This month Turner Classic Movies is doing their whole "31 days of Oscar" promotion. I dig the channel quite a bit, anyway -- where else can I catch old Harold Lloyd films? -- this is a good month to keep tabs on what they're showing. Tonight I think they're playing "Some Like It Hot." I've never actually seen a Marilyn Monroe film but plan to tape it (unless today's snow downpour results in a canceled class).

I just finished watching "Good Morning, Vietnam" that I taped off TCM. Incidentally, I don't think they're editing these films one bit (not that they ever did or normally have to, just pointing it out). It's nice to be able to watch a film on television where all the words match up. Before the Christian Coalition goes after me for supporting "foul language" or something, I should point out that if much of a film's or book's aim is to present an artistic (Walker HATES it when I just throw that word around) portrayal of what could be a true situation and true characters, then inclusion of certain language, behavior, and so on is part of being true to that. Anyway, on the subject of GM,V: Despite my dislike for large doses of Robin Williams, I enjoyed the film. It isn't particularly thought-provoking but well-done escapist fiction. The sort of conflict between The Establishment versus The Funny Edgy New Guy is sort of cliched, but put within this context is pretty good. For me it was worth watching once since I'm pretty much interested in anything having to do with that period. Incidentally, I'm NOT really big into researching and reading about the Vietnam War itself, though I'm slowly warming up to that sort of study (thanks in part to my Culture of the 60s class). I don't find much so disturbing that I just can't deal with it, but Vietnam has always sort of been that way for me. Last week in class our guest lecturer was the Chair of the History Department, a man who served in the Navy very very early on in Vietnam then went on to do his graduate and doctorate work at Yale in the late 60s, early 70s. Someone asked him why we haven't seen any television sitcoms based on the Vietnam conflict whereas Korea and WWII both had pretty popular shows based on them. Dr. Garver said that the public just isn't ready to laugh about anything regarding Vietnam yet, and may not ever be...and in fact, is just now becoming able to start looking at it for more than brief moments (2 hour films being brief moments). While the Vietnam War ended not long before I was born, we early members of the post-Vietnam generation still know relatives and friends who were greatly and negatively affected by Vietnam and it's still a very sore spot in the national dialogue. It's too early to say whether any actual healing will occur or if it will just eventually become "history" with no real treatment...perhaps a nation's sins aren't so easily forgotten.

In other news...

The neighbor came over about 9:30 last night. Stacey and I were about to go walk to her house and he banged on the door and asked to use my phone again. This time he needed to call his brother-in-law to ask some question about reprogramming a Playstation. I couldn't look at Stacey for fear of cracking up because I knew we were thinking the same thing. A Playstation probably keeps his kids from screaming and bothering me while I work, so it's all good...just funny that someone has to borrow a phone to call for help with a video game system.