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I watched American Symphony an hour. I stopped it. Not my tea of cup.

A lot of people really like it .......that's great

I love and the humor!

Stocking shelves is a condition, not a profession.


This one "Plumbing is discovering" - (does that mean does it mean a toilet with pipes it's not an outhouse)

There was some problem in my house - broken pipes - and it takes six times to go to the Home Depot.

Usually I find a GREAT plumber - yellow pages or internet or "word of mouth"

I like his positive energy with a video.
I've seen of his family videos a few times.

The New Movies in C19 - I seen it before


I actually tried the film - two times

I watched 1/3 film......
It was interesting and I like some of the music love the family and of course the cancer.
He was a little bit self-absorbed in the film......

I'll see if I will watch the 1/3...
I'll watch the whole thing. Possible. I will give a high thumb

If it doesn't "my cup of tea"

So that means three strikes - out (the umpire)

I actually had/has a film buff. The older movies and series are much genuine and other countries are better also.
I checked it in my Netflix account ---- I've seen so many depressing and death in the Covid19 - four years. I just couldn't watch it....

I did it the third time and I watched 1/3 - I liked the music ....
Still need to watch the 2/3
Maybe I'll give a "high thumb"


A lot of writers musicians actors are doing these documentaries - it's easy to do that because they have huge money and deep pockets with politicos.

Sly S, Arnold S, Val K, Depp vs Heard, Gwyneth P ..... self-absorbed famous performers



Has anybody watched it yet?




Not my review.... The Guardian

Think of Batiste’s life as music. He’s spinning from rehearsals to the Grammys to his wife Suleika Jaouad’s hospital bedside as she fights a recurring battle with leukemia. There are high notes, low notes and sections where both are in dramatic conflict. It’s all music for American Symphony to harness. The sequence at the Steinway, which is beautifully couched between sad, joyous and vulnerable moments Batiste shares with Jaouad, is among the few where the film rises to the occasion.

At other times, Matthew Heineman’s admiring and beautifully photographed doc can seem lost in a struggle between everything that’s going on in Batiste’s life and the remnants of what the film originally intended to be. American Symphony, which boasts Barack and Michelle Obama alongside Batiste as executive producers, was conceived as a straightforward music doc. Batiste meant to take his inclusive, genre-blending brand on the road, travelling across the US to collect diverse influences– from folk to Indigenous drumming – to be incorporated into his ambitious milestone moment at Carnegie Hall. But life got in the way.

In the fall of 2021, on the same morning that Batiste was nominated for 11 Grammy nominations, Jaouad, a best-selling author, found out the cancer she was diagnosed with a decade before, at 22, had returned. New waves of Covid were also en route, sidelining Batiste’s road plans to Zoom calls that would take place between an awards show schedule and hospital visits, as Jaouad prepares, emotionally and physically, for a bone marrow transplant. She would be at home, watching Batiste put on a showstopping performance of his hit song Freedom at the Grammys, not long before returning to the hospital for her cancer treatment.

American Symphony makes a valiant pivot but while it covers a lot of ground, it rarely digs deep. Batiste’s career, and his significance as a young Black artist who irritates gatekeepers by keeping a foot in the classical world, is accounted for in broad strokes. And though the film wisely anchors its narrative in his loving and resilient relationship with Jaouad, and what they’re going through, our understanding of who they are still feels superficial.

Batiste is a cheerful and inspiring presence but there’s a guardedness to him that keeps us at a respectful distance. His relentless optimism, so integral when he’s trying to keep everyone’s spirits up, can also function as a shield. Scenes when we’re at his bedside, curiously watching him struggle with sleep in the presence of cameras or on speakerphone discussing his anxiety with his therapist, come off like curated intimacy. Funny enough, it’s when Batiste is performing that he feels the most vulnerable, as if music is the safe space for him to let it all out.

During the climactic concert at Carnegie Hall, which sadly we only see portions from, Batiste’s plans are once again disrupted. A power outage knocks out his orchestra. All he can do is play the piano. After an awkward pause, he pivots, seizes the moment and lunges into a passionate solo that demands you be open to it.

104 days and 37 days

I've seen a lot of articles now.........

"what Nixon and Kissinger wrought"
Who was "two men gunslingers in the Oval Room"?

I liked Butch & Kid - Paul and Robert
(1976) 4 NEWman & SUNdance - Prez & VP
Fantasy Tickets

Wrote by The Rooney Report

PASSED INTO HISTORY: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who served the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford as a controversial shaper of international relations, died at home in Connecticut at age 100.
A Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who spoke with a heavy accent, Kissinger went to Harvard before becoming a member of the Harvard faculty and then moving on into public life. He was a world player like few that exist today. Kissinger was brilliant yet considered at times to be amoral and devious. He ordered the 1969 bombing and of neutral Cambodia without congressional approval, destabilizing the country and leading to a takeover by the murderous Khmer Rouge.
Kissinger once told the Italian writer Oriana Fallaci: ““Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else. This cowboy doesn’t have to be courageous. All he needs is to be alone, to show others that he rides into the town and does everything by himself.”
The owlish and awkward Kissinger was also a social player, dating glamorous women, including the actress Jill St. John.
Kissinger and Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the secret negotiations that resulted in the 1973 Paris agreement that ended the Vietnam War. His famous “shuttle diplomacy” after the 1973 Middle East war helped stabilize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
In February of 1972 he made a secret trip to China that opened relations with the US, producing the engaged yet testy diplomacy that exists between the two countries today, including the contested agreement that Taiwan is part of China.
He was persuasive, powerful, and vengeful. When the NY Times in 1971 published the infamous Pentagon Papers revealing the political and military failures of the Vietnam war, he collaborated with illegal wiretaps of journalists, State Department employees, and even members of his own staff to find the leaker.
Henry Kissinger said he operated “in a world where power remains the ultimate arbiter.”

The Washington Post - long article. It was some interesting events & snippets from his memoirs.

I don’t think Kissinger needed List Bucket - He went to do myriad affairs for 80 years

wapo.st/3QTI9Ks

Royal Flying Doctor Service
Overview

Filmed on location in and around Broken Hill, RFDS captures the beauty and brutality of Australia's vast centre where the doctors and the nurses, pilots and support staff of the Royal Flying Doctor Service negotiate the unique challenges of medical emergencies across some of the most inhospitable places in the Australian outback. RFDS is also a story about community and people coming together to laugh, to cry and to triumph over adversity as the Royal Flying Doctor Service navigate private lives as turbulent and profound as the heart-stopping emergencies they attend.

Reviews - collaboration

Great subject matter, well-rounded characters, and exceptional acting. Mixing white and Aboriginal characters lends an insight into the sometimes troubled interaction of the people of Australia. Having the aspect of flying the doctors and nurses to cases, and flying patients to hospitals adds an additional feeling of adventure

Australia has been waiting for an iconic tv series such as RFDS. I loved the medical emergencies, the personal romances of the staff and the respectful and caring way every aspect from death, mental illness, patient welfare etc has been dealt with.

There are so many things to like about this show…the real life look at the RFDS and it’s machinations, the variety of characters that work their ways into each episode, the brilliant location, the relationships that are developing. This show has huge potential to be a fan favourite.