Scanning the horizon
Greetings, friends. We're out of the deep freeze here in my home area, although the thermometer can't seem to make up its mind what each day will feel like. Yesterday our temperatures were in the high 50's with some scattered showers; today we have already achieved our predicted high temp of 43 degrees!
If you're an employee of the federal government, I'm happy that you're going back to work today. But given the way that the entire shutdown drama unfolded, I wonder if you're not in for a longer period of inactivity come February 8. That's the next date when the government ceases to be funded, and avoiding that shutdown rests on verbal commitments by politicians, most notably from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, from my own state of Kentucky.
Worth noting that late Friday night McConnell procedurally objected to an bill that would have ensured that military personnel would retain their pay and the families of fallen soldiers their death benefits throughout the shutdown.
And now that the shutdown is over (for now), it seems President Trump will be traveling to Davos to mix with the super-rich, but I read last night that he'll be going without the First Lady. Do you suppose that she is upset that one of the headlines from the last week concerned the President's yearlong affair with an adult film actress and his payment to her to assure her silence?
Moving on....last week I purchased last year's war movie "Dunkirk" and watched it with my wife. I was absolutely stunned by this film, directed by Christopher Nolan, with multi-layered plot timelines that eventually intersect, astounding cinematography (including some really imaginative camera angles), a relentlessly loud soundtrack that no doubt echoed what those who really experienced these events would have remembered, and a relatively small amount of dialogue, virtually all of which was meaningful. This assault on the senses lasted just a little more than an hour-and-a-half, and it's probably a good thing, as audiences in theaters would have found it difficult to take.
This morning the Oscar nominations will be announced, so now we'll be subjected to endless news stories about how this will be the first Academy Awards ceremony since the #MeToo movement ignited. But it will be interesting to see how well "Dunkirk" does in the nominations. I'm a Christopher Nolan fan, and his movies are often overlooked by award voters. On a side note, I'm rooting for Nolan to be chosen to direct the next James Bond picture, but that's probably a long shot.
I haven't seen any of the other movies that are getting a lot of mentions right now, and only want to see "The Post," directed by Steven Spielberg (another longtime favorite director) and starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, two dependable performers. I view that as a sort of "prequel" to "All the President's Men," a movie about the Watergate investigation from the perspective of the Washington Post reporters who broke the story. That's a movie I have to watch if it happens to appear on television, even now.
Speaking of movies, I think I mentioned here that last year my wife and I decided to skip the Super Bowl and go to the movies. Had never done that before, and it was fun (we saw the Star Wars offshoot "Rogue One" and enjoyed it immensely!). Unfortunately, we learned on the way home that the hated New England Patriots appeared to be going down in defeat to the Atlanta Falcons, so when we arrived at our house I turned the television on in time to see the Patriots in the midst of their historic comeback (or the Falcons' historic collapse, if you prefer).
Sunday we learned that the Patriots would again play in the big game, this time against the Philadelphia Eagles, who continue to overachieve with a stiff defense and now their backup quarterback. So we may be going to the movies again.
If you're an employee of the federal government, I'm happy that you're going back to work today. But given the way that the entire shutdown drama unfolded, I wonder if you're not in for a longer period of inactivity come February 8. That's the next date when the government ceases to be funded, and avoiding that shutdown rests on verbal commitments by politicians, most notably from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, from my own state of Kentucky.
Worth noting that late Friday night McConnell procedurally objected to an bill that would have ensured that military personnel would retain their pay and the families of fallen soldiers their death benefits throughout the shutdown.
And now that the shutdown is over (for now), it seems President Trump will be traveling to Davos to mix with the super-rich, but I read last night that he'll be going without the First Lady. Do you suppose that she is upset that one of the headlines from the last week concerned the President's yearlong affair with an adult film actress and his payment to her to assure her silence?
Moving on....last week I purchased last year's war movie "Dunkirk" and watched it with my wife. I was absolutely stunned by this film, directed by Christopher Nolan, with multi-layered plot timelines that eventually intersect, astounding cinematography (including some really imaginative camera angles), a relentlessly loud soundtrack that no doubt echoed what those who really experienced these events would have remembered, and a relatively small amount of dialogue, virtually all of which was meaningful. This assault on the senses lasted just a little more than an hour-and-a-half, and it's probably a good thing, as audiences in theaters would have found it difficult to take.
This morning the Oscar nominations will be announced, so now we'll be subjected to endless news stories about how this will be the first Academy Awards ceremony since the #MeToo movement ignited. But it will be interesting to see how well "Dunkirk" does in the nominations. I'm a Christopher Nolan fan, and his movies are often overlooked by award voters. On a side note, I'm rooting for Nolan to be chosen to direct the next James Bond picture, but that's probably a long shot.
I haven't seen any of the other movies that are getting a lot of mentions right now, and only want to see "The Post," directed by Steven Spielberg (another longtime favorite director) and starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, two dependable performers. I view that as a sort of "prequel" to "All the President's Men," a movie about the Watergate investigation from the perspective of the Washington Post reporters who broke the story. That's a movie I have to watch if it happens to appear on television, even now.
Speaking of movies, I think I mentioned here that last year my wife and I decided to skip the Super Bowl and go to the movies. Had never done that before, and it was fun (we saw the Star Wars offshoot "Rogue One" and enjoyed it immensely!). Unfortunately, we learned on the way home that the hated New England Patriots appeared to be going down in defeat to the Atlanta Falcons, so when we arrived at our house I turned the television on in time to see the Patriots in the midst of their historic comeback (or the Falcons' historic collapse, if you prefer).
Sunday we learned that the Patriots would again play in the big game, this time against the Philadelphia Eagles, who continue to overachieve with a stiff defense and now their backup quarterback. So we may be going to the movies again.
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