The BFG (2016)

IMDB

The BFG (2016): Orphan girl helps BFG end bullying in Giant Country. Sweet, even with CGI fart jokes. Good for kids and sick adults. C+

POTD: Rollin' on the River

From 2016 12 15 Louisiana

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the stern of the Steamboat Natchez on the Mississippi River in New Orleans.

The Salesman (2016)

IMDB

The Salesman (2016): Iran. Collapsing apartment; collapsing relationship. Actor's wife is attacked. Tale of revenge with powerful ending. B-

Crocodile Tears

From his perch in a downtown Dallas skyscraper, D Magazine's Peter Simek gazes northward and professes to see all that's wrong in Collin County. Too many people. Congested roads. Crowded schools. Cheap apartments. All caused by a focus on economic growth based on a car-centric infrastructure. Simek could have shifted his gaze downward, but didn't. It's not like Dallas's own lack of growth has been the magic formula for fixing potholes.

Now I don't live in either the City of Dallas or Collin County. From my own vantage point in Richardson, I see shells being lobbed over my head. And like shells in real wars, some are on target and others widely miss their mark. All do more damage than offer constructive criticism. Just because I'm feeling cranky today, let's look at the shells that landed wide of their mark.

Review: The Sympathizer: A Novel

Amazon

From The Sympathizer: A Novel, by Viet Thanh Nguyen:

The month in question was April, the cruelest month. It was the month in which a war that had run on for a very long time would lose its limbs, as is the way of wars. It was a month that meant everything to all the people in our small part of the world and nothing to most people in the rest of the world. It was a month that was both an end of a war and the beginning of . . . well, 'peace' is not the right word, is it, my dear Commandant?"

"The Sympathizer" is a novel of the aftermath of the Vietnam War from the point of view of an undercover Vietnamese agent who describes himself as "a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces." His ability to see any issue from both sides makes him an invaluable narrator for Americans to make sense of that horrible war.