Tuesday, December 31, 2019

The Irishman

Great to see another fascinating Scorsese film, it takes you back to another time that cinema clearly hasn't forgotten, he's still got it, the skills that led him to success with Mean Streets 46 years ago, and has even improved on films like Casino (24 years ago), The Irishman's like a time warp folding 5 remarkable filmmaking decades into one, it would have been shocking to see something this good released by Scorsese in 2019 if I had ever thought he'd lost a step, or stopped givin' 'er with exacting intensity, damned impressive, hopefully for many more decades to come.

The same can be said for Steven Spielberg who continues to impress like he did in the '70s.

I can't believe it's almost been 20 years since Y2K.

It's amazing how much things have changed in the last 20 years, how practically everything has moved online, even in the country, how a device that fits in my pocket functions as walkman (with access to every album in the Apple Music catalogue), flashlight, alarm clock, I'm writing about how much I love my cellphone again, mailbox, newsstand (with newspapers from around the world), internet service provider (I access the web more on my phone now than I do on my computer), calendar, camera, health promoter, wallet, weather network, world map repository (you don't even need to know where you're going anymore), music studio, translator, calculator, compass, stock market ticker, and phone, it's strange when you watch older films or new films set in the past and characters aren't casually checking their cellphones from time to time, even if I certainly spend too much time on my cell, although I rarely do if I'm on vacation.

Working vacation.

The net may even solve housing crises in cities if rural environments can offer steady internet access and people can then move there and work online from home.

The technology's already available in some locations but it's very expensive.

Mindboggling how much things have changed.

Not all for the good of course, what used to seem like deranged lunacy regularly pops up in the public sphere these days, passing itself off as rational discourse, and sensation's lost its edge as the quotidian embraces incredible daily scandal, politics used to at least seem much more responsible, as if the greater good didn't only apply to an elite few.

There used to be more of a humanitarian edge in the public sphere, a much stronger willingness to promote peaceful harmonies, which aren't as naive as provocateurs make them sound, even in Canada someone as loveable as Justin Trudeau is under constant attack, he has made mistakes, but still promotes compassion and understanding likes it's 1967.

Perhaps the next 20 years will see a shift away from petroleum based products as the producers find new ways to profit off biodegradable alternatives, and the world will embrace peace without ever having gone to war as world leaders come to redefine hope and optimism.

It's clear that that's what we need to do.

Doesn't it make more sense than drilling in the Arctic?

There has to be a will to keep people working without laying waste to the environment.

Thankfully they have such a will in Québec.

And elsewhere around the world, I imagine.

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