A Russian movie set in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s reign. It explores how Stalin treated ‘counter-revolutionaries.’ The first hour of the movie should have been cut in half — the beginning is really slow — but the second half hits hard. 6/10.

Fun Fact 1

The mathematical technique called proof by induction, despite its name containing induction, is in fact deductive—shocker!

Fun Fact 2

In the philosophy of language, there’s a theory called referential semantics, which says that the meaning of an expression is the object (or objects) the expression refers to. But this leads to a problem: either a sentence refers to an object, or it does not. Consider the sentence:

(A) “The current King of France is bald.”

or its negation:

(not A) “The current King of France is not bald.”

We realize that neither (A) nor (not A) is true, because France currently has no king. On this dilemma, Russell famously remarked:

Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig.

Do you see – how bright I burn?

Set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It’s alright—a dog-eat-dog world. 6.5/10.

This is a black-and-white movie. It’s an interesting character introspection. Our protagonist is whisked away from his happy family home to New York, where he lives under the guardianship of a bank. From that point on, he never experiences love again. The only affection he receives from his guardian is material—based on money. As a result, he lives a wealthy but deeply unhappy life, unable to buy back the peace of mind he once had as a child in his family home. He pushes away all his friends and his wife, trying to fill the emptiness with material possessions—statues and paintings he collects from around the world.

Kane: You know, Mr. Thatcher, if I hadn’t been very rich, I might have been a really great man.
Thatcher: Don’t you think you are?
Kane: I think I did pretty well under the circumstances.
Thatcher: What would you like to have been?
Kane: Everything you hate.

For a film considered one of the greatest of all time, I expected more. That said, for its era, it was probably very innovative. 7/10.