Through Rocks and Clouds (2024)

This movie, set in Peru and with mainly Quechua (not Spanish) dialog, reminded me of Mongolian Ping Pong (2005) because the pacing was slow, and both feature a young boy from a herding culture against the backdrop of an immense natural landscape. However, the relevant landscape in Mongolia was flat, and the relevant landscape in Peru was… not.

The boy, Feliciano, seems to spend all his time outside with his dog (Rambo), his own alpaca (Ronaldo), and a small herd of other alpacas. He loves soccer and hopes Peru can qualify for the World Cup. He breaks into a one-room schoolhouse where he used to go to school, but it seems nobody goes to school there now. There seems to have been a shift away from traditional herding culture; some of the townspeople have jobs related to the local mine, and one of them even has a shiny pickup truck. The mine seems to be polluting the lake, though, and that’s not the end of the townspeople’s problems. Meanwhile, there’s a kind of buffalo spirit watching over Feliciano…

Breakout at Stalingrad by Heinrich Gerlach, translated by Peter Lewis

My German colleague recommended this book and lent it to me. It is a semi-autobiographical account of when the 6th German Army was encircled by Soviets at Stalingrad in 1942 and then, due to freezing winter temperatures and lack of supplies as much as actual fighting, was defeated in 1943. The message is, of course, that the human costs of war are tragically high.

The book was interesting in several ways…

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How to Write a Book Proposal (3rd edition) by Michael Larsen

This book isn’t about how to write a non-fiction book, but about how to write a proposal, the document that will get a publisher interested in selling it. As author, you have to have a very clear idea about the people who are going to read your book, how many of them there are, and how to get their attention. After all, if you don’t know who you’re writing for, and you can’t guarantee that at least couple thousand people will line up to buy it, why should a publisher be interested in investing resources in your project?

I read this book because I had a specific idea for a non-fiction book that I could write. Unfortunately I think the time to have published it was like the end of 2023, beginning of 2024, and it would also probably have required me to have a collection of followers eager for my opinions specifically on that topic. I think I may have missed the boat.

This is the 3rd edition of this title. I bought in a used bookstore in 2023. It was published in 2004, and says quaint things like, you might want to use a computer to draft your proposal, because word processor software can make it easy for you to move things around; or you can just use 3×5 notecards. It’s very likely the 5th edition is more informative for someone writing in 2026. There’s even an eTextbook.

The BBC Jane Austen Collection (1972–1995)

Between June 2024 and June 2026, I watched all six of the Jane Austen adaptations in this particular box set, which includes:

  • Emma (1972)
  • Sense and Sensibility (1981)
  • Mansfield Park (1983)
  • Northanger Abbey (1987)
  • Pride and Prejudice (1995)
  • Persuasion (1995)

Most of these adaptations struck me as boring, fussy and strident like a stage performance, or terribly incomplete.

More on various other adaptations below.

Continue reading The BBC Jane Austen Collection (1972–1995)

Gattaca (1997)

The movie Gattaca combines many things successfully. For one thing, visually, it is a retrostylized future with buildings, clothes, and cars designed to look like those of the past. For another, the society has several types of advanced technology: rocket science, embryology, DNA forensics, and electric cars, which, well, we have too, just not as good as theirs.

But do we want biotech as good as theirs? I mean, look what they did with it: Gattaca depicts a dystopia where people with unfavorable “in-valid” DNA sequences are consistently excluded from social and career opportunities.

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Thank You For Banking with Us (2024)

When I’m on a long flight, I try to watch a movie or two from the entertainment system that I never would have heard of any other way, and this Palestinian black comedy is one example.

“When their father passes away leaving a large sum of money in the bank, two sisters put their differences aside and join forces against Sharia law, according to which their brother has the right to take double what they are entitled to.”

If you think it’s hard being a woman in general, try being a woman in Palestine… in this depiction, all the family and economic relationships are tilted against the women. The ambulance staff at first even refuse to state whether their father, who is lying in bed unresponsive, has died because no other male is present. I mean it’s like, a woman is still an adult, right?

In case you’re curious, the two sisters do manage to claim the inheritance for themselves; that’s not really a spoiler because it very much matters for the overall effect of the film how they try to manage it, and how they succeed… Do they enlist the help of someone’s boyfriend, husband, or son? Do they impersonate their dead father, or their undeserving distant brother, or some other male? Do they march into the bank with masks and a stolen gun and threaten the bank teller? Do they launch a protest campaign and achieve policy change? Do they just walk up to a series of ATMs and take out a thousand dollars 150 times over the course of a week?

Early Edition (Seasons 1 and 2)

The news is always bad stuff, because that’s what competes best for our attention. And according to Rolf Dobelli’s book Stop Reading the News, we’re better off without it. I think that’s largely true. But, asks the mystical feel-good 90s TV show Early Edition: What if you got tomorrow’s news today? Would you try to change it? Prevent the bad stuff from happening?

Gary Hobson, a newly unemployed stockbroker, is kicked out of his Chicago apartment by his soon-to-be ex-wife and, while living in an old hotel suite, mysteriously starts receiving a printed copy of the Chicago Sun-Times a day in advance. The accompanying orange cat seems to want him to help people (rather than, say, place sports bets), so helping people becomes, well, not only his full-time job but his entire identity, his raison d’etre, like it or not.

Continue reading Early Edition (Seasons 1 and 2)