Yesterday, while watching Amazon Prime, I came across the Lone Ranger TV series. I originally watched these as Saturday afternoon reruns since the original show aired before I was born, but I remembered really enjoying them when they were on.

So I grabbed a cup of coffee and a couple of Pepperidge Farm Double Chocolate Nantucket’s, plopped my backside on the couch, and watched season 1, episode 1 of The Lone Ranger. It was the origin story, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a multi-part story, so there’s more to come, but what I saw was even better than what I remember watching when I was a child. While it wasn’t an adult show, it wasn’t really a kids’ show either. I think that anyone of any age could be entertained by it. I’ll probably watch the second episode this afternoon and look forward to watching the whole series over the next few months.

Watching the first episode brought back memories of what happened to Clayton Moore back in the 70’s.

Moore was the actor who played the Lone Ranger on the TV series, which ran from 1949 to 1957. The show had been off for around twenty years, and Moore, who was in his sixties, apparently wasn’t doing well financially. Unlike today, early TV shows did not pay residuals, and actors and actresses were often paid little for their work. To supplement his income, Moore would put on a black mask, a fake six-shooter, and make appearances at rodeos, home shows, and anywhere else he could find work. He had done this for a number of years, and I remember seeing pictures of him at some of the appearances. The pictures were kind of sad. He was a little old man in a costume, looking like a feeble version of the character he once played, but people loved it and got to see the hero they grew up with.

Along the way, the studio, Wrather Corporation, got wind of what was going on and, in 1979, obtained a court order prohibiting Moore from wearing the costume and appearing in public as the Lone Ranger. They claimed they were planning a Lone Ranger movie and feared that Moore in costume would tarnish the brand. To get around this, Moore substituted dark sunglasses for the black mask and, I imagine, the appearances were probably advertised as ‘Meet Clayton Moore, the man who played the Lone Ranger’ rather than just saying it was an appearance by the Lone Ranger. The lawsuit lasted 5 years, and Moore fought it all the way, refusing to give up. Simultaneously, the Wrather Corporation’s movie ‘The Legend of the Lone Ranger’ was released and was a box-office bomb, possibly in part because fans knew how Moore had been treated by them and refused to support it. Anyway, between the movie flopping and negative publicity surrounding Wrather Corporation, they finally decided to drop the lawsuit, and Moore went on to make appearances as the Lone Ranger until his death in 1999.

Good versus evil, and the good guy won, just like in the old TV shows. I like it that way.

Hamnet is a historical fantasy that speculates on the origin of the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Since no one was there and there are no accounts of what really happened, it’s pretty much pure fantasy. While historic fantasy is not that uncommon, I find myself a little uncomfortable with some of it. While books and series like The Man in the High Castle are historic fantasy, everyone knows that they’re make-believe because everyone knows that Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire did not win World War II. With something like Hamnet, it’s so close to reality, I fear that people will take it as gospel, and instead of remaining historical fantasy, it will become history. But that’s just my concern, and no one really cares.

I try to avoid actually discussing movie plots when I do these reviews because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so all I’ll say is that a number of unpleasant things happen to Shakespeare, his wife, and family, and the movie speculates that the writing of Hamlet served as a means of catharsis for Shakespeare. That’s the premise, but like I said earlier, no one really knows.

The movie is well-executed, the environment is beautiful, and the acting is fine, but the majority of the story is pretty depressing and may not be for everyone. My wife went into this expecting something more along the lines of Shakespeare in Love, and while she liked the movie, it was not the pleasant outing that she was looking for.

For me, the problem is that I’m just not into Shakespeare. I know, I should be ashamed of myself. There’s little doubt that he’s probably one of the most important figures in literature, and his contributions have shaped all modern storytelling, and I won’t argue any of that. I just can’t read his work. I’ve tried, but every word is painful for me. I don’t know Old English, and I have little desire to learn it. Even if I take it word by word and understand what he’s saying, it has little emotional impact on me since the decoding process is so slow and painful. So I’ll trust the opinion of others on this one and spend my time on other things that work for me.

For what it’s worth, the movie was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Casting, and Best Original Score.

Ultimately, only one award was won, with Jessie Buckley winning for Best Actress. She does an excellent job with the part, and while I’m not in a position to judge, since I haven’t seen all the nominated movies, I suspect she was a good choice.

