Inspector Sun

There's been lots of rain lately, and the temperatures dropped so much that there could be a freeze. I hope it will warm enough that any ice melts and we don't get snow.

I wasn't going to go out today, but then I saw that an animated film called Inspector Sun and the Curse of the Black Widow was playing. This a kids mystery film from Spain that has been dubbed into English. The characters are all insects and arachnids living in a tiny world parallel to the human world. It reminds me a little bit of The Great Mouse Detective, but mixed with Miss S Mysteries. The movie is set in 1934 Shanghai, where Inspector Sun thinks he's great, but he's actually more of a bumbling detective like Inspector Clouseau. After getting fired, he tries to take a plane to New York, but is delayed by a young girl Janey eager to be his sidekick. Sun then boards a flight to San Francisco instead, and Janey stows away. During the flight there is a murder, and they learn to work together. It's a fairly nice whodunit but sometimes gross, and I will warn any animal lovers that there's an implied death of a dog. I loved all the period details like the costuming and the Golden Gate Bridge not being finished yet. Even the credits were in an Art Deco font. It's very much inspired by Agatha Christie stories, though some people call it noir.

Elections

I got a pleasant surprise with my property taxes this year. It's almost $1,000 less than last year. In fine print on the bill it says "this is contingent on voter approval in the November 7 election." This year's elections are for Constitutional Propositions, not for any elected office. So if the tax proposition doesn't pass, the tax office will bill me later. Now, that's a real motivator to vote. It helps to get a progressive voter guide that lists all the propositions. I believe it's Proposition #4 that the tax office is referring to.

Early voting starts Oct 23 here, but I won't be able go until Thursday. There are important elections in other states this year, so I hope turnout is good. Meanwhile, chaos continues in Congress without a Speaker of the House.

Indigenous People month

Technically Indigenous People Day was just October 9th this year, but it's looking to be a whole month.

With the new Ken Burns documentary on The American Buffalo, PBS has been highlighting Native American history and culture lately. There was also an 18 minute companion film called Homecoming, showing some bison returning to a couple of lands thanks to the InterTribal Buffalo Council. The Ken Burns film is a very moving documentary about the near extinction of animal as well as the suffering of the native people; they touch briefly on boarding schools and the Wounded Knee massacre for example. There are many indigenous experts weighing in on the history, and the film points out that some white conservationists valued the bison more than the humans. Some members of the American Bison Society were racists who believed in eugenics, for example, and didn't care about the native culture being eradicated. Thankfully, today, attitudes are better and the US is now including tribes in land and ecology policy; it matters that the Secretary of the Interior is Deb Haaland. On October 24th, PBS will air season 2 of their Native America series, but you can watch season 1 now if you have PBS Passport. (You just have to pledge a minimum amount, then they email you the info to sign up for Passport. If you have a smart TV or TV dongle that streams stuff, you can see Passport content on your TV, not just on a browser.)

Meanwhile Apple has their new Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon out. The press has talked up the tragic history of the Osage Nation, but the film itself looks to be from the perspective of the white character played by Leonardo DiCaprio. That might be okay as long as it showcases real history. It might be as good as Wind River was, but at 3 hours long, I'd rather watch it on Apple TV at my leisure.

Speaking of Native Americans, I continued with book 2 of the Cash Blackbear mysteries, and was glad to finally get more info about Cash's lost family, and backstory on Sheriff Wheaton. He too was adopted into a white family, but when he came back from the Korean War, the family disowned him and gave the farmland to their "real" biological children instead. How cold.

Murmurings

I haven't really been following the war news, no more than I did news about the Ukraine War. I never understood Daily Kos's need for daily reports on troops and weapons. I'm busy enough with work; I don't need to see gruesome atrocities and/or political wrangling. I assume it's brutal and ugly. No need to participate in flamewars either.

Biden gave a speech supporting Israel and condemning Hamas, but he did point out that not all Palestinians are Hamas, and remind Israel that there are "rules of war" so that's something, I guess. Trying to discourage war crimes. I don't know how long this will last; will it be neverending like Ukraine?

I don't know about this paper, but it claims that Israelis blame Netanyahu and want him to resign. They don't want to "stay the course" with their PM for the war, as the US was urged to the "stay the course" with Bush during the Iraq War. We'll see what actually happens, because Israel has been through deadlocked elections several times. I also saw a claim on Daily Kos saying that Netanyahu had helped build up Hamas to avoid a two-state solution, but I don't know if that's true. Anything to get rid of him, but I don't know if his right-wing replacement will be worse.

Meanwhile, the EU threatened Elon Musk over the disinformation about the war, and it appears that he got scared enough to do something. But Twitter is bad enough already.

She Came to Me

I found a lovely little movie starring Peter Dinklage as Stephen, an opera composer with writer's block. It's called She Came to Me, and I'm glad to see him still get to play a romantic lead. He does get into a love triangle here, but it's not depressing like how Cyrano was. It's treated as a sort of screwball comedy, and Stephen writes an opera about his affair with a tugboat captain. The quirky movie also covers his stepson's teen romance with their maid's daughter. A lot of farcical coincidences happen, and Stephen's wife also has a storyline unrelated to the love triangle; she is reconnecting with the Catholic Church and feeling drawn to leave her current job as a therapist. The characters are great, and the movie is so charming and warm. The fake operas in the movie are fabulous too.

