Ossurworld’s irreverence

Bill Russell Joins Ali & Brown 3 Years Later  DATELINE: One Night in Miami Upon hearing that a storyline made into a one-set play and thence a movie concerned a one-night meeting of Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown, all black men in the early 1960s on the cusp of change in civil rights for oppressed people, it’s hard to believe. It sounds like a fantasy of historical…

Hi-yo, Pizza Roll! DATELINE: Olde TV Bad Habit  Back in 2013 there was another compilation of “hucksters,” from advertisements and commercials on TV in the mid to late 1950s. It seems a bit unfair to call these old stars “hucksters,” as appearing at the end of their series or show (often in character) to sell a product was just a means of enhancing their income. This delightful collection is a…

Oak Island More Interesting Than Ever

Bootie of Columbus?  DATELINE:  1492 Across the Ocean Blue  As we dig deeper into the eighth season, the missing members of the show have returned: Alex Lagina and his cousin Peter are back searching through spoils piles. No word on why they were absent for two weeks. But immediately Alex finds a piece of leather in the shape of a boot heel. Prominent suddenly is the newest member of searching,…

Pascali: No Man an Island

Dance & Kingsley Top of Acting Game!  DATELINE:   Extraordinary Movie Over 30 years ago, we missed Pascali’s Island, one of those “think piece” movies that have already become an extinct movie genre. It was too good for Masterpiece Theatre in 1988, and it is too smart for audiences today. It’s a spy story set in the Ottoman Empire of 1908 where a lowly informer, Pascali (Ben Kingsley), toils…

SuperTom’s botox image DATELINE:  Botox Notwithstanding You cannot put any fancy spin on this: Tom Brady has willed himself into another Super Bowl, his tenth, while his nemesis coach will be sitting home watching on TV. On a bad team, the Buccaneers, where everyone claimed Brady would flounder, he took his TB Tompa Bay mentality to the limits. He raised the dead and cleansed the lepers. Tom is…

Lucy & Desi: Together Again

Home Movie DATELINE: Being the Ricardos    With the recent controversy over the casting of a new biographical movie about Lucy and Desi, it seemed like a good time to reconsider daughter Lucie Arnaz’s 1993 documentary about her parents, Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie. Lucie Arnaz is defending the casting of Nicole Kidman as Lucy and Javier Bardem as Desi. Indeed, we think it is most interesting to…

Geopolitical Prejudice of COVID

Not for You, Buddy!  DATELINE:  Wrong State of Being When your doctor’s office tries to tell you to register for the coronavirus vaccine and realizes they made a mistake, you may be generous enough to overlook it. In matters of life and death, however, overlooking an attempt to kill you makes you a candidate for the Congress. Every state in New England has a different way to deal with…

Shatner Looks for Atlantis

Edgar Cayce  DATELINE: Visionary and Cautionary Tales   Every other weekUnXplained gives us chopped liver, but in between we have some gemstones and meaty insights. Will William Shatner’s search for Atlantis, the Lost Continent, fall into the good group, or the stinkeroo group? Shatner is in fine fettle for the opening, always a good sign as he laces his intro with skepticism. And, the episode…

Author, Just Go Away with Your Books!

DATELINE: Unwanted Gifts Redux  Latest Affront to Re-Gifting. A friend kindly scoffed at me for a bad habit. He claimed how I had a tendency to give away gifts to people who did not necessarily want them. He was referring to my bad habit to bestow a copy of one of my books to people who have been nice to me. I usually inscribe them with thanks for some generic kindness. It is, I am told, not…