It was another couple of days worthy of a movie marathon, as the rainy weather left us with little else to do. I watched the ten new episodes of Season Four of Bosch on Amazon Prime to kick-off the weekend. My wife and I went to the theater last night to see Rangasthalam and followed-up this afternoon with All The Money in the World on the living room screen. We also made a trip to Powell’s Bookstore to pick up some poolside reading materials for what we hope will be a sunny weekend in Santa Monica. Showers shortened this morning’s walk/run with the dogs so they were also disappointed with Mother Nature. My wife is currently watching the movie Molly’s Game, while I do some writing and catch-up on sports scores.

After a few more days of being a couch potato, I’ll be ready to get out of town again. I need some sunshine in my life after a cloudy Mediterranean cruise and a couple of rainy weeks here in Portland. I want to get started on Sneaky Pete and Justified now that I know they are available on my laptop through Amazon. I spent some unexpected time yesterday clearing out some virus problems on the computer, so it limited my writing time. I was looking at some items on E-Bay when my screen froze on a warning about the WANNACRY virus. They cautioned me NOT to turn off my computer because this would only serve to spread the malware and conveniently gave me a support number to call. I was of course suspicious of the quick answer by a broken-English speaking attendant and quickly elected instead to call Microsoft. I was then directed to a BBB accredited company called One Support out of Austin, Texas who fixed my problem for $65. During the entire duration they were remotely cleaning my computer, I couldn’t help but think they were stealing my identity. How do we really know what is a scam anymore? I can only hope I did the right thing, and will admit that my computer is now operating much more efficiently.

Most companies are now International in scope and employ people all over the world. I try to be open and non-discriminatory, particularly when I’m dealing with computer problems. Some of the smartest technicians are in India and the Far West, but you have to be careful with who you’re dealing with. It’s not always obvious when you’re communicating by e-mail, but phone conversations can be confusing when they involve heavy accents and second languages. I like to believe that most people are honest, and it certainly has nothing to do with race or origin, but I remain cautious. As I was watching the critically acclaimed art movie Rangasthalam, I was feeling a little guilty about my conversation with that initial computer support contact. However, I would much rather initiate my own contact than click on an internet link, so I’m sure I did the right thing. I had to chuckle when the subtitles appeared on the movie screen, and the entire movie was in the Indo-Aryan language. As is stated in Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got here is a failure to  communicate!”

I have to admit that the dance choreography, music, and cinematography in Rangasthalam far surpass the need to understand the words, but just try to tell people what movie you’re about to see. The audio is overpowering, so I had to stuff napkin pieces in my ears. (And my wife thinks I need a hearing aid). I am also not a fan of hard-to-read subtitles, especially those poorly translated into English, or three-hour movies in general. As a result, I had to deal with some initial obstacles while my wife was absolutely captivated. As I’ve admitted before when dealing with the arts, I can often find more enjoyment watching her than the performance itself. She was into the bright costumes, songs, and dancing long before I was still struggling with the communication challenges. It was given some of the highest critical marks of any movie released in recent years, but like last week’s Hamilton performance it was not one of my favorites. (See Post #485).

On a less-artsy level, I did continue to enjoy the Bosch detective series and found the All The Money in the World movie about the John Paul Getty III kidnapping quite interesting, despite the last-ditch decision to replace Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer as the billionaire capitalist J. Paul. Either is capable of portraying an “asshole,'” although IMO the former has recently proven himself to be more of one in real life. I may watch Molly’s Game tomorrow, since we have a 24-hour rental and I’m retired with a flexible schedule. It too should be worthy of a small-screen viewing, although I’m leery about watching good skiers get hurt while I might be considered “an accident waiting to happen,” after just getting a text about planning our next trip to the mountain. I just hope it doesn’t rain!