Archive for the ‘entertainment’ Category

Unfinished Business Under the Fedora: The Democrats Media Masters, J-Lo and Biology, Female Doctors Everywhere, Yockey in Iowa and Mookie over LA

Posted: February 6, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, American Success Stories, baseball, culture, elections, entertainment, News/opinion, politics, primaries, Sports, under the fedora
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Often events overtake thoughts on items so here are a few things I would have liked to have gotten out from Under My Fedora a bit earlier.

Don Surber, one of the must reads on the net notes that the media have a lot to answer for in terms of the results of impeachment and he’s right in the sense that the media kept pushing all this forward in the belief that it would hurt the president That some in the Democrat leadership and others in the field knew this to be the case was not enough to stop them.

For years I’ve thought the media was at the Democrats beck and call, now I’m wondering if it’s the other way around.

There was a lot of fuss about J-Lo’s performance at the Superbowl and the whole Pole Dancing business, I think life might be a lot easier if we all acknowledged two basic things.

Men like women and are biologically designed to desire them, the more sexually provocative they are the more noticeable they become to men’s eyes. That the actual norm, and it is the cultural restraints that our friends off the left from religion to chivalry that teaches a man to be a gentlemanly and show restraint and to respect the “no” when a woman gives it

Women are also biologically designed to rival each other for said notice of men and said biology and rivalry does not end when a woman is in her 50’s. and when you spend a lifetime making a living off the “male gaze” you certainly aren’t going to let a younger woman outdo you in that measure.

Those same civilizing impulses that acted upon men also acted upon women to be very selective when using that biological power which gives power to a women to improve a man to the point where he is a suitable mate. When our culture abandoned those civilizing tools they abandoned those restraints which ironically is what has actually objectified women.

The sooner these things facts that have centuries of experience developing the better off we will be as a society.

If you missed Doctor Who this week as I have for the last several years you would have found that the 1st female Doctor (played by Jodie Whitaker) was joined by the 1st Black Female Doctor (played by Jo Martin).

There are many issues with this development, from the rewriting of the Doctor Who Canon of fifty plus years to the fact that they will need to take a further woke step to satisfy the Social Justice Warriors whose demands can never be fully me met shall we see the 1st trans woman doctor played by Jessica Yaniv later this season perhaps?

But the issue that is biggest for the current Doctor Who franchise is that according to my oldest son who is still occasionally watching the series not only was the 1st black female Doctor (played by Jo Martin) clearly recognizable as “the doctor” in terms of tone and character unlike the 1st female doctor (played by Jodie Whitaker) to my son, a lifelong Doctor who man fan but she apparently the 1st black female Doctor (played by Jo Martin) completely out acted the 1st female Doctor (played by Jodie Whitaker) to the point where it was according to my son the wrong person was the 1st female Doctor and it wasn’t close.

Oh and for the record the 1st female doctor was in fact Joanna Lumley

FYI My apologies to the good folks at Nerdrotic for stealing his “1st female / Black female Doctor” meme.

Completely missed this tidbit from Stacy McCain concerning old friend Cynthia Yockey. Ten years ago I met the Conservative Lesbian at CPAC and she told me of how she had been rejected and marginalized by gay friend while embraced by conservatives.

Cynthia ten years later:

Speaking of conservatives, my friend Cynthia Yockey caucused for Trump last night. Yes, there was a Republican caucus in Iowa, which Trump obviously won. Cynthia reports that (a) she was drafted to be a delegate to the county GOP convention in March, (b) elected to the platform committee, (c) her plank on transgender issues was unanimously adopted, and (d) “the passionate nominating speech for Trump that opened our caucus was given by an immigrant from India who became a citizen in 2008.”

I’m very happy for Cynthia who is a fine person but I’m even happier for the Iowa GOP & the President who are damn lucky to have her.

Finally in the Midst of all this political news the Boston Red Sox have Traded Away Mookie Betts arguably next to Mike Trout the best outfielder/player in the game along with Starter David Price for a pair of young players. For myself I would have waited till May to see if we had a chance to contend but given that Betts didn’t want to resign here getting something for a guy who hits for power & average, steals bases, has a rocket arm and incredible outfield range is a lot better than getting nothing for him, not to mention the huge savings from getting rid of David Price’s contract.

As for the Dodgers I don’t care if every team in the league has a complete list of every sign you have, if you can’t win the series with the addition of Price still a good pitcher and Betts to that already formidable team you’re just never going to do it and if you can sign Mookie to a long term deal than your team might truly become a Dynasty.

