Interstellar

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Interstellar
Review by Ashley Chapman

Film: Interstellar (2014)
Director: Christopher Nolan
Script: Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain and Michael Cain
Released: November, 2014
Production: Syncopy and Lynda Obst Productions
Details: 12A; Sci-Fi; 169 min

Day 1: I actually watched Interstellar twice as, first time round, the Computer Exchange DVD was kinked, developing into a full-blown play challenge as we hit the worm hole sequence. Time literally came to a noisy, slow-time, juddering freeze-frame stop, as I tried to navigate through the wormhole sequence and into the beyond, but had to abort mission…

Day 2: New DVD.

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A Party Too Far — The Shah of Iran’s Ultimate Downfall.

Posted on by wind65

Review by Ashley Chapman

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Decadence and Downfall: The Shah of Iran’s Ultimate Party, Storyville, 2015-2016 now showing on the BBC iPlayer is about how Shah Pahlavi of Iran spent the entire state budget, over $600 million dollars, in 1970 on a lavish party in the fabled city of Persepolis, while his people, battered by the fearful exigences of his secret police, the feared SAVA, wallowed in deprivation.

“The guests, beneath yards and yards of suffocating pink satin sit in the banqueting marquis, served exquisite Gallic food prepared by  Maxim’s of Paris…while outside the locked-out millions watched on TV the noisy emptiness of it all.”

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Trickle-down Economics, I don’t think so…

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Review by Ashley Chapman

‘Inequality is threatening Capitalism itself,’ is unequivocally proposed in this interesting and revealing documentary The Super-Rich and Us for BBC television. Jacques Peretti heads off to interview economists and billionaires in an attempt to try and find out if the Super-Rich are net contributors or not.

Recent OECD figures suggest that Britain’s economy would have grown by twenty per cent had the rich paid their fair share of tax and wealth was spread more evenly.

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Hyperion Cantos

Posted on by wind65
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The shrike awaits…

Review by Ashley Chapman

One of the main themes in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos is how humanity’s future among the stars may be affected by artificial intelligence (AI).

“Simmons wants us to know that while AI is potentially highly toxic, malignantly thrashing about in its own depth, conversely it can cast light on the mind-soul scoop that lies paradoxically at the heart of man’s nature.”

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