Essays: the Collection

Sunday, June 2, 2019 The colorful rise of Sir Elton John A review Kurt von Behrmann Brief Synopsis: A biopic about singer songwriter Sir Elton John’s rise to International Stardom . Director: Dexter Fletcher   Writer: Lee Hall (screenplay)   Stars: Taron Egerton , Jamie Bell , Richard Madden                                 Biopics of contemporary musicians follow a specific story arc.    Born into humble beginnings and raised by dysfunctional families they struggle, work hard and then achieve overwhelming fame.   As soon as the success arrives, excess, alienation and addiction follow.     The journey ends with a triumphant redemptive return to the spotlight.                   The template for the...

Helix Mini Review The mix of zombies and mad scientists was interesting, even if flawed Streaming currently on Netflix, for a limited time only, this SyFy Channel original series centers on a sudden disease outbreak at a research facility located in the remote arctic.    Mixing classic elements of a murder mystery “Who Dunnit” with the anxiety inducing terror of when “Scientists play God,” the action-packed series merges genres with deft skill.   Things become even more complicated when the epidemic turns humans into zombie like creatures capable of being organized killers armed with super human strength.    One could see Helix as a high tech, science fiction version of “Lost.”   Intriguing questions are posed, and it is up to the viewer to put the parts together.   For the most part, it does work.    The suspense of being in an enclosed isolated space where death is omnipresent is utilized well to keep the paranoia an...

10/18/2017 An Explanation of Madness By Kurt Joachim von Behrmann                 In ten minutes The Route 91 Music Festival became a killing field.   When the gun fire ceased, 58 were dead and 489 wounded.  The man responsible for one of the deadliest mass shootings committed by an individual in recent U.S. history was found dead from self-inflicted wounds.  Stephan Paddock, age 64, left no suicide note. He left no explanation.                 Las Vegas, a place built on easy money and relaxed morality, became a sullen city the day after the horrors of October first passed.   Streets normally filled with people were vacant.  It was as if the city had gone into instant mourning.  Even the lure of fast cash and good times, even commerce itself, had to stop and acknowledge ...

A reasonable take in unreasonable times The Face of American Complexity  W hile watching a politically based cable program, a woman made a remark that stuck in the air for me like the smell of something old and rotting.  She stated, with an odd distorted grin on her face, that everyone has a right to complain, except for White Males.  Said in a half mocking condescending smirk of smug self-importance, her stance underlined the ludicrous nature of the statement.  The studio audience created an uncomfortable silence. She was the only one laughing. The mood that followed was the kind that follows aggressive stances masquerading as wit that flop.  There is a “peculiar” victim based version of feminism that conceals a contempt for men and a underground envy of them.  In some incestuous hot house melting pots of sameness there are lazy so called academicians that see anything “Masculine” as the ultimate source of all subjugation.  The...

Google’s Confusing Chat Clients This works well, but who knows if consumers will be able to use it at all soon. For some explicable reason Google, of all companies, is a confusing hot mess when it comes to chat clients.  They can produce solid online offerings, but messaging is an area of communication  they consistently get wrong.  One notable exception is  Hangouts.  It was so adept that at one point Google was  encouraging users to make it their default messaging client.  For reasons not known, they are now encouraging users to switch to Allo and Duo, or as I like to call them collectively  “Client Dumb and Client Dumber.”  The functionality that Hangouts posses has been separated into two.  Allo is a messaging application and Duo is a mobile video chat application.  The division of features makes no sense.  When people chat, message, video chat and the like, they prefer to be in one applica...