Cold War Marathon

This past Saturday I have several friends over for a three-movie marathon with the central theme being The Cold War. For some of the people attending the films were their first views, while others had seen at least some of the trilogy. With pizza to snack on we had a very enjoyable time.

We started off with The Manchurian Candidate, the story of poor doomed Raymond Shaw and of vast, complex international communist conspiracies to subvert the American democracy. For anyone who only knows Angela Landsbury as a sweet old lady solving mysteries, or as a welcoming animated teapot, this film is a revelation and a shock.

Following the paranoia of The Manchurian Candidate we skipped across the pond for the British film, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Spy follows the exploits of Alex Leamus, former station head of for the East German sector of British Intelligence. When Mundt, the head of East German intelligence, kills Leamus’ last agent, Leamus’ superior, code named Control, leaves Leamus in the field for one last operation in hopes if destroying Mundt. What follows is a cat and mouse game with secrets, betrayals, and the cynical premise that one cannot afford to be less ruthless than your enemy, no matter your ideals.

To counter the dreary themes of the previous two movies we ended with the black comedy Dr. Strangelove or How I stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. In Strangelove, General Jack D. Ripper, suffering a paranoid breakdown, orders his B52 bomber wing to attack the Soviet Union with its nuclear payload. Suddenly the Russian and Americans find them selves scrambling to find some way to avoid atomic war and the destruction of all life in the Earth’s surface. With farcical overdrawn characters this movie highlights the inherent absurdity and dangers of the Cold War’s nuclear standoff.

Overall I think the marathon was a success and that people enjoyed this bleak black-and-white peek at the bit of history that is not too far behind us.

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And the Draft is Done

Well, technically I completed the first draft of my latest novel a week ago, but only now am I talking about it here.

This is the next novel in my military/sf adventure series. My agent is shopping the first book in the series and I went ahead and produced the second. The title and synopsis is of course under wraps but it deals with an American officer serving in the 3rd European Union’s interstellar forces. I refer to the setting of these stories as Nationalized Space as this is an imagined future where mankind spreads out into the cosmos without ever having unified. In addition it is a future where sometime in the early 21st century the United States took a wrong turn, never recovered, and ended up a minor power. After all, all empires fade.

Now that the draft is done, currently at 99,000 words, I am going to take a few weeks off from working on the novel. First I am going to play on my new Xbox One S and lose a lot of matches of Player’s Unknown Battlegrounds. Second I am going to work on some short pieces, including trying my hand at a pulp styled adventure, but in short story form, and then after I have achieved some distance I will return to the novel for the revision processes.

I’m confident that the book has no major flaws that will require a complete rewrite, but I have been wrong on that before. I anticipate that the revision will be principally tightening, clarifying, and of course hunting and killing the dreaded spelling and grammar flaws.

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Product Review: TCL P605 55″ Television

Nearly two weeks ago I replaced my 10 year old 42″ LG LCD TV with a 55″ 4K TCL P605. The LG had served me well and good for most of those 10 years but an annoying backlight issues had degraded the screen image and it was time for something new.

The TCL is a 4K television providing a resolution nearly double of current HD standard and it comes with HDR, High Dynamic Range, for better contracts and black levels.

I paid the extra money to not only have the television, and its news stand, delivered, but also to have everything assembled and put into place. The savings in frustration more than made up for that extra cost.

The TV is working beautifully. The picture is sharp, clear, and with great color and detail reproduction. I have watched everything from native 4K content all the way down to 480i broadcast signals of classic programming. The classic programming is fuzzy and it is amazing that we watched that content at all. My Blu-rays look fantastic, Sunday Night I watched my copy of the 1973 The Wicker Man and it was the best I had seen outside of a cinema. Sitting about 9 feet from the screen the apparent size is great for an immersive experience, making late night movie watching a pleasure. The thin black frame of the Tv vanishes in a dark room, so there is the illusion of an image simple hanging in the void.