Summing it up. It’s a well-executed, somewhat depressing but entertaining movie that might not be for everyone.

When our local theater was still open, movie-going was pretty much a weekly event.  Even if there was a movie playing we knew little about or had gotten mixed reviews, we’d go to see it.  Mostly, we went because the venue also served food, so even if the movie was marginal, we still got to enjoy a meal and get out of the house.  Sadly, the theater has closed, and although there has been some talk about resurrecting it, I suspect it will never happen.  Unfortunately, the audiences just aren’t there, money is tight for a lot of people, and for this particular theater, there’s practically no parking in the area.  I expect that this place will go the way of my old hometown theater.  The building will sit empty for years and deteriorate over time until it reaches a point where too much money would be required to restore it.  It’s sad to see all these old places close down, but times change.

Anyway, back to the movie.  

I had listened to the Project Hail Mary audiobook when it first came out, and I loved it.  It’s a really special book with a strong, engaging story, great narration, and sound effects that bring the story to life.  I liked the book so much that I just didn’t see any way that the movie could live up to it.  And I was right.  The movie wasn’t quite as good as the book, but it’s really close.

Project Hail Mary is a hard story to bring to the screen.  It’s a complex story, filled with technical puzzles and intricate details.  Since film is mostly a visual medium, the story isn’t really a good fit for the screen, yet somehow the director pulled it off.  The movie does a good job telling the story; it’s suspenseful, holds the viewer’s interest as the backstory unfolds alongside the main story, and it’s visually beautiful.  It’s very much worth seeing.

Before we saw it, I was somewhat concerned that the story’s complexity would make it hard for someone who hadn’t read the book to fully understand it, but if my wife is any indication, that’s not the case.  Outside of missing one detail in the plot, she pretty much understood everything that was going on and really enjoyed the movie.

So go out and see the movie, and while you’re at it, get the audiobook.  As good as the movie is, the audiobook is even better, and I think you’ll find both very enjoyable.

At the time of its original airing, it was way beyond anything on TV. The stories were well done and thoughtful, the characters were interesting and likable, and the special effects were cutting-edge. Like all of us, though, age has not been good to it. Even with remastering and new special effects, it looks dated, and while it’s still fun, the stories often don’t hold up in today’s more sophisticated world. That said, I still love it, and I’m willing to look past its flaws because of all the good things that it still brings. I also don’t doubt that my opinion is in some ways influenced by my nostalgia for the show. For someone who was about to enter his teens, Star Trek represented the adventure and possibilities of the world ahead.

On occasion, I will still watch an episode. Yesterday I watched the season 2 episode called ‘The Apple.’ In which the Enterprise crew visits the planet Gamma Trianguli VI, which they first believe is a paradise but quickly learn isn’t. Not only are there dangerous plants and exploding rocks that kill multiple members of the crew, but there are also natives whose lives are controlled by an entity called Vaal.

Vaal takes the form of a cave in the shape of a dragon, and in exchange for the natives feeding him, he takes care of all of their needs. While making for an easy life, Vaal’s influence prevents the natives from growing, experiencing love, and pursuing personal growth, leaving them with a stagnant culture.

Vaal views the Enterprise and its crew as a threat and traps the Enterprise in a tractor beam that’s pulling it closer and closer to the planet, which will eventually lead to its destruction. He also has the ability to cause earthquakes and control the weather, and at one point strikes Spock with a lightning bolt that somehow doesn’t kill him but ruins his uniform and leaves him with second-degree burns.

To save the Enterprise and crew, Kirk devises a plan to prevent the natives from feeding Vaal, which weakens him sufficiently to allow the ship’s phasers to destroy him.

The villagers are free but confused without their god, and Kirk promises to send help as they learn to survive.

The episode is called ‘The Apple’ because the planet Gamma Trianguli VI stands in for the Garden of Eden, and Kirk has acted as the Serpent, who, while giving them the gift of free will, has stolen their innocence and made their lives harder.

As was often the case with Star Trek, the writer’s lazy use of science resulted in a weaker script. We’re expected to believe that Vaal, who has the power to capture starships, control the weather, and call down lightning at his will, can be destroyed by missing a single meal. It makes little sense.

First, it’s hard to believe that the meager meals the natives brought to Vaal would be enough to give him the energy to do what he did, although I guess if he didn’t process them chemically but instead used them to fuel a nuclear process, it might work. But the bigger issue was that Vaal, with all his incredible powers, didn’t have any backup power source to sustain him if he missed a meal. Even I can function a few days without food if needed, but Vaal apparently was unable to do so.

