Some Possible Lessons for Us from Movies and TV

Recently I've been watching a series on Netflix called The Kominsky Method.  The lead character, played by Michael Douglas, is a former well-known movie actor, who now runs his own school for fledgling actors to teach them their craft.  He's also quite an old man.  And his agent, played by Alan Arkin, is even older.  The show is a comedy, which a mixture of old-man humor and the humor in teaching students when there is such a large age difference between them and the teacher, also humor about acting in particular and the need to be original rather than simply to a remake of what somebody else had already done. I found all of this interesting and somewhat related to our class.  It occurred to me that we should turn our class into a comedy or make a comedy about our class?  If anyone has ideas on this score you can write them in a blog post rather than write to the current prompt.  If you do this, have fun with it.  I think we all need some levity now.

The other item is an opinion piece by Martin Scorsese in today's New York Times.  Scorsese is a very well known director.  Recently, he had given an interview where he commented, "Marvel movies are not cinema." That caused quite a stir.  The opinion piece explains and defends that comment. While Scorsese is 12 years my senior, we both grew up in Queens, New York, and quite likely have similar sensibilities on a variety of matters as a consequence.  If you read this piece, you might find it remarkably similar to what I argued in class on October 29, that blockbusters have crowded out the more interesting movies.  I will say there is one part of Scorsese's argument that I don't buy into.  He says that movie makers want to have audiences watch their movies on the big screen in theaters.  If I were half my age, I might agree with that.  For me, however, I want to be physically comfortable when I'm watching something that might interest me.  That often doesn't happen when I'm at a theater.  I'd rather be sitting in my own furniture and on my own screen, so I can be comfortable.  And dare I say this, it matters to me that I can pause the movie when I need to, for whatever reason.  That caveat notwithstanding, the rest of what he wrote gave me a sense of deja vu.  If you read his piece and you were in class on October 29, I wonder if you experience a similar sensation.