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Thanks to Netflix, I’m catching up on movies that I never got around to seeing. It’s a long list because I don’t see a lot of movies.

Almost Famous

With the exception of the boy’s mom, there aren’t any interesting characters in this movie. It’s like spending two hours with uninteresting people.

The Lester Bangs character doesn’t count because Lester Bangs was an actual person who was interesting in real life. You don’t get credit as a writer/filmmaker for creating an interesting Lester Bangs character.

Cameron Crowe seems to have learned his directorial style from an Olive Garden commercial.

Great soundtrack.

Rating: Blah.

The Big Lebowski

Look at the scene and ask yourself “Is it dramatic? Is it essential? Does it advance the plot?

Answer truthfully.

If the answer is “No” write it again or throw it out.

— David Mamet

This movie has interesting characters and snappy dialogue. I laughed a couple of times. But most of the scenes are just dropped in randomly out of nowhere.

My wife fell asleep early on as we were watching this. When she woke up she asked me what happened.

I said, “The girl wasn’t really kidnapped.” What else is there to say?

If you removed all the scenes (and characters) that aren’t essential and don’t advance the plot, there might be a good movie left, but it would be a very short movie.

The soundtrack includes a couple of songs I really like but rarely hear — “The Man in Me” by Bob Dylan, and (a cover of) “Dead Flowers,” originally by The Rolling Stones.

Rating: Crock of shit

Rushmore

Now this is a great movie.

Rating: Highly recommended!

Now, each of us has his own special gift
And you know this was meant to be true,
And if you don’t underestimate me,
I won’t underestimate you.

— Bob Dylan, “Dear Landlord”

My owner and I took a walk tonight and we saw a woman we’ve seen many times before. She is about 40 years old in human years and a little bit chubby.

Tonight she was playing with a volleyball in front of her house with her kids and another girl. She was very good! She was bumping and setting with aplomb!

“I underestimated her,” my owner said. “She looks like a chubby housewife but she’s also a good volleyball player.”

That happens to me a lot too. As you can see in the photo, I’m not very big compared to some other dogs but I have the heart of a much larger animal.

— Lightning

Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

— Bob Dylan, “Chimes of Freedom”

If you’re reading this on Facebook, you can see the video here.

And there was like a fierce wind that was pushing me, just to do this one thing like nobody had ever done it before. . . . But you know, popular music. It doesn’t attract people who are in it for the right reasons. They’re not called to do it. It’s not their destiny.

— Bob Dylan

Now, each of us has his own special gift
And you know this was meant to be true,
And if you don’t underestimate me,
I won’t underestimate you.

— Bob Dylan, “Dear Landlord”

He stayed behind the assembly hall,
It was there he made his bed,
Oftentimes he could be seen returning.
Until one day he just appeared
With a note in his hand which read,
“The soles of my feet, I swear they’re burning.”

Oh, the leaves began to fallin’
And the seas began to part,
And the people that confronted him were many.
And he was told but these few words,
Which opened up his heart,
“If ye cannot bring good news, then don’t bring any.”

— Bob Dylan, “The Wicked Messenger”

Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you, dear lady, from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge.

— Bob Dylan, “Tombstone Blues”

“I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while–just once in a while–there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn’t, it’s just a disgusting waste of time!”

— J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

— T.S. Eliot, “The Rock”

Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die . . .

— Bob Dylan, “Gates of Eden”

According to Slate, if NRA president Charlton Heston does in fact develop full-blown Alzheimer’s disease, California state law would compel him to surrender his firearms.

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