And now it's time for the Netflix Report.

An American In Paris - What a truly bizarre movie. It's a musical about an American WWII veteran who has fallen in love with Paris, and is trying to make a living as a painter there. The movie is about a sort of love rhombus between the painter, a wealthy patron who wants to be more, a French singer, and the girl the painter and the singer are both in love with. Gene Kelly plays the lead. I always forget what an exuberant dancer he is. There really is something magical about the way he moves, and I'm not sure anybody has quite managed to replicate it since. What makes the movie really weird, though, is the finale. It's a fifteen minute long ballet/dance number with the main leads dancing around in a variety of interesting sets, some of them pretty damned abstract. It's probably the only musical I've seen where I didn't like the music all that much but was impressed by the dancing.

The Philadelphia Story - My second Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant movie of this project, and they play two very different roles here, so I can't complain about typecasting. Hepburn plays a divorced socialite on the eve of her second wedding. Grant is the ex-husband. A tabloid publisher enlists the aid of her ex-husband to get the dirt on the marriage. The ex shows up at the wedding, introducing a tabloid reporter and photographer as family friends. From there, it gets a little confusing. (As these movies tend to!) It's tremendously entertaining, and I have to say I did not see the ending coming at all, which is always a nice surprise. Romantic comedies from this era are fast becoming one of my favorite genres. These are the only type of AFI 100 flicks that have had no misses for me. The most random thing about this one is that I think the bride's little sister in this movie might have been part of the inspiration for Dot from Animaniacs.

The Jazz Singer - And we're back to the difficult-to-watch movies. This movie is important because it was basically the beginning of the end of the silent film era. I believe it was the first feature length film to attempt any kind of sound synchronization featuring dialog or singing, so it was kind of a huge deal at the time. I didn't know any of this going in. I just knew that the box art usually showed Al Jolson in blackface. Blackface is something I don't think I can ever get used to seeing, and I still have a hard time believing that it was a real thing, and that it lasted as long as it did. The actual story of the movie, which I didn't know about either, is about a kid from a traditional Jewish family, whose father disowns him when he finds out he wants to be a jazz singer. The kid runs away from home, grows up, gets his big break, and then has to decide whether family or art is more important to him. If it sounds familiar, it may be because the Simpsons parodied the entire story with the episode about Krusty the Clown and his estranged father.

I probably could have squeezed another movie or two in. The ones I have left are all pretty short, but I am trying to pace myself. I've got two days left to see five DVDs.

We had a pretty tremendous storm earlier this evening! Blue skies all day, and then I looked out the window and the sky was almost brown, and the thunder was shaking my window. Glad I decided not to go hiking after all today!

Today I was feeling just a little bit overloaded with old movies, so I ventured out to the theater and saw a new movie. I saw Men In Black 3. It's a lot better than the second one. Not that the second one was terrible, but it was ill-conceived. It completely negates the ending of the first one. Sequels are supposed to move the story forward, but this one moved it backward, undoing all the character development that happened in the first movie. This third installment avoids all the mistakes of the second one. It tells a different kind of story, and it furthers the evolution of the main characters. It does use time travel, but it doesn't use it to cheat. Agent J wakes up one morning to find that Agent K has been dead for forty years, and jumps back into the past to repair the broken timeline. This means teaming up with a much younger version of K, played by Josh Brolin, who is having so much fun impersonating Tommy Lee Jones, he should probably be a little ashamed of himself. If you liked the first one, definitely see this one, even if you hated the second one.

After the movie, I was feeling strangely exhausted, so I came back home. I still didn't feel like diving back into the AFI 100, so I gave some attention to my sadly neglected Xbox. I spent a lot of today playing Kingdoms of Amalur. It's still really fun, and I'd be playing it a lot more if I didn't have so many other time-consuming goals. The game seems pretty freaking huge. As thoroughly as I play RPGs, I'll be amazed if I finish this one by the end of the summer. And it has already has two downloadable content add-ons, which supposedly increase the content of the game by about 30%. I'm not sure I believe that, but I do intend to find out at some point.

Of course, the downside of playing RPGs is that I tend to forget to look at the clock while I am playing, which can result in me posting my journal after four in the morning. Whoops. I was doing pretty good this week, too! For some reason, watching movies all day seems to make me more tired than playing video games all day. You'd think it would be the other way around, because movies are a much more passive type of entertainment. Well, the rest of this weekend is going to be AFI 100 all day, just because I have to return all of the library DVDs on Tuesday, so hopefully I can adjust my sleep schedule back to where it should be.

