I love movies, perhaps a little too much — but to me, other than a good book (which I truly love and enjoy as much as I am able to) a good movie can run the whole range of emotions.
It can uplift and encourage, or give some thrills, or simply the enjoyment of a good story with interesting characters.
In this day of the pandemic, we can enjoy the best of both worlds with what we have available: as a fan of classic movies, the TCM channel (Turner Classic Movies) is the best there is, and Netflix is enjoyable as a streaming service.
This way I can enjoy both long-standing classic films and newer productions and series, and I can supplement this with DVDs of new release movies.
As the Academy Awards and Golden Globes were held earlier this year before the pandemic arrived to wreck everything, there are some excellent new movies one can watch.
Examples that we have watched recently include “1917”, “Little Women” and the last instalment of the Star Wars saga.
I know Little Women is a remake, but for many years the version I and my daughters loved watching was from the mid-90s with Winona Ryder as Jo March and Susan Sarandon as the mom, and a pre-Homeland Claire Danes as the sickly sister who passes away.
I still love that version, but the new one is really good too, and is a bit more complete as it shows Jo finally reaching success as a writer as her first novel came off the presses. There are some truly good actresses in this version too, with Meryl Streep, Laura Dern as the mom, and Emma Watson as Meg.
Over on TCM, we were able to watch some classics lately like “Key Largo”, with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; “Ben Hur” with Charlton Heston; and “The Hustler” with Paul Newman. One thing I discovered watching “The Hustler” is that it was released exactly one week after I was born. (Does that make me a classic too? I don’t know …)
A plus was that TCM’s annual film festival (which we here in Canada never get to see) was played over the weekend because of the pandemic, complete with interviews and documentaries. There was some great watching!
