Michael Moore's documentary 'Where to Invade Next'.

A couple of days ago I had finally the chance to watch Michael Moore's latest documentary 'Where to Invade Next'. I had wanted to see the film, because over the years I've learned to expect a lot from his documentaries.

I also wanted to see the movie, because in this film Moore manages to visit my country and pays attention to its education system.  Naturally as a Finnish citizen, I had to know what was going on and what he thought about our society.

In any case, in 'Where to Invade Next', Moore visits mostly European countries trying to figure out what these nations do better than the United States does. Moore tries to find out what Americans could  learn from their European brothers and sisters.

The documentary begins in Italy, where it seems that people have pretty much managed to figure out the meaning of life. These weird Italians seem to enjoy their work, their life, their food, their sex and  .. their holidays.

Moore wonders how it is possible that Italians get up to eight weeks of paid holidays every year. How is that possible when you consider that americans by default don't get a single paid day-off in The United States?

He manages to interview a lovely, ordinary Italian couple that globe-trots around the world every year. For them it's the most obvious thing - and the fact that people in The States don't demand these same rights scares the crap out of them.

In Italy Moore also has an interview with people who are in charge of Italian companies. For them too it's the most natural thing to take care of their employees - and that as long as their companies are profitable, making extra money isn't that important.

This same pattern of inquiry continues once Moore leaves Italy and lands in France. There he pays attention to the quality of school lunches and how different the culture is in France compared to The United States.

Not surprisingly, these lovely kids in the little town of Normandy (pic above) don't enjoy mcnuggets and pizza slices for their school meals. Instead, every day in school they enjoy healthy gourmet meals that nourish both their bodies and the souls.

It's just hilarious to watch how the kids reject the idea of consuming unhealthy american food. Moore showing these kids pictures the stuff that students consume back in The States makes them even more turned off.

Even based on these two countries, it becomes obvious that 'America' could do a lot better than it is currently doing. Clearly there's something wrong about the way things are done and that things should change.

But that's not all, since later in the documentary Moore visits other countries and shows other examples too. There's the Finnish education system, The German history curriculum and the Norwegian prison system that is based on rehabilitation.

These are all good examples that not only make you think but also make you feel. Especially the part about how Germans are taught to not forget the horrors of the Holocaust is touching and illustrates how countries can learn from their past sins.

It's not really until Moore arrives in Tunisia in Africa, when the documentary starts to get a bit too unfocused. This is when I started to get tired, lost my concentration and felt that the film should have been slightly different.

I mean, it's not that the segment about Tunisia wasn't 'important' per se, but it should probably have been made to look more like a montage, instead of the film spending ten minutes on stuff that I didn't found to be that entertaining or crucial.

Also when it came to Moore visiting Iceland - the country where its people managed to revolt, break up the banks and send their crooked executives to jail - I noticed that I didn't pay that much attention to what was going on in the film.

Nevertheless, when it comes to this documentary as a whole, even though there are certain problems with the film, these flaws at least in my opinion don't hurt it too much. Clearly the positives outweigh the negatives.

By that I mean that there's a lot of entertaining, funny and poignant stuff going on almost throughout the movie. All these good aspects make the documentary the kind of film that everyone should watch at least at some point.

At the same time, I just wish that the film had been edited a bit better and that it had had a better narrative. In that case, Michael Moore's 'Where to Invade Next' would have been a totally awesome documentary from start to finish.

The importance of having good routines in your life.

A couple of months ago, after not being able to do it for some years, I managed to get back to running and exercising again. I managed to start a workout routine that has helped me in getting back in shape again. 

By that I mean that for the last ten weeks or so, every other day I have managed to go at least for an hour long workout. During these exercises I have managed to either run, ride a bike or lift weights to feel better about myself.

This change in my habits has reminded me again how important it is to have these activities in our everyday lives. These good habits and routines have made it a lot more easier to get other things done in life too.

In my opinion, the best thing about routines is that having them makes things happen almost automatically. You don't always have to pay that much attention to what you're doing or worry about whether you'll get things done.

When it comes to running, a lot of the time I went jogging even when I didn't feel like doing that at all. Even when my mind said that I was too tired and that I'd skip the day, my body said that I was going to get things done.

It's not even wrong to say that I had become hooked on exercising and that I had no choice except to get through these workouts. I had to do them, because otherwise I wouldn't have felt good either physically or mentally.

