MT @meghara After 4 great years @Reuters, excited to say I’m joining @BuzzFeedNews as a world correspondent, reporting across Asia | Congrts
— C. Maoxian (@maoxian) July 9, 2016
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Movies Watched -- The Revenant
156 minute running time and I'd normally say that's an hour too long, but this movie gets a pass because it was special. Maybe cut down some dream sequence stuff ... anyway, Leo is a guide for trappers deep in Injun territory (he speaks Pawnee) back in 1823 ... lots of action, a survival story, and ultimately a revenge tale. Revenant means "one that returns after death or a long absence." Brutal, exhilarating, beautiful ... I really enjoyed it. Green rating, recommended.
Light at the end of the tunnel?
Movies Watched -- Girlhood
In French. 113 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long. Pretty teenage girl in a heart-of-Africa way (an old Larry David joke), lovely almond-shaped eyes, lives in a housing project outside of Paris, has an abusive older brother who I guess is the adult in the house. She flunks out of school, doesn't want to go to trade school, meets a band of other black girls, joins their "gang." This is depressing so I fast forwarded from 20 minutes in ... not sure what happens in the end, but it's nothing good. It's not that I demand a movie be "happy," but I don't want to wallow in misery voluntarily. Red rating, avoid.
(Ingkoo Kang wrote that the movie is "largely a grim and stilted study of oppression.")
From the Ivory Coast
Movies Watched -- The Duke of Burgundy
106 minute running time so at least 10 minutes too long. Birgitte Nyborg, formerly Prime Minister of Denmark, has become an expert in butterflies. She has a housemaid whom she likes to push around. Actually they are lovers, into some seriously kinky stuff (including being locked in a box). This a W.D. By movie by a foot fetishist who has a thing for lesbians and lace. The Duke of Burgundy is a butterfly, not a character in the movie. Fast forwarded from 20 minutes in, obviously. Richard Brody hated it, and so did I. Red rating, avoid.
Lock me in The Box, please
Movies Watched -- White God
In Hungarian. 117 minute running time so at least 20 to 30 minutes too long. Teenage girl with good Eastern European bones, has to stay with Dad for three months (parents divorced), takes along her dog, a mutt, Dad doesn't want dog, he's kind of a bastard, girl ends up losing dog when father throws it out of car after she smart-mouths him ... dog ends up in hands of dog fighter, scenes of training the dog for dog fights hard to watch ... girl ends up running away from home ... I watched 70! minutes of this before going to fast forward, couldn't take it, too depressing. Not sure how it ended but probably grim. In fact I've never seen a single happy movie from the Eastern Bloc (though my favorite movie in 2006 was The Death of Mr. Lazarescu). Red rating, avoid.
Wes Morris also didn't think it was the cat's meow ... but he confuses the girl's father with her teacher/conductor (happens when you watch multiple movies a day?)
What happens when you shoot a dog up with drugs, sharpen his teeth, and beat him regularly ... an allegory for the Hungarian people?
ETF Trading Portfolio Update -- July 11, 2016
Taking a loss in the Qs as expected, Inverse VIX has yet to reverse (brutal, I know). Those reversals made post-"Brexit" were a total disaster, huge whipsaw losses, fortunately I didn't also get whipped out of gold, energies, small caps, bonds, etc.