Netflix musings

Well, I've had some good luck on my Netflix queue this week. First up was "Son of Rambow" which is about a boy from an english mennonite(?) family who falls in with the class ne'er do well and begins an unlikely and hilarious friendship which is heavily influenced by their shared love for the movie "First Blood". There were some overly cheesy parts but I really enjoyed watching it. The humor made the cheese way more tolerable. I was surprised to see that the dude who plays the smarmy Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl plays the equally spoiled, equally rich, equally disaffected older brother in this movie, but I shouldn't have been. He was much more likeable and comfortable in his native England without his put-on American accent.

Last night I got home and really wanted to watch a particular movie. I searched for it on the instant watch list and amidst the 40 other flm versions of the story, there it was: The Adventure of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn (1938). The reason I wanted to watch this particular one is because I just last night remembered watching it on TV once and my parents recording it and then my and my little brother watching it allllllll the time after that. I remembered so many of the lines from the movie and I remember Errol Flynn's quintessential portrayal of the noble turned altruistic woodsman. No one ever did "swashbuckler" better than Errol Flynn. I also remember the costumes that Maid Marian (played by Olivia de Havilland) wore in the move and being completely obsessed with them as a young girl. I just wanted to see it all again as an adult and see if it was the same. It was, if not better. It was so silly and over the top, but I love it for that.

Now I'm in the middle of "I'm Not There" and I'm kind of lost. I've read two biographies of Bob Dylan, and "Chronicles, Vol. 1". They don't really match up with this at all, but I think that may be the point? (Sidenote: Christian Bale is way too attractive to play Bob Dylan and is overdoing the impression of Bob's voice.) I do think it's right on in how the folk generation looked to him to define them, he rightfully chided them for it, and in return they put him on an even higher pedestal...after they stopped hating him for "turning his back on them". No one has every really been able to understand Bob Dylan. He is a fascinating enigma. And we're obsessed with trying to figure him out. Cate Blanchett totally deserved her oscar nod for this. She makes every other portrayal in this movie look real bad. A distant second to her performance is the boy who plays the Woody Guthrie persona. This reminds me I need to listen to my Dylan albums all the way through more.

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