The P605 is also a smart TV, meaning it has a number of apps and this model uses the Roku system for streaming content, either through a direct connection or via a wireless network. I use a wireless connection and here again the TV works great.

It has been more than 8 years since my wife and I subscribed to a cable TV service, and now everything we watch is either streamed or on disc. The built-in Roku works well with our streaming services, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu. (Though I found the Hulu interface not as user friendly as the one on our Apple TV.) Streamed the 4K content plays perfectly and we’ve enjoyed a lot of cool programming on our new television.

I have also connected my new Xbox One to the TV and again it passes all expectations but of course no product is perfect.

The set lacks component inputs making it difficult to connect older devices such as my region-free DVD player. That’s going to have to go through my AV receiver. Also the screen has a bit of gloss to it so you’ll need to be aware of light sources and their positions to avoid glare. However, those are fairly minor issues.

In short I have no regrets buying a ‘budget’ television. This monitor gives me great image, and presentation with a very affordable price.

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Sunday Afternoon with Film Geeks SD

One of the more fun things in San Diego is the group Film Geeks San Diego. For the last few years they have organized yearlong themed cinema celebration at the Digital Gym, a 48-seat micro-theater of art and international films. Past themes included Universal Suspects, featuring classic Universal Horror movies; Get Hammered celebrated the horror of British Hammer studios, and last year’s retrospective of John Carpenter movies.

This year’s theme, after a very close vote, is Noir on the Boulevard with each month spotlighting a different classic of the Film Noir tradition, one of my favorite genres.

This past Sunday I stopped by to enjoy a noir I had never seen, I Wake up Screaming, starring Victor Mature, Betty Grable, and Carole Landis. In addition to the feature presentation, the showing included a short introduction by Victoria Mature, daughter of the film’s lead.

After a spot of luck finding a parking spot just one block away, I entered the theater and discovered that the showing had sold out two weeks earlier. This prompted conflicting emotions. On one hand I wanted to see the movie and this was a personal disappointment, but on the other hand what coolness that the showing were generating greater interest and selling out. Luckily not all pass-holders, who account for about half the audience, showed up and all of us on the stand-by list were able to buy tickets and get in. I lucked out and I learned my lesson; buy in advance.

Victoria Mature was charming, she treated us to video clips and stories presenting sort of in-person bonus material. She also sang for us and her voice was lovely and powerful, filling the auditorium with her rich tones.

I Wake Up Screaming will not become one of my favorite noirs but it I am very glad I had a chance to see it with a live audience. The final resolution of the murder/mystery tracked about 50% with what I expected, and that was a good thing. Mysteries suffer from two common failure modes; so predictable as to be boring or so out of left field as to be utterly preposterous. (Really Agatha? How did everyone fit into such a tiny space?) This one threaded the needle presenting a solution that followed from the characters and yet was not telegraphed miles and miles away.

Next month they will be showing This Gun for Hire another I have not seen save for tiny clips appearing in LA Confidential.

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Black Panther and Wakanda’s Reality

Marvel Studios’ latest superhero movie Black Panther is proving to be a box office beast, pulling in audiences and on a trajectory to become the number 2 or 3 performing movie. (With dethroning Marvel’s: The Avengers not outside the realm of possibility.)

In addition to having a great script, sharp characters, exciting actions, and powerful performances, Black Panther had grabbed people by the heart with its vision of Wakanda, a fictional nation in the heart of Africa untouched by colonialism. For people of the African Diaspora the notion of a nation like Wakanda has proven to be powerful and liberating, but there have been people, such as Ben Shapiro, who have dismissed the emotional connection with a patronizing “Wakanda is not real.”

Of course Wakanda is not real.

Do you know what else isn’t real?

Camelot is not real.

Hercules is not real.

Paris, Helen, Achilles and Odysseus are not real.

The power of myth is not that it is real, that is history’s job, but rather myth informs us of who we are and more importantly who we want to be. Through myth people speak about the values that matter and the aspirations worth struggles and sacrifice.