Whew! What a dense day of AFI 100ing. I'm about halfway through the library pile, and I'm running out of rainy days as well, so hopefully I will shortly be back to my hiking and doing other things ways. Anyway, today I managed two library movies and two Netflix.

The first movie I watched was The Wild Bunch, which is a Western I didn't know anything about. It's a brutal one about a gang of aging outlaws whose One Last Job goes horribly wrong and necessitates One More Last Job. This is another one of those "Wow, I see why this is a big deal!" movies. It was made in 1969, and it pioneered a ton of things that have become second nature in action films. For one thing, it was gory enough to really shock people when it came out. For another, it was one of the first mainstream movies to use quick editing during action sequences. It was also one of the first to film things at more than one speed to allow for speeding up or slowing down the action. All things that are taken for granted as action movie tropes these days. Out of all the classic Westerns I have seen for this project, I think this one is my favorite so far.

Next up was From Here to Eternity, which I might have already seen but was unsure enough to watch it again. Everybody's seen that scene where the couple is kissing on the beach and the wave breaks over them. That's another classic moment that has been referenced or parodied so often that people who have never heard of it know that scene. Anyway, for those of you who haven't seen it, it's a tragedy/drama set on a Hawaiian military base in the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It focuses on a few particular soldiers; a private who used to be a boxing champ but quit for personal reasons, the commanding officer who is trying to strong-arm into joining his new division's boxing team, the sergeant who works under him and does all the real work, and the private's best friend. It's all just as riveting as it was back then, and the finale is as gut-wrenching as any war drama Hollywood has churned out since.

My next movie is the first one that I have come close to hating as much as I hated Birth of a Nation, which is surprising for a musical. It's called My Fair Lady, and this one, I hadn't actually heard any of the songs from, although I feel like it is at least as famous as The Sound of Music. It's about a linguistic expert who makes a bet that he can take a Cockney flower vendor off the street and, within six months of vocal coaching, pass her off as an aristocrat. This story has been remade more times than I can count, but what makes it truly odious to me is how utterly vile Henry Higgins is. He is seriously one of the least appealing characters in the history of film. I can't understand why people find this film charming and romantic. It's about a misogynist asshole who meticulously dismantles a young woman's psyche, rebuilds it to his own specifications and for his own amusement, then casts her aside when she has served his purpose.

Fortunately, my last AFI 100 episode was much more satisfactory. I saw The Apartment, which is actually one of the few AFI 100 I hadn't heard of beforehand. The main character is a young guy who has hatched a great scheme to climb the ladder in the company where he works. As one of the few single men in the company, the privacy of his apartment is a valuable commodity, so he starts loaning out his key so his superiors can use his place for their extramarital trysts. It's a funny and touching movie, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. I particularly enjoyed Jack Lemmon's performance in the lead role. It's the first of his older movies I have seen. The whole time I was watching it, I was trying to think of who his character reminded me of, and I finally realized he reminds me of Chandler from Friends. Baxter is a more handsome, higher-functioning version of Chandler. Whenever I watch a classic like this, I always wonder how many performances I've enjoyed were directly inspired by such films. Anyway, out of all the AFI 100 I have watched recently, this is one of my favorites.

Knocked out another three of the AFI 100 today! I started with The Sound of Music, which is probably the most adorable movie ever to feature Nazis. I'm a little embarrassed about not having seen this one before today. I mean, I wrote a freaking Kingdom of Loathing parody of one of the songs! Interestingly enough, while watching the movie, I realized I had somehow heard every single one of the songs before. I'm not sure how. Anyway, it's a fantastically perky movie about a would-be-nun who is hired as a governess for seven unruly children. You should watch it because Julie Andrews is one of the most awesome ladies who ever lived. Last year, she appeared on Craig Ferguson's show shortly after his birthday. She was promoting a series of kiddie books written with her daughter, and this particular one came with a pair of pajamas to make it even better as a bedtime story. For Craig's birthday, she had the only adult pair of those pajamas made for him, and he actually put them on and wore them for the rest of the show. It's a bit long, but both clips are absolutely worth watching if you want to fall in love a bit with Julie and Craig. ♥ Part 1 and Part 2

Shifting gears a bit, I watched The Godfather next. This movie pretty much reinvented the gangster film and I don't know that anything has quite managed to top it yet, although many have come damned close. It was odd seeing Marlon Brando in a movie again. Most recently, I saw him in On the Waterfront, which is one of his older movies. Actually, looking at his cinematography, I've got a bunch more of his movies coming up in the AFI 100. His performance in The Godfather really is as hypnotic as everyone says, in spite of him being difficult to understand due to the prosthetics in his cheeks. It's an amazing movie, and I had a lot of fun discovering the sources of so many references used in things I have seen.

