At the end of July, I spent a few days in Paris. While I almost never go to the cinema while there, it is a city that I can’t not see through the lens of cinema. Around every corner you almost expect to bump into Belmondo and Seberg, or Jesse and Céline, or Alain Delon and Yves Montand. We stayed at a hotel named after Zazie dans le metro.
I miss the old internet.
This is, undoubtedly, a sign that I’m getting older – it turns out that for me, my fifth decade is the one in which I start lamenting the good old days. I won’t deny that the internet is in many ways more useful now. If you’re looking for a practical piece of data, especially one likely relevant for many people – whether a shop is open right now, when a movie came out, how to knit a certain stitch – you can usually find it immediately.
But it feels as if the intensely personal little corners are gone. Speaking just about my primary passion, movies: it’s easy enough, in particular for new releases, to find showtimes, the cast list, major reviews and “the ending, explained!” It’s much harder to find the idiosyncratic essays. The personal recollections. The strange takes from an unexpected angle that will enrich your experience (or just baffle you).
Continue reading
Panpopticon 