It's been months since I focused on film and series programs.  We must have watched at least 25 flicks on the Seabourn Odyssey.  We've been home now for more than a month, and I have still avoided movie theaters.   Here are a few noteworthy productions worthy of your interest. On Netflix is  Missing ,  a gripping, high tech effort with wild twists that made me envious.  Why?  The teenage girl seeks to find her "missing" mother and boyfriend on a trip to Cartegena, Columbia.  This youngster is a whiz on the computer, something I just cannot do.  A 2023 film,  Rotten Tomatoes  gave it 87/90 scores. I loved  Good Night Oppy,  an inspirational documentary about Opportunity, a rover that was sent to Mars for a 3 month mission, but survived for 15 years.  Released late last year, the film shows how a robot and humans can bond from distances that varied from 36 million to 250 miles away.  Did he find life on Mars?  Not really, but Oppy had perseverance.  As one critic said

Tomorrow I will focus on everything you might want to know about Japanese samurai, the real ones and films.  Today, simply the highest rated Japanese movies and series by Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes best Japanese films 100%   The Tale of the Princess Kaguya  (2013, animated) 100%   Seven Samurai  (1954), maybe the best movie ever made 100%   Still Walking  (2008), complete movie, wonderful family film 100%   Only Yesterday  (1991, animated) 100%   Tampopo  (1985), complete movie, with a younger Ken Watanabe 100%   Tokyo Story  (1953), complete movie, said to be about the best made, by Ozu ( frankly, I found this film to be drawn out and boring ) 100%   Grave of Fireflies  (1988, animated) 99%     Shoplifters  (2018) 99%     Jiro Dreams of Sushi  (2011), one of my all-time favorites, especially since  he once personally served me  , and only me, for the entire lunch. 99%     The Twilight Samurai  (2002) 98%     Your Name  (2016, animated) 98%     Rashomon  (1950), with Kurosawa, Mi

I watch a lot of films and TV series, especially more recently on Netflix and Prime. I once only went to Rotten Tomatoes to help me decide what to watch, but noticed that most of the new series from Korea and some other countries were not yet rated.  So I'm now expanding into Metacritic and IMDb.   How do they compare? Rotten Tomatoes began in 1998, and is now owned by Comcast's Fandango. It ranks #225 in the USA as a most-watched website.  Anything rated that has 60%+ ratings is considered Fresh, with 70%+ gaining a Certified Fresh.  If not, then Rotten.  Each feature is rated using two averages, from critic's reviews and the audience, us.  Their ratings have killed some blockbusters at the box office, like  Baywatch  and  The Mummy .  The first got a 19% score and the second a 16%.  However, both  Wonder Woman  and  Spider-Man (Homecoming ) got 92% and their earnings exceeded expectations. Wikipedia  lists all the  100% rated films by reviewers .  There are supposedly  84

Is Delta Airlines being hurt by the Delta variant?   For one, they don't mention that strain by name.  CEO Ed Bastian indicated they haven't seen any impacts for this unfortunate similarity.  He also indicated that 72% of their staff is vaccinated, and the vast majority of passengers likewise. A coming book by two  Washington Post  reporters, Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker,  I Alone Can Fix It:  Donald J. Trumps's Catastrophic Final Year , reveals fully expected, but still shocking news.   A CNN report  on how top U.S. generals planned on ways to stop Trump.  At the top, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley is quoted to say:   They may try, but they're not going to f---ing succeed . On 4 January 2021 I said: I've long felt that his Hail Mary would be to get his Department of Defense ( after all, he is Commander in Chi ef ), to support him in just taking over the government if everything else fails.  That discharge of Secretary of Defense Mark

I was just scrolling through Netflix to find more 100-rated series, and stumbled across one each from Germany and Iceland.  I've only watched the first episode of each, but will of course continue. Biohackers , rated  100/82 by  Rotten Tomatoes , into season 2, is a German techno-thriller about a freshman medical student at the University of Freiburg, there mostly to personally investigate the doings of a young female professor who, it turned out, was into illegal genetic experimentation.  Each of the seasons has six episodes of 45-minute duration.  If so inclined you can just about complete the cycle in two nights.   Wikipedia  provides a fairly complete explanation of each episode. Travel played a role in my identifying with this program, for it was a quarter century ago when I was on an around the world trip that I met Phil Bossert in Freiburg and visited this university, for, I think this is where he got his PhD.  However, we were there because he was starting a wine company to