Thoughts on the arts, society, politics, and various geeky topics.
This is the blog of Janice Dawley. Why is it called “Central Cortex”? Well, the Cortex was the interplanetary equivalent of the internet in Firefly, a show I was totally into back in 2003 when I first created this blog, and I’ve never changed the name since then. Strangely enough, I’ve barely written anything about Firefly here, but I’ve written a LOT about other TV shows and movies, as well as literature, politics, various cultural topics, and my own life.
I’ve been watching quite a bit of television this spring, and some of it has been quite good! Read on for more about the highlights as well as my thoughts on a couple of mixed bags. Mare of Easttown Kate Winslet plays a dumpy detective in suburban Pennsylvania who is struggling to process the death of her son while also dealing with a lot of other family drama. And Jean Smart plays her...
I didn’t make as much of an effort to prepare for the Academy Awards this year, because… pandemic. I’ve had less energy to engage in projects that take a lot of time and concentration, and I’ve been reluctant to shell out $20 to digitally “rent” some of the nominated films. However, I did manage to see six out of eight of the best picture nominees as well as a smattering of the rest. Below are...
Despite all the craziness in the world recently (or perhaps because of it), I’ve been all about movies in the past few weeks. Specifically, prep for the Oscars! This year I made an effort to see all of the Best Picture nominees before the awards ceremony — and I succeeded! My thoughts on the films are presented below, in the order in which I watched them. There are some minor spoilers...
A few weeks ago, I learned of a massive audio interview project being conducted by Marquette University to gather the input of 6000 Tolkien lovers on what made them fans and what his work has meant to them. Each interview is limited to 3 minutes. I figured, why not? I’ll do it! As it turned out, I spent considerably longer than that writing up my notes ahead of time and editing repeatedly...
To be clear before I start, I am a huge science fiction nerd, in all media forms — books, TV, movies, comics, games… everything. But I am not what I would call a fan of Star Trek. Have I watched a lot of it? Absolutely. For long stretches of time, Star Trek (in various incarnations) was the only SF on television, and for much of my life it has been a wonderful bonding experience to...
As always, I remain fairly indifferent to spoilers, so continue at your own risk. MOVIES Faces Places (2017) A documentary about a road trip around rural France that is also a documentary about itself and the growing friendship between the directors, New Wave legend Agnès Varda and “photograffeur” JR. There’s a free-wheeling openness to experience and the people they meet as well as a touching...
I had some really great media experiences in 2017, though as usual some of the works I list below were released in earlier years. My comments are mostly spoiler-free, but since I don’t really care about spoilers, I might not have noticed if I revealed anything important. If you are a spoiler-phobe, tread lightly… MOVIES Moonlight This film is a masterpiece, and I do not say that...
Learning of Prince’s death last week really shook me. This post is an attempt to express some of what he has meant to me over the years. Albany, NY. May 1983. At a time when my experience of cities was almost nonexistent, my sister and I went to SUNY to help my mother pack up her stuff and return from her final year in residence at the university. The campus was warm and bright and full of...
When the new Star Wars movie came out, I was a bit taken aback at how it now seems to be the conventional wisdom that the first Star Wars movie (I won’t call it “A New Hope”; to me, it’s just “Star Wars”, which was the name of the movie when it came out in 1977) was a true classic, and that everything with the new movie would be OK if it could capture some of...
I’ve seen some pretty interesting and good genre television in the past couple of months. Here’s the list! As always, beware of potential spoilers. The Expanse — Someone said recently that they were missing a good outer space show – something with hard vacuum, stars and planets, the big black. Something along the lines of Battlestar Galactica or Firefly. And I realized I felt...