A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Image by David Mark (Pixabay) Hi, there, Constant Reader! Welcome to yet another edition (and my 400th blog post for 2019) of Bloggin' On, the virtual space on A Certain Point of View  in which I step out of my usual personas of media product reviewer and/or occasional political commentator. Well, it's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2019, the fifth observance of the holiday that I spend with other folks instead of my immediate (or even extended) family. Mom died in the summer of 2015, five months before the holiday season of that year. I cut all relations with my older half-sister as a result of long-standing resentments that had been building for decades, but especially after Mom and I discovered what she had in mind for the "after-Mom-died" phase in both our lives, so I have not observed any holidays with my closest blood relation since the Fourth of July of '15. And most of my surviving cousins on both sides of my family live in Colombia, so I can'...

A glimpse at a part of my Blu-ray collection, courtesy of my member page at Blu-ray.com. Some of the movies I own in 2019 were ones that I bought for Mom during her last four years; I kept them for sentimental reasons.  Hello and welcome once again to Bloggin' On, the "blog-within-a-blog" section of A Certain Point of View. It's Tuesday, November 25, and as I write this it is mid-afternoon here in my corner of Florida. The weather outside is nice, right now it's mostly sunny and the temperature is 72℉ (22℃); the low is expected to reach 51℉ (10℃) tonight, but I don't foresee myself venturing outside for any reason. I should at least try to sit out on the front porch with a book and get a bit of fresh air and sun, but I don't have any desire to do so. A little while ago I saw on my Amazon account that the home media release of  It: Chapter Two is available for pre-order, so I did that. Warner Bros. is dropping the various videodisc (Blu-ray, 4K UHD ...

Hello and welcome to another edition of Old Gamers Never Die, the section of A Certain Point of View in which I talk about one of my long-time hobbies - computer games. In this installment, I'll review Order of Battle: World War II, a turn-based strategy game developed four years ago by Britain's The Artistocrats and Slitherine Ltd.,  and published by Matrix Games. Order of Battle: World War II is touted by its developer as the spiritual heir to Panzer General, a 1994 operational-level PC game published by the now-closed Strategic Simulations Inc. of Mountain View, California. Like Panzer General and its sequels, Order of Battle allows players to command either Allied or Axis units in either single battles or campaigns that take place in all the major theaters of the Second World War. Order of Battle consists of a basic free-to-play game called Boot Camp, which is a single campaign in which the player takes command of American land, sea, and air units during a series of t...

My former neighborhood, as seen in Google Maps. Contrary to what the satellite photo shows, there is no restaurant in the middle of East Wind Lake Village.  Hello, Constant Reader, and welcome to another edition of Bloggin' On, the blog-within-a-blog section of A Certain View in which I write about topics that don't fall neatly into my usual reviews-and-political commentary content categories. It's Sunday, November 24, and as I mentioned yesterday, Thanksgiving 2019 is just around the corner. I'm trying to not get into a funk about my fifth major holiday season without my mom, but it's hard not to think about it. We were close, my Mom and I, so her absence around this time of year is a bit more palpable than in others. Anyway, enough about that. Right now it's mid-afternoon in my little corner of Florida; the temperature outside is 70℉ (21℃) under sunny skies. It's definitely not as chilly as it is in more northerly regions of the U.S., but it doe...

It's been almost four years since I last saw East Wind Lake. (Picture by the author) Hello and welcome once again to another edition of Odds and Ends, my blog-within-a-blog where I step out of my usual role of entertainment writer and sometime political commentator. It's Saturday, November 23, and (as you can tell from the post's headline) it's the weekend before Thanksgiving. Right now, the temperature in my corner of Florida is 77℉ (25℃) under mostly sunny skies, which is nice because it's not too hot nor too chilly. The forecast low is expected to be 61℉ (16℃), but since I'll be indoors, I won't feel that slight nip in the night air. I'm a bit tired - not to mention somewhat out of sorts - today. I went to bed late last night after trying to watch The Empire Strikes Back (the 2011 Blu-ray edition) with my significant other. We didn't see much of it; we both fell asleep well before the film reached its midpoint. I think that waking up ear...

Image Courtesy of NaNoWriMo Greetings! Welcome to another edition of A Certain Point of View, the blog that I started almost nine years ago. This is the 1,213th post overall and the 395th for 2019. Back in January, I resolved that I'd have at least 365 posts written and posted by December 31; now it looks like I'll end the year with a minimum of 400 posts, perhaps even 430, if I don't slack off for the rest of November and write at least one post a day in December. Anyway, it's Friday, November 22, and it looks like it's going to be a cool autumn day here in my corner of Florida. According to my Weather app, it's 70℉ (21℃) outside under sunny skies; the forecast high is expected to reach 77℉ (25℃), with some cloud cover moving in later this afternoon. Today is also the 56th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald. I was only eight months old at the time so, naturally, I don't have any recollect...