Wakanda is a modern myth for people bereft of their own. For far far too many people of the African Diaspora genealogy is an impossibly, the Atlantic slave trade obliterated their history and their connection to myth. Make no mistake the attraction to Wakanda is not about the comic-book technology, the fictional metals, but rather about a culture that had flourished as its own culture, that celebrates its own people, that inspires without hand me downs from alien lands.
Something as simple has hair is fraught with the influences of colonialism and the horrors of the past. I can’t imagine enforcing a rule that expels students for natural hair and yet today such practices are too common, so a place where hair that has not been straightened and made to appear European is powerful symbol. The Wakanda myth runs far deeper than hair and appearance but it is not my myth and much of symbolism can only be an intellectual exercise for me, and one of empathy as I try to understand my fellow human beings and the world as they experience it.

I will close out this short essay with one more reference to someone who is not real.

Captain America is not real. Captain America does not represent the slaughter of native, he does not represent slavery, or Jim Crow, or any number of other ills that our country has participated in, but rather he is what we hope we can be, what our ideals demand of us. If people like Ben Shapiro cannot see that Wakanda and Captain America are really the same thing for different peoples it displays their terrible inability to see the world in any way other than their own.

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The GOP Must Go

After the release of the response to Republican Chairman’s Nunes memo I think that it is past time for the GOP to lose their majorities in the House and the Senate.

Set aside that they have added 1-2 trillion dollars to the Federal debt.

Set aside that they feel Wells Fargo has been punished too harshly for its financial crimes against its own customers.

Set aside that hey have stripped away healthcare for people and slashed funding for mental health as the nation endures a protracted crisis of mass murder.

Set aside the border walls, the protectionism, the abandoning of international commitments, the blatant nepotism and corruption.

Those are important issues and with some issues on which people can reasonable disagree.

However, it is clear that Russia, our geopolitical advisories, have penetrated our political processes, attempted to manipulated our voters, and influence the outcome of our elections. By our intelligence community this is an accepted fact and yet the GOP wants to do nothing about it.

Chairman Nunes’ memo did nothing to the illuminate the dangers we face but instead attempt to muddy the waters and throw suspicion not at our attackers, the Russians, but the party in opposition to his.

By wide margins the legislature has passed sanctions to be enforced against the Russia for their cyber warfare and espionage operations within the United States and the Executive had implemented none of them. Yes the GOP helped pass those sanctions but as the President ignores them they remains silent.

The Russian launched a sophisticated, expensive, and target attack on our self-governance. It is the opinion of our intelligence agencies that this did not stop with the 2016 presidential election but rather the Russian operation continues with the goal of influencing this year’s elections. We must assume that they will continue this aggressive assault on our most basic freedom.

What possible domestic policy is more valuable and more important than defending our nation from foreign attack?

It is tragic that the GOP lashed themselves the Trump ship. They had opportunities to sink that vessel but cowered before his supporters and now in bailing out his troubled administration they do the Russians a favor.

They must go.

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Scrambled Schedule

My schedule today is a bit of mess so no regular blog update.
Instead please enjoy the Overly Sarcastic Synopsis of Macbeth.

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Video Review: Britannia

Short version; Silly but fun.

 

Set in 43 AD with the invasion of the British Isle by the Roman 9th legion the Amazon original show Britannia should not be confused with history, but rather in the words of Peter Shaffer when speaking about his play Amadeus a ‘historical fantasy.’

When the commander of the 9th Legion, Aulus, (David Morrissey) invades with 20,000 troops, minus the three he executed for desertion, he finds the land of Britannia at war with itself. Various tribes bicker and war while bending knee to the mysterious religious leaders the Druids.

Very quickly it is established that there is a reality behind the Druid’s beliefs and abilities, so that pretty much tells you we are dealing with a fantasy story and not one masquerading as historical fiction.

