TV review: Bridgerton (2020)

This heavily promoted hit Netflix series is one of the silliest things I have seen in a long time.

I can just imagine how the pitch for this idea went. The creators realized that there seems to be an inexhaustible appetite among American audiences for shows about the bygone days of the English aristocracy with the action taking place in stately mansions, as can be seen from the immense popularity of earlier shows like Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey. This series cranks that all up to 11. The entire series take place in the fanciest of castles and homes and beautiful parks and other outdoor settings with everyone, and I mean everyone, including the servants, dressed in the finest clothes. There are no big name stars in the show and I figured this must be because they spent most of the budget on costumes. The entire time of people is spent gossiping about each other and promenading in gardens or attending the balls that seem to occur every night. Apparently these events require women to wear a new outfit each time.
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TV review: Amend: The Fight for America (2020)

I just finished watching this excellent six-part documentary series that tells the story of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US constitution. It is arguably the most important amendment as it has enabled great strides towards equality in the US. It was enacted in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 that freed all the salves in the south.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

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Wine snobbery

I am not a wine drinker so cannot speak from personal experience but know that suggesting to people who consider themselves connoisseurs of wine that some tests have shown that there isn’t that much difference between expensive and cheap wines (and that some tests found that experts cannot distinguish even between red and white wines) is sure to arouse indignation. I know personally someone who when he visits his parents’ home, takes some of their wine and pours it down the sink because he thinks it is inferior. My own attitude to any matters of taste is to follow Duke Ellington’s advice in music that “If it sounds good, it is good.” If you like the taste of something, you should ignore other factors like its cheap price or the attitude of experts.
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TV review: Death to 2020 (2020)

A good way to spend New Year’s Eve or start 2021 would be to watch Death to 2020 on Netflix that gives a humorous review of the year’s events with a biting sardonic tone. One of the creators of the show is Charlie Brooker, a well-known British TV personality known for his sarcastic wit, who along with Annabel Jones also created the dark futuristic series Black Mirror.

Here’s a clip from the show.

Here’s another clip.

Here’s the trailer.

Are people really that excited about so many sequels?

When I was young and a new hit film came out, we would joke about titles for possible sequels, trying to come up with the most incongruous ones, resulting in things such as “The Ten Commandments Rides Again” or “The Son of the Magnificent Seven”. We found these were amusing because sequels were relatively rare.

Nowadays any film that has reasonable commercial success is almost guaranteed a sequel and often many sequels and spin-offs so that it has ceased to be unusual. But I was still taken aback at the news that the Disney studies were planning ten (yes, ten!) new films each in the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, which have already had so many films that I did not even bother to look up the number.
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Revisiting The Queen’s Gambit

In a recent review of this hit Netflix series, I mentioned that I found the lead character Beth Harmon not compelling and that this reduced my enjoyment of the series. Some commenters disagreed with me. I could not quite put my finger on why I had this reaction but Sarah Miller who, unlike me, has read and loved the book by William Tevis on which the series was based, writes that she too was dissatisfied with the character because, while most of the series stayed close to the book, the creators of the series had made a crucial change in Harmon’s character that eliminated the central tension, because the lead actor Anya Taylor-Joy “is way too good-looking to play Beth Harmon”.

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TV Review: The Queen’s Gambit (No spoilers)

This seven-part miniseries on Netflix about a female chess prodigy Beth Harmon in the 1960s taking that male world by storm has been much talked about and has apparently spurred a lot of interest in chess, with increased sales of chess sets and more young women becoming interested in playing a game that is still highly dominated by men.

I watched the series and my reaction is mixed. I thought I would enjoy it a lot more than I did. The story of a young girl overcoming tremendous odds to become a success is the kind of underdog story that appeals to me. In addition, in my adolescence and up to the first couple of years in college I played the game seriously, and was even the captain of my high school chess team. But even though I could appreciate the name-dropping of the great chess players and the openings and the defenses, the series somehow failed to grip me. It started very slow, so much so that I stopped watching the first episode halfway through but came back to it to give it another chance. It picked up the pace later but towards the end I was watching it just to see how it ends.
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Once again I am reminded that I am really old!

I was watching the new series on Netflix titled The Queen’s Gambit that deals with a female chess prodigy entering that world that is even now highly male-dominated but was even more so in the 1960s, the period in which the show is set.

In one episode, we see her walking though a college campus and the soundtrack plays the instrumental Classical Gas by guitarist Mason Williams. It is a great piece that I know well and as soon as I heard it, I said to myself “Ha! The writers made a mistake because that music came long after the time represented in the film.” But later I looked it up and it is from 1968. I had no idea so much time had passed since I first heard it,

Here’s the tune. It is really good.

Film review: Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

I recently stumbled across this highly enjoyable film. I had never heard about it before even though it has a stellar cast, and only decided to watch it because it was described as a comedy that was quirky and witty. The description was accurate. It is a film with good writing and excellent performances from all the actors. I am surprised that I missed hearing about it when it was first released and that it did not make a bigger impact.
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