Category Archives: Movies

Greatest Fictional Deaths

Posted on 22 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate posted this long list and several sidebar articles/interviews on Wednesday. (I’m guessing they compiled it a while back and waited for a relatively slow news day to post it.) Slate, Dan Kois, 20 July 2022: The 50 Greatest Fictional … Continue reading →

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Fiddler on the Roof

Posted on 7 July 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Over the past couple evenings we’ve watched the movie version of a musical I had never seen before, in any form: Fiddler on the Roof. I was aware it was a big-hit musical, back in the 1960s or ’70s, in … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies, Music, Social Progress | Leave a comment

LQCs: Foley Unreality and Fist Fights

Posted on 29 June 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

The New Yorker, Anna Wiener, 27 Jun 2022: The Weird, Analog Delights of Foley Sound Effects Subtitled: “E.T. was jello in a T-shirt. The Mummy was scratchy potpourri. For Foley artists, deception is an essential part of the enterprise.”

Posted in Aesthetics, Movies, Narrative | Leave a comment

LQCs: Bad Map Projections; Worldle; Banned Books

Posted on 4 May 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve commented a few times about map projections, and how projections of the entire globe are invariably misleading in one way or another, because there’s no accurate way to map a spherical surface onto a flat map. Inevitably there are … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Cosmology, Films, Movies | Leave a comment

Movie Notes: Belfast; Licorice Pizza

Posted on 7 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Having given up on visiting movie theaters any time in the near future, we’ve been catching up on Oscar Best Picture nominees in the past couple weeks via Amazon Prime, at $19.99 a movie. Weekend before last, Belfast; yesterday, Licorice … Continue reading →

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Links & Comments: Narrative Shortcuts, Fantasy Worlds, Arabic Numerals

Posted on 30 December 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Sunny but chilly today; we’ve had rain for much of the past two weeks, and now we’re in for a week or so of sun. We did a 34-minute walk, though Robinson Drive and around on  Skyline and back to … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Economics, Movies, Narrative | Leave a comment

Ls&Cs: Theocrats, School Boards, Libraries, Shocked Parents; The Sound of Music

Posted on 20 December 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

How shocked parents are fighting back against school boards and public libraries; how other parents respond; how and when abortion became so important to the Christian right; and about the usual Republican gerrymandering. With an endpiece about The Sound of … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: From McCarthyism to the Assault on the Capitol, via 1951 SF movies

Posted on 27 February 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate: What UFOs and Joe McCarthy Have to Do With the Assault on the Capitol. Who knew?

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Movies, Politics, Skiffy Flix | Leave a comment

Favorite Film: Magnolia

Posted on 11 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Sunday night we caught, on one of the cable channels, the 1999 film by Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia (all but the first few minutes; we caught up on those the next night, since I have the DVD). It’s one of … Continue reading →

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Skiffy Flix: Destination Moon

Posted on 8 August 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

This 1951 film was the first prestigious science fiction film, its script inspired or perhaps partially written, by Robert A. Heinlein. The credits say “from a novel by” Heinlein but that’s not accurate. Heinlein had written a juvenile novel about … Continue reading →

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