In first episode of "What Makes this Song Great?" we look at one of the biggest hits of the late 90's by Blink 182.
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Playlist of watched movies, television shows, online videos, and other visual-based events
📺 “Blue Bloods” Close Calls | CBS
Directed by Jane Raab. With Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou. Danny forces his brother-in-law to help Baez take down the mobsters he's mixed up with; Frank suspects his old partner is guilty of a crime; Jamie is approached by an officer who wants help getting reassigned from his undercover assignment.
📺 “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Thank You and Good Night | Amazon Prime
Directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino. With Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle.
In the Season One finale, Midge and Susie deal with the repercussions of Midge's off-script takedown of a famous comedian. With tensions still high at the Weissman household, Rose makes some bold changes. Midge and Joel reunite for Ethan's birthday party.
Moments after pledging his undying love Joel gets the worst gut-punch. There’s something redeeming enough in this last episode that I may be won over to watch into an ensuing season. I may be able to overlook the blurring of the characters by Ms. Palladino and their single-voiced witty repartee which makes them nearly indistinguishable in broad swaths of the series (or even from Gilmore Girls in an entirely different setting decades hence).
📺 “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Put That on Your Plate! | Amazon Prime
Directed by Daniel Palladino. With Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle.
With Susie's help, Midge hones her act at the Gaslight. Abe surprises the women with a dinner guest, sending Rose into an emotional spiral. Working towards a promotion, Joel conjures up a new plan. Midge stirs up controversy after meeting a big-time comedian.
Not sure that I buy Midge totally blowing her chance to get an opening gig unless she completely didn’t know what the stakes were. She’s too smart and really not nearly edgy enough to blow the shot the way she did. Too much of this feels like plot for plot’s sake and deus-ex-machina instead of real characters unfolding.
Palladino’s characters just never feel true to themselves but bend too far to the will of the writer who makes them all the same.
📺 “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Mrs. X at the Gaslight | Amazon Prime
Directed by Scott Ellis. With Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle.
Midge finds a different kind of audience to perform for, much to Susie's chagrin. Abe gets offered the experience of a lifetime. The Weissmans come together for a family dinner. Susie finally shows off her management skills.
Playing gigs at friends’ parties?? I also don’t think I buy that the whole family gets up and walks out of a restaurant.
📺 “Madam Secretary” The Unnamed | CBS
Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá. With Téa Leoni, Tim Daly, Keith Carradine, Patina Miller. Elizabeth is torn about presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to someone who may not deserve it. President Dalton doubts his ability to return to leadership despite being cleared by doctors.
📺 Ricky Gervais: Humanity | Netflix
Live performance of British comedian Ricky Gervais filmed in London's Eventim Apollo.
I watched this in pieces over the last two evenings and finished of the tail end at lunch today.
I’ve often thought of Gervais simply as a crass entertainer, but there are so many interesting new dimensions which come out in “Humanity”, they give me newfound respect for who he is and what he’s doing now. This is far more complex than just simple comedy, he’s doing something much more significant with this particular performance.
I also haven’t laughed this hard in quite a while. Tears, literally tears. Perhaps most interesting is that he’s got a much wider range of emotions which he’s playing off of here than just the humorous.
Gervais has some really interesting philosophy hiding in here among the dark humor. He has an interesting take on comedy and what it does and doesn’t target. The bit at the end on social media was particularly interesting. His take on “The Commons” is quite solid and is something I don’t suspect many could expound upon so eloquently.
During the portion in which he talks about his favorite Twitter response ever, he looked down at his phone to quote the tweet. I was reminded of some of the comedy greats I’ve seen at clubs late at night reading out of their beat up notebooks to try out new material. For a moment I thought, “perhaps Gervais is trying out some new material live here.” If it’s the case, then he was genius, though I suspect now that it was just a useful prop to add to the narrative of the joke. Either way, just brilliant. I wonder when we’ll see comics at clubs reading off of phones instead of the old spiral bounds? I wonder if it’ll play an better than the index card or notebook?
