Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Various

With holiday matters going on, things are inevitably quiet around here. A few things:

* I bought my mother some Italian limoncello via Dolceterra, and had a very good experience with them. One of the bottles was broken in the mail, and they were quite expedient in handling the matter; excellent customer service.

* Two movies I've seen recently: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Rogue One. The first was fun; Dan Fogler's Kowalski was really the thing that made the movie.

Rogue One was also quite well done; more Star-Warsy than anything since the original three. The CGI did not always work well -- the Peter Cushing CGI sometimes looked plastic-like. I saw it the day Carrie Fisher died, having only just learned of her death; which made it interesting. Apparently her scenes were completely filmed for Episode VIII, so we will see her again. Fisher was very multi-talented; she was one of the top script doctors in Hollywood in the nineties, and always had a sober and sensible sense of humor.

* I recently marathoned through the excellent John Adams miniseries, with Paul Giamatti, so I have its striking opening title theme in my head.