I have no intention of cracking one of my manuscripts this weekend. I want to recover from my recent adventures, and learned I have to report for jury duty on Monday morning. What I wanted to do was view some fun movies about the places I visited.
I wound up renting Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and enjoyed the heck out of it. It’s been decades since I saw it and it was a blast. Wasn’t precisely what I wanted.
Last week I visited Little Bighorn, Devil’s Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Deadwood, Salem, Lexington, and Concord. Passed through parts of Boston, too. Aside from those, we drove through a bunch of country that could be considered as Last of the Mohicans territory. Basically, I wanted something historical.
A few Google searches revealed some titles, but a dozen or so premium services failed to provide anything. I expanded my search, and tried The Crossing, which was a favorite about George Washington. It was made by HBO, but it’s not available on HBO Max.
I went through this dance with all the locations and found nothing worth my time. I get this isn’t exactly uber popular currently, but I figured the premium services would have something to offer. I also understand fully they aren’t historically accurate. Entertainment was my goal, a specific kind of entertainment.
If there was no movie, perhaps I could find a documentary. Nope. Documentaries seem to all be about finding some hidden treasure, fishing for crabs, or preg testing cattle. Never saw anything by Ken Burns.
At this point, I expanded in an attempt to find anything remotely patriotic at all. I never found anything. I frequently see social media postings about some attempting to brainwash the general public, and tried to blow it all off. After today, I’m not so sure.
I will admit to not looking for The Patriot with Mel Gibson, because I’ve seen it a bunch of times. It might be there. The Untouchables is on Dish tonight, so it would vaguely qualify as my having passed through Chicago, but that wasn’t my main focus today.
I would settle for Little Bighorn from the Indian perspective if we’re all so politically correct these days. Never found anything.
There is a statue of Tesla at Niagara Falls. Maybe I can find something about him tomorrow. Might have to settle for National Treasure or North by Northwest. At least they have Mt. Rushmore.