I was talking to a friend the other day about the chronic condition of Netflix Paralysis. Where you just sit there and stare at your queue for an hour and end up not watching anything. Usually my antidote is just to pick something at random from ESPN's 30 for 30 docos and star watching!
We've begun watching the 7 Up series (or whatever you call it)...
Over the weekend, we watched the kids as 7 years-old through 21 years-old. Obviously the three hour long 28 is up next.
We're enjoying it. It becomes increasingly more fascinating with each new edition, as they become older and more complex. Also, knowing in advance that it's already spanned up to something like fifty-six years of age is pretty exciting. We'll see how it goes, but I think we're in it for the long haul.
Also kind of cool seeing the non-personality changes... the change in tv show production, the change in fashions, the architecture... all those things that have to do with the time the docs were filmed. Pretty fun.
When I was teaching A level (pre University school qualification - GP will know the equivalent) Sociology two plus decades ago I used to show the series. Fascinating stuff then. I think we got as far as 28 Up. Since then I have watched the regular seven yearly updates. It does tell you a lot about British society and how it has not really changed much in that time. We still have an Old Etonian as Prime Minister - one of his senior cabinet colleagues was complaining about all the Old Etonians in senior government positions only a couple of days ago. More British Prime Ministers have been to Oxford University in the last 150 or so years than the rest put together, reinforcing the elitism that this series shows. For me that sums up the series - you need the social class background to get to the very top in Britain, and of course, with one exception, you have to be a white male. Sorry about the political rant!! (Eton is one of the leading fee paying schools, you need to be very well off to send your child there)
(Eton is one of the leading fee paying schools, you need to be very well off to send your child there)
I find it interesting that are equivalent of Eton, Phillips Exeter Academy, doesn't play the same role in American political life, though that likely has more to do with Harvard's admissions policies than Exeter's quality of teaching.
I could go into great detail about the inequalities of Oxford's admission policy but won't here, other than to say about 55% of its intake go to independent schools, compared with about 8 or 9% of all students. Cambridge is not as elite. It is sometimes easier for a bright child from a state school to get into Harvard than Oxford! You do have one former recent President who also went to Oxford - Bill Clinton
I wouldn't say everything is great about Harvard. There a plenty of Niall Fergusons who spend more time on their arses in Harvard Square than they do in the archives. However, they have been doing well by picking the best of the broadest (social, cultural, and economic) swath of American society rather than picking only from elite society over the last two decades. And when I was a doctoral student at a Boston-area university (not Harvard), I observed some bitterness from students who felt that because of their pedigree and secondary education, Harvard should have picked them instead.
We actually have trouble choosing things to watch on Netflix, so I appreciate getting recommendations here. One that we enjoyed was an Indie (?) movie called "Frances Ha" - just a little story about an aspiring dancer in NY, painfully navigating all the job/friends/lovers chaos that happens when you're young and don't quite have your act together yet.
Interesting, Frances Ha is in my queue and I have no idea why. Maybe I should watch it.
Of course that's a big problem with my queue, there's movies on there from... probably 10+ years ago. When they originally added the Watch Instantly feature, anything that was available there was copied to that queue (less than a third of my 300+ DVD queue survived). Some of those movies have survived multiple holds and cancellations. Kind of weird.
Either this just came on or Netflix decided this week to suggest it to me, but either way, A Young Doctor's Notebook, seems like a promising miniseries. It stars Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe as an older and younger versions of a country doctor in Russia in the early 20th century. Based on Russian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov's short story collection, which draws from his own life. So far the show seems to have the off beat humor of his books The Master and The Margarita and Heart of a Dog.
Looking at "My List" of saved things to stream, I noticed all the documentaries I've been meaning to watch on Netflix. I watched "I Think We're Alone Now" about two obsessed Tiffany fans, one has Asberger's Syndrome and the other transgendered. It's a mixture of sad and endearing that both have so much time and attention invested in her, almost so much that their lives seem on hold for her.
I watched the first episode of Young Doctor's Notebook. Not bad, nothing terribly special. I'm gonna move on to the next episode, give it a chance to reel me in.
