Well, it's been a few weeks, some rather quiet and uneventful, but others pretty busy, with some international travel (!) thrown in for good measure. Plane rides? Great for movies (This one will be long)
So on the movie front, in the past few weeks, I've managed to cross a few of them off my list. In the current time frame, K and I went to see Licorice Pizza, a clearly nostalgia-driven movie for people just slightly older than me, but one I could relate to (other than me being from Jersey, and the movie about the movie scene in California). It was cute, with a traditional ending, but not one that I would necessarily think was best picture worthy. I also had to look up what Licorice Pizza was after the movie, 'cause there was no reference. Duh, vinyl records.....
We also watched Drive My Car, a Japanese-language film (mostly) that explored close relationships as well as the distances we create (including separation of language, and culture even within a language). Good film. Long film. Lots of reading (for me), but it was rich with metaphor, and I found myself drawn into some of the themes in ways I don't always recognize. Potentially Oscar-worthy, but might not have the weight this year, given the win by foreign-language Parasite last year. On a side note, I've now seen 7 of the 10 Oscar contenders....I think that is a record for me ahead of the actual awards.
Speaking of long films, I decided March would be War Movie month. I started on my flight to Rome (and then from Rome to Amsterdam - did I mention long film?) with Lawrence of Arabia. Coming in at 3:45, I knew I needed the time to spend on this one. Excellent film, with beautiful scenery (that you looked at a lot) and a few epic scenes. The acting was typical of the era, but I really like Peter O'Toole and the slow development of Lawrence from an arrogant, minor functionary to what appears to be his view of himself as a messiah, albeit with periodic realization of the fact that he was simply a man, and how the 'system' kept pushing him into that leadership role.
Another megalomaniacal movie - Patton, with George C. Scott. This wasn't the development of a messiah - this guy thought he was the thing from the start. Clearly a strong historian, (and maybe a reincarnated soldier/general?) based on this movie, Patton clearly believed he was the solution to all of the military problems of the day, but was constantly frustrated by the elements of leadership other than the straight out fighting that he wanted to do, and he wanted his men to do. It was tough to figure out how to view this film - was it an honorific of a man who certainly accomplished great things in WWII, or a bit of a satire about the disconnectedness of generals (and field marshals) from the wants, needs, and plight of the people they commanded. At various points in the movie, it seemed like both, so I suppose both the generation that fought in the war, and those who (at the time) were protesting Vietnam could see what they wanted to see.
Next up, my plan is to go WAY back to the movie Wings, the first Oscar best picture, about a couple of World War I pilots, and then finish the month with Platoon, a more recent film about the horror of war. I've got another set of long plane rides coming up, so I'll probably use one of those.
On the book front - I read Doctor Futurity by PK Dick, and I'm now reading The World Jones Made. I am again impressed by the diversity of futures this author created, often with limited cross-over in them (other than super human flight speeds - a taxi from Detroit to San Francisco in under 30 minutes? Sign me up!) Doctor Futurity was excellent in its portrayal of time travel, and the dogged consistency that explorations in this genre require, right down to the end scenes. Jones also deals with time, in that one character simultaneously lives in the today, and in the world one year in the future, and knows what happens in both (so he feels like he's re-living a life). I'm not done with this yet, but I like where they have taken it so far.
Next up: a PKD break (although I have three more books on the nightstand) and a venture into Moscow in the early 20th century, with A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. Sci-Fi is great, but one needs to get back to Earth once in a while.
