
Movies, Drama, Music, The Rest
Get on Up
The premature death of Chadwick Boseman due to colon cancer led to an international outpouring of grief. I had never seen a film with Boseman but I remembered how sad I was when Heath Ledger died much too young. People who knew Boseman gave eulogies that I would have given about Ledger, whose talent I admired deeply. So I wanted to see a film with Boseman. I chose the film about the musician James Brown.

Diary, Must Know, Movies, Drama
Joker
When I think about the Joker I always see the painted face of Heath Ledger who gave an amazing performance in the Batman movie Dark Knight that unfortunately became his last chance to act. I decided to watch the film with the Joker now simply called Joker because Joaquin Phoenix won the Oscar for his performance. Make no mistake, his acting is an amazing feat. His portrayal of a mentally deranged person scarily convincing. But my heart was tied to Heath Ledger and I always thought about him while seeing the painted face of the new joker. There is a sense of violence at the center of the film that left me deeply unsettled, especially now that in many parts of the Western world right-wing nationalists seem to be ready to embrace violence to attack democratic institutions.

Biden win is 70%
Nate Silver put Trump’s chances only at 30%.

The nightmare might end

The Squid and the Whale
Noah Baumbach recently came out with a new film, The Mariage Story. It seemed to have received good reviews and I wanted to see it. But I thought I should first see his earlier film, The Squid and the Whale, which also covered the topic of divorce. The Squid and the Whale is intense.