending on the state of my funds, there's a chance I might also just do the Geumgang trail this year. That trail, not even 150 km long, is even shorter than the Nakdong River trail (officially 385 km); walking the Geumgang might take about a week at a leisurely pace. Stay tuned as I cogitate more.

"prison hooch"

What's the point of having wine tasters?

AI cats... mit Händen

I wish I were this creative

“Why are you taking so long in the shower”

Me:
pic.twitter.com/NJQ3aY5nr9

— Science girl (@sciencegirl) February 11, 2026

someone who speaks my language

We interrupt this regularly scheduled YouTube video-embedding to bring you... more video-embedding! But what's interesting about this guy's commentary is how similar it is to my own, to the point where I have to say in my own defense that I did not see this video before watching "Nosferatu" and writing my own review. I watched this gent's video below only a few minutes ago. Incredible. Almost point for point in some areas, but with a richer evocation of religious imagery. I feel weirdly vindicated.

So I looked up the guy's Substack (he has links to his other online presences on his YouTube page), and sure enough—he seems to have a background in theology. So I'd say that 90% of what he says in the video is content I've heard (or said myself) before. Wow. A religion bro. Most people's eyes just glaze over when I start talking about what interests me.

Of course, I've been out of the religious-studies game for decades (and religious studies is not the same as theology), so I doubt a conversation with this guy would be fruitful. If anything, my brain would end up overtaxed. I've been away from the wellspring for too long.

but can you make them into skull-shaped danju?

let's play musical cats

art and games

"Nosferatu": review

L to R: the shadow of Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and Ellen "(Lily-Rose Depp)

"Nosferatu" is a 2024 Robert Eggers film that is a remake of the 1922 silent movie "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror." The film stars Lily-Rose Depp (Johnny Depp's daughter), Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok the Nosferatu. As you see by my use of the article "the," this movie treats Nosferatu as a title (like the Christ or the Buddha instead of just Christ and Buddha, which are not surnames). The 1922 silent movie is itself based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, a story published in 1897. A bit like the Batman movies and their many remakes, "Nosferatu" is another take on what is by now a very old story.

We begin in the city of Wisburg, Germany. Young Ellen (Depp), feeling lonely, calls out into the night for companionship. Her innocent, open heart invites the evil presence of the Nosferatu, known to most mortals as Count Orlok (Skarsgård). Orlok's visitations at first give Ellen a sense of pleasure and even ecstasy, but these feelings gradually give way to pain, distress, and terror as Orlok—spiritually—has his savage way with the girl. Later in life and still a young woman, Ellen marries the handsome Thomas "Tom" Hutter (Hoult), who has just gotten a job at a real-estate firm where he is to work under Mr. Knock (McBurney), and the very first assignment is for Tom to travel to the far-off country of Transylvania to allow Count Orlok to sign a deed for a property in Germany where Orlok claims he plans to retire. Ellen, who had suffered horrible night terrors before marrying Tom, feels a sense of foreboding as Tom prepares to go to Transylvania. Tom is chipper and reassuring, promising a safe return and having no idea what's in store for him. He puts Ellen with his friend Friedrich Harding (Taylor-Johnson), his wife Anna (Corrin), and their two daughters. Tom travels to the Carpathians, arriving at the forbidding fortress-castle of Count Orlok. Everything from here on in becomes creepy and surreal as Tom meets the huge, imposing, gravel-voiced Orlok. As the atmosphere of dread rises to a fever pitch, Tom wakes up to find his chest covered in bite marks, and he discovers his host, who only ever appears at night, is not of this world. Back in Germany, Ellen begins suffering even worse night terrors than before her marriage, and just as a plague is hitting the city, the local doctor calls in the help of a former mentor, Herr Doktor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Dafoe), who had departed from science to study the occult.

The rest of the story is about Tom's escape from Orlok's castle, Orlok's arrival in Wisburg by boat; what Orlok does (or threatens to do) to Tom, Ellen, and Friedrich's family; and von Franz's discovery of the way to combat Orlok's evil. One theme of the movie is about how science fails in the face of pure evil, a theme also touched on in both the novel The Exorcist and the movie "The Exorcist." Being unfamiliar with the 1922 movie, I was unprepared for the final solution to the Orlok problem, and my understanding is that Eggers's 2024 film hews fairly closely to the plot of the 1922 movie, albeit with a bit more sex and gore along the way. I won't spoil this movie's conclusion, but I can tell you that it does not involve a beheading or a stake through the heart.

