Movies Watched -- The Damned (1969)

157 minute running time so at least an hour too long … it was a good idea, exploring how the capitalist class (“industrialists”) in Germany collaborated with the Nazis — a very interesting topic — but this movie was a mess, just absurd, which is a shame. “Martin … proves to be only a psychopath impersonating an effeminate gay man.” Come on, spare me, sweet holy hell, you can give this a miss.

Charlotte Rampling, more than 45 Years ago

Wrestling the Wind

Dana Williams is beautiful and talented … love her voice:

Movies Watched -- Toni Erdmann (2016)

In German. 162 minute running time which means it was over an hour too long … sweet Jesus, whom do I have to blame for recommending this one?!? Kooky German Dad and uptight businesswoman daughter, I threw in the towel after 20 minutes, who could possibly have found this interesting or entertaining? Who cares about Sandra Hüller’s droopy tits? Oh the mainstream critics are going to go wild for this one, but I beg you not to see it….

Adam Graham is right: “… its beats are repetitive and its message belabored”

Dick Brody nails it: “… a personal story that remains as schematic and impersonal as a position paper … The mystery of the film is why … Ines doesn’t say something like ‘Dad, stop; you’ve caused enough trouble already.’”

There’s the cheese grater

Reviewing Loss in MDIA

Back on July 12 I took a huge loss in MDIA … this sort of set me up for the even larger loss I took in NURO later in the month … my full-time job is cutting losses, and I’m pretty good at it except for the occasions where I screw up (for whatever unknown reason, probably hubris), and I screwed up royally in MDIA.

I had shorted the morning pop at $5.08 … it did drop as low as $4.33 into hourly support then reversed and went up strongly. I was supposed to cut it just above $7, but didn’t, and in fact committed the cardinal sin of adding to a loser … then I was really screwed because I had too large a position (45 shares) and I couldn’t bear to take the loss (I guess?) as it squeezed higher, and I more or less top ticked out covering into end of day, covering between $15 and $15.50 for a loss of $385 (these numbers are missing many zeros, lol).

One mistake leads to a series of mistakes, and as I said, I believe that this bad trade set me up for something even more catastrophic in NURO. But I did learn from all the mistakes made in July and since then I haven’t had any trades like this one (thank god), and I just had my best month of the year in September. I took three mega losses in July: MDIA, NURO, and NAOV (NAOV (chart is below) happened just after NURO, which showed that I was still off my game). Without these losses, my year-to-date 2021 results would be over 50% higher than they are, so you can see how important avoiding large losses is. Don’t let a small loss turn into a large loss.

It’s good to review losses … it’s the way we learn.

Movies Watched -- Stray Dog (1949)

117 minute running time so 20 minutes too long … Kurosawa movie, neat to see post-War Japan, how down and out it was, but getting back to normal (the ball game footage priceless) … story was sort of interesting at first (a homicide detective has his gun pickpocketed on a bus) … Toshiro Mifune is gorgeous (which may partially explain the Farr reco) and his relationship with the older cop is well done, but the movie could have been tightened up a lot … I get why it’s a “classic,” but it doesn’t get the nod from me.

"A mad dog only sees straight paths."

The World Is Bigger Than Her

Delta Maid singing ‘Better Love’ live … I can’t get enough of her, she’s so good…. I’m interested to know the whole story about her early Nashville?!? stardom under Geffen Records and how that has all been disappeared … weird.

Movies Watched -- The Party (1968)

100 minute running time but could have lost 20 minutes or so … Peter Sellers doing his hilarious impersonation of an Indian gentleman (racist, but funny racist, not racist racist, even with the skin coloring) … Blake Edwards pic, there are some very funny bits and it’s interesting as a period piece, but I wouldn’t recommend it, I don’t second Farr’s reco…

You speak Hindustani?

This Shit Is Physical

Love the little panther, she’s talented and works hard:

My Cousin Vinny

The best part of Roger Lowenstein’s book, When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management:

“Badly in need of a lift, Meriwether called an old friend, Vinny Mattone, who had been the fund’s first contact at Bear Stearns. Mattone, who had retired, was everything that J.M.’s elegant professors were not. He wore a gold chain and a pinkie ring, and he showed up at Long-Term in a black silk shirt, open at the chest. He looked as if he weighed 300 pounds. Unlike J.M.’s strangely wooden partners, Mattone saw markets as exquisitely human institutions — inherently volatile, ever-fallible.

‘Where are you?’ Mattone asked bluntly.

‘We’re down by half,’ Meriwether said.

‘You’re finished,’ Mattone replied, as if this conclusion needed no explanation.

For the first time, Meriwther sounded worried. ‘What are you talking about? We still have two billion. We have half — we have Soros.’

Mattone smiled sadly. ‘When you’re down by half, people figure you can go down all the way. They’re going to push the market against you. They’re not going to roll your trades. You’re finished.’”

Movies Watched -- After Life (1999)

In Japanese. 118 minute running time so about 20 minutes too long. This is by Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose “Shoplifters” I like a lot … this one was a really interesting idea, a neat conceit about the space between life and death, but in the end it turned out to be a little bit too precious for me. But it was a god idea, darn hard to execute perfectly in the end… Farr is right to say that “Kore-eda fashions a deeply affecting homage to the sweet here-and-now,” but it may be a little bit too sweet. I’m torn, in some ways I liked it a lot, but in other ways I thought it was heavy-handed, I guess.

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