Bookey Bloggery

Some folks seem puzzled and even confused about UNDEREMPLOYMENT CINEMA, and it’s two older sisters, BROKEN ANKLE CINEMA and UNEMPLOYMENT CINEMA. It’s pretty simple: When a windfall of extra free time came along, it gave me a chance to watch more movies. It started earlier in 2018 when I broke my ankle and had to stay off my feet and lived in the living room 24/7.

I went back to work in May and then two months later, the powers that be fired half the editorial staff at the New York Daily News and all but one of the library staff. I was head librarian; I was not kept.

So while I was unemployed I started recording a lot of movies to my DVR–mostly from Turner Classic Movies but also some from Fox’s FXM channel and some others.

ACTIVITY THUS FAR: I have been posting small capsules on Facebook with screenshots off the TV.

CRITERIA: I have been trying to watch movies that I have either never seen or those I saw once but quite a long time ago.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT: There are MANY classic movies that I have never seen. I have never seen Casablanca (except for the last five minutes). I have never seen the Godfather. I have never seen The Graduate! There’s just a lot I have never seen, for a variety of reasons. First, growing up in the 1970s, we tended to repeat viewings if a movie was on TV. Maybe you saw a movie two or three times in the cinema if you were really crazy about it. Unlike kids who grew up in the 1980s, we did not have VCRs so we could re-watch a Disney movie every blessed day.

Another problem was film-student snobbery. In college I came to learn that movies on TV were chopped up (like much of the first third of Psycho) and some movies were meant for viewing on the big screen. And in the 1990s, our TVs in general were much smaller and reading subtitles was more difficult. I mean, I would read them, but a 13-inch screen is not the way to see a lot of these classic movies.

But now, we have 50-inch screens and a million and one things streaming, and my part-time job is only 15 hours a week, so… UNDEREMPLOYMENT CINEMA!

I see that once again Times Square has been shut down so people can watch TV on the Jumbotron. They did this recently for the TONY Awards, and now for Michael Jackson’s funeral, and in 2008, for the election results.

You know, as unemployment grows, and fewer people rushing around to work, why not just close down Times Square, Central Park, and various other open spaces, and turn them into outdoor TV lounges.

Sitting around and watching what’s happening someplace else is what being American is all about!