Finally, I just finished watching Goodfellas, which is another of the best gangster movies ever made. It takes a very different path than The Godfather, which was operatic and stylish, almost to the point of feeling Shakespearean. Goodfellas is pretty much the exact opposite. It's grubby, down-to-earth, and foul-mouthed. The people really come off as everyday schmoes whose lifestyle makes them dangerous. Interestingly, both films deal primarily with Sicilian gangs. I have a feeling that all the gangsta wannabes who have been inspired by gangster movies are shooting for The Godfather, but are ending up in Goodfellas territory. Still, it's another great movie, if far more violent and course than its more elegant predecessor.

Portland's week of spring rains continues! I'm itching to try out my new leveled monopod, but this weather is not conducive to hiking photography. The only hiking I did today was up to the library to check their DVD selection. I signed up for a new library card, and then promptly check out all the AFI 100 movies they had in stock. There were thirteen, total. Well, there were fifteen, but two of them were ones that should already have been mailed out from Netflix, so I didn't pick those up. Anyway, having these to watch while I wait for Netflix to arrive will definitely speed up the process, and I can certainly complete this goal on time now!

With Netflix, I was doing them in reverse order, counting up from the bottom of the AFI 100. With the library movies, I've decided to do them in order of longest to shortest. That means I was only able to watch two today, and that took up pretty much the entire day. Did you know Gone With the Wind is four hours long? I probably knew that at one time, but I'd forgotten. It's a pretty impressive achievement. I can't think of the last time I was so engrossed by a movie with such an unlikeable protagonist. Scarlett O'Hara comes off as petty, immature, cruel, greedy, or manipulative for most of the film, but it works because she's also extremely interesting. I was startled at how many famous quotes from the movie I'd heard re-worked before without realizing it. I mean, everybody knows "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." I mean, that's one of the greatest exit lines in the history of cinema, but there are plenty more lines that were equally influential.

Next, I watched Ben-Hur. Just now finished it, actually. It's over three and a half hours itself! Really, the only thing I knew about this one was that there is a very famous chariot race. I had no idea how much religious content was in the movie. I mean, Jesus is a pretty major subplot in this thing. The main story is about Judah Ben-Hur, who is a wealthy and important Jew who is unjustly accused of treason and forced into slave labor on a Roman warship. He bides his time and eventually his fortunes change, and he makes his way back home to find what's left of his family. It's pretty freaking epic, even by today's standards. And I'm glad I've been watching so many old movies lately, because it really gave me an appreciation for how much of a game-changer that chariot race was. It was one of the most ambitious and expensive stunts ever filmed, and it left me awestruck in 2012. I can only imagine how it must have blown the minds of the people who saw it in theaters.

Fizzbin and I went on a quest for breakfast today. We got a later start than we wanted, so it was more of a lunchtime breakfast, but we succeeded in finding the much-lauded Broder, which is a Swedish restaurant known for its comforting, delicious breakfasts. Broder is restaurant twenty-six! Only eight more to go! Here is their sign!



Not a very large menu. Well, this is just the breakfast side. So many things I wanted to try, and so many things I will go back for. Our waiter was very friendly, silly, and unshaven.



What is breakfast without coffee, I ask you? Still breakfast, but not as good for rainy days like today! This coffee has two odd things about it, as compared to my experience. 1) It is in a clear glass mug. 2) They warm the cream up for you before bringing it to the table so it doesn't cool off the coffee when you pour it in. Is this standard Swedish breakfast practice? This was a difficult picture. I think the blackness of the table, the whiteness of the cream, and the clearness of the mug conspired for some difficult lighting.