The series currently has one season and my sweetie-wife and I are just a little over halfway through the episodes. We have our guesses about where the program is going and the anachronisms are sometimes amusing but we still enjoy the ride and it’s paying off so far. (Though my sweetie-wife has voiced a fear that the series may still go all Fortitude on us.) My favorite anachronisms so far, when a character is performing a pagan ritual and imploring their gods to ‘turn back the hands of time.’ Really? ‘Hands of time?’ I guess the writer doesn’t understand that phrase originates with clocks.

The program is produced in stunning 4K resolution with lovely location shooting in Eastern Europe.

If you turn off your history knowledge it is possible to enjoy the show.

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Streaming Review: The Cloverfield Paradox

This past weekend I finally got my new televisions set, a large 55″ 4K display with High Dynamic range. Naturally that meant I had to find some 4K content to watch on it the evening it was set up and ready. With a couple of friends over and after we had finished out board and card games for the evening we settled in for a movie.

Browsing through the selections on Netflix I suggested The Cloverfield Paradox, the next entry in the SF/Horror film anthology. I enjoyed Cloverfield, and 10 Cloverfield Lane, so I had decent hopes that this movie would not be a waste of time.

I was wrong.

Populated by decent actors who are entertaining to watch, The Cloverfield Paradox is ultimately a silly movie that more than strain disbelief it shatters its bones and grinds them into an abrasive power then flings that into your eyes.

The story set up is that in the near future Earth is running out of energy all our supplies are nearly exhausted. (That concept itself feels very 70s.) The only hope for humanity is an orbiting particle accelerator that if it works will supply limitless power to the entire plant. (Never mind such minor issue as a distribution grid and the like. All they need is for the thing to work.) The nations of the world are moving rapidly towards war of the lack of energy and time is running out for the station and her brave international crew.

Of course when the system is turned on there is the predicted catastrophe that had been ignored and now all manner of super strange stuff is going on. This is one of the SF movies where the writers feel that the phrase ‘Quantum Mechanics’ is an incantation that allows anything at all to happen, not matter how stupid or impossible.

Very quickly the crewmembers turn on one another and there are special effects driven deaths and injuries until this all leads to the principal character making their fateful decision and growing through their rather predictable arc.

Watching the film could have been more tedious had my friends and I not fallen into MST3K mode, but still this one is a miss. However, the space scenes and the visuals were beautiful so the TV works great!

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Did We Get Lucky With the Election of Donald Trump?

That’s a provocative question and let me put out here at the start I think Trump is a terrible person and in the 12 months of his administration our worst President. Yes I know some of you disagree and that’s your opinion we’re not here to debate the merits of the Trump presidency.

Here is my thought: if Trump had lost would the serious threat to our democracy from Russian meddling have been so exposed?

It is a fact widely held within our intelligence community that Russia seriously meddled in out election process. The recent Mueller indictment, which is but a small piece of a much larger and on going investigation, clearly demonstrates that the Russians were engaged in a deep, sophisticated, and intricate operation within American borders to influence our elections. (Yes, I know that there are some who feel that the Russian never expected Trump to win and that the operation was to undercut the administration of Hillary Clinton. I see no evidence to support that interpretation.)

Had Clinton won the Electoral College there would ben investigations into this matter but hamstrung by a hostile congress, fights over other policies, a general sense that it was not worth the time because everyone knows Trump couldn’t have won, and without the independence of a dedicated special prosecutor. These factors, only available under Trump’s victory, have accelerated the investigation and public disclosure of the Russian Ops.

You might think of this as the Bailystock & Bloom outcome of the election. By producing a hit instead of a flop they exposed their criminality and so it would seem for the Russians.

Now, because we are aware of the dangers there is not only a serious investigation into who know what and who did what, but there are thoughtful conversation about our election processes.

I think one of the things we must do to combat this and a number of associated ills if move to a strong national identity system There are candidates proposing using variations on public key encryptions for an ID Card and this is a good place to start. It is a place we would be much further from without the disastrous Trump Presidency.

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