My local Family Video film expert, A.J. (see his picture to the right) has left town for a lucrative position in Cadillac Michigan. You will be missed big time my friend, but it will be a good move for you. And you can bet that whenever I find myself in Cadillac I will be looking for your truck!
Nanowrimo is happening again. Beginning tonight at midnight. I just opened a Blog for my main character. This will double as the beginning of my book. I'm having fun with this. My characters usually take on a life of their own, but rarely do they start that way. Tessa Gates is a fully grown character with a life of her own already. More on that later. Her Blog address is now in the links file on the right.
As a protest against the removal of my dear friend A.J. I have joined Netflix. I've been thinking about it for a long time now but when I heard A.J. was leaving I decided to look more closely. It's the best thing I've done. I still have access to new movies on DVD sent to me through the mail at the rate of about 2 per week (which is the average I was getting at FV) but also I get unlimited downloads of movies, documentaries, and films that have been on Starz. I filled my instant queue with dozens of films that I can just peruse at my leisure. My mailing queue I'm trying to limit to about 40. Which will take about 6 months to complete. But no biggy. I've been watching as many movies as I wish daily, almost too many, since I have been practically living in my arm chair over the past few weeks since I got it.
I managed to watch several documentaries that have been featured at our film festival over the past few years including "The Cove" about the systematic destruction of Dolphins in one place in Japan and how stupid it is, because it's not done for any real reason. Their meat is too high in Mercury to be eaten safely, they do not harm the environment or the food source of humans, and this practice promotes the industry that makes Dolphins into captive entertainers.
Another Doc I watched was an inspirational doc called "Paperclips". A group of Middle School children, started this project with the help of their teacher/mentors to help them understand diversity in a rural Appalachian Tennessee town. They couldn't understand what the Nazi's had done because they couldn't imagine what six million was. So they began to collect paper clips. There was a social reason why they chose paperclips that was significant to the time and peoples of Europe. The children did Internet research concerning this. They began a letter writing campaign asking for paperclips and eventually the project grew and expanded exponentially. After Four years of this project they had collected more than 28 million paperclips. This project put these small town kids in contact with the greater world and taught them to treat others the way they would want to be treated. The end of the project is a German cattle car that was purchased for them by people who believed in their project and they refurbished this car to house their paperclips. It has become a physical monument to the lives lost in concentration camps during the forties. They decided to include Eleven million paperclips to commemorate all the lives lost, not just the Jews, but the Gypsies, the Homosexuals, the Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses, and political prisoners who all died in the camps at that time. A must see for a good cry!
Someone in line at the film festival last year thought that the best film they had seen this year was a Doc called, "The Most Dangerous Man in America" which is about Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in the sixties, which proved in essence that every president of the United States, as a pre-requisite for the job, it seems, is a liar! This documentary shows conclusively that beginning with Harry Truman and continuing on through to the leaders at the time, lies that had been told to the American Public by their elected leaders. The pentagon papers are the reason we no longer trust our government and also the reason we assume our leaders are all keeping things from us.
All of these films are worthy of being seen, but I'd also like to tell you about a few other films that are more entertaining.
If you have a chance, pick up "Departures" a film from Japan. "Castaway on the Moon" a Korean film that is not on DVD as yet, but soon will be (I hope) and "Kontrol" an Eastern European film about a man who feels his life is at a dead end, but eventually finds reason to live in the struggle between good and evil, this allegorical film is a must see in my book and is available on Netflix for a download.
Have fun and go see a good film this week, OK?
Cindy K-K haunting in her arm chair crocheting a new afghan.
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