Notable People: JK
Simmons, Olivia Williams, Harry Lloyd, Nazanin Boniadi, Created by: Justin
Marks
Title: Counterpart
Review: Very strange series, recommended by my
TV highbrow connoisseur, Feel. Simmons is brilliant playing two roles of the same
person in parallel worlds…I mean subtly brilliant. Always liked him, but this a
new level. Many of the cast play double rolls, with aplomb. The story is bit convoluted,
and at times, hard to track back and forth between the parallel worlds….but
less sci-fi than you might think, and quite the storyline. Did not think I would
like this, but really did. I doubt any more seasons are probable after the ending
of season two.
Notable People: Tcheky
Karyo, James Nesbitt, Frances O’Connor, Created by: Jack and Harry Williams
Title: The Missing
Review: This is the precursor to
Baptiste, which I reviewed a few weeks ago, and is the origin of the Baptiste
charter, astoundingly portrayed by Tcheky Karyo. He’s a strange cross between
Foyle (of Foyles’ War) and Colombo. The story of a missing child and his parents
eight-year journey to find him in the remote French countryside is so compelling
it’s hard to not binge watch it. Very complex drama about loss, giving and relationships,
built around the extraordinary presence of Baptiste…. a man who never (I mean never ) gives up. Subtle, profound,
riveting. There is a second season which we are just starting- but a completely
separate storyline for the aging Batiste to obsess over. A gem!
Review: The follow up book to Morris’s
award winning concentration camp story, “The Taoists of Auschwitz. This book is
hard to put down. Cilka was introduced in the first book and is based on a real
person and real events that took a 16-year-old girl from the horrors of Auschwitz
to the equally atrocious Russian Siberian Gulag work camps. A young woman who was
painted a traitor after the war, who in actuality saved more lives than can be
counted. A touching, horrific, and inspiring story of brutality, perseverance
and rising above. A book not to be missed.
Notable People: Tcheky
Karyo, Tom Hollander, Anastasia Hile, Alec Seceraneau, Barbara Sarafien, Created
by: Jack and Harry Williams
Title:
Baptiste
Review: Nice little show about a semiretired
French policeman, famous for finding missing people, living in Amsterdam. Quite
convoluted plot about a ring of mysterious Russian teen girl importers, but the
cast is good, the show is wonderfully filmed on location, and it’s hard not to
love the aging Baptiste- played lovingly by the ethnically confusing Karyo. This
was an offshoot form an earlier PBS Masterpiece popular show called The Missing.
You cannot go wrong, ever, with Masterpiece.
Notable People: David Cornsweet,
Jake Picking, Jeremy Pope, Patti Lupone, Dylan McDermott, Jim Parsons, Joe
Mantello, Created by: Ian Brennan and Ryan
Murphy
Title:
Hollywood
Review: Need a little break from all the
intensity? Surprisingly complex show, despite the formulaic story lines, about
a group of people trying to make it Hollywood during the repressive 50s. Racism,
Sexism, and general inequality are addressed throughout. The scenes are shot in
very stylized manner, but the overall effect is quite good. Lupone is magnificent
and Rob Reiner has wonderful auxiliary role. The cast is really quite good. Even
has a Hollywood ending. One season will be it. Thee thumbs up.
Review: Brilliantly written book about the experiences of a (too) young German soldier and a blind French girl during the second world war. Each very small chapter, alternating their unique story from the stat to the end of the war- and the to the present, ultimately centering around the tiny seaside city of St. Malo on the Brittany coast. Extraordinary look inside the minds and hearts of two young people caught up in something that makes no sense and which they have no control over. Tragic, illuminating, heartfelt, uplifting- all at the same time. I savored this book for many weeks.
“Wheel’s on fire
Rollin down the road
Let’s notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Bob Dylan and
Richard Manual
“In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must
confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”………………………………………Winston
Churchill
“His rise to power was mostly based on his excellent
oration and manipulation skills.
