A few seconds of history

"If you imagine the 4,500 million years of Earth's history compressed into a normal earthly day, then life begins very early, about 4 a. m., with the rise of the first simple, single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next sixteen hours. Not until almost eight-thirty in the evening, with the day five-sixths over, has the Earth anything to show the universe but a restless skin of microbes. Then, finally, the first sea plants appear, followed twenty minutes later by the first gellyfish. At 9.04 p.m. trilobites swim onto the scene, followed more or less immediately by the shapely creatures of the Burgess Shale. Just before 10 p.m. plants begin to pop out on the land. Soon after, with less than two hours left in the day, the first land creatures follow.

Burgess Shale

Thanks to ten minutes or so of balmy weather, by 10.24 the Earth is covered in the great carboniferous forests whose residues give us all our coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Dinosaurs plod onto the scene just before 11 p.m. and hold sway for about three-quarters of an hour. At twenty-one minutes to midnight they vanish and the age of mammals begins. Humans emerge one minute and seventeen seconds before midnight. The whole of our recorded history, on this scale, would be no more than a few seconds, a single human lifetime barely an instant."

Bill Bryson, A short history of nearly everything

Too Big to Fail

Andrew Ross Sorkin, 2010

Stunning hardwork. It brings us right into the tense meeting rooms of the largest banks in the world and of their regulators during the 2008 financial crisis. A world which, for most people, reads like a science fiction story: it occurs in a galaxy far far away, in which the acts and decisions of a small group of people greatly impacts on the course of the universe.

23 things they don't tell you about capitalism

Ha-Joon Chang, 2011, Penguin

O tom é presunçoso e tem muitos buracos de raciocínio e de contra argumentos nas teses que defende. Ainda assim, a reflexão e alguns pontos levantados estão bem fundamentados, no mínimo interessantes e bem tirados de fora da caixa. Namely: "We need to build our new economic system on the recognition that human rationality is severly limited". "Education does not necessarily make nations richer. We need to take 'making things' more seriously.

La source des femmes

2011, Radu Mihaileanu

Tantas vezes vai o cântaro à fonte até que parte. Bonita e justa insurreição feminina numa aldeia algures entre o Norte de África e o Médio Oriente.Emancipadas ficaram bem melhor. Vem a água e pronto, está tudo bem.  

Get the Gringo

2012, Adrian Grunberg, com Mel Gibson

Não sei se as prisões Mexicanas são mesmo assim. Duvido. Mas o Mel Entretém neste mini prison break. O crime compensa.

Blue Whale

"Tongue weighs as much as an elephant, its heart is the size of a car and some of its blood vessels are so wide you could swim down them" - David Attenborough

A pesca do salmão no Iemen

Lasse Hallstrom, 2011
Leve como um salmão ao almoço num dia de sol. Não tão delicioso como devia porque o salmão é congelado e recheado de clichés.

Hamlet

Teatro da Garagem, 2012, William Shakespeare, Carlos J. Pessoa

Testemunhá-lo pela primeira vez: somos assolados por uma experiência sublime de dejá vu. É a história do Rei Leão, do Reservoir Dogs, de Fernando Pessoa. A génese do nosso questionar dobre nós próprios expresso em palavras, materializado em história. Óptimo trabalho de Carlos J. Pessoa e das gentes do teatro da Garagem.

Take Shelter

2011, Jeff Nichols

Aguardamos o desfecho curiosos, um pouco assustados até, na dúvida até ao final.

We need to talk about Kevin

2011, Lynne Ramsay, com Tilda Swinton

Perturbador, nascem as pessoas, algumas delas, com predisposição invariável para a destruição, ódio? As nossas acções, a nossa relação com elas, até que ponto podem ser elas inconsequentes?