And I wouldn’t have watched it if streaming had been my only option. I won’t say whether it happens, but I will say the movie drew me in enough to inspire a post-watch Google session to find out more about it. Later she sings a song about getting drunk and claims to have murdered a neighbor.īy the end, I was invested in the Smith family remaining in St Louis and all the progeny entering healthy, stable relationships. We first encounter her telling a local guy about her plans for a funeral for her doll, who has “four fatal diseases” and isn’t expected to make it through the night. But Garland’s incredible alto made it worthwhile, and I was really hooked when I met Tootie, her five-year-old sister who is obsessed with death. I’ll admit it was tough going at first – the movie felt slow and a bit dry, and the first few songs weren’t particularly engaging. Garland and Minnelli’s father, the director Vincente Minnelli, met while making the film. The big one here was a video of Liza Minnelli introducing the film without it, it would have gone over my head that this movie is essentially responsible for her existence. I’d forgotten about two key benefits of DVDs: the packaging – the disc had a nice image of a smiling Garland and her love interest, played by Tom Drake – and the extra features. I popped some popcorn and, after briefly panicking that I didn’t have a DVD player any more, put the disc in my PlayStation. ![]() I was participating in what felt like a living museum, which is a lot of weight to put on a five-inch-wide disc.īut it was a pretty good museum. It all felt like a relic of another time, as though this disc shouldn’t really be in my hands: we have faster, colder ways of getting our movies now. It felt like a relic of another time, as though this disc shouldn’t be in my handsīut I also felt a little sad, the way you might when you watch a show filmed right before the pandemic, or see your favorite band lose its “relevance” and become a nostalgia act, or have a dream about someone you’ve lost touch with. On the back, the sleeve told me what to do if I couldn’t play it: “Try gently washing with liquid soap or window cleaner” (I assume this referred to the disc and wasn’t a dig at my personal hygiene). The text identified it as “one of the greatest American musicals ever filmed”, which was a nice vote of confidence. I was surprised to feel a long-forgotten sense of anticipation as I ripped open the envelope to reach the inner sleeve with its familiar, dated-looking font describing the film. I put it in the queue, and lo and behold, three days later it was at my door. It also didn’t appear to be on any of the subscription streaming services (though I could pay for an individual rental on some platforms). Ultimately, I decided to go hard on the “commitment” angle, using the requirement to force myself to watch a classic movie I wanted to have seen but would never click on: Meet Me in St Louis, the one where Judy Garland sings Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. The Muppet Christmas Carol? Home Alone 2: The One with Trump? One of the “verys” – A Very Murray Christmas, A Very Country Christmas, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas? I figured I should go for a Christmas movie for maximum old-school coziness, but that hardly limits things. So it took me quite a while to decide on what to get. You can’t watch the first 10 minutes of a movie and then settle on a better option. ![]() ![]() The DVD-by-mail option, however, does require a level of commitment that has become foreign to many of us. Thus we subscribe to service after service, and the $15 (£12) a month charges pile up. My options were far more plentiful than on the streaming service, a reminder that browsing the digital version of Netflix is like scanning your friend’s DVD collection – far from an exhaustive representation of cinematic history. For the first time in roughly a decade, I opened the DVD queue and hunted around for a disc to put at the top. Turns out my account was already equipped to receive one DVD at a time. So I wanted to give it one last try while I could.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |