Went to the movies today to get some laughs.  Don’t we all need some of that of late?

It was not a completely successful outing. Previews included this and this.  I happened to notice this was also on the schedule.

It is this sort of trailer that keeps me from frequenting the multi-plex more often. These trailers are obscene assaults on the senses and spirit, especially when the movie you have paid to see is in an altogether different vein. So the movie theaters don’t get the audiences for the movies they play.

Me, I’m not in the mood for nihilism. How much more difficult is it to create a work of simplicity, subtlety and delicacy such as the classic film I watched earlier in the day. It is as spare as the life of material and emotional poverty it depicts without a trace sentimentality. Its beauty lies not even so much in the story it tells as in the way it does so. In its unadorned truth, its autobiographical depiction of a post-war childhood of deprivation is a model of artistic self-control. It is no wonder, given what’s on offer at the movie theaters, and in a political climate thick with obfuscation and subterfuge, that I would be so pleased with something as starkly and plainly observed and respectful of the audience.