I've seen two of Robert Eggers's previous movies: "The Lighthouse" and "The Northman." Eggers is an impressive director in terms of how he manages his actors and how he manages lighting and cinematography. There are certain directors, like Denis Villeneuve, whose very names can inspire trust and confidence. Even when they produce flawed movies, those movies remain eminently watchable. Eggers, like Villeneuve, has earned my trust, so I knew going in that this was going to be a good experience, and it was. "Nosferatu" is a visual treat, with many of the special effects being reminiscent of what Francis Ford Coppola had done in his 1992 "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Parts of Eggers's film are so lacking in color saturation that certain sequences—especially the evening and nighttime scenes—feel almost black and white. Even the daytime scenes, despite their color, feel as if some evil force is leaching away the world's chromatic beauty. The period dialogue is also of note: the characters are supposed to be German (except for Orlok, who is presumably Romanian/Transylvanian and the speaker of an ancient language that often reminded me of the Black Speech of Mordor), but the dialogue is in stylized, slightly archaic English. I can't say how well Bill Skarsgård did at speaking in Romanian or ancient-ese, but when Count Orlok spoke in English, it was with a heavy and sinister Eastern European accent. I'll also comment that the film could have been much more exploitative of women than it was: while there are instances of female nudity in the film, there are also plenty of nightgown scenes in which backlighting would have revealed the silhouette of a naked female form, but this was tastefully avoided. When there is nudity, it's always in the service of vulnerability, a way of portraying purity in the face of a predator.

Lily-Rose Depp is excellent as the beleaguered Ellen, hypnotized and even possessed by Orlok from afar (she looks a lot like her mom, Vanessa Paradis). Her role demands that she cry frequently and that she moan sensually; her possession/night-terror scenes are also unsettling—and all without special effects. Nicholas Hoult finds himself once again in a role where he plays a quivering mouse of a man, but his portrayal of sheer terror in the presence of Orlok is a performance for the ages. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin are solid as the skeptical couple who don't understand what's happening to poor Ellen (nicknamed "Leni," by the way). Simon McBurney, as Knock, is excellent as this movie's version of Renfield: as Tom's boss, he's the one who sends fresh meat to the Nosferatu. Ralph Ineson is authoritative as the doctor who calls on his old mentor to solve the unsolvable problem of Ellen's condition, and Willem Dafoe, when he finally appears, is magnificent as Doktor von Franz, this story's Van Helsing. And standing above them all is Bill Skarsgård as Orlok the Nosferatu, completely unrecognizable in his heavy, leprous makeup, but utterly owning the character of Orlok through his unearthly voice and accent. I thought this role was a much better fit for Skarsgård than the ridiculous Pennywise from "It" (see here and here). Skarsgård may have flubbed his French-speaking role in "John Wick: Chapter 4," but he's a convincingly menacing Transylvanian in this movie.

After "Heretic" and "Abigail," this is my third horror movie in a row to feature people who get lured into a domicile whose owner is evil. And as in "Heretic," Nicholas Hoult's character is drawn further into the domicile by his own politeness and inability to say no. By the time he co-signs what he thinks is the contract for Orlok's new property in Germany, Tom barely has a will of his own. In truth, the contract he's just signed—written in Orlok's original, ancient tongue—nullifies his marriage to Ellen and gives her over to Orlok, who must nevertheless not take possession of her until she accepts the situation of her own free will.

If I had a problem with the movie, it's the same one I have with so many depictions of vampires: vampires always seem capable of sudden and confusing teleportation, but only in limited spaces, like a mansion or a room. Why does Orlok need a boat to reach Germany? Why not just teleport to Ellen instead of doing the vampiric version of the Jedi Force-projection we saw in "The Last Jedi"? Aside from that, I was willing to suspend my disbelief about Orlok's other capabilities. To his credit, Orlok at least never morphed into a bat or a werewolf.

In all, "Nosferatu" wasn't a scary film, but it did build suspense well and had some rather vivid visuals. The acting was superb all around, and the Nosferatu was portrayed as a feral, hungry, implacable evil wearing only the trappings of civilization—just enough to lure people into his lair. Because of the way the story ends, I suppose this could be considered a "sad" story, but not because we discover some poignant fact about the vampire's origins or motivations. If the movie teaches any lessons, it's that science can't explain everything, that real evil does exist, and that in times of crisis, innocent people die.