Old and ugly movies.

I believe it's said that the best rated documentaries, on public televison, Discovery, and National Geographic show "animals eating people."

I'm slowly moving into the elctronic world: DVDs in particular.

So I'm looking at old movies; the ones I grew up on.

Frequently they contain random and disgusting violence, but somehow different from what see these days.

I'm not talking Holocuast which I feel is in a class by itself.

I'm not talking of sado-masochistic sex films.

But gladiators (men and even a few women) who kill each other brutally as the huge crowd (ca. 200,000 people) roars in a blood lust. Zulus kill British imperialists and vice-versa. Th Crusaders slaughter their way to the Holy Land.

Consider a film set in World War I: It shows random French soldiers, on the orders of martinet officers and drawn by lot, shot by firing squads to scare others from showing what is said to be cowardice.

Enough.

I just bought some golden oldies. The Pride of the Yankees with Gary Cooper playing Lou Gehrig, Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, and Paul Henreid, set in wartime but not explicity violent, and of a later era March of Peguins and The Emperor's Club with Kevin Kline.

Wonderful stuff.

I don't know what it proves, but I love it. (Coop just hit two homers to cheer up a very sick young boy.

Ben