That Tiffany fans doc has been on our List for a little while. Eventually we'll get around to seeing it.
If you like mockumentries and the Flight of the Conchords, check out Short Poppies, which features Rhys Darby, who played Murray on Flight, as multiple odd characters in a small New Zealand town.
We just marathoned all 5 episodes of The Fall yesterday, British crime drama set in Belfast starring Gillian Anderson. Dark, kinky, not for the easily disturbed, had to watch all five in a row. Says Season 1, and it has apparently been slated for a Season Two to go into production this year.
"What Maisie Knew" - updating of the Henry James story about a little girl with awful people for parents. Well worth watching, and downright suspenseful at times. Julianne Moore as rock star mother with a perpetual hangover.
We have downgraded Netflix after the recent price hike and have a long list of interesting things on the streaming queue, so more to come...!
It doesn't appear that I posted this before, but we watched it right around the same time that we were watching a few other of the documentaries I posted above...
"Girl Model"
The documentary focuses in on two women... one, a teenage girl in middle-of-nowhere Russia who enters a modelling contest to win a modeling contract in Japan. Apparently there's a lot of these and it's a yearly thing held by a local modelling franchise. It follow the winner to Japan and the bullshit she deals with.
The other focus is a woman who used to be one of those girls who now works for a talent agency that, effectively, takes advantage of the type of girls that come from middle-of-nowhere Russia (and elsewhere).
Honestly, we had low expectations going into this one. We chose it because we had just spend a hour looking through stuff, adding to our List, etc, and finally both just got to the point where we picked the next movie that looked remotely interesting. That turned out to be "Girl Model." The doc is really well done, and the stories they present are remarkably compelling. We're very glad to have watched it.
@jonahpwll, thanks, I've had this forever in my list, think I'll try it. If anyone likes Cuban Jazz from the 50s and/or quality animated films I would highly recommend Chico & Rita. Great music and story, plus wonderful animation. For some reason it's only listed as Chico for a title. http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70153429?trkid=13641790
@greg, BT, this is very belated and massively out of sequence, but a snippet re the conversation above on Oxford admissions: I went there from a state school background, and was told by my professor a couple of years in that I had been considered quite a risk at admissions (big gaps in what I knew/could do) but that one of their struggles was having a plethora of candidates from private schools that had spent a year being groomed for the Oxford/Cambridge entrance exams and delivered polished performances but then when they arrived had little intellectual stretch left in them - they had been tutored up to their ceiling but did not bring much flair or curiosity when they actually arrived. The challenge, as he saw it, was figuring out which folk from state schools who had not had all the tutoring and did worse on the exam actually had lots of potential.
@GP: It's great to here that the unique "prejudices" didn't work against your success, but it does remind me that well-meaning people can become weary when it comes to upholding the social responsibilities of academia. Indeed, I am reminded about a particular moment of candidness from a professor for whom I was a teaching assistant at the time. We were discussing a Chinese student who was having difficulty approaching American test taking. In the course of the conversation, I thought it was necessary to remind him that I am Hispanic, if he did not already know (I pass about 70% of the time). He started telling me about a former student, an undergraduate, also Hispanic, but whom he felt had a talent for Medieval history. To make a long story short, he invested in her development, hoping that she would stay as a graduate student, but after she earned the joint BA/MA, she flew off to Stanford. I'm sure that there can be great frustration among academics in general when talented people from underrepresented categories can be so easily snapped up by a prestigious university.
I am sure that's frustrating when thinking institutionally, but it ought to delight the professor in question at some level in terms of the individual student's success, wherever achieved, no? I remind myself often that my students do not belong to me.
Probably he is proud of her success, but I think his frustration reflected as much a concern for his field as much as his perception of what he should accomplish as an academic. Using the database at the AHA website, it looks as if he has never produced a PhD candidate. It's not unusual when in certain fields, skills required might be harder to come by: languages, handwriting analysis, hermeneutics, etc. It's much easier to choose the default--20th Century US and Europe--where the languages are fully modernized, typewriting is common, and digital documents and databases are prevalent. Moreover, it's a world that individual students might feel they have a stake in.
