Movies on TV

You could go sublime or ridiculous or both for Easter. Ted Turner Classics started off the day with Easter Parade, with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. Watching it on TV was kind of silly, since I just bought the beautifully restored new DVD, but old habits die hard and as a Garland fanatic, I couldn't not watch it.

Then, when it ended, the next movie was King of Kings. I didn't watch that nearly as closely as I had Easter Parade, which probably says a lot about me, and is why God is indeed going to smite me.

But the previous morning, I turned on Cleopatra, the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton spectacle that I'd heard about for years but had never seen. I decided this was a 3-hour long fashion show for Taylor. One overblown outfit after another, sometimes in mid-conversation (designed, I guess, to indicate the same conversation took place over and over again over a period of time). I realized that I was starting to snicker at what was supposed to be serious historical work (though did anybody other than the people involved ever think of this as "serious" at all?). I finally admitted the whole thing was a monumental waste of time as the armada (or whatever it was) was being defeated, the ships are in flames, and Cleopatra's barge turns away, leaving them all, thinking that Mark Anthony is dead, while Mark Anthony is actually cowering in a boat whimpering that Cleopatra is leaving him and instructing his rowers to catch up with her barge, though they point out to him that his men are dying in the ships he is leaving behind.

Pulleeze.

They don't make 'em like that any more, I hope.