Today, I had a stay at home retreat. The only person I talked to was to my mother when she called because she got excited because she saw my friend Jack French's purses being sold on Shop NBC. Other than that - well, how about it, silence again. I sense a theme.
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My Jack French purse recently on display at the Llanerch Diner, scene of a pivotal encounter between Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in the film "The Silver Linings Playbook" |
My ass was on a cushion today like yesterday, but today it was my couch, where I spent the quiet hours web surfing, reading, Netflix watching, napping. And I had encounters with three men in my travels on the sofa which left me feeling inspired - inspired, I tell you! - and I thought I would share them with you. Two of them are Netflix-related suggestions- can there be a major holiday in this world without me making Netflix recommendations? - but all of these meetings left me feeling uplifted and energized, and most relevant to this endeavor, compelled me to put fingers to keyboard and get back to it with this blog.
No one with more than a casual interest in film should miss Mark Cousins' "The Story of Film: An Odyssey", now on Netflix Instant. I have been tracking this film for months and had even pre-ordered the DVD from Amazon before I found out it's free on Netflix, but whatevs: it has been so delicious to take in. Please don't be deterred, but be excited! when I tell you it is 15 hours long - broken into 15 episodes which more or less present a chronological history of film. C'mon, 15 hours is not so much when you think it is not only film through time, but film around the world - the last scene in the last episode is set in Burkina Faso, and really, do you even know where that is? Mark Cousins is nothing but inclusive, but it is his inclusivity on view here, and it's not supposed to be completely comprehensive - with any storyteller, we have to respect his version of the tale he is telling, and his is simple in the midst of a lot of words and images: it is ideas that drive movies. For me, "The Story of Film" is gripping, it is absorbing, and it gave me so much new information and new ways of seeing film that I am doing the only logical thing having finished it - I am going to start to watch it over again tonight.
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When you watch the first episode of "The Story of Film" remember I told you to pay attention to the bubbles scene - that's when I knew I would love this doc. |
From 15 hours to 36 minutes: I surfed through the Netflix new release pages as I do on occasion, and my old friend Miss Serendipity led me to Kevin. Or shall I say "Kevin", the short film by Jay Duplass, the non-acting half of my favorite filmmaking brothers now that Larry became Lana Wachowski (by the way, that reminds me, not on Netflix but on On-Demand is "Safety Not Guaranteed" starring Jay's bro Mark Duplass - four more days left in 2012, but I think it is safe to say that Safety Not Guaranteed is my favorite film of the year). I knew nothing about "Kevin" when I came across it, but just was just sucked in completely with the story of this singer-songwriter, Kevin Gant, and his journeys on the ground and in his head. I don't want to tell too much about it, so you can be as absorbed in it as I was. But as I posted to Kevin on his Facebook page this afternoon, this movie compelled me to want to *do* something after I saw it, although as I admitted to him, it was probably going to be the vacuuming (it was).
But given a few hours, the other thing Kevin compelled me to do is to write - which is also what my friend Kendall Whitehouse provoked in me today through his latest blog post called Evolutionary Innovation: Moving Hay, Barn Doors, Heavy Machinery, and Joyous Children. I have known Kendall for almost 20 years from our days together at Wharton, a place from which he just retired yet still provides him with a home for this wonderful blog of his. Check out not only today's post but also some of the back essays coming from this wonderful friend of mine. Kendall's writing is what I aspire to - he is smart and eclectic, he is clear and clever, and he follows an idea through from start to finish while taking you many places in between. I thank him for understanding and sharing his singular voice with the world, and for inspiring me to find mine on this silent night.