Weekend Reads: Hallmark Christmas Movies, East Germany's James Bond, "The Expanse," the 21st Century's Greatest Actors
Recommended weekend reading material for November 28, 2020.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable articles to give you some good weekend reading material. This week’s edition is a bit shorter due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.
D.L. Mayfield watched the 10 most popular Hallmark Christmas movies to see what insights they might offer into our culture. Take, for example, 2016’s My Christmas Love, starring Meredith Hagner and Bobby Campo:
[Hagner] plays the typical Hallmark Christmas movie lead (white, barrel curls, sweaters, skinny jeans and boots) who tries to figure out who is sending her themed gifts that correspond to “The 12 Days of Christmas” song. The plot revolves around her failing to realize that her longtime best friend and business partner is in love with her. My favorite moment was when a hot priest/ex-boyfriend tells her, “Destiny shows us that when your intentions are driven by love, they always work out.” This fits perfectly into the irreligious world of Hallmark, where Christianity as a religion is often nonexistent, but everyone worships the Christmas spirit — and romantic love.
In the ‘60s, East Germany came up with their own version of James Bond to counteract Western programming and culture.
[W]hile James Bond films were largely meant as pure escapist entertainment (albeit flaunting capitalism with their luxury cars, bikini-clad femme fatales and expensive gadgets), in East Germany, spy films had to conform to a very particular political stance. The genre was largely seen as a critical reflection on the logic of the Cold War, and aimed to convey a very non-subtle message of superiority over Western capitalism while touting supreme socialist values.
Steve Roach is one of ambient music’s most prolific composers. In this 2014 profile, Jason P. Woodbury talks with Roach about his landmark album, 1984’s Structures from Silence, the “new age” genre, and his love of motocross.
Often cited alongside Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, Structures from Silence is a defining record not just for Roach as an artist but also as a key entry in the emerging genre of ambient music. Recorded in his Culver City, Calif., studio, also dubbed “the Timeroom,” its three songs — “Reflections in Suspension,” “Quiet Friend” and the title track — span an hour and are designed to be heard in one sitting. The record’s swelling tones, built largely with an Oberheim polyphonic synthesizer, are the sounds of Roach's space-music roots stretched wide open.
Structures from Silence is arguably my favorite ambient album of all time; here’s my review from 2002.
I’ve been pretty vocal about my love for Amazon’s adaptation of The Expanse, especially as season five drops next month. However, Amazon has announced that the show’s sixth season will be its last one — and there’s still quite a lot of story to tell.
Season five of The Expanse looks to be covering events from the fifth book in James S.A. Corey’s series, Nemesis Games, along with a bit of Babylon’s Ashes, the sixth installment. That means the final season of The Expanse will have three novels in the nine-book series to draw from in an attempt to close out this space opera epic — including the final installment, Leviathan Falls, which hasn’t even come out yet (it’s scheduled for sometime in 2021).
This is disappointing, because Amazon’s adaptation has done a bang-up job. Even more disappointing, though, are the sexual misconduct allegations surrounding actor Cas Anvar, who plays pilot Alex Kamal (and wonderfully so, too). Anvar won’t be returning for season six.
Critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott have put together a list of the 25 greatest actors and actresses of the 21st century (so far).
Some of these performers are new to the scene; others have been around for decades. In making our choices, we have focused on this century and looked beyond Hollywood. And while there are certainly stars in the mix and even a smattering of Oscar winners, there are also character actors and chameleons, action heroes and art-house darlings. They’re 25 reasons we still love movies, maybe more than ever.
Many of their selections are pretty obvious, but others might just surprise you.
Some scientists in Utah discovered a strange sight while doing a helicopter survey.
Officers from the Utah Department of Public Safety’s Aero Bureau were flying by helicopter last Wednesday, helping the Division of Wildlife Resources count bighorn sheep in southeastern Utah, when they spotted something that seemed right out of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
[…]
And there it was — in the middle of the red rock was a shiny, silver metal monolith sticking out of the ground. Hutchings guessed it was “between 10 and 12 feet high.” It didn’t look like it was randomly dropped to the ground, he told KSL, but rather it looked like it had been planted.
Who had alien monoliths on their “2020 Bingo” card?
From the Blog
As Parler steadily becomes the new social network of choice for those who believe that Facebook, Twitter, et al., have grown hostile to free speech, let’s take a moment to look at another social network that previously billed itself as a free speech champion: AllSocial.
AllSocial was clearly courting those who perceived the currently dominant social networks as dismissive of conservative opinions even as it was presenting itself as a mainstream network. (As opposed to say, Gab, which has a similar “free speech” appeal but has become firmly associated with the far right, alt-right, and other extremists.)
Ideological concerns and censorship issues aside, though, there was still a lot about AllSocial that looked promising. Heck, just the fact that it presented users’ posts in chronological order was a big selling point for me.
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The secularization of Christmas can lead to some interesting ideas. We just watched Christmas Vacation last night. This was Clark Griswold’s monologue at the end:
“It's the Christmas star. And that's all that matters tonight. Not bonuses or gifts or turkeys or trees. See, kids, it means something different to everybody. Now I know what it means to me."