{"id":9967,"date":"2023-09-07T13:13:29","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T19:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/?p=9967"},"modified":"2023-09-07T13:24:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T19:24:05","slug":"the-tottering-colossus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/archives\/the-tottering-colossus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tottering Colossus"},"content":{"rendered":"

We beat feet\u00a0from cable<\/a>\u00a0for our nightly television viewing about ten years ago \u2013 my, how the time flies when you are having fun. We went to various subscription services at a quarter the cost of the monthly cable bill. This came about when we realized that there were only a couple of channels or services provided by cable that we watched regularly; this last weekend, we racked our memories, trying to recall the last American broadcast TV program that we looked forward to and made a point of watching.\u00a0(Castle, BTW, mostly because of Nathan Fillion \u2026 which had it\u2019s last season in 2016.)<\/em>\u00a0We have lavished our screen-watching time ever since then on old, or foreign movies and series, of which there is a rich and entertaining selection \u2013 everything from\u00a0Blackadder<\/a><\/em>, to the original\u00a0Upstairs, Downstairs<\/em>\u00a0(Great Britain), to things like\u00a0A Place to Call Home<\/a>,\u00a0800 Words<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Brokenwood Mysteries<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(Australia\/New Zealand). Currently, the evening watching for us is\u00a0The Durrells<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(BBC, and only minimal traces of wokery)<\/em>, while Wee Jamie seems to be fascinated by\u00a0Alien TV<\/a><\/em>, (Australian)\u00a0Grimmy and the Lemings<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(Canadian\/French) and\u00a0Masha and the Bear<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(Russian.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Neither of us have felt the urge to go to a movie theater to see a first-run movie in ages. The last one that I went to a theater to see was\u00a0Dunkirk<\/em>. I do know that the one-two punch of\u00a0Barbie<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Oppenheimer<\/em>\u00a0did boffo business at the box office, sort of reviving interest in seeing first-run movies at an actual theater, as did\u00a0The Sound of Freedom<\/em>\u00a0\u2026 but neither of us felt a jolt of interest in venturing to a theater. Those other movies on tap at the multiplexes just seem \u2026 meh. Over-loud, over-larded with special editing effects,\u00a0inept writing and stupid plots<\/a>, remakes of animated features or comic books, uninteresting concepts, and the unending lectures on matters political, racial, and sexual, pounded in with all the subtlety of a fifty-pound sledgehammer. Added to that; the movie-going experience now costing a small fortune as well as being physically unpleasant, compared to staying at home and watching it on your own wide-screen TV, sitting on your own comfortable couch, breaking for a snack, meal or a potty break.
\nFrom what I have read in various middle to conservative websites and blogs\u00a0(including this one)<\/em>\u00a0with an interest in contemporary culture, entertainment and media in general and the comment thread attached to those posts, I am not alone in a prolonged disengagement with our American entertainment industry. Dropping viewer numbers for award shows, collapsing box office receipts, major houses like Disney circling the drain, audiences fragmenting into smaller and smaller niche markets, to include games, Youtube videos and the like \u2026 the American entertainment colossus, which once bestrode the world appears near collapse. The\u00a0SAG-AFTRA strike<\/a>\u00a0hardly seems to have made a ripple, outside of those in the industry most concerned. The rest of us are watching \u2026 well, practically anything else.
\nWhat are you watching, and diverting yourself with, when it comes to television and movies? Comment as you wish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We beat feet\u00a0from cable\u00a0for our nightly television viewing about ten years ago \u2013 my, how the time flies when you are having fun. We went to various subscription services at a quarter the cost of the monthly cable bill. This came about when we realized that there were only a couple of channels or services […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,71,85,1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aint-that-america","category-fun-and-games","category-geekery","category-general","category-media-matters-not"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9968,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9967\/revisions\/9968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}