Yet, even though I got addicted on exercising, it's not a bad thing to be dependent on routines like these. Running and exercising are known for all their health benefits and other positive effects that they bring to our lives.

After all, who wouldn't like to go out for a run and feel better about themselves? Who wouldn't like to enjoy some fresh air, clear one's mind and forget many of the negative thoughts that tend to bother us too often.

In any case, when it comes to having routines in our lives, the truth is that we need to have habits that as a whole are good for us. We need to come up with routines and positive addictions that in the long run are beneficial and won't hurt us.

If we're able to come up with these habits, not only do we manage to do good things to ourselves - but in the long run, there's a good chance that we might also help others and make them feel good about their lives too.

Silicon Valley's third season premiere.

A couple of days ago I noticed that the third season premiere for HBO's 'Silicon Valley' had just aired. I had my expectations high, considering that the show had been pretty good last year and had provided solid entertainment.

I mean, it's not exactly a secret that during its second season the series improved quite a bit from its uneven first season. The series was now much more consistent and didn't suffer from as many flaws anymore.

So having now seen S3e01, 'Founder Friendly', I have to say that unfortunately the season premiere wasn't nearly as good as I expected it to be. There were a lot of problems with the episode ranging from bad storytelling to weird character behavior.

Probably the biggest problem I had with the season opener was that it didn't feel believable or organic in almost any way. It felt too much like I was watching a sketch show that didn't really know what it was trying to be.

Not only were there a lot of the scenes that didn't make much sense storywise, most of the characters didn't make sense either. I couldn't relate to what the characters were doing and it felt like they weren't likable at all.

Even the very first scene made me scratch my head, when our demoted main character Richard was only able to talk about himself.  That 'cold open' felt so out of character to me that it made me feel pretty nervous about the episode.

Unfortunately, it got only worse when Richard got to the meeting with his financiers. For some reason he simply couldn't understand that he had screwed up too many times as the CEO of his company and that they needed fresh blood.

It didn't also help that other characters were also unbearable in the episode. Dinesh and Gilfoyle for example were completely unlikable and 'sketchy' when they were talking about what would happen to them in Pied Piper.

I couldn't believe that after spending all that time in the firm, they couldn't take their situation more seriously and resorted to making 'jokes'. I couldn't believe that it was all about them and not about the company as a whole.

Yet, easily the worst thing about the episode was the scene with Hooli's CEO Gavin Belson giving his speech. This scene that was written as a faux-emotional sketch was so bad that it honestly made me pretty mad.

I mean, clearly the writers should have tried something else than misleading the audience after having had so many problems with the episode already. It didn't help at all that they were trying to be more clever than they were.

In any case, I'm not saying that there weren't any good things about Silicon Valley's season premiere. There were some jokes and moments that managed to work pretty well and that even managed to make me laugh.

At the same time, it was pretty clear that this was not a good episode as a whole. There were too many instances where it was clear that the story wasn't a priority and that the writers paid more attention to other things.

In the end, I can only hope that in the next episode they'll pay more attention to the story and the characters. In the long run, that's the only way you can make the series work and keep us interested in watching the show.

You shouldn't get too confident as a writer.

One of the most important things about being a writer is that you need to trust yourself and your instincts. You need to have the confidence to think that you're good at what you're doing and that there's a reason for you being a scribe.

At the same time, it's important that you don't get too confident about your talent and your abilities. If you get too arrogant or too certain about your skills, bad things might happen that might get you in a lot of trouble. 

I have thought about this lately, because recently I have had some genuinely awful writing days. I haven't been able to write material that at least in my opinion was entertaining, plausible or truthful enough.

During those days, no matter how hard I tried and no matter how many hours I spent writing and rewriting, I couldn't make things work well enough. Fixing even the simplest things turned out to be almost impossible.

So I tried to think about why this had happened and what were the likely reasons behind it. I thought about things that could have contributed to me not writing well and that could have explained why I was in rewriting hell.

It didn't take that long before I understood that the reason I had been writing bad stuff was likely because I had been too confident. I had felt too certain about myself, which led to me making mistakes that I normally wouldn't make.

The thing is that even though it's obviously a good thing to have confidence, we shouldn't ever get too confident about our abilities. Getting too cocky about our 'talents' will get us in trouble almost all the time.

