Last Licks 2022
Prince Louis, Will & Kate’s son, may have best captured 2022:
RIP Barbara Walters, 93. Whether one liked her work or not, there’s no doubt she was a major media player for decades.
For those who longed for a return to normal, enjoy. Headline from nypost.com: “Nancy Pelosi raises maximum pay for House staffers to $212K.”
Just when you think vernacular couldn’t get any more ridiculous— headline from foxnews.com: “‘MINOR-ATTRACTED PEOPLE’: Scotland police blasted for how they described pedophiles in report.”
Friday night’s movie fix courtesy of Netflix by mail was good but complicated sci-fi, Oblivion (2013), starring Tom Cruise. The year is 2077. Earth has been decimated by an alien force in survival mode, stripping planets of natural resources. How refreshing that it isn’t about environmental disaster. Although there seem to be holes in the script, I enjoyed it. I read a plot summary at PLATOSACADEMIC to see if I understood it all. I did for the most part. The article was a big help regarding the cloning aspect. Director Joseph Kosinski adapted the screenplay from his own graphic novel with the help of Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt, the latter an Academy Award winner for Original Screenplay, Little Miss Sunshine (2006). Claudio Miranda’s cinematography is first rate. He won an Oscar in that category for Life of Pi (2012). The film was shot in Iceland and Louisiana. Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On is featured on the soundtrack. The cast is solid and includes Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo, but such a movie is not about acting but thrills. It did well at the box office, returning $286+ million on a budget estimated at $120 million. 529,000+ users at IMDb have rated Oblivion, forging to a consensus of seven on a scale of ten. Kosinski has gone on to direct the wildly popular Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Here is one of the all-time great action stars in character:
The floating book shop was drizzled out today. My thanks to whoever purchased Billionths of a Lifetime at Amazon. To my surprise, I spotted only one error, an unnecessary quotation mark, in the second proof of my latest work, Coincidence, a novella. I would have let it go if not for the fact I added a sentence I believe is crucial to the story, so I corrected that while I was in the file. I uploaded the updated PDf to Amazon, scanned through it and approved it, forgoing a third proof. Any mistake will now be on Amazon’s end, and it has not made one in this regard since I started publishing there. The only disappointment is that the Kindle doesn’t match the professionalism of the print version, which always seems to be the case. It is readable despite the inconsistent formatting and paragraph breaks. And it’s only a dollar. I’m not publicizing the book until I check a print copy.
Here’s a gem from Steve Kelly:
My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts
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