It was still a fun episode, though, and I thoroughly believe that the real reason for Star Trek’s success wasn’t the stories but the relationship among the three main characters, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The characters come across as friends, each with strengths and weaknesses that complement one another, and it’s a pleasure to watch them interact.

Although dated, the series still holds up, but I wish the writers had put in just a little more effort to close some of the script’s loopholes. It would have made them even better than they already are

As a setup for this, they have their friends Charley Halper (Sid Melton) and his wife Bunny (Pat Carroll) babysitting the kids, so the stories mostly involve the two of them and the kids. A lot of the stories are decent, and Melton and Carroll do a good job filling in, but a lot of the stories are pretty bad. From what I can see, most of the original writers have moved on, which often happens when a show is close to ending because the writers want to beat the rush and land new jobs before they’re unemployed. This leaves a show in the hands of inexperienced writers or writers that are not top tier, which results in some pretty bad scripts. It also doesn’t help that after 10 seasons, most everything has been done already, and there’s not a lot of areas left to explore.

The show that I watched today was called ‘Tonoose Needs Glasses’. In it, Danny’s uncle Tonoose, played by Hans Conried, finds out he needs glasses but doesn’t want to get them because he feels it’s an indication of him getting old and feeble. Charley, Bunny and the kids decide that they must convince him to get glasses, and they do so by staging fake events that make it look like Tonoose is not seeing well. Where the script really fails is with the events. Rusty wears a tie that pops up, Charley wears a bow tie that flashes, Bunny wears a Groucho Marx nose, and Linda has a flower on her dress that switches back and forth between the left and right sides. Somehow, this convinces Tonoose that his eyesight is bad, and he goes into a state of depression and starts acting like an old, worn-out man. The reason this doesn’t work is because in real life, nobody would believe it, yet the lazy writers don’t care and go with it anyway. This type of episode is an insult to the intelligence of the viewers and yet is fairly common on TV. It’s too bad, when a show has run its course, it’s time to get off the stage.

I’ve still enjoyed most of ‘The Danny Thomas Show’ and it’s worth watching but just be aware that towards the end, the quality does suffer.

My wife and I started watching ‘According to Jim’ a little over a year ago. She bailed out after about ten episodes because she found the title character so repulsive. She had a point. Jim, the lead character, is an obnoxious, spoiled brat who’s loud, overbearing, egotistical, and always needs to get his way. However, he’s also very funny, which is why I stuck with the show to the end.

The show revolves around Jim, his wife Cheryl, their two, three, five kids (depending on which season you’re watching), and his brother-in-law Andy and sister-in-law Dana.

Cheryl, the wife who is out of his league, puts up with just about everything Jim does because, even though he’s obnoxious, she loves him dearly. Dana, the sister-in-law, is not a big fan and is constantly trading barbs with Jim, although in one very funny episode, we find out she’s having sex dreams about Jim. Finally, Andy, Jim’s brother-in-law, is his sidekick and best friend throughout all his antics.

Every episode pretty much has the same plot: Jim, with Andy’s assistance, does something selfish, stupid or crazy, Cheryl gets angry with him about it, but eventually she realizes she loves him even though he’s a horse’s ass. It sounds boring and repetitive, but because of the great scripts and comedic talents of the actors it isn’t.

While the whole cast does a great job, Jim Belushi and Larry Joe Campbell are standouts. They’re funny and will do anything for a laugh. A lot of the episodes involved physical stunts, and both men, although very large, do a great job pulling them off.

I really recommend this show, but like the ‘Three Stooges’, it’s probably more for men than for women. It’s also not a good show to binge-watch. The characters are funny but can be grating, and watching them one after another, for a lot of people, could be stressful. So watch it, enjoy it, but take your time with it.

The second addiction is YouTube videos. These are a lot harder to avoid than video games, since they’re just a click or two away when browsing the Internet. It also doesn’t help that a lot of them are really good. It’s amazing what amateurs can produce. The video and production quality are often of the highest standard and, just a few years ago, would have required a large team and expensive equipment to produce. Not any longer. Anyone with a decent camera phone or inexpensive video camera and some talent can produce first rate videos. It also helps that they care about what they’re producing. When a video is done professionally, the main intent is usually to make money. While I don’t have a problem with that, it often results in a watered-down product or something that’s produced to appeal to the masses and maximize profit. When an individual produces a video, it’s usually about a subject that they care about and are knowledgeable about, which allows the viewer to see and learn about things they otherwise would never get to know about.

