The politics of the latest Star Wars film

I stopped watching the Star Wars films after seeing episode 1 titled The Phantom Menace which, as all aficionados know, was the fourth film is the weird sequencing of that franchise. (Q: Why did episodes 4,5,6 get made before episodes 1,2,3? A: In charge of production, Yoda was.) So I had not planned to see the latest episode (I don’t know what number it is) titled The Last Jedi. But this review by Kate Aronoff surprised me because she says that this film takes a side in the class war.
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Mesmerizing short film about lightning

There is something compelling about lightning, the sight of massive amounts of electrical energy surging through the sky and powering flux capacitors. Via David Pescovitz, I came across this compilation of lightning videos shot at 1,000 frames per second and set to music. The resulting film called Transient was made by Dustin Farrell who spent the summer traveling 20,000 miles within the US to capture all the strikes.
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Brilliant one-minute film about a prepper

‘Prepper’ is the name given to those people who take extensive precautions to survive in the case of a major calamity such as nuclear war breaking out or the US being invaded and taken over by (say) Costa Rica or electing a socialist lesbian of color as president. These precautions take the form of heavily arming themselves, creating well-stocked bunkers, and learning skills that will enable them to survive in the wild and live off the land.
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Review: Godless (2017)

I just finished watching this Netflix mini-series. It is a western, a genre that I am partial to. The main arc of the story is similar to that of the classic western Shane where a mysterious gunfighter weary of the life he has led and seeking to escape his past arrives in a small town and takes a job as a hired hand on a family farm. But he cannot escape his past.
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Film review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

I wrote two days ago about how the trailer for this film was so good that it made me want to see it. So I did yesterday. It is definitely a film worth watching though a little different from what I was expecting. The trailer seemed to indicate that it was a comedy, and though there are many very funny moments in it, it is at heart a serious film dealing with important issues.
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Now that’s what I call a trailer

We know that filmmakers put some of the best scenes into their trailers. In fact, when it comes to many action films where character and plot are given short shrift and the focus is on fights and chases, once you’ve seen the trailer, you can pretty much skip the film. But there are some trailers that are so compelling that you know immediately that you want to see the film. One such case is the trailer for the black comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri that was released this past week. It tells you just enough to make you curious for more. It helps that it has two superb actors Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson in the lead roles of the mother of a raped and murdered woman and the local police chief.
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Did Robert Mugabe watch A Very British Coup?

Zimbabwe has been going through a rather strange political transition. Robert Mugabe has ruled that country since 1980 when his guerrilla force ZANU overthrew the white minority government of what was then called Rhodesia. Since then, his rule has become increasingly autocratic, corrupt, undemocratic, and brutal and it seemed like he, now 93 years old, was grooming his wife Grace to take over from him, and sacking his deputy head of state seemed to be a step in that direction
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Why make Murder on the Orient Express again?

Later this week there will be the release of the second remake of the film Murder on the Orient Express with a star-studded cast. The first version was in 1974 and also had an even more stellar cast with the biggest names of that era, and there was a made-for-TV version in 2001. All these films are based on an Agatha Christie novel with the same title.
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A gripping and disturbing short documentary

Using archival footage, Marshall Curry has produced a seven-minute documentary A Night at The Garden about a rally that was held in Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939 that drew 20,000 people. It was a highly disturbing event but even more extraordinary is how it has disappeared from public consciousness. I had never heard of it. It is better to simply watch the documentary and let it sink in than me trying to describe it.

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Review: Broadchurch: Season 3 and the elimination of mystery clichés

I just watched the eight-episode third series of the British detective drama Broadchurch and it is excellent, maintaining and even exceeding the standard set by the first two seasons. The third series takes place three years after the second one and features the return of detectives Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) to investigate a new crime of the rape of a woman after a party, but it also weaves in some storylines and characters from the previous seasons.
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