I'm at that place where I'm realizing T.V. is an opiate, a great tool for distraction and as bad as Facebook for sucking up time. It's an awesome tool when your sick, but I really don't want to sit through 15-20 minutes of commercials when watching a show. So we are loving Netflix.
This weekend was the GFA Renewing Your Passion conference, a very busy week leading up to it and I had very little to do. PTL as my husband was a way and that week is another blog post.. oh boy it's a doozy.
So Sunday after the conference was over and we were dog tired. Hubby and I decided to watch a few movies, I looked up reviews and chose The Naked City. This movie produce in 1943 (I think), was amazingly good. Al tho it is methodical and accurate it also was hilariously campy at times. You have to love early acting, no emote more Please! It is so funny to watch. So forgive the staged screams and the soft focus with the crooning in the background. Knight in Shining Armor and I kept saying "Oh man this is so like CSI." I kept thinking "Man this crime would be so much more easier to solve if they had better equipment." Yet despite the lack of technology they still follow the same order and method of solving the crime that is in use on CSI today.
I love how it was the "Reality TV" of the time. The extras were actually all real New Yorkers just living life. I kept thinking how thankful I am I don't have to wear a wool suit, and we have air conditioning. They kept complaining of the heat and opening windows (without bars oh my!) on the 4 and 5th floors. It really shows the the era before OSHA and when they believed people had enough common sense not to jump out windows. Open staircases, and a lack of HIPPA made things so much easier to investigate. Pharmacists and nurses kept saying enough information for the patients to experience identity theft in today's society. Oh how rules have changed so much since then, but people's behavior really hasn't. I give it a thumbs up!
Since that one was so much fun I picked another one with rave reviews:
His Girl Friday
How can you go wrong it has Carry Grant in it. Many people reviewed this as a funny movie with non stop laughs. I would review it as 10 stupid things woman do to mess up their lives. The song Good Girl by Carrie Underwood should be Hildys' theme song. Not that I liked Hildy the lead female character that much. The story opens immediately after she has gotten a Reno divorce, and is going to be married the next day. It totally admits she must have had an affair while married. Grants character Walter is a smelly weasel type, I was rooting for Bruce the man she was going to get married to in Albany. He fit the bill for Mr. Steady, hey Hildy take it from me, marrying a Mr. Steady is totally worth it. Walter on the other hand needs to be investigated for fraud, and libel. He's a nasty user of people I did not like him. The many times Walter manipulated poor Bruce into getting arrested, just made me wish Hidly had tendered her resignation by letter and this movie had never happened. Hildy is so well qualified I don't understand why she doesn't see her own potential, she could totally be the big fish in the smaller pond of Albany. She could so start her own newspaper and become the Albany equivalent of Walter except with Bruce giving her a moral compass she might have a paper with integrity. Instead she chooses to stay the cringing lap dog. What a pity.
The side plot of the look at the power of the press was interesting. I'm not sure its worth watching just to look at that aspect tho. It is a good look at what the media has thought for years. Walter firmly believed he could control all the politicians by what he wrote, he could make or break a politician and put whom ever he chose in office. He was willing to trade away anything, this was not a man of high moral fiber. Wait I don't want to go to jail so I'll trade you "not exposing your corruption as long as you don't put me in jail for aiding a escaped criminal and ordering a kidnapping." I could not find it funny the politicians wheeling and dealing while the newspapers make up stuff to sell more titillating papers either. I hate to say it but the most likable character was the take no prisoners Bruce's mother (Hildys future mother in law), not only does she expose Walter and Hildys crimes she smacks down the kidnapper but good. For me to say my favorite character is an actor who has less than 5 minutes screen time tells you volumes about this film.
I feel this is not a comedy but a movie on how to stay in a manipulative, abusive relationship, and like it... I know I must be missing something. It must be a lost in translation or a you had to be there moment. Maybe I'm taking it way too seriously but I could not like this movie, if anything it just made me sad because there is nothing new under the sun. Politicians are still acting like politicians the media is still just like this movie portrays.
I leave you with this bible verse...
