Please join us on IIDB (iidb.org)
This is the archived Seculare Cafe forum.
It is read only.
If you would like to respond or otherwise revive a post or topic, please join us on the active forum: IIDB.
A sweet, fluffy romantic comedy, with a shy, somewhat girly, hero, and an equally shy, but rather weird, heroine. The heroine isn't the usual stalker with a crush type, in that she's a genuinely nice girl apart from her stalker habit and being a little perverted. She's also unusual in that she doesn't show any tendency towards jealousy. Instead, it's the hero who experiences jealousy, though it's always low key, and the heroine thinks it's cute.
A fan sub is available on gogoanime.com with an official sub on crunchyroll.com. Unfortunately, it doesn't explore the beta relationship as much as the Manga, but I suppose something had to be adapted out.
Why do I enjoy these types of series, when in my youth I wouldn't have looked at them twice, and I don't like live action equivalents? Wishful thinking in my dotage, I suppose.
There you go with them negative waves ... Why can't you say something righteous and beautiful for a change?
We watched the movie Hidden Figures last night. I somewhat cynically expected merely a feel good Hollywood movie, and I was pleasantly surprised (although it did make me feel good, too).
The story is about three African American female mathematicians who earn significant roles at NASA during the early years of the Space Race. Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) is the central figure, who calculates John Glenns orbital trajectories. The other two lead roles are Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae). Supporting roles are played by Kevin Costner and Jim Parsons, among others. (Jim Parsons stars in a sit-com called The Big Bang Theory - which Ive never actually watched).
The action takes place in the months between the Soviet Yuri Gagarins first orbiting the earth, in April 1961, and John Glenns first American orbits in February 1962.
The three women are employed by NASA as computers, women who perform the actual complex computations to support the rocket flights. Negro computers are segregated. During the course of the film, Dorothy Vaughan becomes a supervisor, who teaches herself Fortran, and then teaches her computers, so that by the films end they have all graduated to becoming programmers of NASAs new IBM mainframes. Mary Jackson becomes a certified engineer, and Katherine Johnson pioneers the application of Eulers Method to calculating complex orbital trajectories. In the end she supplies the correct figures as Glenn waits on the gantry in his space suit, ready to blast off.
The film deals with racism and sexism, both overt and institutional, as well as white privilege to an extent. The climax is Glenns dramatic flight.
Spoiler Alert: I’m going to dissect the plot a bit in what follows.
What interested my most though was doing a few minutes Googling the facts, and seeing how the screenwriters had modified the actual history to create a compelling drama.
For one thing, they compressed fifteen or twenty years into the few months of the movie plot. For instance, Dorothy Vaughan actually did became the first black female supervisor for NACA (NASA’s predecessor organization) but in 1949, not 1962. NASA had actually installed IBM mainframes in 1958. Also, NASA had officially integrated in 1958, and did not require the Kevin Costner character to physically remove “Colored Only” signs (in 1961). The three women were not particularly best friends of each other. All of these facts were massaged to make a good story.
There is a romantic sub plot - not sure at all about the reality of that.
On the other hand, John Glenn actually did say (as shown in the movie) “Get the girl to do the calculations” (referring to Katherine Johnson), but not because there were any discrepancies in the mainframe generated calcs, as the movie suggests, but because he just didn’t trust mechanical calculations. And of course he didn’t say it while actually waiting on the gantry to enter the Mercury capsule.
Finally, and this bothered me some while watching the movie, watching the movie you’d think NASA consisted of about fifty people. The same people who are calculating the trajectories are testing the capsules and rockets and are manning command posts during the flights. But as the book’s author said, you can’t have a movie with hundreds of characters.
[quote=""Tharmas""]
Tubby, you’d appreciate the soundtrack.
[/quote]
I haven't seen the movie and don't know what is in the soundtrack, but I can say that in March - April I've been listening to my boxed CD sets of early 1960s instrumental songs.
A post war fantasy in an alternate universe. A young and idealistic 2nd lieutenant, Alice (daughter of a noble family) and her squad are part of the post-war reconstruction effort. The 2nd main character Randal Oland, a war veteran suffering from PTSD and with a rather unusual method of attacking armoured vehicles, joins the squad in the first episode. Together, the squad goes around the countryside attempting to heal the wounds of the war, uncovering conspiracy in the top echelons along the way. A sub is available on gogoanime.com.
A good series depicting a country recovering from a long war.
There you go with them negative waves ... Why can't you say something righteous and beautiful for a change?
While shopping for some paint brushes I saw a DVD of Bondarchuk's version of Mikhail Sholokhovs Nobel prize winning And Quiet Flows the Don. I thought, well, it's unlikely that I'll get around to reading 14,000,000 pages of the epic, so I'll make do with the film. It's only five dollars.
The production value of the film is high. Unfortunately the result was disappointing. It resembled a soap opera as related by a six year old. "And then he did this. And then she did that. And then they..."
Perhaps the lack of substance had something to do with Bondarchuk senior dying before he could finish editing the film. His son did that, and he cut three hours off it in the process. I'll never find out if that was the cause of the film being so unsatisfactory, or if it merely meant the soap opera was shortened by three hours. I probably won't find out, at least not first hand, if Sholokhovs novel was any better either.
A strange man, something of a depressive, and fanatically devoted to Hitler. Often called the poison dwarf by his enemies, both inside and outside the party, he despised both Goering and Himmler, and was an effective propagandist. Of course, it helped that anyone who disagreed with his propaganda often had a visit from the Gestapo.
There you go with them negative waves ... Why can't you say something righteous and beautiful for a change?
