Books and Movies - a few throwbacks

 Two weeks ago, I got to watch two classic movies.  

After years of hearing about it, I finally watched Taxi Driver, Yes, I'm probably one of the few people my age who had never seen it, but it's just so often referenced in pop culture, I felt the need (even though it wasn't an Oscar winner, which is my current quest).  In short, it was a good movie in the context of what New York was like at the time, but there were elements I just didn't fully get.  Travis Bickle's descent into what he became wasn't as cohesive as I would have preferred....it felt like I missed a key 1-2 minutes of the movie that would have explained more of that.  The ending was certainly ambiguous in many ways, and in a good way - it does leave it to the viewer to sort out reality and the implications for the future.  Certainly not a pure "American" ending, where everything works out for everybody.

Less ambiguous of an ending came in my other film for the weekend, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.  I selected this one due to the recent loss of Sidney Poitier (whose best film was, of course, with Robert Redford - the classic Sneakers 😀 ). I really enjoyed this one, even though the premise of the film was intentionally uncomfortable.  I viewed it as a comedy, surrounding the various reactions of the characters in the film, but Poitier's steady performance really was striking....an island of calm in waters with turbulence just below the surface.  His portrayal of understanding of 'his place' only reinforced what I took to be the message of the movie - that we are all dealing with race relations, and it takes calm, rational thought to overcome the inherent biases we have against 'the other'.  It's a message that frankly still resonates in many ways in today's America.  

Finally, on my book pursuit to read everything by Philip K Dick.  This week, The Cosmic Puppets, a dramatic departure from the last two books I read.  While those read like precursors for Sci-Fi classic movies, this one was a Twilight Zone episode.  The initial premise is that a man returns to his hometown after 18 years to find everything different.  That's not surprising, as it has happened to many people after a long absence.  This is more than just years of progress though - all of the streets have been renamed, different buildings stand where old ones used to be, and no one remembers the same history that he does.  Soon, paranormal activities start happening, leading to a battle clearly between good and evil, though as readers, we're not sure which is which.  There's also an underlying theme about the value of remembering the places from which you came, which is an echo from some of his earlier work as well, and will probably arise in other novels.