His closer with the story about his mum’s death and the wonderful prank on the poor vicar put a wonderfully fine point on the entire piece. It is humanity indeed. If there were a god, I’m sure he’d bless Ricky Gervais.
📺 “Cooks vs. Cons” Fry, Fry Again! | Food Network
Directed by Luke Riffle. With Geoffrey Zakarian, Alex Guarnaschelli, Simon Majumdar. The pros and amateurs must use pineapple in their fried chicken dish for the first round; the cooks and cons make potato dishes in the second round; Alex Guarnaschelli and Simon Majumdar are the judges.
📺 Som procautions. Dramatic reading #8″ | YouTube
Ryan Estrada from YouTubeArtists who won't work for free make today's subject cry.
📺 Zeynep Tufekci: We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads | TED
Zeynep Tufekci from ted.comWe're building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your access to political and social information. And the machines aren't even the real threat. What we need to understand is how the powerful might use AI to control us -- and what we can do in response.
📺 Won’t You Be My Neighbor? – Official Trailer | Focus Features
Watch the official trailer for Morgan Neville's new movie, Won't You Be My Neighbor? #MrRogersMovie
From Academy Award® -winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom), Won’t You Be My Neighbor? takes an intimate look at America’s favorite neighbor: Mister Fred Rogers. A portrait of a man whom we all think we know, this emotional and moving film takes us beyond the zip-up cardigans and the land of make-believe, and into the heart of a creative genius who inspired generations of children with compassion and limitless imagination.
This looks like the type of salve the world could use right about now. I wonder if reruns of his show are available anywhere?
📺 Cobra Kai Trailer Season 1 (2018) Karate Kid Series | YouTube
Original stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka are back as karate rivals Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, and as the teaser above shows, they’re still nursing wounds from the old days. Johnny is reviving his old dojo Cobra Kai, and Daniel isn’t about to let him without a fight.
This looks like an interesting potential series, but the plot through line of this trailer makes me wonder if they can get to the 3rd episode. Johnny seems to have the more interesting character here. I’m also curious about the financing and set up for this being a YouTube Red series. Could be an interesting move in the streaming video space.
📺 Zeynep Tufekci: Machine intelligence makes human morals more important | TED
Zeynep Tufekci from ted.comMachine intelligence is here, and we're already using it to make subjective decisions. But the complex way AI grows and improves makes it hard to understand and even harder to control. In this cautionary talk, techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci explains how intelligent machines can fail in ways that don't fit human error patterns -- and in ways we won't expect or be prepared for. "We cannot outsource our responsibilities to machines," she says. "We must hold on ever tighter to human values and human ethics."
📺 Zeynep Tufekci: Online social change: easy to organize, hard to win | TED
Zeynep Tufekci from ted.comToday, a single email can launch a worldwide movement. But as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci suggests, even though online activism is easy to grow, it often doesn't last. Why? She compares modern movements -- Gezi, Ukraine, Hong Kong -- to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and uncovers a surprising benefit of organizing protest movements the way it happened before Twitter.
📺 "The West Wing" On the Day Before S3 E5
Directed by Christopher Misiano. With Rob Lowe, Stockard Channing, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney. While the White House is hosting a gala dinner for Nobel Prize winners, Leo and the president learn of a suicide bomb in an Israeli cafe that took the lives of two American students in Tel Aviv for a soccer match, and the staff attempts to manage the president's first veto, of a House bill eliminating the estate tax, and the threat of an override the same night. Sam and Toby first try to sway a contentious Dem. From Tennessee who wants a whole list of farming and ranching concessions in exchange for his vote and three proxies; after a pep talk from Leo, they devise a substitute plan that may prove even more effective, if it works. Josh takes the governor of Indiana into a private meeting to determine if the man plans to challenge Bartlet in Democratic primary. C.J. takes heat from a smarmy Dallas entertainment reporter who is in town for the Nobel dinner but winds up having to cover the veto and override vote, but after the reporter embarrasses her during a live stand-up, C.J. one ups the woman in front of the press corps. Later, Sam, Toby and Josh try to help the president decide what to say to the parents of the two murdered students.