Have I mentioned film four is great? Not perfect, and maybe I'm rationalising, or having bad habits, but often what I want isn't to choose a film, it's to have a known good film be offered, whenever I'm in and want to enjoy something.
There are a couple of films I might mention individually, but first, there were a couple of other half-written comments waiting from the last night I actually spent in watching telly. Hopefully with copious footnotes.
* There was a phone in competition (on BBC3/4[1] iirc), with questions I actually didn't know the answer to[2]! -- "Beethoven's Opus 97 is a work for how many instruments?" and "How many string quartets did Shostakovich write? Subtract the number of cello sonatas. Divide by the number of cello concertos."
* Clockwork Orange. The reaction to the film made me think of Boromir in Lothlorien, where it is said men bring their own perils with them, neither of which I understood alone, but together make sense. Boromir = thugs. Ring = beating people up to classical music. Galadriel = Stanley Kubrick. Showing people the violence in them is laudable, because it expresses hope you may prevent it. But also triggers it, whcih is very painful. With Galadriel, we accept this. With Kubrick, we are not sure.
* Hercules. Maybe my superpower can be "Making the first episode of a TV show I see be a recap"[4]. Almost the first episode I've seen -- though I don't feel at all lost, as it's exactly the same fun as Xena, but with a different gender of homoeroticism -- was conveniently a clip show. Whcih is very annoying when you've seen the episodes in question, but convenient when you haven't. (Or maybe they were original. I don't know. Or care.)
[1] Watch the compsci write. Watch the compsci write english. Watch the compsci not express ambiguity between two numbers as a binary bitmask 1nb. Write, compsci, write!
[2] OK, I lie. My point is, normally these questions are pretty obvious, presumably to make people feel good, generate phone revenue, or circumvent lottery laws, I presume. In fact, I often don't know: the question will be something like "Several things have been named after the rebellious Sir Henry 'Hotspur'[3], including Hornblower's HMS Hotspur. Is the most common today a football team or a kitchen implement?" which I totally don't know, because I don't know anything about football or implements.
[3] I was checking on wikipedia, and wondering why the opening line "Eldest son of..." gave me chills, and then I realised no-one who survives is ever known as that, are they?
[4] Don't laugh! It could help! There was a mumble roleplaying game, where one brand of wizard drew power from watching TV, which is fairly balanced because when the show you must see comes on, you're very vulnerable. Eg. quantum entanglement communication. Send me with the first interstellar colony and lots of short series. I watch one at random. People at home can know if the colony survived if there are disproportionately many clipshows in the series they made.
[5] Apologies for going on so long about nothing :) And for spurious footnotes :)
There are a couple of films I might mention individually, but first, there were a couple of other half-written comments waiting from the last night I actually spent in watching telly. Hopefully with copious footnotes.
* There was a phone in competition (on BBC3/4[1] iirc), with questions I actually didn't know the answer to[2]! -- "Beethoven's Opus 97 is a work for how many instruments?" and "How many string quartets did Shostakovich write? Subtract the number of cello sonatas. Divide by the number of cello concertos."
* Clockwork Orange. The reaction to the film made me think of Boromir in Lothlorien, where it is said men bring their own perils with them, neither of which I understood alone, but together make sense. Boromir = thugs. Ring = beating people up to classical music. Galadriel = Stanley Kubrick. Showing people the violence in them is laudable, because it expresses hope you may prevent it. But also triggers it, whcih is very painful. With Galadriel, we accept this. With Kubrick, we are not sure.
* Hercules. Maybe my superpower can be "Making the first episode of a TV show I see be a recap"[4]. Almost the first episode I've seen -- though I don't feel at all lost, as it's exactly the same fun as Xena, but with a different gender of homoeroticism -- was conveniently a clip show. Whcih is very annoying when you've seen the episodes in question, but convenient when you haven't. (Or maybe they were original. I don't know. Or care.)
[1] Watch the compsci write. Watch the compsci write english. Watch the compsci not express ambiguity between two numbers as a binary bitmask 1nb. Write, compsci, write!
[2] OK, I lie. My point is, normally these questions are pretty obvious, presumably to make people feel good, generate phone revenue, or circumvent lottery laws, I presume. In fact, I often don't know: the question will be something like "Several things have been named after the rebellious Sir Henry 'Hotspur'[3], including Hornblower's HMS Hotspur. Is the most common today a football team or a kitchen implement?" which I totally don't know, because I don't know anything about football or implements.
[3] I was checking on wikipedia, and wondering why the opening line "Eldest son of..." gave me chills, and then I realised no-one who survives is ever known as that, are they?
[4] Don't laugh! It could help! There was a mumble roleplaying game, where one brand of wizard drew power from watching TV, which is fairly balanced because when the show you must see comes on, you're very vulnerable. Eg. quantum entanglement communication. Send me with the first interstellar colony and lots of short series. I watch one at random. People at home can know if the colony survived if there are disproportionately many clipshows in the series they made.
[5] Apologies for going on so long about nothing :) And for spurious footnotes :)