Monthly Archives: January 2021

Media Mix, Jan. 31, 2021

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about a press conference given by Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota Motors and the chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, about the government’s plan to ban gasoline-powered vehicles by the year 2050. Though … Continue reading

Posted in Media, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Review: The Personal History of David Copperfield

It’s been a while since I’ve read Dickens, but Armando Iannucci’s fast-paced version of the novelist’s warmest tale feels to me more faithful to the spirit of Dickens than the usual stuffy cinematic adaptations (almost all of which are Great … Continue reading

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: The Man Standing Next

This sleek fictionalized rendering of the events leading up to the assassination of South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee in 1979 is the second movie I’ve seen about the incident, whose particulars, after more than 40 years, are still being disputed … Continue reading

Posted in Movies | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Media Mix, Jan. 17, 2021

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about the methods used by politicians to avoid responsibility for poor choices. In the column I mentioned two examples of “dinner meetings” where the official protocol for gatherings as stated by the government … Continue reading

Posted in Media | Leave a comment

Review: Just 6.5

Casual moviegoers, and perhaps even more dedicated ones—the kind who try to keep up on world trends—may harbor misunderstandings about Iranian cinema, thinking that it divides neatly between socially relevant domestic fare, like the movies of Asghar Farhadi (A Separation), … Continue reading

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

Review: King of Thieves

Were it not based on a true story, this heist film would have likely been derided as just another excuse for providing employment to that cohort of British male actors who have pushed past 65. In that regard, it’s quite … Continue reading

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Media Mix, Jan. 10, 2021

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about the government’s extension of a tax break for home buyers. Due to end-of-year deadlines, the column was written at the end of 2020, about two weeks before the current state of emergency was declared, … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Best Movies 2020

Needless to say it was a pretty bad year for movie-watching, or, at least, it was bad if you wanted to watch movies in a theater. I’m not averse to watching movies on smaller screens (I draw the line at … Continue reading

Posted in Movies | 2 Comments