I remember when cable TV first came out. One of the promises was that with all the channels available, all sorts of special-interest subjects would be explored. This worked for a while, with lots of specialty channels about things like golf, cooking, fishing, religion, music, etc, but soon the big corporations started buying up all the little channels and watering them down to maximize their profits.I remember when MTV played music videos 24 hours a day, but then the corporations started adding reality shows because they made more money and ultimately, MTV no longer exists as a channel since it was decided that bandwidth could be more profitable, pushing something else.

Where cable TV failed, YouTube delivered.YouTube allowed anyone to post videos about almost anything. They didn’t care as long as they could inject commercials into it and make money off of it. This allowed independents worldwide access to share videos about the things they cared about.

As with anything like this, a lot of it is garbage, but there’s also a lot of great content available. I’m probably being unfair by calling a lot of it garbage since what I consider garbage, you may consider gold, and that’s what so wonderful about it.

Anyway, a type of video that I happened upon that I consider gold (but you may consider garbage) is snake capture videos. For whatever reason, the algorithm decided that I would be a good candidate for watching professional snake catchers. Now I would never have believed it but the algorithm did and apparently it’s smarter than I am since I’m hooked.There are two channels to which I’m now subscribed whose content I watch whenever it’s available. One channel is produced by Kevin Ulett, while the other is produced by Jason Arnold.

Both of these guys live in South Africa, and both travel to various locations to capture venomous snakes that have wandered onto someone’s property. Kevin is a young guy who travels by himself, and Jason is a bit older and frequently has his young daughter, Emily, accompanying him on their snake saving missions.

I’ve learned a lot from these videos. I now know a lot about snakes in South Africa. Most of them are venomous with bites that will result in horrible, painful deaths if you’re unfortunate enough to get bitten. I’ve also learned that some snakes lay eggs while others give live birth. I’ve seen multiple videos where both guys are rounding up lots of baby snakes that were recently born.

I’ve also learned a lot about South Africa. I’ve seen the incredible beaches, beautiful homes, mostly in guarded communities, with razor wire and fences surrounding them, and I’ve seen areas filled with the poorest of the poor (who, incredibly, all have modern smart phones). It’s an interesting country.

What’s also interesting is that everyone loves the snake men. No matter where they go, the people, both rich and poor, black, white, or asian are treated with respect. Not surprising since these guys are risking their lives to keep others from losing theirs.

I’m also amazed at the risks these guys will take to do their jobs. Beyond the risk of getting bitten by a snake, they also face the dangerous environments where the snakes are located. In one of Jason’s videos, he’s on the second story of a structure balancing on the edge of a brick wall, overhanging a cliff, in the process of rounding up a venomous snake. That takes commitment!

Both guys seem to love what they do and really care about the snakes that they capture. It appears to be more than just a job to them, and I’ve seen both become upset when a snake has been injured or when people talk about killing them instead of relocating them.

One thing I’ve never seen answered is how these guys get paid. There’s no evidence that the people who call on them are paying them, so how does the system work? I suspect they’re employed by the government, but that’s just a guess. For now, it will remain one of life’s little mysteries.

If you get a chance, you might want to check out some of their videos. Here are the links:

Kevin Ulett

Jason Arnold – Snakeman

The image at the top of the post is of a highly venomous boomslang. Beautiful but not something you want to mess with.

I was looking for a movie to watch the other night and after doing a bit of searching, came across Barry Lyndon. The movie came out in 1975 and was directed by Stanley Kubrick, a man whose movies are almost always interesting. I’ve seen a lot of Kubrick’s movies such as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket and found all of them worth watching. Somehow though I had missed out on Barry Lyndon. I was aware of the movie but I just never thought it looked interesting enough to spend time watching. I checked out its IMDB rating which was an 8.1 and followed that by checking out its Rotten Tomatoes rating which was 78% Tomatometer (critics) and 92% Popcornmeter (the rest of us). Normally, I ignore the critics opinions since they’re often pushing an agenda instead of reviewing a movie but the 92% Popcornmeter rating was encouraging. Average people seemed to really like this movie. I was convinced.

