Sunday, February 14, 2021

POTD: Be My Valentine

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Dallas Museum of Art. It's a detail from Alex Da Corte's neon ghost house, "Rubber Pencil Devil" ("2018, glass, aluminum, vinyl, velvet, neon, Plexiglas, high res digital video, color, sound"). It's part of the exhibition "For a Dreamer of Houses".

Bonus photo after the jump.

Friday, February 12, 2021

Search Party - Season 1 (TV 2016)

Rotten Tomatoes
Search Party - Season 1 (TV 2016): Obsessed woman enlists friends to solve the disappearance of an old school acquaintance. Her search leads to a stalker and a sinister cult. It's a black comedy, with little comedy or even blackness, but with lots of stupid decisions. C+

#VeryTardyReview

Despite my bad review, we will probably watch season 2 (and maybe even seasons 3 and 4).

Thursday, February 11, 2021

POTD: Artificial Cliff at Abu Simbel

From 2019 11 20 Abu Simbel
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the entrance to the Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel south of Aswan, Egypt. It's looking "next door" at the Temple of his consort Nefertari. That temple's entrance, not visible in the photo, is around the cliff to the right in the photo. The photo shows instead the artificial cliff that was built to hold Nefertari's temple, which was moved from its original location due to rising waters caused by the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

Bonus photo after the jump.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Giri/Haji (TV 2019)

Rotten Tomatoes
Giri/Haji (TV 2019): Brothers (a cop and a gangster), get mixed up in a gang war in Tokyo that spreads to London. There's plenty of stylized violence, but it's the many rich relationships, not just between the brothers, that make this special. Like a Shakespearean tragedy. A+

#VeryTardyReview

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

POTD: Inside the Temple of Ramesses the Great

From 2019 11 20 Abu Simbel
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel south of Aswan, Egypt. It's a view of inside the temple, which was carved into the cliff on the shores of the Nile River. When rising waters caused by the construction of the Aswan High Dam threatened the temples, the cliff was excavated to allow relocation of the temples. It wasn't just the massive statues outside the temple that were moved. The entire cave-like inside of the temples were dug out and moved, too. It was a feat almost as impressive as the temples themselvs.

Bonus photos after the jump.

Monday, February 8, 2021

The Little Things (2021)

Rotten Tomatoes
The Little Things (2021): Two cops join forces to solve a serial murder. Rami is warned about working with Denzel, the old cop. Jared Leto is the suspect. Good actors are let down by a pedestrian (and derivative) script. What can't be called suspense builds to little payoff. B-

Friday, February 5, 2021

POTD: Exactly Recreating Ruins

From 2019 11 20 Abu Simbel
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel on the Nile River south of Aswan, Egypt. Before the Aswan High Dam flooded the Nile River valley, archaeologists carefully cut the temple into blocks, moved it 65 metres higher and 200 metres back from the river, and just as carefully reconstructed it. Because the temples were already 3,300 years old, they weren't in pristine condition. Rather than recreate the temples as they were when first built, archaeologists recreated them as they were in the 1960s, when the rescue operation occurred. Thus, the big block that calved off one of the four giant statues of Ramesses on the front of the temple was replaced at the foot of the statue, exactly where it had fallen millennia ago.