Movie Review: The Railway Man (2013). Netflix.

Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman star in this movie based on the true story of a British World War II veteran and former prisoner of the Japanese, tormented after the war by his past, who tracks down one of his wartime torturers, and ultimately forgives and reconciles with him. Kidman portrays the protagonist's later-in-life romantic interest and then wife, who believed in him and helped him through his postwar struggles.

An interesting and well-acted historical drama about the savagery of war and its traumatic aftermath, as well as the healing possibilities of forgiveness. Recommended.

Book Review: American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts (2019). Chris McGreal.

This is a deeply-researched account of how the American opioid crisis began in the early 2000s. There was so much about how the opioid crisis came about that I did not know, but that I learned from this book.

It began in West Virginia, where coal miners wracked with pain from their hard work in the coal mines were offered a “cure” for their pain by local doctors, consisting of the heavily marketed new artificial opioids such as oxycontin and oxycodone. At the same time, medical practice and thought had been veering from the prohibitionist approach of the mid-twentieth century toward a more “liberal” view that it was the doctor’s job to treat pain wherever possible, using whatever pain-killing drugs were available.

Into this mix of social conditions, changing medical treatment philosophies and opportunities for profit came several Big Pharma companies, with some brand-new drugs to push and a lot of money to be made.

Soon, prescription “mills” were springing up in little towns in the coal fields, aided by a few unscrupulous physicians, and then almost overnight, billions of pills were being sold by a few rural drug stores. From there, the scourge moved outward, as Congress failed to respond to the small number of physicians and whistleblowers who raised the alarm about the addiction crisis in the making. 

McGreal does an excellent job tracing the social and political history of the opioid crisis, and describing in devastating detail the way it spread through American society and families. Recommended.

Book Review: A Long Night in Paris (2020). Dov Alfov.

A very promising first novel by an Israeli journalist, this well-written spy thriller and murder mystery starts with the mysterious disappearance of a young Israeli high-tech businessman at Orly Airport in Paris.

From there, the fast-paced adventure pits two resourceful "acting" leaders at different levels in a top-secret Israeli spy agency (one young and female, the other older and male) against their own organization's internal political conspiracies, the plodding French police inspector who is trying to manage the case, and a complex Chinese assassination plot.

To make it more challenging, another Israeli agent goes missing, as our two heroes rush to understand the underlying cause of the sudden outbreak of high-profile murders in the French capital.

An enjoyable and satisfying tale, with excellent characterization, plenty of high-tech intelligence wizardry, and an amusingly jaundiced view of the inner workings of police and intelligence organizations. This would make a great movie. Recommended.

Book Review: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (2016). Cathy O'Neil.

Ms. O'Neil, a PhD data scientist, peers behind the curtain of how our automated society uses algorithms based on opaque assumptions and dubious logic to reach conclusions about us in every sphere of our lives, that tend to perpetuate stereotypes, increase unfair discrimination, and undermine the democratic ideal that as individuals, we should all be treated equally under the law.

She explores how this dynamic of biased and opaque algorithms works to our detriment in education, personal finances, job-seeking and employment, voting and health care among other important spheres of our lives. Recommended.

Book Review: The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google (2017). Scott Galloway.

This book provides a dire warning on how each of the "Big Four" tech companies (five, if you include Microsoft, i.e. Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple) is undermining freedom, democracy, economic fairness and other positive values by the different ways in which they mine and exploit our data and manipulate us, using tools of control that dwarf anything ever seen before.

On The John Oliver Show (on HBO) last Sunday (June 5, 2022), Oliver's main segment described two bipartisan bills being considered in Congress right now to address issues of anti-competitiveness and monopolistic practices by these same companies. The Four is excellent background reading for understanding why and how these practices are destructive to individuals, small businesses, the democratic political system and the economy, and why these proposed anti-monopolistic bills are a necessary first step in reigning these companies in.  

Galloway does a particularly good job highlighting how all the destructive aspects of these companies' activities are carried out under the guise of friendly, liberal corporate images, and aided by the seductive attractions of all the everyday conveniences, incredible tools and bright shiny objects they provide, and upon which we all depend. Recommended.

Book Review: Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II (2012). Arthur Herman.

Freedom’s Forge is a very worthwhile and important history of how American businesses jumped into the fray early in World War II, after more than a decade of the Great Depression, to make America "the arsenal of democracy". The author particularly focuses on the crucial role played by Bill Knudsen (head of of General Motors) and Henry Kaiser (the construction magnate who branched out into many other business areas to serve the war effort).

This story is well-researched and intriguing, as well as inspirational. It's almost unbelievable to learn how fast businesses (both large and small) were able to re-tool and start turning out astonishing quantities of weapons and material once the U.S. went to war.

There is also a fascinating discussion of how many individuals and families were able to start small businesses as parts suppliers for the major manufacturers (with the help of a government office coordinating collection and publication of requirements) and thus escape their Depression-era poverty while aiding the war effort.

It makes one wonder why we moderns, with all our technological wizardry and productivity, don’t seem able to pull off similar overnight industrial miracles with respect to transforming our fossil-fuel based economy and way of life to ward off the worst effects of climate change. Recommended.

Book Review: The Good Lord Bird (2013). James McBride.

This is an amusing and award-winning satire and fictional narrative of the last years of "Osawatomie" John Brown (the famous abolitionist), as told through the eyes and experiences of a young slave boy who is mistaken by Brown for a girl.

Our narrator ends up being freed by Brown, and swept along (now masquerading as a girl) as Brown leads his abolitionist campaign, and his tiny "army" of religious fanatics, from skirmishes in Kansas to their inevitable denouement at the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

Along the way, John Brown and his ragtag group encounter Jeb Stuart, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, as well as other minor heroes and villains of Brown's real-life famous private crusade against slavery that helped spark the Civil War. Recommended.

TV Review: Friday Night Lights, Seasons 1-5. Hulu.

This NBC TV series from 2006-2011 is based on a non-fiction book of the same name from the 1990s, and a 2004 film of the same name. For reasons unknown, this gem of a series slipped by me at the time it was originally broadcast, and then for the past decade on streaming TV.
 

Big oversight! This was one of the better series I've watched in the past several years, and there was a lot of it to binge (five seasons). At the center of the show is a recently-hired high school football coach at a public school with an elite football program in rural Texas (played by Kyle Chandler), and his wife (Connie Britton) and daughter (Aimee Teegarden). But it also features a very strong and diverse ensemble cast of supporting characters, including students, football team members, and local boosters, parents and personalities.

What is fantastic about it is how real it is -- there's hardly a social issue or problem affecting American families, adults and kids (especially teenagers) that doesn't appear, all wrapped around a sports team drama. And those issues are just as contemporary and topical today as they were ten years go.

I also learned from reading an online story about the making of this series that the filming style was quite unusual, in that scripts were used only sparingly. The actors, steeped in their roles and their characters' identities, would usually be told the scene situation, and then would improvise their performances as they filmed. It led to a very moving and believable drama series, extremely well acted -- and thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended.