The Couch Trip (1988) ***

Sharply written, this satire/screwball comedy is very underrated, featuring an all star cast and top notch director as well as the lovely Donna Dixon.

I, Cringely We win, you lose: How shareholder value screwed the middle class - I, Cringely

The American Dream changed somehow in the 1970s when real wages for most of us began to stagnate when corrected for inflation and worker age. My best financial year ever was 2000 — 18 years ago — when was yours? This wasn’t a matter of productivity, either: workers were more productive every year, we just stopped being rewarded for it. There are many explanations of how this sad fact came to be and I am sure it’s a problem with several causes. But this column concerns one factor that generally isn’t touched-on by labor economists — Wall Street greed.

Early Man (2018) **

Ill conceived but superbly executed stop-motion animation. A far cry from Aardman's best.

Fifty Shades Freed (2018) **

Again, a well produced, watchable soap opera. You either care about these extremely wealthy, super-controlling individuals or you don't.

The Singular Pursuit of Comrade Bezos – Member Feature Stories – Medium

Just because a plan is efficient doesn’t mean it’s good. Postal Service employees are unionized; they have higher wages, paths for advancement, job stability, negotiated grievance procedures, health benefits, vacation time, etc. Amazon delivery drivers are not and do not. That difference counts as efficiency when we measure by price, and that is, to my mind, a very good argument for not handing the world over to the king of efficiency. The question that remains is whether we have already been too far reduced, whether after being treated as consumers and costs, we might still have it in us to be more, because that’s what it will take to wrench society away from Bezos and from the people who have made him look like a reasonable alternative.

Winter Kills (1979) ***

Political thriller or satire or black comedy or all three, this film is interesting and well acted if not entirely successful. Probably considered outlandish in 1979, unfortunately totally believable today.

Critics At Large : The Film Critic as Moral Haranguer: A.O. Scott on Woody Allen

Hollywood’s behavior around Dylan Farrow’s renewed allegation has been reprehensible – not only because, to quote a play I dislike, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, it assumes that the accuser is always holy now, but mainly because it’s obnoxiously sanctimonious and despicably self-serving. The actors in Allen’s unreleased new movie who have made a big show of donating their salaries to various organizations that support abused women are making sure that, in this cultural climate, they look like they’re on the right side, just as in the 1950s actors who were worried about their careers made sure to distance themselves from anyone who was under investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee. What makes Rebecca Hall so positive that Dylan Farrow is telling the truth and Woody Allen is lying? When Diane Keaton spoke up for Allen, she had to endure Judd Apatow’s insults. Who the hell is Judd Apatow to put down Keaton, a close friend and colleague of Allen’s for half a century, for standing up for him? Apatow’s merely trumpeting his own virtue – and, I’m sorry to say, so is A.O. Scott. An acknowledgement of betrayal and shame? Scott ought to be ashamed of himself.

Hostiles (2017) *

Some lovely scenery interrupted by long takes of one actor talking followed by sequences of extreme violence. Nothing new or special about this poorly directed Hollywood Western.