The Last Colony

The books in Scalzi's "old man's war" series became boring despite the interesting plot twists and political intrigues.  The politics are excellent but the awe and wonder space opera has worn off.  If you are not already deep into the series, miss this one 2/5 stars.

River out of Eden

 

Fantastic! 4/5 stars.  Succinct, cogent.

The Challenger

Another boxing movie with the same plot as all the other "Rocky" movies.  2/5 stars.  Very predictable.

Experimentor

Stanley Milgram and his famous experiment illuminating the darkness of our nature that no one wants to know.  Denied tenure, Milgram struggled to continue his fantastic science under the tyranny of academic political correctness.  Great chronicle, 4/5 stars.  Catch it on second run but don't miss it.

FOSDEM-2016

FOSDEM-16  is over and the talks / videos are starting to appear.

Matt Bostock has posted his notes:

Day 1
Day 2  (mostly Go language stuff)

Le Petit Prince

Every school child all over the world is still forced to read this surreal, poorly-written French slop. Therefore we still get one or two film versions every few years.  In 2015, we got two, including this big Hollywood version.  It's still a bizarre, terribly stupid story.  This film is well-made, with fantastic cinematography, great English voice acting, and a big heart in the hacked-up meta-story.  But the core Prince story remains dumb, shallow trite.  2/5 stars, meh.

Spectre

I should re-name this blog "runing in heels."  (photo above)

I enjoy most of the Jane Blond reboots and re-makes. This one is not puke awful bad, despite the usual bond film stupid stuff.  There are better films out.  Catch this one on netflix next year, 3/5 stars.

Everest

The 20th century cinematic version of Krakauer's book, "Into Thin Air," is much better.  This one is watchable but factually incorrect.  3/5 stars

Bridge of Spies

Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, 5/5 stars.  Don't miss it.

Stanford Prison Experiment

Not as terrible as I expected.  The science still comes out. 3/5 stars