What the Queue Hath Wrought

Brought to the top of the Netflix queue this week: Old Acquaintance with Bette (hah! just typed Better) Davis and Miriam Hopkins. About time I saw this...can't wait. And Gig Young with a mustache! Etrange. As ever, I am hoping that all that Bette will rub off and do some crazy bitch-slapping and fierce enunciation in my humdrum ex.

Last week it was Walk the Line. There is definitely something to be said for watching a movie--any movie--once the cycle of hype has gone all the way around. Easier to like/not like. Maybe you miss some of the fever pitches, but I find those often misleading. Anyhow, I liked this one a little better than I thought I would, given that I had sort of lost my enthusiasm for it. It hit events and moments super-hard, of course (I was a sucker for the scene with Sam Phillips), but it also had a certain larger-scale narrative lightness of touch that I liked. Some movies are so afraid you won't understand a situation is important that they have to build too much structure around it...this just kept hitting spots and not bothering to give endless context, which was good. Can still convey the importance and/or assume people will get there.

Johnny Cash may be one of the most distinctive looking/sounding people on the planet, though--I'm not sure I felt like I was watching him, to use that old test. JP was sort of a Cash manque...parallel universe Cash. He sure has an intense gaze, though. Cash's voice immediately makes me think of my childhood, because that's when I heard it the most, singing "Casey Jones" on my friend's record player.