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great pumpkin charlie The sun was nowhere to be seen when I walked out of work this morning, but that didn't matter to me this time. Despite the weather, I felt great. The past week at work had been the best one that I have had in weeks. There was very little stress and not one condescending comment was heard or read from management. It was all very unexpected, but I hope that that trend continues through the rest of the year. ... Netflix and my weekend were working in harmony, because there were three movies waiting for me in the mail today. One of them was Chinese, another was French and the third was based on the Joseph Conrad novel Victory. Since subtitles require a little more concentration I opted for the non foreign film. That way if I started to get sleepy and closed my eyes for a moment, I would still be able to understand the dialogue. Willem DaFoe, Sam Neill, Rufus Sewell and Irene Jacob were all very impressive in a disturbing little tale that from my perspective was more of an allegory than anything else. Oh, I suppose that the story could have happened, but the sequence of events felt very structured. For example, in keeping with the Conrad style, there was a narrator who opened and closed the story. So even though this was a film, we the viewer still got an inside look at the thoughts of the main character. Other familiar elements besides an omniscient narrator included an exotic locale where a man had separated himself from society. With all of these Conrad motifs, the Heart of Darkness was in my mind the whole time that I was watching the movie. Victory may not have had Kurtz in it, but dark side of humanity was certainly felt in other characters. ... Three years ago on this day I closed on my property and became a homeowner for the very first time in my life. No longer was I a serf with a landlord. No longer was I kissing goodbye to hundreds of dollars a month on rent. Now the next question is am I ready to upgrade? Being a mature adult doesn't stop me from enjoying a good animated special and that meant sitting through another airing of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The story is simple enough, but it always makes me laugh for some reason. Maybe it has something to do with my disliking of Halloween. |