Spaceman Spiff to the rescue
🍿 The Father (2020) – ★★★★★
What an absolutely riveting performance by Anthony Hopkins as the old man with dementia. He rightfully deserved the Oscar. This is both a scary and heartbreaking watch but especially how well Hopkins sells it. Perhaps one of his very best might I say?
📺 Ted Lasso (2020) – ★★★★☆
Season 4 was better than I though so a solid 3 and half starts. Rebeca Roy and Keely were the worst part of this show though. The show had so much promise with the new star cast but they kept going back to so much ghisi piti stories.
📺 Trying (2020) – ★★★★☆
I honestly wouldn’t mind it if season 5 is also the series finale because it ends absolutely perfectly. There really is no reason to continue this series, but I said that end of 3rd season too and they came up with 2 more good ones. But this one just has that sense of finality.
The last two weeks have been brutal, mostly because a couple of new VPs started and they are going to be our new managers / leaders. I have spent so much time bringing them up to speed. One guy is just genuinely nice and grounded, but the other guy is a bit of a jerk – his micro aggressions towards me did not go unnoticed by me or others. Thankfully by end of this week I was able to shut him up and prove that I was right. It was a good end to a week but I already know I am not gonna like working with this person.
The teen had a blast today meeting the congressmen and senator. She also met their deputies (in fact talked to them more) and also got to travel the underground capital subway system meant for senators/house staff only. The deputies gave her their cards and asked to be in touch if she as interested in volunteering or internship next year. Needless to say she was on cloud 9 getting to see up close how things worked.
So the guy who scored the lone Spain goal parades around in Make Spain Great Again hat and wears far right bracelet is fine but Argentina so racist am I right? This is why I hate the online discourse around the teams so much. There are absolutely shitty players in every fucking team and there are shitty fans of every fucking country. Period. Enjoy the sport as is and move on.
🍿 Satluj (2026) – ★★★★★
A slow moving gut wrenching story of some of darkest times in Indian history; this is movie that takes its time and does not hurry at nearly 3 hours. Sure some things may feel a bit repetitive but it is by design I think and is anchored by some excellent performances all throughout. Huge kudos to film makers for not bowing down to Indian govt and releasing it uncut. In spite of this huge nationalist turn, every year Indian cinema turns up a few dramas like this that are unafraid to call a spade a spade (last year, Dhadak 2 was the movie for me – when was the last time you saw fight fascism banners in a Bollywood movie?). Satluj is a must watch documenting the worst of police brutality – and shame on Indian govt banning these because they are so insecure that way.
We downloaded a bootleg copy of SATLUJ and started watching it tonight; the Indian government took down the movie from streaming platforms both domestic and internationally because it’s a biographic film based on human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra who investigated human rights abuses and disappearances during 90s Punjab. The movie carried great reviews before being taken down by govt so naturally we had to see it. One hour in, it’s absolutely gripping. Will finish it over next 1-2 days.
On the other hand I am looking forward to our summer trip after the summer swim’s over this week. Last nights volunteering was brutal – started at 5:30 and ended around 10 because it was a tri-meet and kids from 3 different clubs were summing. It was the last B meet and it was packed to brim – the meet continued well in darkness and by the end parents were visibly tired and annoyed. Thankfully it was the last B meet!
Preponed our dad’s visit by almost a month. He didn’t explicitly ask for it but he talked about how his best friend from NY who’s not been doing well called him up. Apparently according to my brother it was a very somber phone call with his friend telling my dad he doesn’t have too many days to live and every conversation they have might be the last for him. They already lost their third wheel few years ago and this NY guy’s friendship means so much to my dad that he would disown us for him. I was like let’s prepone his visit and hope his friend lives long enough to meet him face to face. It still gonna be end of August-early September but fingers crossed it works out for his friend.