My Current Interest

It’s funny how a movie from 1960 set in the 1920s can so resemble today. The fight for the freedom to think and learn remains strong. With it, we are fighting people who believe their own religious beliefs are the right beliefs and should supersede all others. It is a war being waged on so many levels, topics, and rights today. Which leads me to asking, as some feel they should be allowed to ban books, hinder reproductive rights, and stop marriage rights because of their own personal religious beliefs, do we really want to go back to the same thoughts and mentalities from one hundred years ago? Inherit the Wind Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Dick York, Donna Anderson Cates is arrested for his beliefs Bertram T. Cates (Dick York) has been arrested. He was not only arrested, but an entire production was made of it. Led by Reverend Jeremiah Brown (Claude Akins), a group of townsmen arrived in Cates’s classroom with a photojournalist. They interrupted his lesson, planted the camera ...

How Women Won the Vote Susan Campbell Bartoletti We are in a terrifying time. A time where governments through the United States are taking away rights, and are being backed by the courts. Rights for women.  Rights for LGBTQ+. Rights for voting, seemingly* directed at hindering the right to vote for anyone whose race is other than white.  (*Note: I write “seemingly” only because I have yet to see one of these new voting laws specifically mention race. However, based on what I have read and observed, I have come to this conclusion as to who these new voting laws are targeted against.)  They are doing this simply because they can. Each one knows the right they are removing will never affect them. And if by chance one day it does, they have the means and the power to get around the laws they themselves have put into place. These events are why everyone needs to read How Women Won the Vote: Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Their Big Idea by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. It is a remi...

Grantchester Tom Brittney Photo of DVD cover taken by Kate Dorsey      Talk about a sad, angering season. That is what season six of Grantchester is.      This doesn’t mean the entire season is bad. If it was, I wouldn’t be writing about it!      I also wouldn’t be saying how happy I am Grantchester has moved from six episodes to eight. No matter how sad some of the storylines were this season, I am happy about that.      Curate Leonard Finch (Al Weaver) is the main reason why this season is so sad and angering. His storyline is what makes this season difficult to watch a lot of times. All Leonard wants to do is be a curate and be with the man he loves. And yet, because of one nasty, mean, jealous person, all that is put at risk.      It all starts with a vacation. Reverend William Davenport (Tom Brittney); DI Geordie Keating (Robson Green) and family; vicarage housekeeper Mrs. Chapman (Tessa Peake-Jone...

     It took me quite a while to watch On the Basis of Sex .  First for superstitious reasons.  Then because I thought it was going to be a dreary film, and I was not up for dreary.  Finally, I just sat down and watched it.  Not only was it not dreary, but I found this film to be another important film to watch.      Mrs. Ruth Ginsburg ( Felicity Jones ) is in law school.   Harvard law school, to be exact.   A school where Ruth is one of the very few women who have been allowed to enroll.   The dean, Erwin Griswold ( Sam Waterston ), makes it very clear he thinks little of the women who have enrolled.   He believes their spots in the school should have gone to men.   The professors are not far behind with these beliefs.      Still, Ruth pursues her law degree.   She also purses the degree of her husband, Martin (Armie Hammer), when he is diagnosed with cancer.   During this time, Ruth...

        Even as this film sat in my house, it took me a long time to watch it.   I thought it was going to be really sad, especially since it’s based on real events, and I was not up for sad at that time.   But the disc was due back at the library , and I knew I had to just sit down and watch it.   So, I did.   I found this film was not nearly as sad as I thought.         All Richard Loving ( Joel Edgerton ) and Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga) want to do is be together.   They are a young couple expecting a baby and they want to get married.   Because of their different races and the laws in Virginia, they go to Washington, D.C. to get married with Mildred’s father as their witness.   When they return to Virginia, Richard and Mildred expect to live a calm and peaceful life.         The law has other ideas.        One night, the police barge into the Jeter family home and...

Image provided by RLJE/Acorn DVD.         Oh, Garrow.   I don’t know how many times I said those words while watching this series.   Far too many to count, I’m sure.   That’s because with each episode I saw a good man get himself into trouble.   No matter what he did, somehow it led to a difficult situation.   Sometimes this happened because he was standing up for his principles.   Other times it was because of love.                          William Garrow (Andrew Buchan) is a young lawyer who spends his time watching trials at the Old Bailey in London.   It is there that Garrow realizes how unfair the trials are as the accused rarely, if ever, have adequate representation.   Mostly the accused are forced to represent themselves with only prosecutors truly getting the chance to state their case...