He understood very well the politics of his time and based
his propaganda on hatred towards other countries, blaming them for any
instability of his own country” ……………………Description of Adolph Hitler
I was born and raised in the mean streets-shtetl of The
Bronx
With many people of many places and many colors
My schools were the halls of diversity
Amongst the first” bussing” schools in our nation
I had the fortune of experiencing a giant shift in culture
when I left at a tender age
To find a new life in the heartland, far from the skyscrapers
and teeming streets of the metropolis
I have made many, many mistakes
And I can’t change them, I acknowledge them, I live with
them
I have traveled the world over
Yet here, amongst the amber waves of grain, is where I love-
and live
Living in to beautiful places
A blessing-and a curse
I have three children, who I love and admire beyond words
I have three granddaughters, who are teaching me a new meaning
for love
I have three houses and three cars…which are a burden
I have a partner who is both the challenge and the love of
my life
I have suffered great loss…and strive to be better for (or despite)
it
With occasional success
I have brothers and sisters who I make music with
That sustains me and keeps me alive
I have the privilege to do work (still)
That gives me a platform to speak out for children and families
I have lifelong friends from childhood, from college, from travels
That I continue to draw strength from
Sometimes life is a real ball buster
But I would not trade it for anything
To live here, to live now
In the country of my dreams.
What MY America can
be:
The most beautiful place on earth
A place that people love and care for one another—where
the “We” is as (if not more) important than the “Me”
A free and just place to live and love
A place that allows for differences in thought,
action and preferences
A place that encourages the freedom to think
outside the box
A place in which the fortunate concern themselves
with the less fortunate
An inspirational land
A democracy in which we all have voice and in which
we have leaders of integrity and vision who represent us honorably
The freedom to choose anything that does not
hurt someone else
Profoundly and wonderfully diverse
What
MY America Cannot be:
Narrow-minded and hateful
Fearful of difference
Indifferent to fairness and justice
A place that makes life great for a privileged few and insufferable for too many
Leaderless…helmed by despots who seek only personal gain and power
Cruel and unusually punishing
A place unable to reconcile and learn from its past and move towards a kind, fair and equitable future
Greed, Power and Wealth over caring and compassion
Isolated, authoritative and demeaning
An environment of distrust, fear and loathing
C’mon
people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another
RIGHT NOW……………………
Notable People: Julia
Brown, Jonah Hauer-King, Zofia Wichlazc, Sean Bean, Lesley Manville, Helen
Hunt, Created by: Peter Bowker
Title:
World on Fire
Review: Brilliant PBS series on the always
highest-quality Masterpiece Theater, tells the story of the Nazi Blitzkrieg of Europe
in 1939 and 1940. Magnificently told through the lens of five participants in five
different countries. Tense, brutal, touching, heroic…once again make the convincing
arguments for the saving graces the Brits and the Resistance, without whom the Nazis
take over the world before we ever enter The War. The young faces in the cast are
exceptional, but the sensational performances from veterans Hunt and Manville make
this must see. Hard not to binge watch this short seven episodes first season.
As second season is definitely in the works. Watch it on PBS On-Demand.
Review: Oh, my, my…this is a troublesome
book…as it should be. The true story of Lale Sokolov, who unwittingly became the
man who tattooed the numbers on everyone who came to this pit of hell from
1942- to 1945. Morris befriended him in the last years of his life (he did in
2006) In New Zealand and recorded his true story-told in novel from. This is
brutal…just brutal…but must reading in my boo. I swept through it in three
days-hard to read, hard to put down. Morris is not the worlds’ best writer, but
the story is so gripping, so compelling……how could this happen? It’s also, by
the way as story (like a million others) of indomitable will and extraordinary desire
to survive….and retain your soul and dignity in the process. OY!
Review: Franzen has won the National
book award for his previous novel, so I was quite eager…but then the book was so
very slow to start, I almost gave up. But stuck with it, and it turned out to be
a fine read about a 30-year marriage between two iconoclasts. Sweeping story from
St. Paul, to the coal mining hollers of West Virginia, to power environmentalists
in DC, and a fading 70s rock star in Jersey City. The novel is dense, so read
in short segments, which made the lengthy novel go a long way during the Pandemic.
The characters really came to life for me as the book progressed. Franzen had a
keen eye for detail, language and context…. ugly turns sweet in this book.
