Producing Raves

Masterful Filmmaker (from the Far Side of the World) Peter Weir receives Lifetime Achievement Oscar

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

This past Monday, I shared an article about the allure of the film Master and Commander: But Wait, There’s More Title, directed by Peter Weir. This Sunday during the main Oscar ceremony, I learned that said director, now 78, received a special lifetime achievement award last November. And it got to me thinking that, apart from one or two of his films I haven’t seen, all of his films are always in my sort. Peter…

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Various and Sundry

I like Master and Commander and, yes, I’m a dad. Why do you ask?

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Thinking of my biennial “Favorite Films” post this past December, it’s clear from last night’s Oscars, I’m not the only one who was bowled over by the bagel that is Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s definitely due a rewatch… but actually, I’m here to point out a recent article by Gabriella Paiella for GQ about how my top pick, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, was made and is now an…

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Various and Sundry

A Viewing Guide for Star Trek: The Next Generation

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

With the airing of the final season of Star Trek: Picard, my ranking of all the Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) episodes is getting a steady amount of traffic. So going from the viewing guide for one of the least watched series in the franchise, Enterprise, let’s go to a Trek series that still ranks as the most watched… and based on feedback is clearly one of the most beloved. Much like many of…

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Various and Sundry

A Solid Reason to Watch Star Trek: Picard

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

On Saturday, I linked to an article about actor Michael Dorn and his long-running portrayal of the character of Worf across multiple Star Trek series and movies. Last week, the third episode of Star Trek: Picard‘s final season gave him a glorious (formal) introduction that is already spawning memes across the Interwebs. In fact, the whole season promises to give us a measure of closure with the TNG era on many fronts. There’s the main…

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Various and Sundry

The Final Act of Worf’s Klingon Opera

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I never wanted a Next Generation (TNG) season eight out of Star Trek: Picard as many fans did, but I did want more satisfying closure with the Next Generation characters than was offered by Nemesis. With that in mind, I’ve enjoyed this latest and reportedly last season of Picard, still underway. As Dylan Roth explores for Polygon, perhaps no character deserves closure more than that of the quintessentially non-Merry man: Worf. As a huge Deep…

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Site Update

It’s a Bronze Blogiversary… with Salt!

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Eight years ago today, I relaunched a personal website not really seen since the previous millennium. I’ll leave it to readers to decide if it’s a little bit good or a little bit bad and in what proportion. But eight years does appear to be the Bronze Anniversary or, if you’re indecently British, the Salt Anniversary?!? I’m guessing that latter one dates back to the Danelaw. As with previous versions of this blogiversary post, I’ll…

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Various and Sundry

Hark! The Traditional Elven Yodel!

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Longtime visitors will note that I do post about Tolkien from time to time, even if I’m not the prime Tolkien fanatic in the family. I couldn’t even tell you who the first lord of Dol Amroth was, which I’m pretty sure is the level of detail one needs to be a Colbert-level Tokien fanatic. If I were, I would surely know the specific countries and landmarks Tolkien thought of in our world which he…

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Writing

“I’m more of an Idea Bot”

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I continue to talk to people online and offline about machine learning and the current zeal for AI doing creative work and one of the writers, Chuck Wendig, who I linked to last month (and who, unsurprisingly, does not find AI-authored writing as a wave of the future to be surfed). One of his posts from last week drills down to one of the reasons I find the AI creativity craze so annoying: the fact…

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Various and Sundry

A Business Model to Optimize Crap

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Hey, if you think that’s a startling headline, the original title of the article by Cory Doctorow in Wired is not-safe-for-work. But it does touch on something you may have suspected or outright observed about social media sites and their lifecycle of desperately needing content and eventually not being that useful, but obnoxiously necessary. It may motivate you to think rather unsociable thoughts. In any case, I found it interesting and in line with many…

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