Go Fly A Kite

Streaming on HBO Max, Empire of Light.

I read a commentary on this film in the online version of The Guardian. Two words, Olivia Coleman, sent me to my HBO Max streaming link and putting the film on My List. Going back to the column, I learned that Sam Mendes wrote and directed the film as his homage to movies. This ensured it would go to the top of said list. 

There seem to be more films where a woman of a certain age gets to entertain a younger man in a serious sexual relationship. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande; with two more words that sell me on a film, Emma Thompson comes to mind.

In Empire of Light, we follow Mendes as he explores the magic of movies and the plight of two lovers during the nineteen sixties. One is a tragically mentally challenged woman, and the other is her younger lover, a black man. 

Through the characters Mendes is telling us, we have evolved on some issues. But in many ways, nothing has changed. Women who think differently are still crazy. So many problems we have are because of 'those people.'

Suppose you believe that the value of a film is that it brings together strangers who sit in the dark and share the same experience in a way that watching the film at home alone never does. In that case, you'll be buoyed up in your beliefs by the emotional wave that brings you to that sunfilled sandy beach known as the movie theater.

From Dave Nitz, Curator Of Wacky Stuff On The Internet.

Here's another one with a twist you won't believe.

Camp Jeff is looking a little overstuffed these days. Since Poppa Jeff decided to attend art classes at U-Tube University, the camp is taking on the appearance of a warehouse with stacks of cartons containing paint, media, tools and, most of all, cut-up cardboard cartons. The scrap cardboard is for wrapping the finished product.

Much of it shows my path as I struggle to become an artist. From the colored pencils, oil paints,  watercolors, qouache and pastels and the associated material such as canvas panels and specialty papers, I'm rivaling the inventory of the people from whom I buy this stuff.

I may be kidding myself, but I occasionally produce something in these choices. Some of the things I've done in pastels are closer to what I want to do.