Wednesday, April 01, 2009
I further thinned the movie collection today.
This batch will be donated to the local library.
You can see, along the right, what movies I decided to dump. The real story, though, is contained in the movies I added to the dump pile then found myself pulling back because I wasn't as ready to let them go as I thought:
The Bible: This movie hasn't yet been written up. It's one of those we bought while Mom was on Hospice. I was sure I wouldn't be interested in seeing this one again until I looked over the pictures on the back of the case and remembered Mom's reactions to some of the vignettes. Good memories. I want to watch this one again, at least once, before deciding whether to releasing it.
Update 4/3/09: I polished off a watching of this one this morning and have decided that the library gets it. Too much scenery chewing. There is one interesting scene toward the end when Abraham and Isaac are wondering the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham is agonizing over his god's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, as well as the necessity of obeying his god "in all things", but the scene wasn't interesting enough for me to consider keeping the movie.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 1st - 4th Seasons: My reaction to letting go of this one surprised me. I took it off the shelf with no problem. Then, while I was diligently marking it as "no longer owned", I remembered the incident in which the police were called because we were watching back-to-back episodes of this series for several hours with the sound on high, so Mom could hear it...and apparently irritated the hell out of one of our neighbors. The memory made me laugh out loud...then I wept from realizing how much I missed our movie watching escapades. This'll have to wait for thinning until later.
Pee Wee's Playhouse, 1st & 2nd Seasons: Of all the DVDs, I thought this was going to be an easy dump, because, although I loved this series when it was running in the 80's and Mom loved it as a break between serious movies, especially on days when she was feeling a little frisky, and, besides, it prompted her to talk about teaching, it can easily become irritating to watch. But, again, the memories trumped my ability to let it go.
The Robe: This is another one of those Bible movies that hasn't yet been written up. I'm not sure if it will be. As I held the movie in my hands, ready to drop it into the box, I remembered a curious bit of narration, courtesy of the centurion character Richard Burton plays, at the beginning of the movie in which he states that there are only four types of Roman citizens, anymore: Politicians, patricians, centurions and slaves. Hmmm...I thought, I ought to watch that movie again, especially since I never saw the whole thing.
Update 4/2/09: I watched it last night and it's back in the donation box. The narrative I remembered actually said that, at the time, there were more slaves in Rome than citizens...still provocative, but I'll remember that. Otherwise, it's one of those Bible spectacles that, in light of the much more gritty shows in either of the two Bible Collections I'm retaining, it's too overwrought and glitzy AND not enough overwrought and glitzy for me. How so? It doesn't come close to matching the deliciously over-the-top melodramatics of The Ten Commandments, my all time favorite outrageous fictionalization of Bible stories.
Spellbound: The memories of Mom and me spelling the words as the movie played cinched me keeping this one a while longer.
The Story of Ruth: Again, another Bible movie that I haven't yet written up and that Mom saw, a couple of times, but that I was too busy to pay it much attention. I need to watch this one before I let it go. It was one of Mom's favorites. I wonder if I can guess why when I watch it.
Update 4/2/09: [See The Robe, above.] I also watched this movie last night and, although I find its 1960 Bible Movie smoothness irritating, the story is interesting, informative and it fits fairly nicely into the Bible Story Collections that I'm keeping (for the time being, anyway). I also like the ending genealogical recap which connects Ruth and Boaz to the House of David: Ruth and Boaz begat Obed, who begat Jesse, who begat David (who, by the way, begat Solomon). It is frequently a story's trajectory to (an from) the House of David that recommends it to the Abrahamic God story tradition. One of the reasons I find many of these videoed stories so interesting is that they easily clarify biblical ancestry and land movement among Abrahamic populations.
Frankly, I thought I'd be able to get rid of more movies, but I discovered that there were quite a few movies that I liked at least as well as Mom, if not more, and, in more cases than I expected, the memories of watching the movies with Mom made it impossible for me to yet pass them on to others.
Oh well. Maybe another day. In the meantime, I managed to gather all the movies into one area, which is good, and clean off a few more shelves in the bargain.
You can see, along the right, what movies I decided to dump. The real story, though, is contained in the movies I added to the dump pile then found myself pulling back because I wasn't as ready to let them go as I thought:
The Bible: This movie hasn't yet been written up. It's one of those we bought while Mom was on Hospice. I was sure I wouldn't be interested in seeing this one again until I looked over the pictures on the back of the case and remembered Mom's reactions to some of the vignettes. Good memories. I want to watch this one again, at least once, before deciding whether to releasing it.
Update 4/3/09: I polished off a watching of this one this morning and have decided that the library gets it. Too much scenery chewing. There is one interesting scene toward the end when Abraham and Isaac are wondering the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham is agonizing over his god's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, as well as the necessity of obeying his god "in all things", but the scene wasn't interesting enough for me to consider keeping the movie.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 1st - 4th Seasons: My reaction to letting go of this one surprised me. I took it off the shelf with no problem. Then, while I was diligently marking it as "no longer owned", I remembered the incident in which the police were called because we were watching back-to-back episodes of this series for several hours with the sound on high, so Mom could hear it...and apparently irritated the hell out of one of our neighbors. The memory made me laugh out loud...then I wept from realizing how much I missed our movie watching escapades. This'll have to wait for thinning until later.
Pee Wee's Playhouse, 1st & 2nd Seasons: Of all the DVDs, I thought this was going to be an easy dump, because, although I loved this series when it was running in the 80's and Mom loved it as a break between serious movies, especially on days when she was feeling a little frisky, and, besides, it prompted her to talk about teaching, it can easily become irritating to watch. But, again, the memories trumped my ability to let it go.
The Robe: This is another one of those Bible movies that hasn't yet been written up. I'm not sure if it will be. As I held the movie in my hands, ready to drop it into the box, I remembered a curious bit of narration, courtesy of the centurion character Richard Burton plays, at the beginning of the movie in which he states that there are only four types of Roman citizens, anymore: Politicians, patricians, centurions and slaves. Hmmm...I thought, I ought to watch that movie again, especially since I never saw the whole thing.
Update 4/2/09: I watched it last night and it's back in the donation box. The narrative I remembered actually said that, at the time, there were more slaves in Rome than citizens...still provocative, but I'll remember that. Otherwise, it's one of those Bible spectacles that, in light of the much more gritty shows in either of the two Bible Collections I'm retaining, it's too overwrought and glitzy AND not enough overwrought and glitzy for me. How so? It doesn't come close to matching the deliciously over-the-top melodramatics of The Ten Commandments, my all time favorite outrageous fictionalization of Bible stories.
Spellbound: The memories of Mom and me spelling the words as the movie played cinched me keeping this one a while longer.
The Story of Ruth: Again, another Bible movie that I haven't yet written up and that Mom saw, a couple of times, but that I was too busy to pay it much attention. I need to watch this one before I let it go. It was one of Mom's favorites. I wonder if I can guess why when I watch it.
Update 4/2/09: [See The Robe, above.] I also watched this movie last night and, although I find its 1960 Bible Movie smoothness irritating, the story is interesting, informative and it fits fairly nicely into the Bible Story Collections that I'm keeping (for the time being, anyway). I also like the ending genealogical recap which connects Ruth and Boaz to the House of David: Ruth and Boaz begat Obed, who begat Jesse, who begat David (who, by the way, begat Solomon). It is frequently a story's trajectory to (an from) the House of David that recommends it to the Abrahamic God story tradition. One of the reasons I find many of these videoed stories so interesting is that they easily clarify biblical ancestry and land movement among Abrahamic populations.
Frankly, I thought I'd be able to get rid of more movies, but I discovered that there were quite a few movies that I liked at least as well as Mom, if not more, and, in more cases than I expected, the memories of watching the movies with Mom made it impossible for me to yet pass them on to others.
Oh well. Maybe another day. In the meantime, I managed to gather all the movies into one area, which is good, and clean off a few more shelves in the bargain.
