The Burrow

I didn't plan to write about movies.  I thought I'd be describing the eerie overlaps between the book I just finished and the series the Cali kids and I binged after getting everyone else in the house settled in.

Instead, every time I sat down on the couch, laptop on my lap, TCM tempted me away.  It's Oscars Month, and the line up is irresistible.  

We saw snippets of some (The Great Dictator..... I've never been able to get through a whole Charlie Chaplin film) and avoided others (All About Eve was too bitchy,  1937's A Star is Born was too melancholy, 12 Angry Men was too preachy).  

Some we've never seen (In the Heat of the Night) and are in the queue where TBG can find them and where I could, too, if ever took the time to learn.

And some start out as pretty music as we clean up after dinner and by the time we're comfy on the couch it's obvious to both of us that we are in for the whole film.

I've lost typing time to Singing in the Rain, and Brigadoon, and, tonight, the movie we watch and listen to from the opening credits through to the final copyright seal - The Sting.  Newman and Redford and Scott Joplin reimagined by Marvin Hamlisch keep us glued to the screen.  

There's always something new to discover, a nuanced look, a so that's whose glove it is moment.  When the Oscar qualifying nomination is for cinematography or art direction or musical score, I look at a familiar film in an entirely new way.

As our leaders begin to make some righteous noise (Sen. Andy Kim's press conference outside the shuttered ASAID office), as I begin to develop a phone friendship with Brendan at Rep. Ciscomani's office, as the occasional judge says WTF????, I'm delighted to be enchanted with songs and dances and memories (The Sting is driving through Wisconsin in our MGB; Music Man is watching on the couch in Cleveland with TBG's dad; The Way We Were is me sobbing on the phone to TBG, a thousand miles away, my own Golden Boy).

I don't mind adding a pleasant soundtrack to what seems like a teeny tiny awakening.  

It's a much better mindset than reading my BlueSky feed and going down the rabbit hole.  I'm going to imagine a scenario with a hopeful outcome.  And that scenario will be set to great music.