How we’re staying the course

A quick note explaining what my agenda is with ongoing and coming entries, especially on movies. My agenda has been clear to me, while for you it may have seemed about as hard to figure out as the mysterious, sad loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March (End note).

I had planned in late December (indicated in this entry, subsection 9) to do entries related to 1970s movies, and on other cultural aspects of that decade, but I turned out, as time went on, just to cover movies. Then this “line of analysis” started to focus on Woody Allen movies, which naturally led to his 1980s films, with the associated decade subhead. With this, I had planned to do other 1980s movies than his.

Well, to cut to the chase:

For all decades on which I do movies (and occasional other entries) related to the cultural features of a decade, which means 1970s through 2000s (2001-10), the decade headings are as follows:

[1970s] “Patchouli and B.O.” (a recollection of the ’70s)

[1980s] Morning Becomes Reagan: A revisiting of 1980s pop (and political) culture

[1990s] Post–Soviet Union Adventure, Days of Clintons Past: A recollection of cultural ephemera of the 1990s

[2001-10] Post-9/11 Blues, Internet-infected Brave New World: A revisiting of 2001-10 pop (and political) culture

I will indeed cover at least one 1980s movie other than Woody Allen’s (for instance, one featuring Molly Ringwald seems in order). The same variation (not necessarily related to specific stars) will come with the subsequent decades.

Meanwhile, as for Woody (in case you’ve been wondering if I’ve gone batty with him), my coverage of his films will become more sporadic, as the quality of his films after Husbands and Wives (1992) becomes more hit-or-miss. But as this entry suggests, I still have some definite films of his to cover, and more will be added to this set.

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End note.

I followed the news on that aviation disaster closely in March and into April (and of course the story isn’t done). It was such—and others among us may have been haunted the same way—that a few nights in the late winter, I would wake up, maybe 2-something or 3-something in the morning, unable to sleep further, and dwelled on, was haunted by, the MH370 loss as if somehow it implicated something concrete regarding me, or as if I had to exert some responsibility related to it (i.e., as if I had a relative on the plane, which I didn’t; or as if I should do something to aid in the search, which of course wasn’t realistic). Who knows why.