A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
“Why North Korea Starves” (Asianometry, 10 January 2022) While accurate information about North Korea is difficult to obtain, due to its government’s secrecy, this Asianometry mini-documentary…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
“South Korea’s Cram School Obsession” (Asianometry, 4 July 2022) What initially started out as an investigation into South Korean families’ mania for after-school private tutoring for…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
“Why South Korea’s Seniors Are So Poor” (Asianometry, 19 April 2022) The statistics – and this mini-documentary is full of them! – are alarming: the relative…
Daniel Vernon, “House of Maxwell (Episode 3)” (2022) Finally we reach the third and last episode of this sorry series supposedly investigating the scandals surrounding past…
Daniel Vernon, “House of Maxwell (Episode 2)” (2022) As with the opening episode of this three-part documentary series on the scandals surrounding Robert Maxwell and his…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
“China’s Massive Nearsightedness Problem” (Asianometry, 20 June 2022) With about 57% of its population in 2019 being myopic (short-sighted), and with schoolchildren in urban areas being…
Dr Garrett Ryan, “Why didn’t the Romans conquer Scotland?” (Toldinstone, 18 June 2022) Generations of British and other schoolchildren studying Roman history must have wondered why…
Daniel Vernon, “House of Maxwell (Episode 1)” (2022) First in a three-part series purporting to examine and connect the scandals surrounding British newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell…
Chinese and Chinese-language Films
“The Dinosaur Birds of China” (Asianometry, 5 November 2021) In a most unexpected departure from the usual economics or IT topics covered, the Asianometry channel devoted…
Carlton Meyer, “The Destruction of the Asiatic Fleet” ( Tales of the American Empire, 13 May 2022) You’d have to be Rip van Winkle or Sleeping…