MA RAINEY, MIDNIGHT SKY and TWO 100% NETFLIX SERIES

I'm trying to avoid Trump and COVID-19 for the rest of the year. I saw two films and started watching two Netflix series rated 100% by Rotten Tomatoes:

ROTTEN TOMATOES

Reviewers Audiences My Grade

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom 99 80 C+

Midnight Sky 54 25 B

Travelers 100 97 B+

The Uncanny Counter ? 100 B-

I won't say much about each so you can yourself assess the productions. Plus, I only saw one episode each of those two series.

With such high ratings by Rotten Tomatoes, I'm somewhat shocked that I just did not enjoy Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. The acting was superb. But the whole movie was one-dimensional in many ways.

Viola Davis was commanding as Ma, the female founder of the Blues. But she was so despicable that the mood of the whole show was a downer. The late Chadwick Boseman showed why he will be missed into the future. He showed signs of becoming the next great black movie actor. The usual racial animosities pervaded and the music was so-so.

Conversely, I would not have even bothered to watch Midnight Sky for such abominable scores. But I did because I'm a fan of extrasolar planets. It is entirely possible that if you're not into this subject matter, you too will react as did the RT reviewers/audiences. George Clooney was everything: actor, director and producer. Seven years ago there was Gravity (RT: 95/80) where he also starred. I thought MS had more to offer than that space adventure.

Travelers is a time travel film, with a nice twist. Earth in the future is doomed by something that occurs in our time frame. The technology then is such that they can transpose consciousness to people in the past. Not whole bodies, which makes for greater reality. So several travelers are sent into the body of current individuals, coincidentally all in their twenties/thirties, who were just about to die anyway. The flaw is that they have no memory of that person's past, so acquaintances wonder what is happening. This group, some with greater physical skills, then work as a team to fix the problem. They're doing something right, for the series is into season 3.

The Uncanny Counter is a South Korean effort that on the surface should turn me off. Superhuman strength is afforded to certain individuals to neutralize malevolent spirits. I hate comic book films, and this is one of them. That's why I will refuse to watch the current Wonder Woman. Plus there is a lot of kung-fu-type fighting, which I disdain. Upon observing these defects, I was close to leaving, but stuck around just enough to convince me to watch episode 2. The 100% score, plus that something extra that is special in Korean productions is sufficiently intriguing. However, you would think, though, that they could have come up with a more meaningful title.

I end with just a deviation, a Johnny Carson spoof as President Ronald Reagan with an Abbott and Costello twist and two or three.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 204 to an all-time high of 30,404.

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo. We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo. So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines. We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station. This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site. It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance. This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of ten of those already waiting to enter. However...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

Search This Blog