Films

Me and my non-blogging.  Anyways, last nite I had a good reason not to; namely, two recovered silent films were on TCM...The first, "The Grim Game," starred Harry Houdini in a something of a thriller...it was pretty good.  You were able to see him do some of his escape tricks (the film is basically a vehicle for them), which was pretty nifty.  The second was "Sherlock Holmes," the film version of the play that saw plenty of showings in its time; similarly, the Holmes in that film was the Jeremy Brett of his day.  I liked it...it was not quite as canonical (Holmes falls in love with the heroine!) and seemed a pastiche of the stories, but it did have some of the main characters (Watson, Moriarty) and the story was not the worst...

I've made some list progress.  "Roger & Me" I saw Friday...not the worst film, I actually liked it...not very Moore, if you will.  One thing that did amuse me was...if you think about it, it is the lefty/greenies/Hope and Changers who do NOT drive domestics nowadays.  As I say, look around the office parking lot...  "Lassie Come Home" was on TCM Saturday, so I watched that...lovely.  Ok, not my thing.  "Pull My Daisies," a short made by The Beat Generation. was about as lovely, similarly.  Two silents of note I've seen:  "Lady Windemere's Fan," a Lubitsch film -- you know, you hear about his touch, and this film showed it...no sound, but the impressive nature of how he used the camera to show nuance...not a lot of guys could do it.  The 1913ish "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was also pretty good; it starred African-Americans, which was pretty amazing for its time, and I thought it did a decent job of summarizing the novel, too.

Up to page 244 of Thucydides (about 520 in the book)...I put some time in it this weekend, and I think I made a dent.  One thing I love is the battle descriptions...he was a general, and in those days they fought at the front, so he knew of what he spoke...