Instead, we should always be aware of the kinds of mistakes that hurt us the most. Those mistakes that we're prone to make are the exact things that we should keep in mind whenever we try to write good stuff.

In my case, I probably started making mistakes because I had too much energy after getting back in shape again. I likely thought that it didn't matter whether I was mentally alert or whether I had thought about my ideas enough.

In reality though, I should have thought a lot more about what I was doing and why. I should have been less confident about writing 'awesome' material, so that things could have been a little bit easier for me.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened with my writing task last week. Instead of getting the basics right, I got too confident, screwed up big time and ended up spending way too much time before my stuff looked decent again.

The series finale for Hulu's '11.22.63'.

For me it wasn't that easy to start watching the final episode of Hulu's miniseries, '11.22.63'. I wasn't really that motivated to check the finale, because for so many episodes the series had managed to disappoint me.

Probably the biggest problem I had had with the series was how little it had to do with actual history. There were so many problems with the facts that for any serious student of the assassination it was very hard not to get frustrated. 

Yet, even though I had not liked at all the episode that had aired before the finale, I decided to give the series one more chance. The show had already failed us when it came to being accurate, so it couldn't get much worse.

Surprisingly enough, even though the last episode still tried to sell us the idea that Oswald was the assassin, it turned out that it wasn't that bad. I actually managed to enjoy it much more than I had thought at first.

I mean, yes, it is true that in the finale James Franco's character does prevent Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating the president. He manages to pull off what he was supposed to do when he decided to go back in time.

At the same time, what I liked about the series finale is that there was a lot of emphasis on things that happened after Franco's character manages to save JFK. All these things mattered at least as much, if not even more. 

For example, when Franco's character got arrested, it was fascinating to watch when the feds and the Dallas Police Department go after him. It becomes obvious that he's in huge trouble, especially considering what his 'explanation' was.

What I also liked about the finale was that it wasn't only about stopping the assassination from happening. It was also about Franco's character's personal life and how he tried to manage and control it as much as possible.

By that I mean that the final episode was also about how he wasn't able to change history the way he wanted. In his personal life he had to make difficult decisions and grow as a person, which I found to be rather touching and even uplifting.

In any case, when it comes to judging the series as a whole, it helped that the finale turned out to be better than I thought. The fact that it was entertaining enough more or less saved the miniseries from being a total disappointment.

Even though there clearly were a lot of problems with the facts - like that Oswald didn't kill JFK -  I have to say that I still managed to like '11.22.63'. There were enough redeeming qualities that made me enjoy watching the series at least most of the time.

At the same time, if only the show should have been better researched and historically more accurate than it was. In that case Hulu's '11.22.63' would not only have been a more truthful show, but it almost certainly would have been a better series too.

Things don't look too good for Modern Family.

When Modern Family's five year reign at the Emmy's ended last October, I couldn't help but to wonder what would happen to the show. I was hoping that perhaps the creator of the series, Steve Levitan would react and work harder on the series now.

After all, clearly he has been the best writer on the show and the person who knows how to make me care about the characters. If only he would get his motivation back so that he would churn some quality scripts again.

Unfortunately, recently it was reported in the news that our talented showrunner was going through a nasty divorce with his wife. This turn of events was something that wasn't expected and honestly made me pretty sad.

I'm obviously disappointed, because I'm very much a family person myself. I don't think there's anything more important in life than being around with people that you can care about and who also care about you.

I'm also disappointed because even though I don't know him personally, through his episodes I've learned to respect his sense of humor. I've learned to respect his ability to write solid scripts that have consistently managed to entertain me.

Having said that, when it comes to his impending divorce, I couldn't help but to notice that the timing of it is pretty unfortunate. At least when it comes to me, I couldn't help but to wonder why it might have happened.

By that I mean that the filing of the papers wasn't that far off from last October's Emmy Awards. It seems almost too much of a coincidence that just two months after his five-year winning streak ended, things went south in his private life.

In his case, I can only hope that the show getting shut out at the Emmys didn't lead to a some sort of a mid-life crisis. I can only hope that the reason his wife went rage mode is not because he pulled a 'John Edwards' on her.

I mean, I might be totally wrong, but it doesn't look that good when your wife of almost 24 years suddenly tries to get a restraining order against you. Clearly something serious must have happened that deeply upset her.

