The Wave of the Past

As the weekend approached, I headed to my favorite movie place, Video Vault (very small townsy and idiosyncratic), to rent "Persuasion." I brought it up to the counter, and the guy told me that I could rent it for $2.50 or buy it for $3.00. What?! It turns out that ALL of the videos in the place are now for sale. They're moving to DVDs. WOWZER. So I bought "Persuasion," and checked to see whether "Pride and Prejudice" (BBC, 5 hour version) had been sold already. Oh ya, he said, it was one of the first to go. Hmmmm. The good taste of these RIers. I was pretty happy, though, since owning the movie "Persuasion" was on my 30 by 30 list (along with a few other choice movies).

Well yesterday, with Melissa (about whose return I could have written an entire 60 paragraph post of joy), I returned. We took the place by storm, scouring every aisle (well, almost... we skipped over the horror films), and picking out the cream of the crop. My happiest find was "Riverdance!" I had looked for it immediately, and hadn't found it. I assumed it was taken already, but then discovered it with the musicals. Hurrah! That was one on my 30 by 30.

Let me tell you, it was a hard task. Where do you draw the line? You can't buy every good movie, because you would be quickly broke, despite the good price. So we settled for choosing a few of the best, and keeping a list of all the other possibilities (25-30 more, I'd guess). And I kept thinking of other people, too, and whether I should be buying for them!

Katie, do you want "October Sky?"
Dad, how about "Captains Courageous?"
And Derrick, I assume you already own "The Last Samurai."

Anyway, it was pretty fun. I can't believe they're getting rid of all their videos, though! It certainly is a big step forward in technology, I suppose. But I'm happily riding the wave of the past with my newly acquired videos.

I told my kids about it today, and informed them I'd grabbed Hamlet, with Mel Gibson, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, both for their sakes! I'll be teaching Hamlet next year, and I wanted to show them Mr. Smith to demonstrate what a filibuster is. One student was groaning at the idea of watching anything in black and white. I vigorously protested that there was no law that kids couldn't watch movies made before 1999 - there were some wonderful old classics. And he came right back and quoted my own words against me. A few weeks ago, after seeing a movie's attempt to portray Medusa, in 1970 or so, I had practically vowed not to watch any movie made before 2000! I'd forgotten about that, and had to laugh upon being reminded. I tried to qualify my statement by saying I didn't like old movie's special effects. But finally I just told them to forget all those rash statements I make:)