Trawling Through The Thrift Stores with Joseph Finn

 Happy Thursday, everyone!  Time for another week where I go through five things I've run across this week of thrift stores and Little Free Libraries.  So, let's go from the classy to the trashy!

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Lasse Hallström has a very odd career, making movies in his native Sweden as well as over here in the USA.  (Also, a bunch of videos for ABBA.)  I've seen What's Eating Gilbert Grape and The Cider House Rules, but My Life Is A Dog (for which he received an Oscar nomination for directing) is one I've never seen  I know it's one that Ebert was a big fan of, so this was a welcome pickup

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I so love '90s Robert Altman.  Short Cuts is a perfect example of it, with a huge cast that is the epitome of that time in Hollywood.  But what really makes this so great is being such a great adaptation of Raymond Carver.  And this is a lovely adaptation and edition, including a book of the stories that were adapted for this movie.  (And hey, there's a bunch of video of Raymond Carver on this.  I feel like he was one of the best short story writers of the 20th century, one who avoided a lot of the macho bullshit that inflicted his generation of authors, and this movie gets into that.)

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I admit, much as I love history, I have a huge blind spot when it comes to Chinese history.So sure, I'll give this book on the women who helped shape 20th Century Chinese history.  It's apparently also a memoir of Jung Chang, who emigrated from China in 1978 (and was a member of the Red Guard).  So sure, I'll give this a shot.

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This one is a real curiosity.  Written in 1990, it's a letter from Ralf Dahrendorf to the future about the very recent fall of Communism (which unbeknownst to him, was still ongoing and had some weird wrinkles left).  I'm kind of curious to read this and see what he might have gotten wrong about the future of Europe.  (I've already flipped through a bit and hoo boy was he apprehensive about the reunification of Germany, which turned out to be about the most positive thing in Europe in the last 30 years.)

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On to the trash!

OK, maybe not trash.  I've not seen one of these movies.  But goodness, look at these featured casts!  Tons of Fred Williamson!  Richard Pryor!  Marion Van Peebles and Mean Joe Greene and Billy Dee Williams!

So of course, I needed to pick up a set with three movies titled Black Cobra.  

I defy anyone to tell me what's going on in that trailer.