So yeah this is a film that everyone has watched but I haven’t. In fact I didn’t even know what it’s about, only that it was basically made by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and it was both a critical and a commercial success. Its director is Gus Van Sant but I feel that he was brought in to work on spec on what is very much a project led by Damon and Affleck. My own opinion is that it’s easy to see why people liked it but it’s way overrated.

This isn’t that well known a film and it’s Rotten Tomatoes rating is only average. I heard about it because The Economist cited it as a rare example of the EU being praised in a cultural work during a time when no European country seemingly supports it. The premise about a house full of exchange students from all over Europe rather grabbed me and I also knew that it would likely be an easy watch.

This film adaptation itself is only moderately well known but the short story by Rudyard Kipling is very famous, not least because of the impressive title, and is often referenced in other media. I know that this film is horribly regressive and anachronistic by today’s standard but I thought it might be fun to watch and of course I was looking forward to Sean Connery and Michael Caine in their prime working with each other.

The unrest in Hong Kong has been going on for months now and shows no signs of abating. I’m partial to the opinion that instead of it being about actual freedom, the unrest is mostly being driven by economic anxiety and wealth inequality as more and more Hong Kongers find themselves being priced out of what they see as a decent standard of living. That makes for a pretty good lead-in to this film which is really about mediocre people are who find themselves on the losing end of society in Hong Kong and struggle to come to terms with it.

With all of the new streaming platforms furiously competing for subscribers, now is truly the Golden Age of television. There are far more shows I have some interest in than I have time to watch. My cinephile friend recommended this to us but we’ve been burned by Japanese anime before as they are usually too juvenile for our tastes. So it was with some reluctance that we dived into this and the early episodes seemed to only confirm our worst fears. However the pace picks up later and the first season ends on a rather strong note, so this turned out to be surprisingly good overall.