No, conlangs are not languages spoken at cons (science fiction or mystery or cosplay conventions) — although they could be spoken at some of these. Nor are they languages spoken by convicts. The portmanteau word “conlang” simply means “constructed language.”… Read More ›
In my post of June 25 I wrote: Was “42” ever a Jeopardy clue? If so, I suspect that most readers of this blog would respond with “What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and… Read More ›
Not your typical Robin Williams movie, One Hour Photo is an intense psychological thriller. Most of it takes place in a fictional big-box store called SavMart, which I first thought was supposed to be Target but eventually was clearly WalMart…. Read More ›
Of course I played Monopoly a fair amount as a preteen, teen, and young adult. I even played it a bit as a not-so-young adult. The political implications were never in the front of my mind—except for the one summer… Read More ›
The Next Generation. No, not Star Trek—we’re talking America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation on Amazon FreeVee. Normally I don’t like cooking competitions. But I continued to watch all ten episodes of this competition because of my love for the… Read More ›
Romcoms have never held much appeal for me, not even when they were made in 1934 and were called screwball comedies, and not even when they starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Nevertheless, I watched It Happened One Night, since… Read More ›
Yes, the definite article makes a difference…not because we’re being pedantic, but because we’re being attentive to anagrams and acrostics. Here’s the problem: I’m talking, of course, about the recent PBS Masterpiece series by Anthony Horowitz, titled Magpie Murders, as… Read More ›
If you are from either the New York or the Philadelphia area—and if you are of a certain age—you will fondly remember the Horn & Hardart Automat. And now there is a wonderful documentary about it, simply titled The Automat,… Read More ›
Not the book, not the musical: I’m talking about the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio along with Christopher Walken, Tom Hanks, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen, and others that I haven’t heard of but you have. As you probably… Read More ›
After nearly half a century, I finally decided to rewatch Chinatown, which I only dimly recalled. I remembered that it had been one of my favorite movies at the time. Would it hold up after so many decades? The answer… Read More ›
Knowing the facts is not the same thing as seeing them all put together in a single two-hour documentary. Yes, we all know the story of Trump’s attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, and we may even know the surrounding… Read More ›
Apparently there are 27 James Bond movies (so far). I had seen only four of them—all before 1970, back in the Connery era—so I figured it was time to start watching again. I was wrong. But I’m getting ahead of… Read More ›
To paraphrase Jamie Oliver (in a very different context), if you want to appreciate this 1957 musical, you have to get your classic Broadway musical mindset on. I’m talking about the Gershwin brothers’ Funny Face, starring Audrey Hepburn and a… Read More ›
There was, of course, no doubt: I had to watch the 2018 BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Ordeal by Innocence, even though I hadn’t (and still haven’t) read the original. The movie is adapted from a 1958 novel, one of… Read More ›
No, that is not a misprint. And no, I didn’t watch the same movie twice—although I’ve been known to do that with a very few carefully selected movies. In this case it’s simply that I watched two versions: the 1974… Read More ›
This is not the only Twilight Zone episode that one never forgets. At least it’s not the only one that I never forgot, and it seems more and more relevant every year, especially this summer. I first saw it when… Read More ›
Although I’ve never been to Sacramento, and certainly wasn’t there in 2002, the movie Lady Bird felt very realistic to me. Realistic and convincing. Kudos to director Greta Gerwig! As A.O. Scott in the New York Times put it, “Every… Read More ›
The Great Performances series on PBS just aired a spectacular documentary, “Keeping Company with Sondheim,” all about making the new version of Stephen Sondheim’s great 1970 musical, Company. You can still see it. This new version of the musical differs… Read More ›
You are probably more “with it” than I am, so you probably know that Licorice Pizza is slang for a vinyl phonograph record, that it originates both as an expansion of the abbreviation for “long playing” and as a visual… Read More ›
Twenty-one years ago, Carol Burnett and four other actors performed a Broadway revue of Stephen Sondheim songs called Putting it Together. I didn’t get to see it on Broadway, but I just watched the filmed version on DVD, which you… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 