Because everything on the menu was so new to me, I wanted to try several different things. This seemed like a good way. Cheese, salami, a small bowl of fruit, some pieces of smoked trout, rye crisps, orange, grapefruit, two slices of a very dense and hearty bread, and a cup of yogurt and oats and nuts. Not pictured: There is a slice of some kind of coffee cake hidden behind the crisps. It was less sweet than I am used to, and tasted faintly of... cardamom, maybe? Whatever it was, everything was delicious. Except the rye crisps, which did become delicious when meat or cheese was placed on them.



When your Swedish friend tells you to order the pytt i panna, you order the pytt i panna. Of course, when there is a house special version with smoked trout that maybe isn't as traditional but everybody says is amazing, you order that! This is an absolutely fantastic dish. One of the finest breakfast dishes I've ever had. It's a hash of finely cubed potatoes, onions, and peppers, mixed with smoked trout, topped with baked eggs and a sprinkle of pickled beets. Despite tasting like no breakfast I have had before, I found it intensely familiar and comforting.



This is what my friend ordered. It's Danish, not Swedish, but we won't hold that against it. They may look like doughnut holes or cream puffs, but they are rich, spherical pancakes. They come with two sauces. She chose lemon curd and house made apple sauce. A delicious pancake mutation!



After lunch, we went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which is a movie about a diverse group of old people who travel to India to retire in a "luxury resort" that is slightly idealized in the brochure. Naturally, nothing ends up like they expect it to. The cast is phenomenal, with Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, and Bill Nighy, among others. If you've seen the trailer, you have a very good idea what kind of movie this is, and it certainly does not disappoint. Sad and funny and touching. According to Fizzbin, who lived in India for several months, there are a few blatant inaccuracies, but nothing that ruined the movie for her. Mostly, the movie is a duel between Bill Nighy and Dev Patel to see who can be the most charming. Man, there is just something ridiculously endearing about that kid. I want him to be in twice as many movies.

After a detour to CostCo to pick up some necessities, I came home and watched some Netflix. I watched Bringing Up Baby, which is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. The "Zany Romantic Comedy" as an art form is practically dead, and that makes me sad, because there is really no reason this kind of movie can't still work. Down With Love proved that not so long ago. I could explain the plot of the movie, but there really isn't any need to. All you need to know is that Katharine Hepburn is a bored heiress who decides straight-laced paleontologist Cary Grant is just too adorable for words and sort of absorbs him into her insane life through sheer tenacity. A lot of it has to do with a leopard. Watching this movie, I did come to a startling realization. Katharine Hepburn may actually have been the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl! Don't believe me? Let's go to the clip!

I also watched John Wayne in The Searchers, but I don't really have any interest in talking about that. I found all the characters extremely unpleasant, and the movie was a real chore to get through because I couldn't manage to care about anybody in it. On the technical side, I recognize the quality, but I just didn't find anybody in the movie likeable or interesting, and most everybody in a movie really needs to be one or the other.

Today was warm and rainy, which is a type of weather I am still getting used to. Pretty icky weather for hiking. I don't mind hiking when it's rainy if I'm not trying to take pictures, but it at least needs to be cold. Perfect weather for movies, though! I saw three of them today, and didn't think too highly of any of them.

Dark Shadows, I have been dreading for a bit. I tend to give Tim Burton a lot more leeway than most people do, but the trailer just looked bad. It's based on the classic TV show, which I admittedly have never watched. I don't actually know very many people who have watched it, so I can't speak to whether an affinity for the show will increase or decrease your enjoyment. It's about Barnabas Collins, the head of a wealthy family in New England, who runs afoul of a witch and is cursed to become a vampire, then locked in a coffin for two hundred years or so. When he is discovered, he discovers his descendants have fallen on hard times, and he does what he can to restore the family to its former glory. That's pretty much it. There is a bit too much fish-out-of-water junk, and if you cough too hard, the plot might blow away. Still, I was sort of on board with the whole thing as a bit of harmless fluff, and then the last few minutes happened, which annoyed the crap out of me. Not recommended, although I certainly don't think this is anywhere near the worst thing I have seen or will see this year.

Next up, Battleship. Wow. I admit I was not exactly unbiased going in. I've hated all the Transformers movies, and this movie looked very much to be aping Michael Bay's style. Plus, I kept giggling every time I see the big trailer card that says "From HASBRO, the company that brought you TRANSFORMERS!" So, it was probably a given that this movie wasn't going to win me over, but I was not expecting it to be quite as thunderously stupid. I mean, it goes beyond stupid. It's anti-intellectual. The movie makes science the villain, and scientists are the butt of most of the movie's sad attempts at humor. Idiocy and arrogance are celebrated. Sure, the movie is full of laughs, but none of them are from things that are supposed to be funny. This movie wants you to turn your brain off, grab a beer, and then join the Navy. Somewhere, Michael Bay is jerking off to this movie, and panting "Take that, science!" I've got more to say, but it's spoilery so it's going under a cut.

