A long time until now

Fantastic story, well-researched, fun, fascinating, realistic, compelling characters (a little too good).  5 out of 5 stars.

Chappie

Better than expected; worth watching

3 out of 5 stars

Mad Max Fury Road

A little better than I expected.  Amazing post production and special effects. A little too long for the story. 3 of 5 stars.

Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds

Good story, a little contrived.  Inconsistent tech. Not up to his standard. 3 out of 5 stars.

Seveneves

Fantastic book!  5 out of  5 stars.  It is thrilling that Neal Stephenson is finally writing about space and space travel.

The Gunman

Tonight we saw "The Gunman" with Sean Penn and the Hollywood formula machine.  Yuck.  2/5 stars.  Find a better film.

Danny Collins

Good. A bit slow but big hearted. 3 out of 5 stars.

While We're Young

Disappointing; it has a bad plot arc, wastes some great ideas.  1/5 stars.  Miss it.

Magician: The Astonishing life and works of Orson Welles

Last night we enjoyed this interesting, slightly-different take on one of the great film makers.  As a big fan of Mr. Welles I was thrilled to see Workman's documentary.  4/5 stars.

Testament of Youth

We watched this film last night:

. . and it was quite good.   It is a thin shell of the book.  However it does provide an approachable analysis of the societal insanity that gripped all of Europe at the time -- to die for King and Country.  4/5 stars. 

The Age of Adaline

We enjoyed the story and the chic flick.  Worth watching 3/5 stars.

Dark Intelligence

I listened to the audio version of this book recently; it's ok but not great.  There are too many odd, gratuitous horror elements and too many plot contrivances.  I had somehow speculated about the eventual "big reveal" mystery in the story early on; so the story flow was a little boring for me.  And, the author kept changing the magic system to suit the story line so it got a little too deus est machina at times.  The space opera elements are not bad but, again, the super-AIs are not mysterious enough and their motivations are much too simple.

I prefer the zen koans of Dan Simmons' Hyperion or the mysterious, evil dark matter entities of Alastair Reynolds' known space books.

2  out of 5 Stars; there are too many better books to read.

Time Lapse

Complete crap.  1/5 stars.  Total idiots discover a camera that takes pictures of the future.  Great premise.  Puke awful film.

Beyond the Reach

Tonight we watched "Beyond the Reach."  The plot is extremely contrived.  The dialog is weak.  The acting is from Mt Rushmore (stone faced).  It is worth missing this one.  2/5 stars.

The Evil Search Giant is getting less Evil

https://myaccount.google.com/

and

https://www.google.com/settings/takeout

are fantastic steps in the right direction.

 takeout lets you download all your data from G and

 the new myaccount features are much better.  This is great progress.

Maggie

A different kind of zombie apocolypse movie.
We saw Maggie last night; it's not bad.   Ahnold's thick accent kept pushing me out of the story but the rest of the cast holds up well.  I really liked the resolution and the ending.  The teenager emotions and  father - daughter love stuff was very well done.  4/5 stars.