Does a strange job of plucking all the strings...
I've heard that Netflix analyzes its massive customer usage database to determine what its viewers will pay to see. The idea makes an interesting sort of sense in a business in the age of big data sort of way, but I've never felt it being done to me. Until now...
Stranger Things, starring Winona Ryder, offers up elements, touches, and tropes from a wide array of 1970-90s SciFi, Romcoms, Horror, and Coming of Age movies. It riffs on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (frazzled mom desperately seeking her missing son, check!), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Mia Sara look-alike, check!), E.T. The Extraterrestrial (Drew Barrymore knock-off, blonde pigtails and all, check!), any Molly Ringwald movie (gangly redhead with big glasses, check!), Firestarter (psychokinetic waif preyed upon by nameless government agency, check!), Altered States (under water sensory deprivation tank, check!), Poltergeist (Craig T. Nelson stand-in, check!), The Lost Boys (improbably capable pubescent nerds to the rescue, check!), Alien (Giger-esque monster life cycle, check!), The Fury (death by SPOILER, check!), etc., etc...
The "old" cars, dated fashions, and pre-internet technology evokes a strange nostalgia (most of the 80s really were not the good old days). The storyline is compelling so far. I'm going to continue binging. I hope they have sussed out the sort of ending I'll enjoy.
[UPDATE: Yup, they did good. Fun stuff.]
[UPDATE: Sharon Hill @IDoubtIt at Twitter added: "Also X-Files derived, with some Stand By Me." Good points.]
[UPDATE: Others have suggested references to The Goonies, but I'm not quite feeling it...]
Or just your long lost youth?
As I've mentioned before, Don Henley has written the soundtrack of my life, for better and worse. Sometimes much worse...
So last night I dreamt of an old friend who I loved once, more than I knew at the time perhaps. In the dream, which did not last near long enough, she had no reason to give me the time of day, let alone forgive me, but she was as gentle and kind and funny as she always was...
Queue Don Henley's "That Old Flame"
Got a message in my mailbox
From an old friend I hardly see
All it said was you were trying
To get in touch with me
And I stared down at your number
And I felt passion and I felt fear
And I wondered what the hell you wanted
After all these years
'Cause there is danger in the embers
And you have only yourself to blame
If you get burned when you try to rekindle
That old flame
Well I know we ended badly
And I was angry for a long long time
But I've grown some and I wanted you to know that I'm doing just fine
And I'm not asking for a replay
I got no delusions, got no designs
Can I borrow just a little cup of kindness
For Auld Lang Syne
'Cause there is danger in the embers
And you have only yourself to blame
If you get burned when you try to rekindle
That old flame
Speak to me plain
Tell me the truth
Is it really me you miss
Or just your long lost youth?
Yeah there is danger in the embers
And you know nothing, nothing stays the same
Yeah you can get burned when you try to rekindle
That old flame
Yeah you can get burned when you try to rekindle
That old flame
The song doesn't quite apply, but these lyrics toward the end haunt me in my middle age:
Speak to me plain
Tell me the truth
Is it really me you miss
Or just your long lost youth?
And this I just remembered. She and I attended an Eagles concert at the Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, the summer of 1978. It rained but I brought a sheet of plastic with room for two. It was one of the best dates ever...
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