What is The House of the Rising Sun?

 

The Book Tied to 75,000 Disappearances

I am not usually a fan of this kind of paranoid, creepy documentary video, but this channel (Barely Sociable) is so consistent in quality and interesting topics, I keep coming back. See if this isn't a fascinating production.

On a nitpicking note, he could really benefit from an editor (in the literary sense) or at least a proof-reader. The number of grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes or just awkwardly constructed sentences really distracts from the otherwise top-notch content.

Mowing High Grass

 

In a previous episode, I was dismissive of lawn mowing videos. I may have been a little hasty in judgement.

What's Your Favorite Independence Day Movie?

"I came to America in 1914 by way of Philadelphia..."

 "What's your favorite Independence Day movie?" I thought it was a fair conversation-starter. I thought of it ahead of time but when I was around people, I forgot to ask it. There aren't many movies that revolve around July 4th. There are so few that one might add war movies to the mix. That's a discussion in itself - somehow "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't feel like an Independence Day movies but "Glory" does. And, is it me, or are there way too few movies about the Revolutionary War? You'd think there'd be a billion of them. But, narrowing the field as best I could, and having the advantage of advance notice, I determined my answer was "Avalon" (1990).

"Avalon" is my favorite type of movie: it's largely plotless, only revolving around the relationships between people and the passage of time. In this case it shows a grandfather immigrating to the United States, follows the second generation as they go into business for themselves and much of the action is seen through the eyes of the third generation played by child actor Elijah Wood. It's the kind of movie that hits me harder than any other but I can't share with anyone because it's "boring."

Roger Ebert postulates that "Avalon" is about the deterioration of familial ties and it's the contention of the film that the fault lies with the rise of television. What a harrowing tale when you consider that it's not just television anymore, it's internet, youtube, apps, video games and social media. Watching it now, it's clear that he's partly right: the television's effects on the family is a running motif, but it's also undeniable that the main fault of family break down is simple human fallibility - petty bickering, rivalry, stubbornness, and so on.

I think of "Avalon" as a meditation on the generational continuum we are all on. The grandfather tells his story to the grandchildren who listen with rapt attention. When he tells stories to his children, they've heard them all a million times and are tired of them. Consider the experience of the storyteller himself: "If I knew things would no longer be, I would have tried to remember better." He also sums up the entire film: "Jules, if you stop remembering, you forget."

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - Tha Crossroads

 Well it's Friday so let's take a little trip back with Father Tiresias to 1996.

I was in awe of this song and still am. It's so odd to see "hardness" and "thug life" expressed in melody and harmony. It's rare to hear lyrics sung this fast. It's utterly unique in the way that the melody is free to change every couple bars as if it's not 1 song but 20-in-1.

I still miss my uncle Charles, y'all.

Popcorn in Bed - Sabrina (1995)

 I usually only post reactions to movies that I really love but I'm making an exception for "Sabrina," a movie to which I'm quite indifferent.

I want to say I don't get this movie, and actually I don't get the cast. The competition between Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear is no competition at all. I get Greg Kinnear as the comedic relief or the supporting cast but I don't get him as a heartthrob. Do women disagree?

There is certainly a certain amount of heartthrob star power that is socially constructed, especially with men. In "Lars and the Real Girl," a movie about a delusional man who falls in love with a doll, they needed a real loser type, a real creep so they cast Ryan Gosling. And then that's 2007 and then a few years later he's the most attractive leading man in Hollywood. Between the two, he didn't receive a brand new face, it's the same guy. 

On the flip side of that you can look at Nick Nolte (People's Sexiest Man Alive 1992) and sex symbol Burt Reynolds (I'm not going to research his bonafides because my search history is getting weird, but, trust me, he was the sex symbol of his day) who each went from attractive to untouchable in a few years even with no objective change to their appearance.

So maybe I'm biased toward Harrison Ford because I've seen "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones." I wonder if you polled women who had never seen his movies, would they think he was an average middle-aged guy? But the funny thing is, Cassie from the above video, is one such data point for that question. When she started her channel, she hadn't seen Harrison Ford and now he's a favorite romantic lead.