Swiss Family Robinson (1960) **

Superbly photographed white male adolescent fantasy about being the sole survivors of a shipwreck in the 1800's, living in an imaculate treehouse (with running water) on a tropical island, having wild animals as pets (including a sea turtle, baby elephant, ostrich, zebra and Bengal tiger) and fighting pirates.

Shanghai Express (1932) *

Essentially a photo shoot for Marlene.

Accident (1967) **

Even Oxford dons are not above a little bad behavior now and then especially when Ms. Sassard is involved. Well made but hardly revelatory.

Jamaica Inn (1939) **

Not nearly as bad as critical consensus has insisted, this is an above average, entertaining costumer with some interesting dialogue, eccentric performances and a lovely debut for Ms. O'Hara.

Into the Woods (2014) *

Bereft of imagination which is sad for a musical film whose milieu is fairy tales. I can't think of anything good to say about this one so I had better stop.

Inspector Hornleigh (1939) *

Extremely talky whodunit fails to maintain interest except when the lovely Miki Hood is on screen. She deserved better.

Searching for Shelley Duvall: The Reclusive Icon on Fleeing Hollywood and the Scars of Making 'The Shining' | Hollywood Reporter

There is a sequence in The Shining that is in the Guinness World Records for "most retakes for one scene with dialogue." The scene features Crothers and Danny Lloyd, the young actor who played Danny Torrance, discussing the ability to "shine," a psychic gift that allows the boy to envision the hotel's horrific past. Kubrick had the actors do it 148 times. But another far more demanding scene — the staircase scene — was shot 127 times. "It was a difficult scene, but it turned out to be one of the best scenes in the film," Duvall says. "I'd like to watch the movie again. I haven't seen it in a long time."

At her suggestion, I google the scene, perch my iPhone on her dashboard and press play. I don't think I'll ever forget the experience of watching 71-year-old Duvall watching her 30-year-old self meekly swing a bat at Nicholson as he threatened to "bash [her] brains in."

"Why are you crying?" I ask Duvall.

"Because we filmed that for about three weeks," she replies. "Every day. It was very hard. Jack was so good — so damn scary. I can only imagine how many women go through this kind of thing."

Rebecca (1940) ***

Long, overwrought gothic melodrama with mostly by-the-book direction. A top cast elevates the material. Joan Fontaine is terrific in probably her best role.

Suspicion (1941) ***

Hitch always seemed to bring out the best in Cary.

Rear Window (1954) ****

Not only great fun from The Master, but his direction here becomes iconic. Grace never looked better and is perfectly cast.

She Done Him Wrong (1933) *

Mae West vehicle has a couple of good one-liners.

Ethan Frome (1993) **

Handsomely mounted production looks the part but can't quite capture the intensity of the source material.

Old Boyfriends (1979) **

Trying for realism but the story is contrived and not compelling. For Talia fans only (like me).

Raffles (1939) **

Niven defines the gentleman thief role, but Mr.Clive nearly steals the picture as his butler. Olivia is wasted as the love interest with not much to do.

2021 Prediction #3: Get ready for more GameStops as hedge funds are no longer the only bullies in town | I, Cringely

Now here’s the rub: 138 percent of GameStop shares were shorted. Theoretically that’s not possible, of course. You can’t sell more of something than even exists. Yet from time to time that’s exactly what happens because of another concept called GREED. Somebody (brokers in this case) makes money on all those shorts or calls, no matter how the trade is eventually resolved. Even though the contracts apply to shares that don’t actually exist, a contract is still a contract. The seminal GameStop trade that started all this was Redditor u/DeepFuckingValue buying GameStop puts — the right to sell (rather than buy — that would be a call) GameStop shares at a specific strike price. As of yesterday this $53,000 trade had grown to about $48 million with $14 million of that in cash. That’s some Deep Fucking Value.

Did the Coronavirus Escape From a Lab?

As Shi explained to Scientific American, late in December 2019, she heard from the director of the Wuhan Institute that there was an outbreak of a new disease in the city. Medical samples taken from hospital patients arrived at her lab for analysis. Shi determined that the new virus was related to SARS but even more closely related to a bat disease that her own team had found on a virus-hunting trip: the now-famous RaTG13. Shi was surprised that the outbreak was local, she said: “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.” The bat hiding places that she’d been visiting were, after all, as far away as Orlando, Florida, is from New York City. Could this new virus, she wondered, have come from her own laboratory? She checked her records and found no exact matches. “That really took a load off my mind,” she said. “I had not slept a wink for days.” If one of the first thoughts that goes through the head of a lab director at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is that the new coronavirus could have come from her lab, then we are obliged to entertain the scientific possibility that it could indeed have come from her lab. Right then, there should have been a comprehensive, pockets-inside-out, fully public investigation of the Virology Institute, along with the other important virus labs in Wuhan, including the one close by the seafood market, headquarters of the Wuhan CDC. There should have been interviews with scientists, interviews with biosafety teams, close parsings of laboratory notebooks, freezer and plumbing and decontamination systems checks — everything. It didn’t happen.

My Foolish Heart (1949) ***

A tight script and strong supporting cast make this a top soaper.

Emma (TV Movie 1996) ***

Well made for TV version of the Austen tale with a top notch cast.

Emma (1996) ***

Enjoyable version of the Austen rom-com prototype with the lovely Ms. Paltrow and a fine supporting cast. Well directed.

QAnon Woke Up the Real Deep State | by Nicholas Grossman | Jan, 2021 | Arc Digital

The president appoints and the Senate confirms top officials, from the Secretary of State to the five members of the Arctic Research Commission, over 1,200 in total. Every other executive branch employee — over 4 million if you include the military, over 2.7 million if you don’t — is hired or recruited, not elected or appointed. This means that the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement are staffed with people the agencies hired themselves.

Their mandates are broad. For example, the FBI is supposed to “investigate federal crimes and threats to national security.” While there are laws giving the FBI certain powers (e.g. to arrest people) and limits (needing warrants), a lot is open to interpretation, especially regarding national security threats.

It’s fair to say the FBI, CIA, IRS, CDC, and other federal agencies have, to some extent, taken on lives of their own. So has the military, and the larger defense-industrial complex. They’re under control of elected and appointed leaders, but also not, acting according to established laws, established regulations (many of which they wrote themselves), and individual judgment calls. You could call that “the Deep State.”