In my youth, the Woody Woodpecker Club had Saturday morning shows in the Kewalo Theater of Kakaako in Honolulu.  Then again, my mind is faulty, could have been a matinee.  It started with previews, a newsreel, cartoons, a serial (around 15 chapters, one per week), then a war, Tarzen or cowboy film.  Sometimes two.  Somewhere during that period there were audience participation contests.  Cost?  I think 12 cents.  A drink and popcorn cost an extra 15 cents or so.  Today, a typical movie outing would set you back $20/person, and more. I particularly remember cowboy chapters that captured our attention and kept us hanging to the next week.  Remember Donald Barry de Acosta.?  Of course not, because he was Red Ryder.  Or Charles Starrett Better (Durango Kid), William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy), Harold Smith (who became Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto), Renaldo Duncan (Cisco Kid, left)...Jack Moore (The Lone Ranger)? So tried to find a lis...

  The Age of Samurai:  Battle for Japan , a 2021 Netflix docu-drama, is one of those  Rotten Tomatoes  scores with divergent results:  100% by reviewers and 54% by the audience.  I found it rewarding for one simple reason.  All my life I've watched samurai films, and had no idea how they fit into the history of Japan.  Now, I have a good sense and can reflect back on where certain warriors fit. The production, in six episodes, begins in 1551 with the death of feudal lord Oda Nobuhide, and rise of his son Oda Nobunaga, transition to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who united the country, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who brought stability for more than a quarter millennium, 1603 to 1868 ( called the Edo Period ), the final conclusion of Japan's isolation, when Commodore Matthew Perry began to open up the country to the West in 1854 during the  Meiji Restoration .  The  Tokugawa shoguns  had banned all foreigners. A samurai ( around  8%  of...