You've probably noticed the steep drop off in movie reviews, in my blogs, over the years. That's not because I no longer see movies, or stopped writing. I'm just switching it up some. "Maybe I'll do the movie stuff on Facebook" might be the thought.
Search on "(movie review)" in all three of these, to see what's here up to now. My writing style is impressionistic because I'm not in a commercial business mode when I journal. I'm more in a reverie, mixing movie content with personal circumstances, in a stream of consciousness. However, that's not an unusual genre really. It's what one might expect from some blogger.
That period when we had total access to the Laughing Horse Books collection is especially prized. I saw so many obscure documentaries. LHB was what passed for a radical left (meaning interesting) bookstore here in Portland, helping put us on the map. This store had more than one location over the years, including right nearby my place here on SE Division.
My house guest was using LHB has a hub, hoping to break into the music circuit, and succeeding in the context of Belmont Street. I was in roadie mode (using her car), gaining experience with the nightclub scene (she was already a veteran, from Savannah). In this chapter, the store was just north of East Burnside. She'd do these sleeping bag fundraisers where the price of admission was an old sleeping bag donation, which pile she'd then donate to a houseless supply center (camping inventory).
Because my housemate (basement digs) was part of the LHB anarcho-organizational management structure, we were able to borrow from the VHS library pretty much at will. We'd return them. This wasn't about taking over curation, more simply benefiting from having access to a stellar collection. You'd do the same, right? VHS was a golden age of affordable and unrestricted recording technology.
A topic to delve into: the Spanish "civil war" which, as usual, was interfered in by all the other powers seeking to find something advantageous in the altercation. Check out Ernest Hemingway's role. Germany was eager to try things like carpet bombings, to the envy of many bomb-happy Americans.
Which side the Yanks would intervene on was not always that clear. Ford Sr. was leaning strongly towards the Reich idea. As shown in that Amazon Prime show (The Man in the High Castle), the USA had some amenable (as in capitulating) elements. Ford later changed his mind, good capitalist that he was (i.e. able to mess with his own head, adept at self reprogramming).
They say Netflix is about to end its mail order DVD service (a way I've been a past customer). But wasn't that collection much bigger than what's available through streaming? What level of dumbing down are we talking about here? I'll be scanning the internet for some clues, and not bothering Chat GPT 3 or 4 about it, as they're not really up to date on any of the latest gossip.
Anyway, here's something I posted to Facebook recently, along with the above picture, and followed with some animated GIFs.
I've seen a lot of YouTubers dumping on Disney for supposedly vacuous remakes with no point other than "race swapping". My response, having just seen the new Little Mermaid preview (before Super Mario Bros):
* remaking perennial fairytales is not an issue. Every generation gets a chance to remake the oldies and pass them on. If we live long enough, we'll see remake after remake of childrens favorites. We might get cynical and grumpy about it, but Disney knows better. Keep on keepin' on.
* having seen only the preview, this remake looks just fine. The little mermaid is great. I don't see any reason mermaids should be nordic characters as nordic seas are too cold and you have all these nasty humans doing their war game crap. Much better the warmer climes, where people aren't uber-pale. In the mythology I grew up with, merpeople were going back to the sea, as mammals, having decided landlubber lifestyles (and their practitioners) suck to high heaven, except maybe in Polynesia.