Either way enjoy it, he’s a pleasure to watch.

6 Quick Kobe Thoughts, Confession, The Difference a Day Makes, Life goes on, Liang Wudong, What Impeachment? and some things never change Under the Fedora

Posted: January 27, 2020 by datechguy in catholic, culture, entertainment, nba, Sports
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What happened to Kobe Bryant is why I don’t get into any aircraft or go on any long trip without going to confession and receiving absolution first.

None of us from short fat lower middle class 56 year old bloggers to 41 year tall healthy rich basketball superstars are promised tomorrow. So if you need the sacrament of confession the best time to get it is now

It’s amazing the difference a day makes, I would wager that 24 hours ago if offered a chance to ride on a chopper with Kobe Bryant and his daughter you could likely count the number of people who would decline such an offer on your fingers and toes.

You could make a very good episode of the twilight zone about a basketball fanatic selling his soul for the chance.

It’s worth noting that moments of silence and tributes not withstanding the NBA games still went on yesterday, the Grammy’s took place yesterday, on Sunday the Superbowl is going to take place and all of the athletes in all the various sports will keep going on as normal. Unless you are one of the family of those who died life goes on as normal. It’s a lesson worth learning if you are one of those taking the court, field or stage yesterday with the crowd cheering you.

Another person died yesterday that should be remembered by likely will not.

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There will likely not many glowing tributes in the news for Doctor Liang Wudong who died treating patients from the disease that everyone around the world is running from.

There should be.

If you thought people weren’t paying attention to impeachment last week today you’d better believe that nobody is paying attention to it today.

This is one of those very rare times when a Monday Morning is the perfect time for anyone in politics or business to dump an embarrassing story and know for a fact that nobody is going to cover it.

Finally I was on twitter while all this was happening and saw this tweet from a DC blue check journalist in reply to the President’s comment:

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Twitchy has a whole batch of such replies I think my initial reaction to this is correct: God what’s wrong with you people?

Saturday Geeking Picard, Sinking Who, Batwoman Crisis, Where’s the Orville? John Wayne vs Baldrick and Two Down Four to Go

Posted: January 25, 2020 by datechguy in comedy, culture, entertainment

I haven’t taken the time to watch Picard because I refuse to sign up for CBS all access and it seems to be the general consensus is that Patrick Stewart is excellent and while it’s a tad woke it could have been a lot worse.

I really get the feeling that there are a lot of Stewart fans who really WANT to like the series because they want to like him, combine that with the fact that he’s a generally good actor playing an iconic character the he originated and you get fans almost desperate to cheer it.

What does it say about what the woke have done to a series when “Couda been a lot worse” sounds like a victory lap?

Meanwhile Doctor Who continues to crash and burn with rating sinking to McCoy era numbers and worse. The fact that rotten tomatoes keeps clearing out bad reviews makes it even worse in terms of appearance that they have somehow decided to sign for yet another series after this one.

It seems the woke folks at the BBC are determined to purge the last of the old fan base to leave the series pure without it to the point where we are actually seeing people say it’s beyond redemption at this point and better off cancelled.

I have a feeling all of his was avoidable but you get a real feeling that these guys hated their customer base more than the liked the franchise, and frankly the didn’t like the franchise all that much.

The same crashing and burning is taking place in Batwoman. The rating weren’t all that good to start and Crisis on Infinite Earth’s Crossover managed to eat up a lot of oxygen (the whole multiverse idea which now allows the possibility of every single person who ever played any DC character to cross over is big, particularly when you consider that there is at least one comic “universe” where the DC & Marvel heroes co-exist) but once it had to stand on it’s own woke feet the burn began again and the rating are finding new frontiers of holes.

Now it’s possible that even the lousy ratings it has generates enough funds to pay for the series and if it does then they can continue to play the woke game as long as they want (sort of like Doctor Who) where it continues to be a niche show for a niche market, but if that’s not the case and it remains the CW version of the WNBA only surviving because the larger franchise is willing to take a hit to prove its woke credentials it remains to be seen how long it can go on.

With so many longtime franchises committing woke Seppuku the wait for the 3rd season of The Orville has been excruciating. You would not think that one of the wokest lights in Hollywood would be producing practically the last show that can be enjoyed just for being good but McFarline has done it not allowing his woke message (yeah it’s there we all see it just like we did in every series of Doctor Who Pre-Whitaker ) to overwhelm actual storytelling.

