Well, tonight's tv listings reached a new low of boredom. So I decided to hit my film list again - and as I said before, highest on my film list (on Amazon Prime) was A Good Day to Die, a documentary about the American Indian Movement. Looked compelling.
It's a shocking story, the treatment of the Native Americans - I guess we shouldn't be surprised, given what we know about the Black Civil Rights movement, but it's just that we never heard as much about the Native Americans. Forced removal of children to boarding schools, banning their native languages, focussing on vocational education so that they were only fit for blue-collar work. Then when they grew up, there are stories of the police provoking violence, and truly amazing statistics for the numbers of Native Americans in prison (including Dennis Banks, the subject of this film). Also talk of a deliberate policy to do away with the reservations.
The film ultimately gets to the political agitation of the movement in 1973. And honestly, this is where I started to have problems with it. See, I grant you that they had a righteous grievance - I just don't think that barging in with guns and setting fire to buildings is the best way to bring the other side around to your way of thinking. And then it all started to blur together for me, and I hardly knew whether they were talking about police brutality, or agitators within the movement, or the massacre of Wounded Knee, back in 1890. And the fact that it was all told in the same dispassionate tone didn't help. Nobody seemed to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with this violence on the part of the Native Americans. And dropped in the middle, we get an incongruous interview with his daughter, who looks like she comes from another planet, she is so removed from it all! Phew.. too much going on, and I didn't feel as though I could get behind the sentiment expressed. Which is a pity.
On Saturday, for some reason, no-one is doing online Meetups again. At the moment, I'm thinking film - and now that I've seen that one, I had to choose another. Well, there's a halfway infinite list! As a friend of mine once asked - is it my aim to see them all one day? Well, looks like it's happening - slowly.. Next up looks interesting. Moon is one I don't remember hearing about, and I'm wondering why! Sam Rockwell has been stationed on the moon for a three-year contract - something to do with a mining operation. He's spent the entire time alone, with just a robot for company. Voiced by Kevin Spacey, this is kind of the next generation-HAL, with a range of sympathetic emojis to display. Unfortunately, just as our lone human is on the verge of going home, something unsettling happens.. one of those where we're supposed to question his sanity, I think. Anyway, I'm happy with that option.. Amazon Prime is working well for me!
On Sunday - why, London Social Detours has something on again at a time I can make! Specifically, a slideshow about the history of Islington - where I used to live, and which is still just up the road from me. Cool - I've signed up.
And on the 22nd, they're doing another "time-travel" - Ancient Rome this time, complete with a short film again. They're getting busy, these days..
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