Version 7.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Pedagogy. Linux.

So here is a new feature for the blog: each Saturday, when I am making my soup for the week, I usually watch a movie while cooking. Saturday morning television is dreadful, and I don’t feel like dragging my laptop out to the kitchen to listen to podcasts, so I tend to time my Netflix deliveries so I have a movie on Saturday.

Hey, by the way, if you look to your right you can see what I have been viewing recently from Netflix.

I have been doing this for a few weeks: two weeks ago I watched the adequately well done adaptation of Fast Food Nation. The week after that I watched Idiocracy. I had been planning to do review those films after viewing them, but I forgot to take notes while watching Idiocracy (although it is not exactly the deepest film) and did not have time to write about Fast Food Nation. I think both films are worth at least a rental.

So I believe starting fresh is a good idea: this week, I watched The Forth Doctor’s adventure in The City Of Death. I made broccoli soup. I had never seen these episodes of Doctor. Who before and it was pretty good. The issues with the death of the Jagaroth, and inevitable birth of the human race, were very well done. I enjoyed the humorous moments throughout the serial as well as the quick cameo from John Cleese. The writing of Douglas Adams shines through during the entire serial.

Let’s do this every week: tentatively this week I will also be watching The Forth Doctor in The Ark In Space. This week’s soup will probably be potato leek.

• The New York Times reviews Paul Auster’s new novel.

• Roxy over at Fun Vampires has a great post about Daleks. I am trying to get into, as you might see if you look over at my Netflix queue to your right, older Doctor. Who and her suggestions are very useful.

Hacking Netflix recently had an interesting post about using Netflix to discover and immerse yourself in a director’s works:

I can explore Woody Allen movies over a period of a month, loading up my queue with every Woody Allen movie they have, and then playing with the queue as the month goes by. Simultaneously I’m exploring movies directed by George Cukor. As far as I know this is the first time a regular person like myself has been able to do this.”

I’ve been something like this for awhile with directors and series. I spent sometime last year watching a lot of Kurosawa films. Recently I’ve been spending time with various series, going through them season by season. Being able to do this from my own room is quite a thrill really. Netflix allows the user to be able to learn and have their cinematic knowledge grow in whatever direction they wish from the comfort of home. You can’t do that from the local Blockbuster.