( Wait, what? )

Rounding out my disappointment trifecta, I saw The Dictator, which is the latest madness from Sacha Baron Cohen. Like all of his movies, it's deliberately offensive. Unlike his other movies, it isn't clever, funny, or shocking. Here, he plays a mad dictator who is stripped of his beard and stranded in New York, trying to get back to the embassy before his double is manipulated into making his country a democracy. The movie starts off as a mediocre Saturday Night Live sketch. Then it becomes a really awkward and unpleasant fish-out-of-water story. Then it flirts with sentimentality. Then, briefly, it attempts to actually criticize American society. Then it just becomes a Saturday Night Live sketch again. This was probably my biggest disappointment of the day, because you never know what you are going to get with Cohen, and there was a chance it could have been brilliant. Sadly, the biggest laugh in the entire movie came in the first five seconds, and I'm going to spoil it. The opening frame of the movie is a dedication card that says In Loving Memory: Kim Jong Il.

Sometimes I get this strange ungeekly urge to not buy things online. Sometimes I know that Amazon will be the cheapest and fastest place to get something, but I would rather give my money to a local business. Books are the main thing I do this with. I almost never buy books on Amazon. Today, I needed some camera things, and I decided that local camera shops need my money more than Amazon. I got caught up in some email discussion and suddenly it was too late to see three movies, so I went on a camera quest. I made a list of a bunch of local camera shops, and then did a lap through them looking for two things; a replacement battery for my camera, and some kind of bubble level that attaches to my monopod.

That reminds me, I think I forgot to talk about last night's quest for a level bubble. You know what a bubble level is, right? Carpenters use them. It's a little yellow or green tube of liquid with an air bubble, and you tilt it until the bubble is in the center to make sure whatever you are nailing to whatever is flat. Well, I had looked online for bubble levels made for cameras, and I could only find expensive and fancy ones, and most are made for SLR cameras with a kind of clip, and won't fit my little ELPH. So, I had the idea to go to Home Depot and look for the smallest level I could find. Unfortunately, they don't make small levels, or at least I couldn't find any. I did find a nine or ten inch one that was plastic and very cheaply made. It was like $2.50. I bought it and was able to pry it apart with a hammer and extract the level bubbles from the bubble level. I tried a few different methods to affix one of them to the monopod, but couldn't find a way that I felt was precise enough.

Anyway, on to the quest. I checked something like five different places in areas I don't know very well, and had absolutely zero luck on finding a level, a battery, or even a nicer monopod. Eventually, somebody suggested I try REI, as they have a surprising amount of outdoor stuff you wouldn't expect. I had to navigate quite a few strange buses to get back there, but eventually made it. No luck. Purely coincidentally, though, I found out there is a camera shop in the same area as REI. (My search didn't find it for some reason!) The guy there told me why I can't find my battery. Apparently, Canon only made two models of camera that use my battery, and both have since been discontinued, so no shops still stock it. He told me I would have to order it online or go to a specialty battery shop. He did have a level attachment for my monopod, though! And it was the same prize Amazon was selling it for, so I bought it. ♥ I always tend to tilt the camera to one side. I think it's because my left eye is so weak that I think it tends to make me see the world askew. Anyway, this should fix that, which means I should have an easier time taking photos I am happy with!

The other interesting thing that happened today was a strange sight I saw at a MAX station. There was a girl across the way dressed sort of like a pirate! She had her hair tied back, and was wearing one of those poofy white peasant shirts, with some kind of vest over it, and what looked like colonial breeches. She was standing balanced on one leg, in a very crane-like way, eating some kind of nut or seed from a tin. Strapped to her back was some kind of giant padded weapon. It looked like a seven or eight foot piece of PVC pipe with a stuffed sock over either end. Like one of those American Gladiator Q-tips, only homemade. I have never more deeply desired to walk over and ask someone "Just what are you up to?!" I couldn't go over, because my bus was about to leave. Then, half an hour later, she showed up again! The bus I was taking goes between several MAX stations, and she must have taken the train from one to the other, while I took the bus. She got on my bus and sat down right next to me. I asked what she was up to. She told me her weapons were for something called Amtgard, which is some kind of insane combat-based LARP that encompasses the entire united states. The Pacific Northwest's group is apparently called The Kingdom of the Dark Valley with the Black Spire Where the Bloody Skeletons Rise Up in the Middle of the Night to Kick Your Ass. (Everybody else just calls us Blackspire for short.) This is one of those rare cases where the possible explanations I was imagining were nowhere near as hilarious or awesome as the truth.

