The Great - S01 (TV 2020)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Great - S01 (TV 2020): Over-the-top parody of Catherine the Great's early years. It helps to know the real history to appreciate some of the jokes, which tend to be explicitly sexual. Everyone plays it straight but obviously all are having great fun. B-

#VeryTardyReview

The Worst Person in the World (2021)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Worst Person in the World (2021): Norway. Not a plot, but a slice of life. Julie changes majors, falls in and out of love, struggles to figure out who she should be in life. Contrary to the title, a normal young woman. Acting so good, the movie feels like cinema verité. A-

There's a True-Crime TV Drama in This

Former Richardson Mayor Laura (Maczka) Jordan was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday for bribery and tax fraud. The government's story has all the ingredients of compelling drama, if it's a bit dry. I'm sure Hollywood can spice it up to make it a bingeable true-crime TV drama. I wouldn't be surprised if screenwriters were already shopping treatments of this story to Hollywood producers. The headline on The Dallas Morning News's story even suggests a title for the TV drama: "Not a 'Love Story'". Do you have a better suggestion?

POTD: Succession of Civilizations

From 2019 11 23 Luxor

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Luxor Temple in Luxor, Egypt. It shows a mural that stands out from the rest of the temple. It looks more like something you'd see in ancient Rome. That's because the portraits in the mural are indeed Roman, not Egyptian. They date from the time of the Emperor Diocletian in the late third century CE.

Bonus photo (and civilization) after the jump.

Julia (2021)

Rotten Tomatoes

Julia (2021): Documentary of Julia Child. Like a Wikipedia article on film, it covers her whole life but barely captures the intellectual rigor that made her cook book a best seller and the joie de vivre that made her a star TV chef. Still, a good place to start. B-

TIL: We Have 50x More Heat Waves than in 1980

By now, we all know that climate and weather are different. Or we should know. But even those who know still talk about the weather wrong. When we experience a heat wave like our current one, instead of blaming climate change, we instead dismiss the weather as simply a chance event, a quirk, something we have no influence over. As the skeptics have long conditioned us to respond, we just say we've always had heat waves. That Dallas summer of 1980 was a real scorcher, right?

Nope (2022)

Rotten Tomatoes

Nope (2022): It had me at Jordan Peele. Strong characters and an eerie atmosphere with a crazed chimp and a murderous cloud, but it comes up short when it's time to explain what's going on. Is it a Western? Horror? Sci-fi? Social commentary? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Is it good? Yep. B-

Random Thoughts: Russians Win the Space Race to the Moon

Tweets from July, 2022:

• 2022-07-05: For All Mankind - S01 (TV 2019): Alternative history of NASA where Russians win the Space Race to the Moon. A few references to alternative facts that people familiar with history will appreciate, but also a lot of soap opera storylines and convenient plot developments. B-
• 2022-07-07: Review: Sea of Tranquility: A time travel story in which a glitch in time brings centuries together. And sends characters from earlier novels into alternate timelines. These stories slowly weave together into a mesmerizing whole. B+
• 2022-07-10: In a world of Jenna Ellises, be a Simone Biles.

After the jump, more random thoughts.

Review: Cloud Cuckoo Land

From Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

“Ah,” says the first sister, “fine choice,” and they sit on either side of him and the one who fetched the book says, “On a day like this, when it’s chilly and damp, and you can’t get warm, sometimes all you need are the Greeks”—she shows him a page, dense with verse—“to fly you all the way around the world to somewhere hot and stony and bright.” "
	Amazon

Cloud Cuckoo Land: A mashup of the fall of Constantinople, a modern-day crime thriller, and a future sci-fi journey to another star, all connected by an ancient Greek story. The characters are memorable, the plots compelling, but the sum is less than the parts. B+

POTD: Go Rams!

From 2019 11 23 Luxor

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egypt. It shows just a few of the many (and by "many" I mean hundreds) of 3,000 year-old ram-headed sphinx statues at the site. There's even a road connecting Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple that's lined with Rams. I think it would make a grand place for Berkner High School to hold victory celebrations like Egypt's own celebration of the restoration of the road in 2021.