HBO's Chernobyl

As a riveting drama, it is hard to beat HBO's Chernobyl. The 4 episode miniseries deals with the worst nuclear accident in history, and all the consequences thereof. Thousands of people, such as nuclear workers, firefighters, military, miners, and scientists are in a race against time to contain the nuclear fallout that could affect a large area and contaminate millions of people.  Some of these people lost their lives in the process.

As fantastic as Chernobyl is as a drama, it gets so many facts wrong both historically and scientifically that it has been the subject of much criticism. It repeatedly exaggerates the threat that the nuclear accident poses, going as far as to describe the plant as a nuclear bomb, claiming that it could lead to a 30 megaton explosion, and claiming that it could make half of Europe uninhabitable. According to people in the know, all of this is complete nonsense. The show further states that a large group of spectators on a bridge miles from the accident died from radiation poisoning, calling it the "death bridge." However, according to many sources, this is an urban legend.

Normally I would find these kinds of mistakes unforgivable, but Chernobyl also gets a great many facts right, not the least of which is the human suffering of a terrible nuclear accident. Some scenes might be too graphic for people. Chernobyl does not shy away from the more unpleasant aspects of this disaster.

Soviet politics are a major factor since the government seemed to be in denial. They were slow to realize that the accident is a serious problem.

Early on in the miniseries, many of the nuclear workers and scientists can't fathom how such an accident could happen. The show keeps us in suspense by saving the explanation for last. It was a combination of bad design and poor training leading to incompetent nuclear workers.

Why John Carter Failed - How Disney Let Its Biggest Movie Die

Just for the record, I liked this movie.  I think that the movie flopped because the premise is rather silly by modern standards.  Audiences aren't going to accept a swashbuckling story about rival kingdoms on the planet Mars.  When the story was written over a hundred years ago this might have sounded borderline plausible.  

However, take the same general idea and make it a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, and then it becomes more plausible.

Here is a link to my review which I recommend that you read:   http://letsallgotothemovie.blogspot.com/2013/10/stories-where-flash-gordon-rushed.html

Before CGI animation, there was Ray Harryhausen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DgdJyOBN9Q

Cloris Leachman

On January 27, 2021, Leachman died in her sleep at her home in Encinitas, California, at the age of 94. The cause of death was a stroke with COVID-19 as a contributing factor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloris_Leachman

She played the grandmother in the animated movie "The Croods" that I liked.  I have not yet seen the recently released sequel, in which she also played.  One of her most famous roles was as the snobbish neighbor on the Mary Tyler Moore show.

The Vast of the Night

The Vast of the Night was released to drive-in theaters and on Amazon Prime in May of 2020.

When I was reviewing the movie "The Signal", I said that the trouble with low budget science fiction movies is that these types of films might have one good idea, whereas a big-budget movie like "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" is loaded with many good ideas. The Signal kept you in suspense for the whole film, making you think that this story was leading up to something wonderful. There was a payoff in the end, but that payoff was so short that if you had closed your eyes for just a couple of seconds then you would have missed it. Literally. Everything I said about "The Signal" is also true for "The Vast of the Night", except the ending is a little longer. However, both movies are an exercise in prolonged tension to arrive at similar endings. The Vast of the Night feels like a master class in low budget filmmaking. It does a great job with its long camera shots and its unknown actors who give stellar performances. The movie starts by showing an old fashioned television screen like it is playing an episode of the old Twilight Zone. The camera zooms into the screen and now we are following characters in a 1950's small New Mexico town on the night of a high school basketball game. It spends a long 20 minutes introducing its settings and characters, after which the local switchboard operator starts noticing weird things happening. She teams up with her friend, a disk jockey at a one-man radio station to investigate what is going on. Many of the scenes drag on a bit, mostly with conversation. But there is a frantic tension that builds toward the conclusion. Fortunately, the actors really sell this story. We get a sense that these are ordinary people caught up in something big that they don't understand. The minimalist style of this film could be called experimental, but for 85 minutes it works really well. Rating: B+. A reviewer on youtube gave the film an A-. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HEcnacyI_8

Interviewing Return of the Jedi Lucasfilm VFX Editor Bill Kimberlin

This is pretty entertaining for Star Wars fans.

Mark Hamill Responds To Sebastian Stan Possibly Playing Luke Skywalker

This is an Internet rumor that has persisted for about a year.  Many fans want to see Sebastian Stan play a young Luke Skywalker, but there is no indication that anything is planned.