The Lost Picture Show

I very rarely watch movies anymore.

I go for walks, I go cycling when I can, I tend to my flower garden, I listen to music, and I am pursuing my latest hobby, making movie shorts with AI.  But while I'm making movies,  I don't spend much time seeing them.

I think it's the mood of the country that makes me disinterested in the cinema, and the mood was pretty much set by Donald Trump.  I've had issues with the cinematic tastes of previous Republican Presidents, most notably Ronald Reagan's embrace of the Rambo trilogy (the former B-grade actor had B-grade actor Sylvester Stallone for dinner at the White House), not to mention the elder George Bush's predilection for Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks (I like Arnold the man, but not Arnold the movie star).  Call me crazy, but I always thought a President should like foreign classics, the sort of pictures kids growing up in New Jersey in the fifties and sixties could only see by taking the bus to Manhattan once Mom and Dad gave them permission.  Would-be President Michael Dukakis was a big fan of Luchino Visconti, citing The Leopard as one of his all-time favorite films, but he found out the hard way that loving Italian neorealism is a good way to lose votes, especially in locales where not only is a theater showing Italian movies unheard of, so are neighborhoods with Italian families.   

But . . . at least while Reagan and Bush the Elder may have had bad taste in movies (and Reagan had bad taste in scripts), at least they still enjoyed movies.  I don't think Trump has ever seen a movie in his life.  Never mind Trump being unable to tell the difference between Jean Renoir and his painter father Pierre; Trump couldn't tell a Billy Wilder movie from a William Wyler movie.  

Trump watches cable news, as far as I can tell, just so he can call out Kaitlan Collins as a fake newswoman.  It is Trump's obsession with the reality TV show the Presidency has become under this former reality show star's watch, and his projection of the presidential reality show, that has required all of us to keep up with the news.  So we spend a lot less time seeing movies.  I don't watch TV news - I haven't done so since November 18, 2024, the day Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski admitted to have gone to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's corned feet - but I have been keeping up with the news through various YouTube podcasts and video blogs.  And Trump is always at the center of attention, providing entertainment value.  I have written before about how much Donald Trump has in common with Madonna, as he, like she, is media savvy to the point where can promote himself with style when there's less than zero substance there.  Here's another thing he has in common with Madge; you never know what outrageous stunt he's going to pull next, but you know you want to be there when he pulls it.

Well, I have to be there.  As a blogger, I have to be ready for his next trick.  But he demands so much attention that we all have to be there, really, he being our dear leader and all that.  But at least he's entertaining, so what do we need movies for?

This could very well be why Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House, where the White House movie theater was.  He doesn't care about the movies; why should we?

Occasionally I'll be restless enough to want to see a movie, but that doesn't mean I'll actually see one.  Yesterday, October 22, was Catherine Deneuve's eighty-third birthday.  As Catherine Deneuve is my all-time favorite actress - still - I combed through the movie channels on my TV set looking to see if any of them were celebrating Catherine Deneuve by airing one of her movies.  No such luck.  In the process, as I looked at the movies that were on yesterday, I must have gone through about a dozen titles and I could not work up enough interest or desire to see any of them.

Trump has worn me out.

Did I happen to mention that the Montclair Film Festival, near where I live, is going on near where I live at the moment, and the screenings of the only movie or two I was interested in sold out before I was even aware of their existence?

We can't go to the movies or see them on our flat-screens at home.  We're in a movie, and Trump is the director.  He's treating us like cattle, as Alfred Hitchcock treated his actors (RIP Eva Marie Saint).  We're in a movie based on a reality show wrapped in a sitcom, as Churchill might have said.  And we're not going to be ready to go back to the movies with real actors and substantial stories until Trump is gone . . . and if we  remain a country once he's gone, I know what we have to do.

Rebuild the East Wing and the White House movie theater. 

I'm actually glad Trump doesn't care about movies.  If he ever saw It's a Wonderful Life, he'd think Mr. Potter is the good guy.