Paul Levinson
Bio
Novels The Silk Code, The Plot To Save Socrates, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Prof, Fordham Univ.
Stories (698/0)
Review of 'For All Mankind' 4.3-4.5
So, at this point in the story, episodes 4.3-4.4 of For All Mankind, Gorbachev didn't make it too far into the 21st century. He's been forcibly replaced in the Soviet Union by Korzhenko, a hardliner. So my hope that Putin would not come to power was fulfilled only by one fascist leader replaced by another, or a Putin coming to power with just a different name.
By Paul Levinson5 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'Who Killed JFK?' Episodes 7-8
Given the depth of the pain I and everyone I know felt about the assassination of JFK in November 1963, it's hard to fathom how many different people fervently wanted it. The seventh episode of the Who Killed JFK podcast with Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brien makes the case for three groups, in particular: the CIA, Cuban exiles, and the Mafia.
By Paul Levinson5 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'The Way Home' Season 1
So, I got the email from TVLine yesterday, alerting me to Rebecca Iannucci's 10 Hidden Gems You May Have Missed From This Year’s TV, and was delighted to find The Way Home on the Hallmark Channel on the list of ten, starting with this comment, "Scoff at a Hallmark Channel series’ inclusion on this list if you must, but we were quickly captivated by this time travel drama".
By Paul Levinson5 months ago in Geeks
Review of 'Who Killed JFK' Episodes 5-6
Wikipedia says "sheep dipping is the immersion of sheep in water containing insecticides and fungicide." On another Wiki page, we learn that sheep dipping in military idiom is "to formally, and usually temporarily, transfer military equipment or personnel to non-military ownership for the purpose of its employment in covert action with less risk of triggering armed conflict."
By Paul Levinson5 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial'
Today is the 43rd anniversary of John Lennon's assassination. The older I get, the more clear I am that Lennon's murder, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, are the two most deforming events of the history that has taken place in my life. And of the two, Lennon's was the worst, since he was one of the most wondrous singer-songwriters who ever lived, which I think is more rare that even a great President.
By Paul Levinson5 months ago in Beat
- Top Story - December 2023
Review of 'Slow Horses' 3.1-3.3Top Story - December 2023
Whew! The first two episodes of the third season of Slow Horses begin (after a prelude) with a shot at Ringo, of all people, with River telling Catherine he doesn't want to waste time on a file because it's "Ringo-level". I wasn't completely sure this was about the Ringo -- Ringo Starr -- but who else could it be, I mean, it surely wasn't about Johnny Ringo, the out-West outlaw. But I didn't know for sure until a bit later in the first episode, when there's talk about "George-level" as below "John-level" and "Paul-level," so yeah, the new season is off with a bang,
By Paul Levinson5 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'Who Killed JFK? Episode 4'
Episode 4 of Who Killed JFK, the podcast with Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brien, was just put up today. It's all about Lee Harvey Oswald, prior to his day in the Texas Book Depository, or wherever he was on that terrible day in 1963 when JFK was assassinated. This episode tells us of his conditioning or brainwashing by the CIA, resulting in his false defection to the Soviet Union. A lot of this reminded me of The Manchurian Candidate.
By Paul Levinson6 months ago in The Swamp
Who Killed JFK?
Rob Reiner and I have a lot in common regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 -- the awful anniversary of which is today. Reiner first learns about the assassination, as he tells us in the podcast he's doing with Soledad O'Brien, in his high school physics class, when he was 16. I first found out about the assassination in my calculus class, which I was taking as a freshman in the City College of New York, when I too was 16. (In fact, we were both born in March 1947 in The Bronx. I was in the "SP"s, which New Yorkers might recall meant that you skipped 8th grade, which would explain why I was a year ahead of Reiner.) We both read and were very impressed by Mark Lane's Rush to Judgement, the 1966 book that attacked the Warren Commission's conclusion that one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, had been responsible for killing JFK. And most important, Reiner and I both felt and feel to this very day that the Warren Commission and the American government has been lying to us all these years about who killed JFK.
By Paul Levinson6 months ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Lazarus Project' Season One
So, a friend in the UK -- James Harris -- who knows how much I enjoy time travel stories (as a reader, a viewer, a reviewer, and an author) recommended The Lazarus Project, and sent me a link to a trailer, for its second season. I figured before I watched even a trailer for the second season, I might as well watch the first season, which I just did -- and thought it was brilliant -- and then discovered that although the second season debuted in the UK this month, it has not yet made it over to this side of the Atlantic. Why TV series can't be released at the same time all around the world, I have no idea. But rather than keep complaining about that, I thought I'd tell you why I not only think the first season of The Lazarus Project (which I binged on TNT) is brilliant, but the best time-travel series I've ever seen on television, bar none.
By Paul Levinson6 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'Bosch: Legacy 2.7-2.10'
A superb quartet of concluding episodes of the second season of Bosch: Legacy, put up last week and last night on Amazon Prime Video. Every one of these episodes had the masterful dialogue, riveting action, and mix of surprise and satisfaction that comes from seeing characters behave as you ultimately expect -- all of which typify Bosch at its best, which this second season of Legacy certainly is, as I've been saying all along.
By Paul Levinson6 months ago in Criminal