So this is a major animated feature made by US studios that has zero chance of ever making it to our shores. It has a decent enough budget to look comparable to other CGI cartoons in terms of quality and it even has a long list of famous names providing voices including James Franco, Edward Norton and Salma Hayek. But this is an American cartoon very much made for adults and is certain to cause offence almost everywhere so it was released only in Western countries.
We’ve been on a bit of roll lately in watching period British productions, starting with the famous 1995 BBC production of Pride & Prejudice and now moving onto Downton Abbey. Due to how much my wife turned out to love them, I thought that this recent adaptation of yet another Jane Austen work would slot right in. Note that this is actually an adaptation of the novel Lady Susan and not Love & Freindship.
I believe that this is the first Chinese documentary to be featured in this blog and I’m pleased that it’s very much a modern one, as much about China’s coming of age as that of the young man that is its subject. It’s directed by Du Haibin who has already made several such documentaries.
I decided to continue with my economics education with this course on the Economic History of the Soviet Union, motivated in part by the fact that I’m very pro-capitalism without actually having much knowledge of its greatest ideological rival, Marxism. Plus of course one of our closest friends is a big fan of Marxist philosophy and it might be useful to have some intellectual ammunition. Although it’s hosted on Marginal Revolution University, this course is taught by neither Tyler Cowen nor Alex Tabarrok but instead Guinevere Liberty Nell. As far as I can tell, she has never been a professor at any university but is a scholar who has written several books on this topic.
This film was added to our list last year when its director Andrzej Wajda passed away and eulogies of him appeared in a bunch of places. He is considered one of Poland’s premier directors and this is apparently one of the more notable of his works though he has directed many films across a long and fruitful career.
Lead actress Charlotte Rampling has had an illustrious career but I doubt most audience members would know her. My wife managed to recognize her from Swimming Pool, a film we watched more than 10 years ago but I couldn’t place her. Just odd how memory works sometimes. Here she appears in a small, unassuming British film that appeared at the top of some of the year’s best lists a year ago.
I’m mostly still playing small, indie games at the moment. Hopefully I can get back to AAA-productions after I buy a new computer next month. This one is a turn-based tactical game with a significant narrative component that tells its overarching story with text on an overworld map. The most unusual thing about is its Weird West theme, something I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced in game form.