For the first few months after my son was born last year, I was hunting for stuff to watch that would be entertaining but not taxing — movies I'd seen before, or movies that even if I hadn't actually seen them, I felt like I'd seen them, because I'd seen the box art for the VHS tape pass through my hands thousands of times when I worked at the Princeton, N.

I first saw Asteroid City the week it came out, while I was still trying to figure out what this newsletter should be. I meant to review it and I thought that meant seeing it as soon as possible. I tried to squeeze it into regular weeknight rotation, after putting a toddler to bed and a few drinks at dinner. That didn’t work out so well. I felt sleepy and disassociated, left wondering whether my failure to lose myself in the movie was my fault or the movie’s.

Love Lies Bleeding Dir. Rose Glass 104 min. One common pitfall of mediocre neo-noirs are filmmakers who get caught up with signifiers, fiddling too much with hard men and femme fatales, stylized dialogue, and flashy chiaroscuro lighting techniques. Starting with the title, Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding serves as a potent reminder that passion is the true engine of the genre, even as it trades robustly in the familiar archetypes and the nasty little twists that go along with it.

The 1999 Open at Carnoustie. Final day. 18th hole. A Frenchman named Jean Van de Velde was carrying a three-shot lead over the nearest contender, and needed only a double-bogey to win the tournament. For a professional golfer with that big a lead, the final hole is usually ceremonial, a chance to soak in the approbation of the gallery as he strolls his way to victory against the majestic backdrop of a Major course around magic hour.

Little fish don’t get a lot of respect. People don’t have trouble with tuna or halibut, but the same people shrink away from dinky sardines and anchovies. In The Magic of Tinned Fish, Chris McDade explores the wonders of these smaller specimens of the sea, in tinned form, including mackerel, which is one of my favorite tinned fish. Although I have to say, I like them all. Chris is the chef at Popina in Brooklyn, where I’ve eaten several times, and he courageously devoted an entire book to my favorite forms of fish.