So do I agree with 92% of the viewers? Nope but it’s not that simple.

The cinematography is incredible. This may be the most beautiful movie ever filmed, you could pause it at any point during it’s running, take a screenshot and you would have a work of art that could be displayed at a museum. I’m not exaggerating, it really is that good.

Not far behind the cinematography in quality are the costumes and locations. You can tell the people who made this really cared about what they were doing and put the effort in to make sure it was perfect.

The problem though is that the movie run’s over three hours and is just not that compelling. IMDB describes the story as ‘An Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband’s aristocratic position in 18th-century England.’ OK, that seems reasonable enough and has potential for a good story but it just never delivers it. The three hours is spent just watching Barry Lydon, move from situation to situation while moving up the social ladder. He doesn’t do anything all that interesting to accomplish this feat, it’s more a matter of luck and being at the right place at the right time.

Then there’s the character Barry Lyndon himself and Ryan O’Neal the man who plays the part. Both totally lack charisma. IMDB described Lydon as an ‘Irish rogue’ which seems to imply some sort of interesting, whimsical personality, but Lydon/O’Neal doesn’t have one. The character is laid back, never says anything all that interesting, isn’t funny, doesn’t come across in the least bit charming, and does nothing that would make him standout in a crowd. Why would anyone ever center a story about this man?

I’m not blaming O’Neal for this, perhaps he’s a fine actor that just wasn’t given anything to work with and even if it was his fault, Kubrick was in charge and could have done something about it. Since he didn’t, I’m assuming that the performance was exactly what Kubrick was looking for.

Is it worth watching? Yes, but mostly for the spectacle and the visuals. If you want a great story, look somewhere else. I put this in the same class as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, both movies are spectacular and special but the stories don’t do the production justice.

This is a very enjoyable movie about the life of Julia Child and a young woman, Julia Powell, who decides to cook and blog about every recipe in Child’s cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”

Meryl Streep, of whom I’ve never been a fan, does an amazing job of portraying Julia Child. She captures her mannerisms and vocal patterns perfectly and makes you believe that she truly is Julia Child. I looked it up and found that although nominated for the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role she did not win. Instead the Oscar went to Sandra Bullock for her role in “The Blind Side.” Bullock was wonderful in that movie but Streep did something really special here and it’s a real travesty that she did not win.

Before watching this movie I assumed that Julie would somehow have met Julia and that the movie would be about their interactions. Turns out that is not the case at all. Surprisingly the two never met. The movie is actually two separate stories, one about Julia Child’s life in France and her learning to cook and getting the book published while the other is about a self-centered, annoying, unhappy young woman who finds meaning in her life cooking Child’s recipes and blogging about them.

As I mentioned earlier, the movie is very good, but in the end I found myself wondering why they just didn’t make a movie about Julia Child instead. The woman had a fascinating life and they didn’t have enough time to cover it because of the dual threads in this movie. The Julie story, while somewhat interesting, really amounted to nothing in the end; just an unhappy woman with an obsession about Julia Child. I guess they probably figured the Julie aspect might bring in younger viewers but it seems to me like they really missed an missed opportunity.

Cast
Jessica Chastain – Ava
John Malkovich – Duke
Colin Farrell – Simon
Common – Michael
Geena Davis – Bobbi

Director: Tate Taylor
Screenplay: Matthew Newton

This is another one of those movies that makes me ask myself “Why all the hate?.”

It gets a 5.4 rating on IMDB and on Rotten Tomatoes the critics give it a 17% rating while the audience doesn’t do all that much better, rating it at 30%.

The movie is about a young woman assasin. The organization that she works for finds out that she’s been asking her targets, “What did you do?” before killing them and that has them worried. They decide that she may be feeling guilty about her killings and they believe that she has become risk to the organization and needs to be eliminated. The man that recruited her is not sure about it and does his best to protect her.

During the course of the movie we find out she’s a reformed alcoholic, grew up in a house with a not so nice father and mother and had a serious relationship with the man who now dates her sister.

It’s not a pleasant movie; theres no happy ending and almost all of the characters are not nice people and have done bad things in their lives. That said, there’s a good amount of action, a pretty decent story and lots of interesting characters.

Ava won’t win any awards and probably won’t be remembered in the coming years but it’s entertaining and better than a lot of other stuff out there and worth a few hours of your time.