My deep affection for the Charlie Chan films began one summer Saturday afternoon in 1976, when my nine-year-old self found a Chan/Sherlock-Holmes double feature on Philadelphia’s now-defunct Channel 48. By March 1977, Channel 48 was rotating through the 22 films from Charlie Chan in London (1934) to Castle in the Desert (1942) every Saturday night … Continue reading Charlie Chan and Film Noir, Part 2
Author: Matt Berger
I am a data geek, writer, investigator and film noir devotee with academic training in political science (Yale BA, Harvard MA), biostatistics (Boston University SPH MA) and epidemiology (Boston University SPH PhD). In January 2021, I finished writing Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History...and My Own, which I published through Interrogating Memory Press (via BookBaby) in May 2002. In Chapter 6: So...What Is Film Noir, Again?, I analyze my film noir database, which contains 4,825 titles. My musical holy trinity is Genesis, Miles Davis and Stan Ridgway. I am a liberal Democrat who understands a thriving democracy requires at least two mature political parties. I grew up just outside Philadelphia, and I live just outside Boston, where my wife and daughters keep me happy, sane and grounded. Please ask me anything else you want to know.
Charlie Chan and Film Noir, Part 1
About 11 minutes into Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935), Nayda—a young Egyptian maid—first walks onto the screen. She delivers some cigarettes and leaves without saying a word. “Nayda” is credited to “Rita Cansino.” Rita Cansino (born Marguerita Carmen Cansino) would later adopt her mother’s maiden name—Hayworth. As Rita Hayworth, she would star in the film … Continue reading Charlie Chan and Film Noir, Part 1
Rating Doctor Who, post “reboot,” episode 3
In a previous post, I posed the following question (edited for brevity): Which of the 131 Doctor Who episodes (115 Series episodes, 12 Christmas episodes, three 10th Doctor specials, 50th anniversary special), nine Series’ and four Doctors have been the most (and least) admired since Rose first aired on March 26, 2005? I then posed a … Continue reading Rating Doctor Who, post “reboot,” episode 3
Rating Doctor Who, post “reboot,” episode 2
In a previous post, I posed the following question (edited for brevity): Which of the 131 Doctor Who episodes, nine Series’ and four Doctors have been the most (and least) admired since Rose first aired on March 26, 2005? We learned that AI scores, IMDB ratings, and number of IMDB user-raters for each episode reveal: … Continue reading Rating Doctor Who, post “reboot,” episode 2
Yeah, 2016 was awful, but…
Let’s put aside, for now, what a band/choir consisting of David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, George Michael, Merle Haggard, Greg Lake, Keith Emerson, Maurice White, Glenn Frey, Mose Allison, Leon Russell, Sharon Jones and who-am-I-forgetting would sound like. Or what sort of film Robert Stigwood (Producer), Garry Marshall (Director) and Vilmos Zsigmond (Cinematographer) could have … Continue reading Yeah, 2016 was awful, but…
Rating Doctor Who, post “reboot,” episode 1
Maybe it was because my wife had gotten me to watch Love Actually the night before, but I found the romance aspect of The Return of Doctor Mysterioso, the 2016 Doctor Who Christmas special, more compelling than the “aliens attack Earth on Christmas” aspect. Come to think of it, there was not much Christmas in the … Continue reading Rating Doctor Who, post “reboot,” episode 1
Bipartisan, half of the time…
My first political memory is asking my parents for whom they were voting for president in 1972, President Richard Nixon or Democrat George McGovern. “McGovern” my parents said. And just like that, at the age of six, I became a Democrat. I am still a proud Democrat. Wait, you ask. Isn’t this blog a repository … Continue reading Bipartisan, half of the time…
Welcome, and just bear with me…
The title of this blog is “Just Bear With Me…” When I tell a story, to me every detail and out-of-nowhere sidebar is part of an informational gestalt, but to a listener it can sound like a load of extraneous detail punctuated by annoying pauses to recall more extraneous details.
The point is that, like most of us, I like to tell stories, and I have my own way to tell them. I particularly like telling stories resulting from the collection and analysis of data points. And I do get to the point…eventually.
Just Bear With Me... 