Screenshot of  Unity of Command II's  main title page. Graphics © 2019 2X2 Games and Croteam Hi, there! Welcome to another installment of Old Gamers Never Die, the section in this blog where I talk about computer and video games I either own and play now or owned and played on other platforms or computers. Today I'll be talking a little about the latest addition to my modest collection of games – Unity of Command II, a brand-new game from Croatia's 2X2 Games and Croteam. It was released on Steam on November 12, and it's the long-awaited sequel to 2X2's 2011 game  Unity of Command, a turn-based operational level (as opposed to tactical level) game set during World War II. I've never played Unity of Command, but from what I've learned from watching the  thehistoricalgamer's channel  on YouTube, that game is a simulation of the German-Soviet war on the Eastern Front and covers (in the core game, anyway) the campaigns that led up to the Battle o...

© 1990 MicroProse Software/MPS Labs and Retroism  Hello there, Constant Reader! It's Wednesday (Hump Day), November 20, and it's a chilly (by Florida standards anyway) morning in my corner of the world. Currently. it's mostly sunny here, with the temperature at 51℉ (11℃); per the forecast on my Weather app, we are expecting no rain and a high of 72℉ (22℃) later today. This is as fall-like as we've gotten so far in 2019, and after a long hot summer and a tense hurricane season (which, by the by, ends on November 30), it's literally a breath of fresh air. I was going to try and write a review today, but I woke up a bit too early and I don't think I can pull that rabbit out of my hat, so I'm going to give you one of those "lightweight" list-type blogs till I can get my shit together as a writer. As a regular reader of A Certain Point of View, you know of my fascination for the Second World War. You also know that this interest in the largest a...

© 2019 Paramount Home Media Distribution and CBS Studios On Tuesday, November 12, Paramount Home Media Distribution and CBS Studios released Star Trek: Discovery - Season Two on Blu-ray and DVD almost seven months after Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman's series completed its second season on CBS All-Access, CBS Television's streaming service. Set approximately 10 years before the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS), Star Trek: Discovery chronicles the voyages of the USS Discovery, a Crossfield- class starship equipped with an experimental propulsion system that's faster than standard warp drives, during the last Klingon-Federation War and its immediate aftermath. Starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Michelle Yeoh, Shazad Latif, Wilson Cruz, and Emily Coutts, Star Trek: Discovery expands the lore of Star Trek while paying homage to the existing canon. Although its high-tech 21st Century production design and its sh...

Hello and welcome once again to another installment of Bloggin' On, the "blog within a blog" in which I step out of my usual roles of the online reviewer and political commentator. I'm sorry that I have not been writing as often as I was before late October, but with the 400-posts-for-the-year mark rapidly approaching, I figure that I can slow down a bit now that I've achieved the goal of writing 365 posts in a single calendar year...and exceded it. It's Sunday, November 17 (Already? Wow!) and it's morning here in my corner of Florida. Right now the temperature is 51℉ (10℃) under mostly cloudy skies, and the forecast high will be approximately 65℉ (18℃), and even though no rain is in the forecast, the rest of the day will be mostly cloudy. A cold front (the first strong one of the season) has passed through, and the rest of the week will be cool and definitely fall-like. As for what you can expect to see on A Certain Point of View shortly... Well, ...

© 2018 Buena Vista Home Entertaiment (BVHE) and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On March 27, 2018, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE, the home media distribution arm of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Studios) released Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi in various formats: Blu-ray, Ultra High Definition (UHD) Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download. And following the trend set by many of Disney's competitors, including the then-still independent 20th Century Fox Film Corporation and Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures, BVHE issued Rian Johnson's 2017 entry in the Star Wars Skywalker Saga in different editions, including exclusive releases for Disney retailing partners, including Best Buy.  As was the case with 2016's home media release of Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Best Buy's exclusive edition of The Last Jedi does not concern itself with the content, which is the first 4K UHD edition of a Star Wars film. Other retailers, including Amazon, Target, ...

© 2020 W.W. Norton & Company Hello and welcome to another edition of A Certain View.  It's Tuesday, November 12, 2019, and it's a lovely fall morning in my little corner of Florida. Right now the temperature outside is 68℉ (20℃) under partly sunny skies. Apparently, the Big Chill that is affecting most of the country has made its way to the Sunshine State as well, although it's not as cold here as it is further north. If I don't get sucked into my routine of sitting at my desk all day, I might venture out to the veranda and read in the fresh air and sunlight after I have some breakfast. If you are a Constant Reader of this blog (and I thank you if you are!), you've probably noticed that until recently I was writing at least one post a day. My goal for 2019 was to have at least 365 blog entries written and posted; as of today, my tally will be 389 once I finish this post and hit the "Publish" button, which will put me 24 posts over my original tar...