So, a rather audacious vacation plan has been hatched and implemented. I'd been thinking about princess_proton and how we're going to have our big Comic Con adventure, which will be awesome, but we won't really have any us time. When I checked my mail yesterday, I found I'd received another invite for a slot tournament at M Resort, along with three free nights. princess_proton and I have been talking about going to Vegas together for years, so I asked her if she wanted to join me for the tournament. She liked the idea, but pointed out that she is going to be in Vegas the weekend before for the Electric Daisy Carnival, and she can't really afford to lose any more work hours driving back and forth from Vegas to San Diego. Then she said the magic words, "I mean, I could work from my hotel, but I can't afford to just stay the whole week."

As regular readers probably know by now, my skill at not paying for hotels in Vegas is legendary. I told her I'd look into it. I dug through all of my offers and discovered I could easily get us a whole week for free, with a choice of something like seven different hotels. We both waffled for a little bit, and then we simultaneously experienced a "Life's too short! Let's do this!" moment. ♥ Anyway, the vacation is booked, even if it's sort of a working vacation. She'll be working all day during the week, and I'll be working on my screenplay for 34 During 34. It'll be all business until the weekend, and then things will get crazy. We're both deliriously happy to be having this insane and somewhat impractical adventure, and it sparked a pretty spectacular bout of sentimentality. Even though it may have the least gambling, I think this will probably be my most epic Vegas adventure ever.

I meant to watch Unforgiven before the last mail collection today, but I got so distracted talking with my friend that I missed the window. I just finished watching it. It's a solid Western, but I don't really think it's quite as special or amazing as the Academy thought it was. I don't know that I'd even put it in my top ten of Westerns. It's got really weird pacing, and a fairly uneven performance by Clint Eastwood. Really, it's just the finale that's spectacular. I'm glad I watched it, but I definitely don't feel the need to ever watch it again. I definitely wish I had watched it last night. Having one of the three Netflix DVDs perpetually delayed a day might mess with my timetable. I might have to check some out from the library to speed things up!

I woke up surprisingly early for the second day in a row! This is an excellent sign! The weather was almost as sunny as my last hike, but much less hot. Perfect for walking! Today, I drew hike number three from the jar.

( 34 During 34 - Portland Hill Walks - #3 )

By the time I finished my walk, it wasn't even two in the afternoon yet! If the hike hadn't had so much up and down in it, I might have been tempted to draw another hike and go right back out. As it is, my calves were way too sore to do any further hiking, so I came home to watch the Netflix DVDs that arrived today. I did some calculations, and if I always watch all three the day I get them, and then mail them the next morning, I should barely have enough time left to get through the rest of the AFI 100. I need to check if any of them are on Amazon's instant video service, though. If they are, that will help a lot.

I'm doing them from bottom to top now, so I started with Yankee Doodle Dandy. Knew nothing about it going in. It's a biographical musical film about George M Cohan, an entertainer who is considered the father of American musical comedy. I found it hugely entertaining, mostly due to James Cagney's lively performance in the lead role. Full of witty banter and energetic dancing. I want to talk more about it, but I'm a little too out of it right now.

I also watched Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, and after Birth of a Nation, it was nice to see a movie that's just about racism instead of being horrifically racist. If you somehow haven't heard of it, it's about a white woman and a black man who fall in love and decide to tell their parents, which sort of turns into the dinner party from hell. It was made in the 60's, and that's when it takes place. Very much a product of the time. I still can't fathom why there was a modern remake of this recently. If you tell the same story but have it take place now, it no longer has anything interesting to say about society, and it just becomes a movie about a racist family.

I also need to watch Unforgiven. I was going to watch it after I finish this, and I may still try, but I'm pretty sure I am too tired. Well, if I wake up at a decent hour, I can still see it in the morning before the first mail pickup.