good to outstanding movies i've seen in the last couple of months

all of these are available on netflix.

1. the battle of algiers

phenomenal movie about the struggle between algerian revolutionaries and french colonists in the city of algiers in 1957. many of the actors were veterans of the revolutionary fight. the movie is a good strategic study of anti-colonial struggle. i found it very helpful to read eqbal ahmad's writings about algeria right before watching the movie.

2. sima the witch (hebrew title: sima vaknin machshefa)

this recent israeli film is not very well-known, but it's very funny. lots of crass humor but well-executed. it's about a widow who just wants love discovering that she has the powers of a witch, causing everyone around her to get greedy. it's a commentary on the degeneration of morals, and also has lots of ashkenazi-mizrahi stuff.

3. the dinner game

pretty good french movie about a group of wealthy friends who invite unwitting stupid/boring people to dinner parties and compete over who can bring the "best" guests. predictably, it ends up that the wealthy hosts are the real stupid ones; but the execution is good, and so is the acting.

4. catch a fire

the tim robbins movie about a south african anti-apartheid militant and the anti-terrorism official trying to catch him. interesting subject matter and pretty good acting.

5. stranger than fiction

y'all know about this will ferrell movie. it's surprisingly crisp and clever.

6. upstairs, downstairs

not a movie, but a very good british TV show from the early 70's. it's about a patrician family and its servants in the early 1900. the acting is fantastic and the writing is very good. no melodrama, no cheap attempts at humor. very theater-like.

7. the sweet hereafter

a 1997 film by atom egoyan about a community in western canada that's torn apart by litigation after a deadly schoolbus accident. to be honest, i thought this film was good but not great; but it's worth seeing just for sarah polley. yeah, i have a bit of a celebrity crush.

horsie joke

i've always wanted to wrote a joke, but have never been clever enough. but today i am, so here i go.
_______

viola was showing her horse to sebastian and bragging about how smart he is. she demonstrates by asking:

"what's three plus four?"

the horse pounds its hoof against the ground seven times.

"what's two times three?"

it pounds its hoof six times.

"what's the square root of twenty-five?"

it pounds its hoof five times.

"aha!" exclaims sebastian. "your horse isn't that smart. it forgot about the negative root!"

what i'm re-reading

i'm re-reading guns, germs and steel: the fates of human societies - one of my favorite books ever. it tries to develop a serious account of why the people of europe, asia and north africa organized themselves in complex societies and came to have a virtual monopoly over the guns, germs and steel that europeans used to subjugate the people of the rest of the world.

i'll illustrate the breadth of coverage by listing some of the chapter titles and bylines:

• up to the starting line: what happened on all the continents before 11,000 B.C.?
• to farm or not to farm: causes of the spread of food production
• from egalitarian to kleptocracy: the evolution of government and religion
• how africa became black: the history of africa

the author, jared diamond, weaves these topics together in a grand historical/social/biological/botanical/linguistic narrative, which ultimately finds the answer to his question in the geographic size and shapes of the continents. the writing is lucid and convincing, and some of the facts and ideas are fascinating. highly recommended.