Trawling The Thrift Stores with Joseph Finn

 Happy Thursday, everyone!  Let's see what kind of thrift store nonsense I got up to while the White Sox beat the Cubs and Chicago suffered through a very uncomfortable heat wave.

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This goes in the category of "WWII-themed movies that I've never seen" and also "wait....he's a child and chooses to never grow up"?  I mean, there's a lot of man-child nonsense in movies and TV.  But this is apparently well regarded and liked and so, as I always say, I will give it a chance.  Maybe one of these days I will do that "winner of the Palme d'Or" watches and this will be part of it.

The Tin Drum is currently streaming on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel.

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Now this is a series I need to go back and revisit.  Sorkin has steadily gone downhill (Newsroom was middling and at times terrible WHITE OLDER GUYS KNOW BEST nonsense and his movies have been actively bad, as well as how after he was fired The West Wing recovered and became much better in its last few seasons).  So I kind of hope that going back to Sports Night, that this is what I liked about Sorkin at the time.

Sports Night is not currently streaming anywhere but is available for purchase at Apple TV and Prime Video.

Followup: it is apparently streaming in IMDb TV!

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Kon Ichikawa is a director I know only for Tokyo Olympiad, maybe the single best sports documentary made (famously, when Ichikawa presented it to the Olympics people who were expecting a standard "the Olympics are great!" work they were befuddled and a little angry).  So I'm very curious to see his take on another aspect of post-WWII Japan, where a former soldier who served in the atrocities in Burma becomes a monk in absolution and his fellow soldiers don't quite understand.

The Burmese Harp is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

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There's very few things people can say about Spirited Away, a movie that may be the best work bby and representation for the rightly-celebrated Studio Ghibli.  Now this one I've seen several time and I love it so much.  The tale of a young girl whose parents go missing in a weird town and deals with all the ghosts and water therein, it's a beautiful piece of work that deserves all the praise it gets.  In particular, I've always appreciated this essay from Tasha Robinson in the glory days of the Dissolve, about the fluids of the movie and how they contribute to the story.

Spirited Away is currently streaming on HBO Max.

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Ah, now here's a piece of schlock I've seen!  It's goofy, silly fun that somehow also has a pretty effective dramatic performance by Adam West even though he's dead for 99% of the movie.  It's a weird adaptation of Daniel Defoe.   But it's some very pretty 1964-era looks.  It also continues how terrible the character of Friday is, even though Victor Lundlin is pretty great in the part.   (Fun fact: Lundlin also played the first on-screen Klingon on Star Trek.)  The movie has many issues but I so weirdly love it.

Robinson Crusoe On Mars  is streaming on Kanopy and something called Flix Fling.

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My recommendation  of the week is not a movie or a novel but some more Star Trek.  Today is the day that season 2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks premieres on Paramount+ and my goodness, even if you don't particularly care about Trek this is a series made by madmen who love this series and the mythology and revel in the weird corners of it.  There's holodeck insanity, jokes about how the Federation revels in First Contact and then ignores Second and Third Contact and that our main character, Ensign Mariner, has been using her ship for smuggling contraband.  It's fun that also has a real heart, one of the absolute best Star Trek series and I can't wait to get back into it tonight.