Aside: I happened to look at the history faculty at Michigan State (yes, a few seem to fall into the category of having one, if any, dissertators), and I was astounded at the number of Russianists. That must be very exciting.
Yes, it's tough in any area that requires significant investment on the student's part (I still wish I had time to learn Czech so that I can read Comenius and his commentators better rather than relying on the Latin and English) but seems at a given point in history to offer moderate market rewards.
Already watched the first episode (why sleep when I can do subpar work the rest of the day OR why should this day be different than any other day? ). Generally it's quite good, but one thing really bugged me.
Spoiler ahead.
Sherlock obviously notices that Molly's boyfriend looks like him. Either he is appreciating the Freudian irony, or the boyfriend was involved in the coverup of Sherlock's death. What bugs me is the possibility that their appearances will become relevant down the road--the setup would be too obvious.
Speaking of which, is Watson's fiancee a female Watson?
We tried watching (re-watching actually since we saw it way back) the original British House Of Cards - same writer, Andrew Davies, BTW - since we had liked enjoyed the new one so much. We didn't last long - it just seemed a little dated (it's only 20 years old) and less exciting. Part of it may be that American politics is just more tawdry and seamy, or just Spacey and Wright are just so deliciously slimy.
Finally started Top Of The Lake - one episode left to go - and Wow, it's really good.
Also really good - The Muscle Shoals Sound - feature on that other magic locale for Soul in the Sixties. Something in the water in that place.
Comments
Over the weekend, we watched the kids as 7 years-old through 21 years-old. Obviously the three hour long 28 is up next.
We're enjoying it. It becomes increasingly more fascinating with each new edition, as they become older and more complex. Also, knowing in advance that it's already spanned up to something like fifty-six years of age is pretty exciting. We'll see how it goes, but I think we're in it for the long haul.
Also kind of cool seeing the non-personality changes... the change in tv show production, the change in fashions, the architecture... all those things that have to do with the time the docs were filmed. Pretty fun.
This is getting off TV and film viewing!!
Of course that's a big problem with my queue, there's movies on there from... probably 10+ years ago. When they originally added the Watch Instantly feature, anything that was available there was copied to that queue (less than a third of my 300+ DVD queue survived). Some of those movies have survived multiple holds and cancellations. Kind of weird.
Yeah, I was just noticing this show up, too. Hadn't yet looked into it, but was planning on it. Definitely give it a run now.
Cheers.
That Tiffany fans doc has been on our List for a little while. Eventually we'll get around to seeing it.
Cheers.
We have downgraded Netflix after the recent price hike and have a long list of interesting things on the streaming queue, so more to come...!
"Girl Model"
The documentary focuses in on two women... one, a teenage girl in middle-of-nowhere Russia who enters a modelling contest to win a modeling contract in Japan. Apparently there's a lot of these and it's a yearly thing held by a local modelling franchise. It follow the winner to Japan and the bullshit she deals with.
The other focus is a woman who used to be one of those girls who now works for a talent agency that, effectively, takes advantage of the type of girls that come from middle-of-nowhere Russia (and elsewhere).
Honestly, we had low expectations going into this one. We chose it because we had just spend a hour looking through stuff, adding to our List, etc, and finally both just got to the point where we picked the next movie that looked remotely interesting. That turned out to be "Girl Model." The doc is really well done, and the stories they present are remarkably compelling. We're very glad to have watched it.
Here's a link to the movie website...
http://girlmodelthemovie.com/
http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70153429?trkid=13641790
Aside: I happened to look at the history faculty at Michigan State (yes, a few seem to fall into the category of having one, if any, dissertators), and I was astounded at the number of Russianists. That must be very exciting.
Spoiler ahead.
Sherlock obviously notices that Molly's boyfriend looks like him. Either he is appreciating the Freudian irony, or the boyfriend was involved in the coverup of Sherlock's death. What bugs me is the possibility that their appearances will become relevant down the road--the setup would be too obvious.
Speaking of which, is Watson's fiancee a female Watson?
Finally started Top Of The Lake - one episode left to go - and Wow, it's really good.
Also really good - The Muscle Shoals Sound - feature on that other magic locale for Soul in the Sixties. Something in the water in that place.