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| gromit |
 Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2019 6:28 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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2nd hand research: someone told me they looked it up and it was true.
I assumed it was because it was otherwise so unlikely. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 7:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: 2nd hand research: someone told me they looked it up and it was true.
I assumed it was because it was otherwise so unlikely.
Apparently 100% true. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 7:23 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| "Greta" is an over-the-top but entertaining thriller which represents slumming for director Neil Jordan and star Isabelle Huppert but campy fun for fans of the likes of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" Chloe Grace Moretz plays an ingenuous New Yorker who finds an abandoned purse on the subway and returns it to its owner, the titular character played by Huppert. Greta turns out to be a distaff Norman Bates. Take it from there. Possibly a WTC (wait for cable) item, but it was fun seeing it in a theater. Being on the AMC A-List will do that to you. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 7:25 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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"Apollo 11" is a beautifully crafted documentary using previously unseen footage to provide an exciting glimpse of the 1969 trip to the moon. That said, my takeaways were weird.
1) After all the expensive, meticulously organized hoo-ha around the expedition and its successful completion, so what? What has happened since? How long has it been since the words "Space Race" have been uttered on cable TV?
2) Nixon's greeting to the threesome aboard Apollo 11 upon their return to Earth was sincere, heartfelt, and grammatically correct. In other words, presidential. In other words, Tricky Dick is FDR or JFK as compared with the catastrophic current resident.
3) Everybody--and I mean EVERYBODY--in the control center looked the same. Short-sleeved white shirts, dress pants, solid-color neckties. When did the world start wearing T-shirts and jeans? I guess it began about a month later with Woodstock, but wow, is it disorienting.
In any case, see this movie. It's memorable. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 9:48 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1245
Location: St. Louis
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Nixon was literate and was neurologically capable of feeling regret. That right there should forestall any DT comparisons.
I imagine the move away from neckties was very welcome in places like Florida.
Thanks for the factual confirmation on RFK intervention in Green Book. Makes you think about the ordeals of AA jazzmen who didn't have the US Atty Gen riding on their shoulder. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 2:29 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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1) The Moon turns out to be somewhat boring.
Huge achievement getting there (actually I'm more impressed by getting back). But not much to it once you have some rock samples, enjoyed the low gravity, and checked out the view.
While space exploration has become less prominent, the next steps have been exploring the solar system. Problem is with gas planets you can't do any sort of landing and get feedback. So Mars is the only terrestrial world to touch down on (and asteroids, coming soon). Also, the space sation where humans live in orbit for extended periods of time.
So the next step is to land people on Mars, or strip mine the moon. Really these projections of mining asteroids and such sounds completely ludicrous to me. Sending folks to Mars round trip is a much greater task. The Moon could be a way station on the Mars voyage. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 5:10 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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| Leaving Neverland is the most searing documentary I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of anything I’ve ever watched that stuck with me in a really bad way. That he got away with it......He was not a kind human being who loved children.........We’ve got to stop idolizing anyone..... |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2019 4:47 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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On a brighter note, Apollo 11 may well be the best space documentary I've ever seen. It uses only camera footage of the time including black-and-white from the onboard tv cameras (much of it blurry since the original was lost), but also the color photography from the command and lunar modules, as well as mission control (which was a LOT bigger than you usually see in movies), some of the backstage people, all the huge crowds everywhere that someone had a chance of a view. (Not too near the launch pad, of course.)
Two spectacular scenes particularly got to me: The first is the ignition of the Saturn V's engines, of course, taken in great detail by a camera dedicated for the purpose. I was in awe--not least because it seems to take forever for the skyscraper rocket to start moving.
The second, is simply the command module photographing the moon, when you suddenly notice a dot growing larger. Yes, it's Lawrence returning from the desert--or rather the LEM returning to the mother ship. The effect is the same.
No narration, except a little period commentary from Walter Cronkite, and several cartoonish drawings which I believe may be period as well. Mostly the footage speaks for itself. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:02 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Syd wrote: The first is the ignition of the Saturn V's engines, of course, taken in great detail by a camera dedicated for the purpose. I was in awe--not least because it seems to take forever for the skyscraper rocket to start moving.
It's a fine documentary, but this scene is the most memorable. It's breathtaking. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 5:23 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Is this good, worthwhile?
Thoughts? |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:41 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Ghulam wrote: .
The Japanese movie "Shoplifters", the winner of Palme d'Or at Cannes and an Oscar nominee, is a very sensitively directed and emotion-laden but subdued story of a tightly-knit but sociologically atypical family that is at peace with itself and that is surprisingly full of wisdom. The movie was written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda who also gave us gems like "Nobody Knows" and "I Wish". He is often called, and I think rightly so, the heir to the great Yasujiro Ozu....
I really liked this film, a spellbinding Japanese twist on Oliver Twist, with a persuasive take on what makes a true family, regardless of blood ties. Lily Franky (a Japanese man with an improbable professional name) makes a great "Fagin." |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 7:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Is this good, worthwhile?
Thoughts?
It's good without being great, but definitely not a waste of time. Good acting by the two leads and by Jane Curtin as a toxic agent (almost a redundancy).  |
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| knox |
| Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 11:56 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1245
Location: St. Louis
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:08 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Unlike his earlier "Get Out", Jordan Peele's new horror film "Us" is full of metaphors and symbolisms that do not add up to any coherent theme. Good cinematography but not an entertaining movie.
On the other hand, "Apollo 11" is one of the best documentaries I have seen recently. It makes us relive the thrill of the first moon landing. I agree fully with Billy's review. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 10:03 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Ghulam wrote: .
Unlike his earlier "Get Out", Jordan Peele's new horror film "Us" is full of metaphors and symbolisms that do not add up to any coherent theme. Good cinematography but not an entertaining movie.
On the other hand, "Apollo 11" is one of the best documentaries I have seen recently. It makes us relive the thrill of the first moon landing. I agree fully with Billy's review.
When they first go into the control center at Cape Canaveral (Cape Kennedy, I think, at that point), they immediately focused on a woman. I think possibly she may have been the only woman in the control center.
I loved seeing the huge crowds watching the launch, noticing how careful everyone was to keep them from getting too close to the launch. I've heard there were a lot of deaf alligators in the vicinity, though I doubt people were going around performing hearing tests on crocodilians. (Though a lot of the area is a nature preserve.) |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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