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jlischka
Reviews
Atlantic Crossing (2020)
Reviewers should get their facts right before they comment
The historical accuracy of Atlantic Crossing is debatable but comments that there was no TV in the U. S. in 1939 and 1940 are dead wrong. During the 1939 World's Fair David Sarnoff, president of RCA, unveiled the first commercial publicly accessible television broadcast. I know because I was there. During the opening ceremonies of the Fair on April 30th, FDR became the first president to be televised. TV sets went on sale to the public the next day and were featured in NYC store windows.
From May through December 1939, NYC NBC station (W2XBS) of RCA broadcast twenty to fifty-eight hours of programming per month, Wednesday through Sunday of each week. The programming was 33% news, 29% drama, and 17% educational programming, with an estimated 2,000 receiving sets by the end of the year. The coverage area for reliable reception was a radius of 40 to 50 miles (80 km) from the Empire State Building. In June 1940, W2XBS covered the Republican National Convention for 33 hours during a five-day period. W2XBS also began transmitting NBC News with Lowell Thomas on February 21, 1940.
Ad Astra (2019)
Humans do not belong in space
This is not a NASA recruitment film.
Most of the reviewers here have no idea as to what the intent of this movie is. It is literally a down-to-earth thesis that human beings can't handle space and that space is inimical to human life and sanity. Even those living on Mars, Earth's nearest neighbor, need the comfort of total immersion rooms with surrounding images of Earth to keep from going stir crazy. The thesis is reinforced by the absurdity of baboons in a Norwegian space vessel, probably the focus of some kind of research project which has driven them insane. It is underlined by the necessity of astronauts needing frequent psychological evaluations to make sure they aren't going bonkers.
If that isn't clear enough, one of the final lines of the movie makes the point that Earth, with God, is all that we have. There is no Planet B. There may be other intelligences out there but we aren't going to find out any time soon.
Annihilation (2018)
Tarkovsky in Florida
Annihilation more than vaguely resembles Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979) and it would have been nice if Garland had acknowledged his creative debt to Tarkovsky in interviews. Garland even appropriates Tarkovsky's obsession with water imagery. The CGI in Annihilation isn't bad but the level of suspense doesn't even approach Stalker.