DVDs::

"After being dumped by yet another girlfriend (Julie Delpy), Don Johnston (Bill Murray) vows he'll be alone forever. But when a mysterious unsigned letter arrives in the mail, he's surprised to learn he has a 19-year-old son.

With no idea who the mother could be, Don sets out on a cross-country journey to confront his past, surprising a series of old flames (Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone and Tilda Swinton) along the way." Netflix summary.

I look forward to a new (Jim) Jarmusch film the way some fans of their less-than-prolific favorite authors wait for their latest published piece. Less than a dozen films in the past 20 plus years he steadily delivers films that don't flinch from shots and scenes that are allowed to unfold in real cinema time. A typical director will chop up scenes to render them more "injectable," Jarmusch allows for space and time to give the viewer more options.

Bill Murray's perpetually undercommitted single man is well played to type. A man with the time to find out the source of anonymous letter and a tantalizing bit of news, he has son. With the goading-help of his neighbor Winston, (Jeffrey Wright) he sets out to reconvene with former girlfriends from a period of time, some 20 years earlier.

Nothing is obvious. The path of the past never crosses and the trajectories are linked together via the colorings of Murray's Don.

DVDs::

"This film tells the incredible true story of a 23-year-old medical student from Argentina, Che Guevara (yes, that Che, played here by Gael Garcia Bernal), who motorcycled across South America with his friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) in 1951-52.

The trek became a personal odyssey that ultimately crystallized the young man's budding revolutionary beliefs. Based on Che's own diaries of the trip." Netflix summary.

Although released several years ago, this film retains a fresh currency with the classic "life is a journey" theme that, even if we rarely move beyond a small series of steps in our own lives, we can learn much about "life" if we choose to participate with it. The film takes the road-trip genre and creates a tableau in which to understand genesis of events, for an empathic young man embarking on a medical career to eventually pursue a social and ultimately a political solution to the conditions of the common person throughout his encounters across the South American continent.

Bernal is wonderful as the asthmatic Guevara, initially bouyant at the onset of the cross continent journey; only to arrive with purpose and gravitas at the leper colony where he will spend the last few weeks of his months' long journey. de la Serna as his "chubby" companion, is a perfect foil and "mentor" during the adventure.

The diverse beauty of South America is the third and most poetic "character" that allows the two main characters to clarify their lives' mission. A grand little film.

DVDs::

"Mahmut (Muzzafer Özdemir), a divorced, hermit-like photographer, lets his dopey cousin Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak) live with him for a while in Istanbul while Yusuf looks for a job so he can support his family in their native Turkish village.

The distance -- and silence -- between the two lonely, depressed men soon grows to intolerance, on Mahmut's part, of the chaos Yusuf has brought into his life.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan directs this intimate drama." Netflix blurb. It was not long before my wife lost conciousness, perhaps ten minutes into the film when I decided that viewing this film to completion would take considered effort. Some would say, "if it's crap shut it off."

I treat these moments as learning experiences. Not that Distant was a bad film. Not truly. It had a Bergman-esque expanse, replete with mordant characters, bristling with unease throughout their interactions with one another.

However, on a small screen it was hard to attend to the emotional/logical impetus of the narrative, without saying to oneself, "these people remind me of people I know, I am. . .where's the remote?" The visuals of shadows and physical silence in the Turkish cityscapes and countryside were compelling and perhaps for me the reason I stuck it out. My wife was better rested than I.

Books::

The Devil in the White City
By Eric Larson.

This is a great read of the building of the Chicago World's Fair and a mystery of murder with the same time frames.

This is a true factual book and is very enlightening