Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Rotten Tomatoes

Top Gun: Maverick (2022): Predictable. To understand how far America has gone astray since the Cold War, replace the American pilots with Japanese pilots bombing Pearl Harbor in 1941. Would we still be pulling for them to succeed? Watch it like I did, on a plane experiencing turbulence. Extra exciting. C+

Random Thoughts: Runaway Slaves Escaping To Mexico

Tweets from October, 2022:

• 2022-10-03: A chapter of US history that's rarely told that holds a lesson for today. If we couldn't stop runaway slaves from escaping *to* Mexico pre-Civil War, why do we think it's possible to stop desperate refugees fleeing the other direction today? Why would we even want to?
• 2022-10-03: Today's Trump fundraising email: "We need a clear picture of how all voters in your Congressional District are leaning, and you are a leader in your district." A leader? He must read my blog!
• 2022-10-03: Up until recently, regardless of when life begins, in the United States nobody could force you to donate your own body to save another person. Republicans want the government to force you to donate your body to save even fertilized eggs. Small government, my eye.

After the jump, more random thoughts.

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

Rotten Tomatoes

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022): Sequel to the 1993 original. This one doesn't so much build on that one as repeat it, beat for beat. Bette Midler's big musical number is better than the one in the original, but it's no "Time Warp." Skip it and go trick or treating with the kids instead. C-

Hocus Pocus (1993)

Rotten Tomatoes

Hocus Pocus (1993): I never saw this Disney original, so I watched it before watching this year's sequel. I can't tell if it's bad because the humor is dated, or aimed at kids, or what. Bette Midler vamps. You'd think that alone would have saved the movie, but no such luck. C-

#VeryTardyReview

POTD: Anne Frank House

From 2022 07 03 Amsterdam

Today's photo-of-the-day is of the most famous of Amsterdam's canal houses: the Anne Frank House. Seventy five years on, tickets to enter the house, now a museum, still sell out days ahead of time. But tourists come by anyway to see the house from the outside.

Bonus photo after the jump.