The three stages in the life of a Netflix subscriber:
1. Wow, look at all of these great movies I've always wanted to see! I think I'll rent all of them!
2. Hmm, I didn't get a chance to see this when it came out last summer. Now I can finally watch it.
3. Well, there's nothing I really want to watch. I guess I'll just pick something at random and see if it's any good.
We have, unfortunately, been mired at stage 3 for quite some time. Thus it was that, after working our way through all of the classic Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire musicals, we found ourselves watching Doris Day in My Dream is Yours. It's an insipid and derivative musical comedy, and hardly worth your time, except, early in the movie, when Doris Day goes nuclear.
Doris Day is a singer trying to hit it big, and early in the film she launches into a song called "Tic, Tic, Tic." As I listened to the song, I soon realized that she was singing about a Geiger counter! And the song is all about the wonders of nuclear radiation! It's a bit surprising, given the year the movie was made (1949). But maybe radiation was still considered "fun" at that point -- the Russians didn't detonate their own atomic bomb until late that year, and the radiation-induced monster movies didn't get into full swing until the 1950s. The film is worth viewing for that song alone. Later in the movie, Doris Day also sings "Nagasaki," which is perhaps a poor choice to pair with "Tic, Tic, Tic."
1 comment:
Radiation was it's day's "goop," as electricity was in the XIX Century. And overall reflecting the widespread misunderstanding of the word "energy." This persisted into the early nuclear weapons era. People visiting Las Vegas would find vantage spots to watch nuclear tests, for example.
The funny thing is that some types of radioactivity do have actual, proven, practical medical uses.
As to Netflix, i put my subscription on hold until they get the new season of Rick and Morty, or the new Trek series (available on Netflix outside the US and Canada only)
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