The wait is harder because I’ve actually reached the point where we don’t know if the temptation to go full woke is there. He’s reached a point of wealth and celebrity where it doesn’t really matter but I get the feeling he hold just enough of the geek/fanboy inside of him that he doesn’t want to screw over others the way the other franchises have.

Hope I’m right.

Was looking for a free movie on Amazon Prime and settled on Brannigan one of the last pictures John Wayne made where he plays a Chicago Cop to travels to England to pick up a fugitive, John Vernon of Dean Wormer fame.

There is one scene particularly made for comedy geeks where Wayne the acting icon meets encounters someone you would not expect to see in a John Wayne Movie

Yes that’s a very young Tony Robinson before he became a comic icon as Baldrick in the Black Adder series doing a comic pratfall for Wayne. You never see him asked about it in interviews which I find rather strange, but just seeing the two of them together given their histories is enough to make me laugh

Finally with Terry Jones dead the Pythons now have two down and four to go. Combined with Neil Innes recent death it’s a big blow to fans however given their ages not all that surprising.

I suspect it will cause a lot more interest in John Cleese’s visit to Worcester in a few weeks as the realization that the number of chances to actually see these guys in person is dropping exponentially.

I must confess that when I heard he had Alzheimer and Dementia all I could think of was him in the fourth series of Python in drag with a weird umbrella like hood over his head doing an odd dance in the street and ask “given the characters he has played over the years how can anyone tell the difference?”

Review of the Netflix series Thieves of the Wood

Posted: January 19, 2020 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media
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By John Ruberry

Are you missing some Robin Hood in your life? If you are a Netflix subscriber and you can stomach graphic violence, including torture, as well as gratuitous nudity, then you may want to take a look at the ten-episode Belgian series Thieves of the Wood, which began streaming earlier this month.

And you must be patient. Thieves of the Wood moves slowly, and if you don’t know about Jan de Lichte or Flanders of the 18th century, as I didn’t until a few days ago, you might get lost.

After watching the first episode I was indeed lost. So I got on my iPad where I learned that Jan de Lichte was a real person, a highway man, who of course robbed from the rich. After all, stealing from the poor is never very profitable. At the beginning of that first episode, de Lichte (Matteo Simoni) is being dragged on a sandy trail by mounted Austrian troops, he’s accused of murder and desertion. Now is the time to bring some historical perspective. Most of contemporary Flanders, a Dutch speaking region, lies in Belgium. But in the 1740s this region was then part of Austria although it was occupied by France. Historians call this conflict the War of Austrian Succession.

De Lichte escapes. He returns to his hometown of Aalst, which is run by corrupt Flemish aristocrats, led by Mayor Coffijn (Dirk Roofthooft). Just as de Lichte arrives in Aalst, so does the new bailiff, that is the chief of police, Jean-Phillipe Baru (Tom Van Dyck). Both learn that punishment is harsh in Aalst. Baru is horrified when he learns that a man and a woman are about to be flogged for the crime of stealing two rabbits from Coffijn’s estate, then branded–while their children watch. Now paperless, they are exiled from the city to live in a nearby forest.

Those woods are not the Nottingham Forest of Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood. The refuge is overrun by abject poverty, disease, prostitution, and opium smoking. De Lichte, aided by his half-brother Tincke (Stef Aerts), organize the downtrodden to fight back against the oppression, although it’s not until the fourth episode–I did say that Thieves of the Wood requires patience–that their plans bear fruit.

The loot is shared. Everyone wins in the forest. While Coffijn seethes

The scriptwriters are clearly hostile to the Catholic church. There is no Friar Tuck in this forest, in the town presides an imperious priest, Picke. He reminded me of the cruel Lutheran bishop in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander. 

As the series played out to me I fully expected a Donald Trump reference or two, especially since America comes up in the dialogue a couple of times. Then it hit me. Two of the town council members, including Mayor Coffijn, wear orange, or I should of course say red, periwigs. Perhaps that’s only a coincidence. Perhaps not. 

Some of the good: The costumes of Thieves of the Wood, including those wigs, are first-rate and the cinematography is superb. 

And now some of the bad: There are no subtitles, the Dutch dialogue instead is dubbed by British actors. The American entertainment industry suffers from the false premise that we won’t watch subtitled offerings. But last night I saw the Korean film Parasite, which is subtitled. Not only is Parasite an Academy Award nominee for Best Picture (and Best International Feature Film), but it is also performing very well in the domestic box office. Deservedly so, I’d like to add. 

Thieves of the Wood is rated TV-MA for reasons I listed above. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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