The annual Oscar show last night was a yawner for me. At ten o'clock I went to bed as usual even though it ran until eleven o'clock. I hadn't seen any of the movies or actors at work so it all meant little to me. Some years there is a great piece of music in a movie, but I didn't recognize any of that either. There are some great theaters in Bismarck with the new and comfortable style of stadium seating, but we just haven't been going much.
Movies used to be important, especially so when I was growing up. I bought lots of tickets at the Grand Theater in Enderlin, especially on Saturday nights. Westerns or war movies were a favorite, and the preliminaries added spice. Newsreels played events of the outside world, the Three Stooges made everyone laugh, Mister Magoo, blind as a bat, always avoided the pitfalls, and the Road Runner drove the coyote crazy.
The themes of the movies usually showed the good guys winning, sex beyond an occasional kiss never existed, and we felt like a good story got told. The graphic realism filmed today definitely influences many of our population negatively. I'm sure of that. We are what we eat, we are what we read, we are what we watch, etc., etc., etc.
