Stones

It was not easy getting up in the dark this morning. Going to see 1917 and then coming home and watching he Grammies on television was a bit surreal. We didn't catch the very beginning of the broadcast so I missed the fact that retired LA Lakers basketball giant, Kobe Bryant and his 13 year old daughter were killed when their privately hired helicopter crashed into a hill in heavy fog. The fact that the Grammys were being held at the Staples Center, which is also the home court for the Lakers, made it all the more surreal. I wondered why they kept talking about him.

I can't say that the Grammys did much for me. Although a few groups from my musical heyday did perform, most of them were past their prime and it was obvious despite the strobe lights and glittery clothes. Aerosmith comes to mind..
The rest of them were unknown and unloved  by me.

A movie that makes me think after I walk out of the theatre must have something going for it, and I have been thinking about 1917 all day. It certainly makes the 'war is hell  point' in many ways, both subtle and unsubtle. It is well acted and the cinematography is really good if you can handle dead and dying bodies. One has to suspend disbelief as Cpl. Schofield survives one seemingly unsurvivable situation after another, but that said, George MacKay does it convincingly. Since I don't see many war movies, I don't know if it has anything new to say, but it spoke volumes to me about misery, ineptitude and terrible sacrifices and losses. I kept wondering about how it would end, and I thought the ending was well done and appropriate. 

The main question is...will we ever learn? We keep making war movies, and we keep going to war. The ways in which wars are fought change, but the hellishness doesn't....