I love little moves like this, and I'm glad I didn't miss it. The first time I tried to watch it, I had an appointment for an iPhone repair a couple of hours before it. I had researched online that it would only take half an hour, so I thought I would have plenty of time. When I got to the store, though, the tech told me the repair would take 3 hours. I was disappointed as it meant I would have to miss the movie, because the phone had my movie ticket on it. I reluctantly agreed, as the phone definitely needed the repair. So 3 hours later I come back to get the phone, and the text messages on it say it was actually repaired in half an hour like I thought. They sent me text messages to come pick up the phone, but as I didn't have the phone, I had no idea. So I missed the movie for no reason. Later I bought a ticket for another day, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Endless War

I worked this weekend and so could not follow the news of the Hamas attack on Israel. I only knew there would be hysterical and biased reporting because nobody can discuss Palestinians without controversy. Daily Kos often has flamewars on the subject. Now I've had a chance to read on the details of what makes this attack different than previous attacks. What makes this a "war" rather than the ongoing perpetual battles that have been happening in the background for decades? Because apparently Hamas has broken through Israel's security and is now on Israeli land killing hundreds of people, wounding them, and taking hostages. I certainly sympathize with the civilians being kidnapped and killed, but I will never side with Netanyahu nor root for him to kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians in revenge. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I always find it distasteful that the US always says that Israel is our friend and ally, that our support is rock-solid. Stop speaking for me. I support the Israeli people who are not rightwing racists trying to genocide Palestinians. I do not support their evil rightwing government. That's the thing that is so hard to articulate; that people can be innocent, but that their country can do wrong in their name. Many Israeli citizens were protesting their government, and could not counteract its evil apartheid. It's much like how Democrats feel in Texas, hating the fucking awful laws and GOP leaders but unable to overcome the gerrymandered elections. Of course I don't blame the civilians. I blame the government.

Movie Blues

Now that it's October, even more horror movies are coming, on streaming or in theaters, so it's going to be hard to see any non-horror fare. I ended up watching Barbie again just to see the new post-credits scenes. They're cute and funny, and I figure it's better than me paying $30 for a DVD or other Blu-ray disc and giving Warner Bros even more money than just another ticket.

I did see Dumb Money too, but found it meh. It was hard to sympathize with the characters when we kept seeing reddit posts and memes with offensive slurs, and people treated that like it was no big deal. I suppose it was supposed to be funny in a LOLZ "I can haz cheeseburger" way, but it wasn't as charming as cat videos. Plus they used a clip with fucking Elon Musk interviewing a guy. What the fuck do you need Elon for when you could have had more clips of Colbert and other people making jokes and trying to explain GameStop? So it was hard for me to see why so many people liked Roaring Kitty and faithfully followed him for months, instead of selling their stock for money. I came into the movie liking those people not only for GameStop, but for championing AMC movie theater stock too to keep them from going bankrupt during the pandemic. But this fucking movie did not make me interested in them at all; the populist messsage was lost in their cultish devotion to this guy. I didn't enjoy their panicky reactions to every little online problem like it was a world-ending catastrophe. I didn't like the villain hedge fund guys either, but  the righteous comeuppance against them didn't feel real since we didn't see them bankrupted onscreen. And I thought I saw an ad during the trailers for the Robinhood investment app, which is ironic as their CEOs are villains in the movie. Such a weird movie.

I actually enjoyed watching Cowboys and Aliens more on Peacock, even though the aliens were kind of horror-movie gross.

Feeling Bad

In sadder news, my uncle recently died and will be cremated soon. Senator Dianne Feinstein also died suddenly, and Gavin Newsom will appoint a black woman Laphonza Butler to fill her remaining term. I'm annoyed with Newsom, though, for recently vetoing unemployment for striking workers. He makes weird decisions like this, making me doubt how progressive he really is. At least he's good on other issues.

Laurence Fox apparently has turned into a rightwing anti-woke idiot in Britain. He used to co-star in the Inspector Lewis mysteries, so it makes me very disappointed at the former Hathaway. Fuck him.

Also, COVID continues and there's a new vaccine available. I haven't had time to make an appointment yet because I've already been feeling bad. My periods have gotten much heavier lately and longer lasting. It's so bad I have to take at least a day off work. It gives me a headache and makes me weak. I had to order some chao, which is a Vietnamese congee soup that my mother always made for me when I was sick as a kid. Apparently it takes a long time to make, though, so I was waiting over an hour for it. Should have ordered something quicker, I guess. I need to get a flu shot too, but am waiting to hear if we can get a clinic at my job.

Victories

The WGA strike is over, pending the ratification of the new contract by membership, and it appears that late night talk shows will come back quickly. SAG-AFTRA are still on strike, but set to negotiate again. I hope they can get a deal soon, and if not, I hope the talk show writers will repeatedly jab the AMPTP until they give in.

Meanwhile, the government shutdown was averted with a 45-day deal on Saturday. We'll see how the crisis resolves when the government has to do this again and face more backlash about a shutdown during the holidays. I hope the Democrats can get more wins and neutralize the MAGA republicans.

I saw a production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap last night, and it was great. I'm only disappointed that they didn't use the famous final warning "you're an accomplice to murder," shown in See How They Run. Instead a more prosaic, "don't reveal the ending" was asked in the opening announcements. I guess that was the only annoyance. We got a lot of laughs out of the two flamboyant characters Christopher Wren and Mr. Paravacini who liked to play macabre jokes on other characters.

Next week I look forward to seeing a production of Clue in McKinney.