Some views on books and movies 2020 and 2021

DA 5 BLOODSDelroy Lindo gave a masterful performance.
Five 70 year old US vets return to a jungle of Vietnam to recover the remains of a friend and also ingots of gold owned by the US Govt. It was never going to be easy.

FREE STATE OF JONES

"They will arrest me and kill you", says the character of Newton Knight to Moses in the movie Free State of Jones.

A Mississippi small farmer realises that the war the confederates wage with the union is to make the rich richer. He leads a band of renegade small farmers and former enslaved persons who declare independence. An interesting folk hero from Mississippi.

FENCES

August Wilson's play Fences adapted for film by Denzel Washington. So many pithy truisms can be attached here:

Take limes and make lemonade
Most men live lives of quiet desperation
Marriage has teeth.
A man, feeling the weight of unfulfilled dreams, sacrifices the love of his closest as a way to temper frustration
A woman who defines herself through her husband realizes she may have built a castle in the sky.

CODED BIASJoy Buolamwalini leads a lobby to stop the unregulated use of algorithms in facial recognition technology in the USA. The algorithms have inbuilt biases that no one knows how to unravel, but that push decisions that are based on race, gender, neighbourhood, schools attended and so on.

LIFE IN COLOUR

Presentation on how colours are recognized and used in the natural world. Who is seeing what colours. A fascinating and visually delightful outlay.

300
Diplomacy would not save the Greeks from being crushed under Persian rule, so war it had to be.

The ultimate death before dishonor story.

BLACKHATThis is a movie that would make Carib yell "Show!" back in the day.

Do you have a bank account, financial stock, work in law enforcement?
Know that there are people who play international money and power games with computers.

Chinese and US cyberpolice use a convicted hacker to try and catch another.

Along the way we see that some women fall in love when they see brute strength.

Criminals are out there with middle east warfare and Latin American narco credentials

Knives, guns, bombs, helicopters, subway, fast boat, cars, planes all have roles.

AKBARPolitical marriages are an efficient way to solve political problems. A Muslim Emperor takes a religious Hindu princess as his truce making bride. In getting to understand each other and asserting individuality, with respect, they nurture marital love. A heady period piece epic movie.








CONCRETE COWBOYSYoung Cole is a not where he wants to be, living out tough love, mucking stalls in his father's rented stables in Philadelphia. It is hard for inner city youth to find the prosperity that they desire. Home is not a place, so we goin' ride.

THE HOLY MANA monk is sent to reopen a disused temple in a town which is under the control of a con artist and also a politician, both protected by goons.

With the help of the village layabout, handsome village fool and an autistic person, the monk reopens the temple and a school and through good works begins to threaten the status quo. In each act of life, you earn merit or you lose it.






Mary Magdalene. She is not named among the 12 apostles but was absolutely there where and when it mattered.

When the going got tough, Andrew, James, Thomas, Simon Peter and others went into hiding, but she was there standing with Mary mother of Jesus and the apostle John (who Jesus loved) at the crucifixion and helped to secure the body.

Mary M went to the tomb early Sunday morning knowing soldiers were on guard and also not knowing how they was going to move the stone that blocked the entry to the tomb.

Jamaican revitalists have celebrated her faith with the song "Mother the great stone got to move".

Mary was able to give a first person account of the resurrected Christ.

Pair that with Father Abraham's ignorant, and ill-treated slave babymother, Hagar, who in her lowest moments of despair still prayed to "The God Who Sees Me". Her faith sustained her to find a way out of her troubles.

As George Michael sings
You Gotta Have Faith.

HIS HOUSEA couple is accepted into the UK as refugees and are given a spacious but run down house in a small town to live. The husband is ready to assimilate, but the wife understands that there are spirits around that demand a reckoning. Spoiler.........,

it ends well.









THE EMIGRANT
Ram sets out to study agriculture in Egypt, the "country of light" but his jealous brothers deceived him and he lives as a slave in Egypt where he distinguishes himself and achieves his goal. Despite the entrenched religious/political culture, he never abandons his God.









THE YOUNG MESSIAHJesus Bar Joseph, age 7, has questions. He is different from the other children. He can perform miraculous acts and is aware of the devil's emissary stalking him, but why? When his family decides to leave Egypt for their homeland Judea, he learns it all and it prepares him.






THE BLIND CHRIST  From adolescence, Michael believes God is within each person and each of us can be like Christ and perform miracles. He never does perform a miracle and he never gives up. Each person who puts their faith in him feels comforted that they have been prayed for by a good man.
  A PROMISED LAND A book that gives the mind set behind the actions of President Barak Obama just before he entered politics to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. He comes across as a thoughtful person who decided that to make the changes that he wanted to see in the world, he had to be the President of the USA. I have not read his three earlier memoirs, Dreams From My Father, the Audacity of Hope and Change We Can Believe In, so am actually wondering why he needed to cover his pre presidential life in this fourth review of his life.The book is careful to honour many people throughout that political experience and it was interesting indeed to read how he describes how he valued those relationships. Above all, he takes special care in writing about his life partner, her merits and how much he values her as a person and as the mother of the children both of whom he adores.On matters of state, Obama, I think, comes close to admitting that he may have not been as adept as he could have been on international issues, especially those in the Middle East, but I would have to read again to be sure.
On domestic matters, he writes how much he cares about the American people and the dutiful way he went about leading the country.
It feels like a volume in a series. This book will anger probably no one and will soothe his supporters who pause to consider his legacy.
From reading this, I believe that Obama he has internalised the writing style of the great American thinker and writer Henry David Thoreau.

THE MAGIC OF CONFIDENCEJust completed the illustrated children's chapter book The Magic of Confidence by Janelle Murdock. 12 year old Danielle and her friends are not having a good school experience and are a bit anxious and fearful about the future. Her Principal is severe and her parents contain her expectations about herself. Unexpected magic starts to happen and Danielle finds that she is more capable than she believed, but will it be enough for her to overcome her challenges?
The author, Swan Jonelle Murdock, says on her LinkedIn profile that this book was written to captivate and inspire its readers. Available on Amazon.

DAUGHER OF NARCISSUS
This is the first book that I have read by the author Lady Colin Campbell, and it is a memoir of her life exploring her mother's personality. If 1/4 of this book is not exaggerated, the family went through a lot of pain living with a daughter, sister, wife, mother who was empty of empathy for others. Gloria Ziadie was a glittering and highly regarded social figure, but in private, she regarded no one, according to her eldest daughter.

This book shares the family life of the wealthy white merchant class in Kingston of the 1940s to 1970s. It gives and idea of their sumptuous homes which were gradually - and are now quite rapidly - being torn down as the demands for urban space changes. She easily describes the benefits and revulsion of the class and colour distinctions of the time and age in which she lived. The reader will benefit from this author who has a detailed and methodical approach to explanation and unfolding layers of understanding. Now here is a big thought....having read some memoirs and family sagas by Jamaicans of various ethnic backgrounds, I believe that Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants helped to entrench the concept of an individual's place of belonging, responsibilities and roles in intergenerational - as opposed to merely extended - family life. The 600 plus page read was a good use of my time.highwindja If you love your mother and cherish the love she gave you from early years, you may be repulsed by this book.