Ever since I re-activated my Netflix account, I have been diligently adding movies and television shows to my queue. Old movies and new ones. Old TV shows and new.
But, I can't seem to watch even one movie in full. I did watch a French movie--yes, with subtitles--but hit the pause button more than once. I slept through a couple of movies. It is awful.
I thought it is only contemporary full-length fiction that I found unappealing. Now, even movies and television shows?
So, the rational, scientific me set up a hypothesis. Similar to how I tend to re-read the old classics, I wondered whether I might enjoy watching again some of the classics that I loved.
I scanned through the Netflix library. I wanted to test the hypothesis with Pillow Talk. That Rock Hudson/Doris Day comedy seemed just right for the summer.
But, Netflix didn't have that as a streaming option.
It came down to between Roman Holiday and Sabrina. Both with Audrey "Mallika" Hepburn.
Roman Holiday.
Boy was that enjoyable!
The cafe scene was way more enjoyable than I remembered it. When that scene ended, I "rewound" to the beginning of that scene and laughed and enjoyed it all over again.
Turns out that I could thoroughly enjoy Roman Holiday whereas I have problems even to get started with the more recent movies. If it were a horse race, this race ended with the sixty-year old movie winning it before the other horses even left the gate.
A movie that came out sixty years ago!
I am not sure whether I should be happy with the hypothesis and the test that I conducted, or whether I should be all the more worried.
I thought I would be at least seventy years old before I started talking about those good old days. I thought I had a good two decades left in me before I became one of those cranky old men. But, here I am inching towards the five-oh, and I am already tired of newer fiction, tired of newer movies, and tired of newer television shows.
I am watching again, and again, a movie that came out a decade before I was born.
What the hell is wrong with me!
What will I do when I am seventy? And, by some ill-luck, if I were to live until a hundred ... OMG, the future has never seemed this scary! ;)
Maybe the prosaic me should start reading poetry. Like the one by
Arethusa aroseI have the rest of the summer to figure out what Shelley means here!
From her couch of snows
In the Acroceraunian mountains,---
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;---
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams;
And gliding and springing
She went, ever singing,
In murmurs as soft as sleep;
The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep. click here for the rest of the verses
4 comments:
Well, there are movies lie Roman Holiday. Watch Casablanca :):)
We are older and wiser men. Naturally what attracts us and will always continue to attract us are the things that appealed to us as youngsters. It simply the way life is, I think. Your daughter will probably sneer at Roman Holiday and snore through it.
Discontinue your Netflix account. Waste of time watching movies - and they don't make them like before anymore. Drive instead to Portland every week, when its cold and wet and watch the Trail Blazers - problem is you are in the back of beyond and no real sport comes to the great state of Oregon :):)
Casablanca. Yesss!
But, then we back that much more in time :(
The Trail Blazers? A couple of years ago, we referred to that team as the "Jail Blazers" with all the legal issues the players had ... muahahaha
Hey now, the Trail Blazers will rise again! The team's slogan has been "rise up" for the last five years...instead of "hands behind your back."
On another note, did you read the Slate article about Snyder formulaic approach to writing the screenplay for the perfect blockbuster? Very insightful, another reason why I prefer reading instead of films. Although I do appreciate the work of Leonardo DiCaprio...
Hey Zach, when you have to bail a couple of Trail Blazers players from the jail, make sure you knock on Ramesh's door too--the guy is loaded ;)
Yes, I saw that Slate piece. And I remembered I didn't go past the first few lines because all the movies referred to there were recent ones--I hadn't seen any of them. Including your Leo version of Gatsby.
So, prompted by your comment, I went back to it. I read it. Even though I don't know about the movies, I now have more arguments on why movies are crappy anymore, and why I will be better off watching Roman Holiday for the gazillionth time ;)
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