In any case, the whole thing is very unfortunate and doesn't make me feel optimistic about this show's future. Not only is Modern Family's showrunner in trouble now, but in all honesty the series hasn't been delivering lately either.

It's just too bad, but unless those who are in charge of the show get their act together, this series is going be done pretty soon. It would be a shame, because for so many years Modern Family has been the best comedy on tv. 

Fact checking the first six episodes of 11.22.63.

If you have been watching Hulu's miniseries 11.22.63 and don't know how accurate the show is, there are some things you should know about it. I'll try to bring up the facts that matter the most when it comes to the 'Oswald did it alone' theory. 

1) Jack Ruby was not a fan of John F. Kennedy in real life. 

In the first episode of the series, Jake and Bill go to a bar owned by Jack Ruby. They happen to meet him and based on the encounter you get the impression that Ruby had a positive opinion of president Kennedy - even though he did not like or vote for him.

Two days after the assassination of JFK, Ruby kills Oswald in the basement of Dallas police department. His reason for killing Oswald was that he wanted to spare Jackie Kennedy from testifying at the murder trial.

In reality though, Ruby silenced Oswald in order to keep the conspiracy from unraveling. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in the late 70's that Ruby killing Oswald was a conspiracy that involved Dallas police officers.

2) Oswald likely didn't try to kill General Walker.

The biggest story vehicle in the first five episodes is the question whether Oswald tried to kill General Walker. The logic is that if Oswald was behind that attempt, then he was likely behind JFK's assassination too.

The problem with this is that General Walker was a clear fascist, whereas JFK was seen as a communist. It's pretty illogical that Oswald would try to kill people that represented both 'extremes' of the political spectrum.

In addition to that, not only did Walker tell the Warren Commission that the bullet he picked up wasn't from Oswald's Mannlicher Carcano, an eyewitness also saw two people running away - which proves that if Oswald was involved, he wasn't alone.

3) George de Mohrenschildt didn't see Oswald after april 1963.

It is true that during the last visit he does joke about Oswald having something to do with the general Walker shooting. Yet, de Mohrenschildt stopped having contact with Oswald a week after the Walker incident.

I suppose the fact that de Mohrenschildt  - on the show - keeps having contact with Oswald all the way till late October 1963 was because the writers of the series wanted to keep the characters to an absolute minimum.

Not surprisingly, the moment when de Mohrenschildt tells about JFK hating communists is a complete fabrication. In real life, Oswald knew well that president Kennedy was in favor of diplomacy and wanted to have a good relationship with the Soviets.

4) Oswald had other CIA connections too.

One of the big problems with the series is that it tries to argue that Oswald had no other CIA connections than the white russian geologist de Mohrenschildt. This way it might look like there was no conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

In reality though, the list of Lee Harvey Oswald's CIA contacts is so extensive that it might even be easier to point out the people who weren't connected to CIA than those who were connected to our 'lone nut' Oswald.

Oswald had contacts like David Ferrie, Richard Case Nagell, Clay Shaw, David Atlee Phillips (aka JM/Wave's Maurice Bishop) and Ruth and Michael Paine. All these people were either CIA agents or at the very least CIA assets.

5) How Oswald got the job at the Texas School Book Depository.

In the sixth episode there's no mention of how Oswald got the job at the book depository in Dallas. All we are shown is that Oswald goes to a meeting and talks pretty good game with the boss (superintendent Roy Truly).

What makes the whole thing so interesting is that the person who actually got Oswald the job at 'sniper's nest' was Ruth Paine. She's the person that Marina Oswald was living with in the episode and who told Lee that things were going to get better.

In reality, Ruth and her husband Michael Paine's families were heavily involved with CIA activities. Ruth Paine was very likely at least a low-level participant in the conspiracy (she turned down a better job opportunity for Oswald).

6) Oswald was a terrible shot and couldn't hit targets.

Finally, possibly the worst thing about the sixth episode is the scene in which Oswald goes to the shooting range to target practice. This is when he keeps bullseyeing and shows that he's supposedly capable of killing the president.

In reality, not only was Oswald a terrible shot when he was in the marines (he used to completely miss targets), there's also no credible evidence that the 'lone nut' Oswald practiced with a rifle after getting back from Russia.

Let's also not forget the fact that not even the best rifle experts have been able to duplicate Oswald's 'achievement'. That makes it even more difficult to believe that Oswald could have killed JFK on that fateful day.