mm, friday! peace perchance to be peaceful? and a movie review

wow. i've had nearly 4,000 page hits on my other blog today. more than 2,000 visitors have popped into the site today. been a while since i've seen numbers like that -- i've only seen 4,000 maybe two or three times, and that all happened last may. numbers are going up fairly quickly. nice. surprising, but nice.

i'm pretty tired tonight, but i lucked into noticing that Judgment at Nuremberg was showing on PBS at 10pm. unluckily for me, it's a three-hour movie, but one hell of a fantastic one so far. it's not just about the trial -- it's more about one incredibly fair-minded, inquisitive man (Judge Haywood -- Spencer Tracy) forced into the position of judging over justices who'd presided during the Nazi regime, ordering sterilization (aka: enforcing eugenics -- a new word for some of you, i'm sure, but as "Nazi" as it sounds, even Alberta, Canada had eugenic practices in the early to mid-20th century. someone somewhere figured Natives and "retards" shouldn't be allowed to breed. people are fools if they think only Nazis thought in those terms. our governments have done the same; they've just been able to better justify them and cover them up) and other such inhumane practices.

it's considered one of the greatest movies of all times, yet you'll seldom see it on lists. after all, who sits home on a saturday night thinking, "gee. that movie about the Nazis would be really entertaining to watch tonight!"

but it is. it's all talk, but it is utterly transfixing. the judge is remarkably torn in having to consider the evidence against these justices -- one of whom was of great note when it came to being a progressive legal mind (Burt Lancaster) and who stood for equality and freedom, not anything the Nazis pushed. yet there he is on trial because he understood the tides of the time, and knew his choices -- to sink or to swim.

and there is nothing more exhilerating to me than an ethical exploration in fiction. it's fantastic when it's well done, and what better debate of ethics could exist than one of being Just Another Person in the midst of the powerful machine that was Nazi Germany? i would like to believe that i would have stood for right and good. i probably would have. i can be a force of nature when i believe wrong is transpiring. but what if? how could i possibly conceive to understand such an unfathomable political climate? imaginative i may well be, but my prescience has plenty to be desired.

and, yeah, Spencer Tracy & Burt Lancaster (and a freakishly young William Shatner!) know a thing or three about that acting dealio.

***

so, a good movie is great after a 10-hour day that was absolutely non-stop literally without having a break. god, it was a challenge today, but i did well and accomplished a lot. and now i'm too spent to see the end of my movie, hence i'm taping the conclusion, having a bath, and turning in before the clock strikes midnight, or a reasonable fascimile of that.

but i have now decided: i will once again order the "extra" cable. i'll finally be all caught up on most bills this month, so i'll spend the extra 20 bucks a month and get myself Turner Classic Movies again. the older i get, the more i appreciate all the movies to come before the birth of Steff. some good shit out there, y'know? i'm well-versed enough on movies to see the listings and know what i oughtn't be missing. this 28-channel shit's a drag!

a bath, perchance to soak. ooh. quel thought.