More old Movies on VHS

Still in possession of a functioning VHS player I enjoy the inexpensive pleasures of old movies, especially the good ones.

I started to watch The Age of Innocence with Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer but lost interest part of the way through. I just have no interest in the plight of the old rich and their inter-generational struggles, hamstrung as they are between the rigid code of their parents not yet dead and their life of leisure and sexual dalliances. Yuck. The thing is narrated a lot, too, which suggests just how weak the action in the film really is.

The Ninth Gate was a much better movie, reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code and certainly easier to follow than that one. This one is about an unscrupulous book dealer played by Johnny Depp. He is hired to track down the three copies of a classic volume of satanism for a rich client Boris Balkin (Frank Langella). The client owns one copy but wants the other copies because he knows only one of them is genuine. Why he wants them is only clear by the movie's end. He is aided in his quest by a mysterious blonde who follows him from New York to Paris to the French countryside. After a while it is clear also that someone is after Johnny Depp and shortly after his visit with each of the owners of the books they meet with a lurid and bizarre death seemingly foretold in the book. Without question Roman Polanski is a great director. It is a shame that he apparently also has engaged in questionable behavior that is hard to forgive, at least by the state of California.

Run Fatboy Run was kind of a disappointment. I very much liked Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and although this movie was not a complete disappointment, it was awfully predictable in the shape of the narrative. Simon Pegg plays a total loser who abandons his beautiful biracial fiance at the altar and spends the next five years trying to get her back. She goes for a total winner instead (Frank Azaria) who being a rich American in high finance is everything seemingly that Simon's character is not. As in all fairy tales this guy ends up being too good to be true as he reveals a mean competitive side that turns the tide in favor of Simon's character. The action hinges on a marathon and as with all these sports movies a miracle happens. It is a bit much to see it retreaded once more for what seems like the hundredth time. But maybe I watch too many movies.

The Health Care Mess

There is an atmosphere of unreality in congress this year as demonstrated by the Health Care Debate. One popular delusion, especially among Democrats is that money grows on trees, and that you merely have to pluck it off your more well-off brethren.

There are a number of ways to improve health care but none of them involves lowering costs. The better the health care the more it will inevitably cost. Keep the cost of health care down and the quality of the health care will also decline. If you screw Big Pharma then Big Pharma will not be developing any new miracle drugs for you. Order your drugs from Canada and you will just raise the cost of drugs in Canada.

The real problem is the fact that health technology has progressed to the point where there is actually a lot you can do about the age-old problems of getting old and dying. Admittedly we have not overcome Death itself, but give us some time and research money and maybe, just maybe we'll all achieve immortality at which time old age pension funds and social security will REALLY go to hell in a handbasket.

The thing is, nobody in the health care profession is going to do their thing without compensation. Nobody is going to want to enter or stay in the health profession when the money in it disappears. Lowering health care costs by reducing reimbursements to doctors and to insurance companies won't work because nobody is going to want to practice medicine or offer insurance if it is not profitable. As distasteful as it seems that someone profits from your misfortune of being sick, it still doesn't help things if you no longer have access to medical care because of a doctor shortage.

The Fort Hood Tragedy

The fact that Dr. Hasan went postal is not surprising considering his profession as a psychiatrist. Psychiatry attracts mental cases not only as patients but as practitioners, which is not to say that most of them are not to be trusted with weapons. However if one uses suicide rates as a rough index of mental health then psychiatrists are one of the least healthy and medical professionals in general are also low on the list.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2301/do-dentists-have-the-highest-suicide-rate

The same thing is true of the military or ex-military, of which the Postal Service is full. Acquiring a knowledge of guns and the technology of warfare is just one step in the direction of actually using that technology, which leads to some unhappy results. Sorting mail might not be any more mind-bending than any other incredibly boring activity, however bored and resentful ex-military is a dangerous combination, as muttering darkly that your supervisor "ought to be shot" is more worrisome if the person doing the muttering owns and knows how to use weapons.

Old and Very Old Movies

I went to the library where they have VHS tapes on sale for 25c apiece. I picked up Oceans 11, Dr. No, Out of Africa, and The African Queen. Mini-reviews:

Oceans 11 (1960) turned out to be a heist film with an all-star cast and cameos, the legendary "rat pack" which was a little confusing with all those characters. Naturally things end badly for the rat pack and their larcenous ambitions since the Hays Office would never allow crime to pay on screen, even if it was at the expense of a gambling enterprise.

Dr. No (1962) was the first James Bond film to be made. He was not the gadgeteer he later became in these films as Agent 007 was only armed with things like a gun, hair from his head and the occasional shoe to smash poisonous spiders climbing up his arm while asleep. As no Jame Bond film would be complete without a femme, Ursula Andress was the nature girl, singing a calypso song and hunting for sea shells on a radioactive beach. Finally Dr. No was a mad scientist for whom motivations as to why he wanted to mess up the US space program were never really clear. He did have metal hands, which made him a little creepy.

Out of Africa (1985) was a mildly entertaining snooze fest where Meryl Streep and Robert Redford shared long meaningful looks but never saw eye to eye in the wild African paradise. All the coffee on Karen Blixen's plantation would not have kept me awake through this one.

The African Queen (1951) was a story of how a spinster missionary (Hepburn) and a drunken Canuck (Bogart) defeat Imperial Germany on a lake in 1914. It is no doubt the best of the lot.