Films

If one thing defined this weekend, it was films; call it my own tribute to the Oscars, but I managed to cross six off the list (mainly because I am not trucking Mom's car anywhere); Friday night I watched "Planet of the Apes" (I thought it surprisingly good) and then Saturday afternoon it was "Ruggles of Red Gap," which was humorous.  Through Netflix..."Yankee Doodle Dandy;" James Cagney was a pretty awesome and versatile actor, all you can say.  The original "Producers" was on TCM, so I watched it; it was funny...not terribly so, but I am hit or miss on the over the top stuff.  Today on TCM was "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which I tolerated, and then I topped it off with "Dance, Girl, Dance," a 40 film starring Lucille Ball and Maureen O'Hara as burlesque dancers trying to succeed...in different ways.

I also managed to finish (I had read half before) Cuthberson's bio of Wilfrid Owen; it is odd, given my...general disdain for poetry, but I have always had a thing for the war poets, or, better yet, those who retain a disdain for the Modern (like myself); I think it is why I like Hart Crane (if you are smart enough to notice another theme here, recall that I am NOT watching the Oscars).

I would also like to state that while I think there is nothing more American than the start of the Daytona 500...sitting through the entire race is...well, painful.  And boring.