The Shore

The Shore

Friday, January 9, 2015

Friday musings - film reviews and more


This looks like tons of fun - a new video game that is for an iphone,  and voice controlled - first time I ever wanted an iphone.    Story here.


Remember Phyllis Schafly - I recall her from the 80's as the American anti-feminist -- women should stay home, have babies  cook and clean -- too many women working she thought!   She's in the news again with a solution for College sexual assaults:  reduce the number of women on campus!  Bring back more money for male sports (they now have to share their bucks with female sports) and maybe something else -- who can remember idiocy - just posting because it is amazing she is still out there and being published!

Then there is the difficulty with the recent spate of supposedly fabulous pics,  and problems with the historic accuracy of the films.  Each reviewer suggests that, although movies do not have to be absolutely accurate, and can conflate events, contract relationships or move events around -- and they might dramatize conversations that no one can report on -- but these films (like Zero Dark Thirty suggested that torture helped produce information about the whereabouts of Osama, which is not true)   spread the mis-information or create new information that is factually wrong.

So. . .

Selma - two issues - focuses too much on the one man theory of history,  and not enough on all the organizing work that went into getting Selma "ready to march";  and  suggests that LBJ did not want to pass the Voting Rights Act when in fact he did and the two men colluded on the timing.

Then there is Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is also full of shit.  One - although  it does talk about the true story of this man but there is no analysis at all of what happened in Iraq.  Check out this review.

Then there is The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch which apparently although a great film, makes mincemeat of Alan Turing.   The Reviwer in the NYTimes Review of Books says: "There’s no question that the real-life Turing was decidedly eccentric, and that he didn’t suffer fools gladly. As his biographers vividly relate, though, he could also be a wonderfully engaging character when he felt like it, notably popular with children and thoroughly charming to anyone for whom he developed a fondness. All of this stands sharply at odds with his characterization in the film, which depicts him as a dour Mr. Spock who is disliked by all of his coworkers—with the possible exception of Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley). The film spares no opportunity to drive home his robotic oddness. He uses the word “logical” a lot and can’t grasp even the most modest of jokes. This despite the fact that he had a sprightly sense of humor, something that comes through vividly in the accounts of his friends, many of whom shared their stories with both Hodges and Copeland."