The first time i tried watching Babylon Berlin was about two years ago when i was scrolling through Netflix's recommendations for new series to watch. I tried an episode or two but it did not pan out -- possibly because every time i tried to watch the series, i was always already on the verge of drifting to dreamland. But #Covid19 changed everything so that instead of spending my free time outdoors, i find myself indoors most of the time now -- ergo, more TV time for me. Thus, in the last week of May i found myself being confronted by Babylon Berlin on the Netflix homepage once again and decided to give it a run over. And this time around it had me hooked from the moment i re-watched the first episodes that i was able to finish all 3 seasons of the series in less than two weeks. I loved the visuals and the music, and it even had a little bonus -- revisiting my rudimentary knowledge of the German language and practicing its pronunciations once again. Set in 1920s Berlin and the las...
Took a gander at watching a very recently released film by Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7, on Netflix. The trial and the unrest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention that led to it are familiar topics as a history buff, in what might've been the most chaotic period in 20th century America. In addition to portraying the questionable tactics employed by Nixon's Justice Department, the FBI, and presiding judge Julius Hoffman in their aim to stamp out leftist "radicals" of the time, it also showed the conflicts in aim, methods, and messaging of the trial's defendants, including college activist and Michigan alumnus Tom Hayden, black liberation leader Bobby Seale, and more comedic figures like Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman (no relation to the judge, a coincidence lampooned in the movie). Upon further research of the topic I noticed a few alterations in the timeline (presumably for dramatic effect) and some interesting omissions in the defendants' st...