Movie stuff

Did not spend any time on the internet today because my wife was expecting a last-minute Avon order, which of course never came, but it gave me an opportunity to do some computer maintenance.

I used a CD that came with my USB hard drive to do a full backup of the C drive, first time ever for this machine. Well, it's a lot more convenient than a tape backup, let me tell you, and faster too. But it still took a long time. So I sorted some DVDs and found a box of "50 classic westerns" that my wife had bought for me a long time ago and which I had never watched. So I started with disc one and today watched two old Tex Ritter movies, Rollin' Plains and Sing, Cowboy, Sing. I am more familiar with pictures of Ritter as an older man, but these movies were from the late 30s, when he was still young, and back then he looked much more like his son John would later look. So maybe I'll try working my way through this box. A lot of those old movies are only about an hour long, since they weren't meant to be the only feature for a Saturday afternoon at the movies. These two looked like they were burned to DVD not a moment too soon, the film had really begun to degrade in spots. There are also some John Wayne movies in the collection, also Randolph Scott, Gene Autry, and a few people I'm not really familiar with.

I also discovered a handful of really strange-looking anime DVDs. My wife again, apparently just buying a DVD because it was there and it was cheap, and she knows I watch anime. Unfortunately, she doesn't, so it seems she can't tell the difference between Hellsing and Sailor Moon ("they're both those Japanese cartoon shows, aren't they?") I put them in their own stack to take a look at sometime. I think it would be a good idea to read about them on Wikipedia first so I have a rough idea of what's going on.

I also discovered that I do not have a DVD of True Grit (I thought I did), which is one of my favorite John Wayne movies, so I'll have to keep an eye out for that on the Western movie channel. I do have two DVDs of Angel and the Badman, one in the original black & white and one colorized, if I recall correctly. We caught Rooster Cogburn last week on the Western channel and I was surprised that my son sat there and avidly watched the entire movie.

And finally, I must mention that this week, I believe starting on Thanksgiving night, the Encore Western channel is going to be running a Lee Van Cleef marathon!!! I'll be DVDing the whole thing, or as much of it as I can. I should get plenty of good squinty-eyed pipe-smoking screen caps out of it.