William had to get really, really close to the TV so that he could enjoy watching the promo of The Last Pig:
Movies & (occasionally) TV
The Crying Game
“If you reveal an ending that everybody already knows, does it still count as a spoiler?” There’s at least one flaw in this question: no matter what the movie, surely it can’t be true that “everybody” knows the ending, or… Read More ›
The First King: Birth of an Empire
The spoken dialog is entirely in Old Latin! Well, yes; it’s a movie, after all, so what do you expect? There surely are many movies in Old Latin, a.k.a. Archaic Latin, right? Well, maybe not. At least this one has… Read More ›
Can you explain this puzzle, WGBH?
Can anybody explain this? Barbara and I have been members of WGBH for decades now. For the past 36 years GBH has sent their monthly magazine to the correct address: (As you see, I have redacted the street name to… Read More ›
Who are the Sami?
Hands up if you know who the Sami are without looking it up! Hmm… only three of you. I could have asked whether you can figure out where the stunning movie Sami Blood was filmed, relying on the title alone. Again,… Read More ›
Barton Fink
The Coen brothers, I decided, deserved one more try. They do have a stellar reputation, after all. After disliking Fargo, Raising Arizona, and Blood Simple, I had almost given up on the Coens, but reviews convinced me to check out… Read More ›
The Princess Bride revisited
“Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” That’s the line I’ve remembered for more than three decades. Yes, it has been that long since The Princess Bride was first released! How well has this movie held up? Amazingly well, I… Read More ›
“Why haven’t I ever been to Petra?”
That’s what I kept asking myself as I was watching the PBS Nova episode Petra, Lost City of Stone, which I somehow missed when it first aired six years ago. This amazing archaeological site in Jordan competes in quality with… Read More ›
Science fiction? Greek mythology? Philosophy? All in Jo Walton’s The Philosopher Kings
Three months ago I reviewed Jo Walton’s The Just City. Recently I finished reading the sequel, The Philosopher Kings, which is equally fascinating and equally worth reading. “We don’t know when we are,” as one character remarks. When, not where. The gods live “outside… Read More ›
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra… and Gavagai… and intertextuality!
Hmmm… how can you communicate with someone when the two of you have no language in common? In linguistics this has been a major conundrum, especially in earlier centuries when there was no worldwide communication; in science fiction it has… Read More ›
