A Few Pickups

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I assume most of you have read my notification on the music site that I’m no longer going to be posting music. That was a hard decision to make, but I think it was the right one.

My hope is that with the time not posting music is going to save me can be spent making this blog more interesting. That will be a challenge because I was so used to posting music that it became like a reflex. It was just something I did every day. But writing movie reviews and posting other interesting things on this site is not yet a habit. I’ll have to make it one.

Something I’ve done in the past and enjoyed was to post pictures of recent purchases.

This post includes two separate purchases.

Tulsa regularly does a big flea market and we like to go (when we remember that it exists). We attended last Saturday and I immediately spied a big vendor with lots of DVDs and Blu-rays. He was selling them all for $1-$2 apiece. Naturally, most of them were crap, but as you can see I found a few gems.

There was another vendor with an even bigger, and better selection of movies. I started grabbing them but then realized they weren’t so cheap. They were individually priced, the cheapest being $5 and they went as high as $50 for larger boxed sets. Those prices weren’t bad for what he was selling, but since I originally thought they were $1 a piece I rejected them outright.

Today my wife went thrift shopping and sent me a picture of the second set. I don’t know anything about Sandition, but I generally love PBS shows and since it was selling for $1 for the three seasons we knew that was a bargain. I have no idea what My Wife Maurice is about (neither does my wife but it is French and she loves all things French).

Studious observers may notice that I now have two copies of the John Wayne movie The Quiet Man. I picked the DVD up at the flea market. When my wife sent me the selection of the movies she found at the thrift store she asked me if I had The Quiet Man. I looked at my list and told her, “No.” Friends, I had not yet added the DVD to my list. So, now I have an upgrade to Blu-ray!

I love a good bargain.

New Pickups

pictures of dvds and book

We spent most of last week just sitting around with family celebrating the life and mourning the death of my brother-in-law Paul. It was a long, difficult week. But we did have a little fun as well. The funeral was on Thursday so on Friday we went bowling and then played Dominoes.

At some point, my wife and I went to McKays, a wonderful little used book/music/movie store and I bought a few things. Honestly, I was pretty much dazed at that point so I didn’t really know what I was looking for so I just grabbed a few things that looked fun.

I am a big fan of boxed sets where you get several movies from an actor, or director, or maybe that cover a theme. These usually don’t include the big named films but will give you some lesser-known films for a cheap price.

The Tough Guys set has three films each from Kirk Douglas, James Cagney, and John Wayne. I’ve not heard of most of them (except The Strange Love of Martha Ivers which I think I already own and is excellent) but I’m looking forward to watching some lesser movies from three actors I really enjoy.

I love me some Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey. The disks in this collection come in those cheap snap cases, but I’m hoping the movies are good.

For reasons that are beyond me (besides racism) the 1930s found a lot of white actors playing Asian detectives. A number of actors (most famously Warner Oakland) played Charlie Chan in a series of films, Boris Karloff played Mr. Wong and Peter Lorre starred as Mr. Motto.

I’ve seen several of the Chan and Wong films and quite liked them so I’m interested to see what Lorre does as Motto. It is pretty gross watching these very non-Asian actors play Asian characters (often stereotypically so) but I have definitely learned to overlook any number of varying degrees of offensiveness in older films. You really can’t judge films made nearly 90 years ago by 2020 standards. Here’s hoping the actual mysteries are enjoyable.

Lastly, I grabbed another Maigret book. I always look for that series whenever I go to a book store.

What have you all picked up recently?

Last Weekends Pickups

photo of some books and dvds

We hit up a couple of second-hand shops last weekend and I got some good stuff.

The Retaliators was actually something that arrived randomly in my mailbox. Normally the review material I get for Cinema Sentries comes by request, but every now and again PR people will just send me random stuff in hopes I’ll cover it. I did write a review of this one and you can read it here.

Batman is probably my favorite comic book character (although I might also say that of the X-men). I’ve read more of his comics than any other line. Knightfall introduces Bane as an enemy and he immediately makes things interesting by opening Arkham Asylum up, releasing most of Batman’s Rogues Gallery onto the city. I’m about 1/3rd of the way through the book right now and so far I’m loving it.

Sometime in the late 1990s the American Film Institute released its top 100 list of the best American movies ever made. They did a big television show about it with lots of cool talking heads discussing why those movies were chosen.

I was in college at the time and just becoming a true cinephile so that show was like catnip to me. It introduced me to all sorts of films I’d never heard of. I printed out the list and began seeking out as many of those films as I could find and watching them.

Yankee Doodle Dandy came in at number 100 and it is one of the few films from that list that I still haven’t seen. I found it on sale for $1 and figured it would make a good blind buy.

Sports Night was the first TV series created and run by Aaron Sorkin. It isn’t as good as The West Wing but it has a lot of that show’s DNA in it. There is lots of great, sparkling dialogue and the actors are just wonderful. I’m not a sports guy but I still like this.

I think I’ve mentioned my love of Maigret, the great detective created by Georges Simenon before. Every time I go to a used bookstore I always look for more books from him. This time I found two.

What have you picked up lately?

More Pickups

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My daughter has outgrown dolls. My wife, however, has grown into them. She learned to sew probably 15 years ago. She used to make herself various outfits, but once my daughter was born she began exclusively making her dresses. But my daughter no longer likes dresses (she prefers black pants and hoodies now) and so my wife has started making clothes for the dolls. She’s really gotten into it and even has an Instagram account for it (and she would be thrilled with more followers if you are into that sort of thing) She does a great job, even if I find the whole grownups play with dolls thing a little bit strange.

Anyway, there is a little toy shop that she likes to go to for bargains on Barbies and accessories. She wanted to go today and we made a family outing of it. They have other collectibles and other random stuff. I found a copy of Pitch Black and Fargo Season 2. Pitch Black is a surprisingly good little sci-fi/horror film that briefly made me think Vin Diesel was a good actor. Fargo is a terrific television show based on the wonderful Coen Brothers movie of the same name. Or at least the first two seasons are excellent, I still haven’t seen past that.

Afterward, we dropped by a Goodwill and I picked up The Black Box and The Running Man. I recently watched Bosch, the TV series, and quite liked it so I’ve been reading the Michael Connely books the series was based on. I’ve only read a couple of them but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read. I’ve only been into Stephe King for a few years now but I am steadily working my way through them and I always buy the ones I don’t have at any used store we visit.

Spa is a comic book that I’ll be reviewing soon. It is utterly bizarre and it doesn’t make much logical sense, but the artwork is really interesting (and bizarre and horrifying).

Have you all picked up anything interesting lately?