A moving account of the American Civil War, probably the greatest war in American history. (This is part 1; the remainder of the series is available on Youtube.) Regrettably, the fall-out during the reconstruction meant that the race issue was never solved, in spite of slavery being outlawed. Sadly, The Declaration of Independence still hasn't been realised.
There you go with them negative waves ... Why can't you say something righteous and beautiful for a change?
A moving account of the American Civil War, probably the greatest war in American history. (This is part 1; the remainder of the series is available on Youtube.) Regrettably, the fall-out during the reconstruction meant that the race issue was never solved, in spite of slavery being outlawed. Sadly, The Declaration of Independence still hasn't been realised.[/quote]
This originally aired on PBS in late 1990 or early 1991. I was in 11th grade and watched the whole thing.
The History Channel spent an hour focusing on these things in 1963:
September 27 - October 2 Lee Oswald is in Mexico City, and visits the Cuban and Soviet consulates there.
November 22 President Kennedy is assassinated on the street next to the depository building where Oswald is employed.
The program speculates, based on some postcards in Oswald's possession, that Oswald met with a KGB man in the hubbub of a bullfight with 40,000 spectators, where the CIA was not likely to be able to listen in to their conversation, to plan the assassination. It makes it seem as though the CIA was trying to spy on Oswald because he was suspected to be some really big threat to the United States, and the Soviets had to take pains to throw off the CIA. Out of the 150 million adult Americans, this man Oswald is the one to do the deed, the Soviets decide.
But I present a more complete timeline: September 27 - October 2 Lee Oswald is in Mexico City, and visits the Cuban and Soviet consulates there. October 4 It is agreed that Texas Governor Connolly will plan details of the Kennedy trip to Texas.
October 14 Ruth Paine, a friend of Oswald's wife, is told by a neighbor whose brother works at the book depository that there is a job opening there.
October 16 Oswald is hired at the depository.
November 8 Tentative schedule for Texas trip is given to White House.
November 14 Secret Service agents test-drive a 45-minute route from Love Field to the Trade Mart.
Noveber 19Times-Herald publishes route of motorcade.
November 21 Oswald asks coworker for a ride to work the next day, explaining that he will be bringing a bag of curtain rods with him. November 22 President Kennedy is assassinated on the street next to the depository building where Oswald is employed.
Why did the program leave out some of the chronology? Because those extra items I've brought up pivot toward the assassination being a crime of opportunity, not something planned out by Soviet agents. In other words, their splashy theory is deflated when more details are considered.
Last edited by Tubby on Wed Apr 26, 2017 6:45 am, edited 3 times in total.
I just watched a DVD version of The Jewel in the Crown, a TV series from the early 1980s, based on Paul Scott's Raj Quartet.
It was rather hard-going for the first few episodes but got better as it went on. It sent me off to start reading the four books. IMO they are better than the TV series, but I do think it was a very hard job to adapt them for the screen. The series made stars of Tim Piggott-Smith (who has just died), Art Malik, Geraldine James and Charles Dance, as well as starring very well-established people such as Peggy Ashcroft.
I quite enjoyed the first episode of American Gods, which is a new TV show on Amazon Prime in the UK, inspired by Neil Gaiman's book. It is not clear how close it will stick to the book, but it is pretty faithful so far. It is hyper-violent and stylised, which I like. I will watch the second episode tonight I think.
Generally news, about Indian Presidential election, farmers' agitation, Kahmir unrest, and the Champion's Cup competition final in Cricket in England when arch-rivals India and Pakistan face each other tomorrow.
Former Indian captain MS Dhoni and current wicket-keeper with Abdul, son of Pakistani captain Sarfaraz Ahmad, who also is a wicket-keeper batsman like Dhoni.
'Sarve khalu idam Brahma'
All things here are Brahman (physical energy).
If you're a movie buff, there is a web series on youtube that you would enjoy. Just search for "Everything Wrong With" and you'll find a treasure trove.
Here's one as an example. The movie is Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. Note that they all contain spoilers as they basically just go through the whole movie listing everything wrong, but then the whole point is that you've already seen the movie, so:
[quote=""Koyaanisqatsi""]If you're a movie buff, there is a web series on youtube that you would enjoy. Just search for "Everything Wrong With" and you'll find a treasure trove.
Here's one as an example. The movie is Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. Note that they all contain spoilers as they basically just go through the whole movie listing everything wrong, but then the whole point is that you've already seen the movie, so:
(View video on YouTube)[/quote]Skipped a sin at 0:40. Ship flying a future version of the Union Jack in 1760. That flag did not come into being until the Irish saltire was added following the union of Ireland with England and Scotland, thus forming the triple crown in 1801.
Simple low-brow fun. Storage Wars is a TV reality (allegedly) series where the regulars bid for the contents of abandoned rental sheds. Barry Weiss provided (past tense) the one-liners and Mary Padian provides the perky spunkiness.
I thought of looking for Mr. Magoo at YouTube. I figured that its quality probably would fall short of my recollection from 45 years ago, the last time I saw the cartoons on TV. But it holds up quite well.
If you get American TV, I recommend 'American Greed'. Last night's was on someone I remember quite well, football quarterback Art Schlichter, with his gambling addiction. He used the people around him for money, promising a return on what they "lent" him, only to quickly gamble it all away.
I assumed it was going to be a documentary, but last night's two hours on the Unabomber was acted/scripted. It was said to be part one of multiple parts. For a time there was a theory that the bomber was an aircraft mechanic terminated by United Airlines. They made heavy use of flash-forward/backward, which made it kind of confusing.
Wishful thinking in my dotage, I suppose.
