sarah sosiak

TV: Carrier

Speaking of fantastic documentaries, I meant to post about Carrier back when I was watching it last fall. The 10-episode series from PBS follows the crew of an aircraft carrier on a six-month deployment from San Diego to the Persian Gulf and back. From hulu.com:

In the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles from nowhere, a floating city rises above the sea. Twenty-four stories high, three football fields long, carrying 5,000 sailors and marines and 85 military aircraft - this is the USS Nimitz. From May to November 2005, a team of documentary filmmakers embedded aboard the USS Nimitz as it deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The result is a raw and honest look at the United States Navy and its role at a critical turning point in the controversial war. With startling intimacy, CARRIER follows a core group of subjects as they navigate personal conflicts around their jobs, family, faith, patriotism, and the rites of passage - all against the extraordinary backdrop of the war in Iraq.

When I was midway through the series, a coworker who’d finished it warned that gets “intense”. And...whoa...yes it does. It’s rare that I get teary at television, but this caught me a few times.

The entire series is available for free on PBS and Hulu (though, I think video from both those sites is blocked outside the US). The DVD is available on Amazon and Netflix.

The opening of the first episode gives a great overview of the show (watch until about seven minutes in):

Film: The English Surgeon

I saw a fantastic documentary last night: The English Surgeon. It follows a British neurosurgeon as he and an Ukrainian surgeon work to diagnose and treat patients in a make-shift clinic set up in a KGB hospital. The film is a fascinating look into neurosurgery, life in Ukraine, and the disparity in the level of care available in the two countries.

The film focuses on the treatment of a man suffering epilepsy brought on by a brain tumour, and shows (in graphic-but-fascinating detail) the surgery to remove it. The staff can’t perform the usual protocol where the patient is put to sleep while the skull is opened, then woken for the tumour removal (so that critical areas of the brain can be mapped and avoided), so he remains awake for the entire procedure. Amazing to watch.

Highly recommended if you’re interested in healthcare, neurology, life in Ukraine or just good documentaries in general.

The trailer (warning, a few medically graphic moments):

 Where/how to see it:

• San Francisco: Catch it at the Red Vic tonight or tomorrow.
• New York: A run starts at Cinema Village on July 24th
• The DVD is available in the UK now, and comes out in the US (and Canada?) September 8th. (It’s available for queuing on Netflix and pre-order on Amazon now.)

photos from big sur

 

At the end of last month, I drove down to Big Sur for a few days close to nature, and far from technology. (Need to be unreachable? A 150km long cellphone dead-zone starts just south of Monterey.) As anyone who’s been here will tell you, the area is simply stunning. Mountains, water, plants, wildlife, a fun stretch of Highway 1 and little else.

I stayed at an excellent family-run resort called Treebones, a collection of campsites and yurts nestled in the hills above the ocean. Highly recommended. The atmosphere was relaxed, the yurts were a nice compromise between camping and…well…not camping, and I met some interesting people* over breakfasts and dinners on the communal deck. The only downside was that coziness and amazing views made it hard to venture further afield. I did a bit of hiking around the south end of Big Sur, but left with a list of places left to visit on a return trip.

Slide show below (and on Flickr):

* Including a man from Scotland cycling from Seattle to Miami, via Los Angeles (and writing a great blog about the trip), and a couple I have a connection to via a friend from New Brunswick. Small world.

photos from seattle

A few weeks back, I flew up to Seattle for a long weekend of catching up with friends, eating fish and lazing in cafes waiting out the rain. I fell back into my habit of forgetting to take photos of people, but otherwise like this how this set came together.

Slide show below (and on Flickr):