Tag documentaries

What I’m watching

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

It’s time for an update on What Angel is Watching. Other than foster kittens. I watch them eat, I watch them sleep, I watch them look at me suspiciously. The Roman Pride kittens ate THREE cans of cat food in front of me today. For breakfast.

Minerva, Mars, Vesta, Jupiter

They must be going through a growth spurt.

So, even though I am job hunting and now have four volunteer responsibilities (foster kitten mom for FURR, communications director for ASPIRE to Autonomy, trustee at my local library and now member of the drug and alcohol board at the county level… and an informal member of the social justice committee at the YWCA of Bethlehem… so maybe 5…) and have two teen girls at home who also participate in marching band, I occasionally have time to watch some programming usually while folding laundry or late at night waiting for the dishwasher to finish.

This is what I have recently watched or tried to watch:

  1. The Social Dilemma — I already came to the conclusion that Netflix makes boring documentaries. This one is no exception. Well, except maybe they finally have watched some of their own documentaries and know how truly dull they are. I say this because they added a dramatization of a fake family to demonstrate their point and made some elaborate “Matrix” vibe scenes when discussing the effects of social media. It makes the awkward sensation of watching a Netflix documentary even more uncomfortable. The content of course is good, but if you hadn’t thought about how social media manipulates you and your life, well you must either be one of the brainwashed masses or live off-the-grid.
  2. The Kitten Lady— since we work with feral kittens, we’ve been watching The Kitten Lady on YouTube to gather some new techniques on socializing our fosters.
  3. Jackson Galaxy/Cat Mojo— Another YouTube personality with more cat information. Both of these people are a little vibrant and off-kilter.
  4. Diana: In her Own Words— Another slow-paced Netflix documentary I didn’t finish. This documentary uses recordings of interviews done with the princess in secret. Fascinating and compelling topic but dry in execution.
  5. Fight the New Drug (Human Trafficking stories)— These 5-10 minute videos were recommended on YouTube and I enjoyed their presentation, though the content is sad. I didn’t research the organization to see how they put together these shorts.
  6. Real Families: Thalidomide Disaster Survivors Share their Fight to Get Justice— This is a feature-length documentary on YouTube about the Thalidomide babies of the early Sixties. I found it much better done than anything on Netflix.

Ford v Ferrari and my obsession with history

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I once had a stranger walk up to me and ask if I felt out of place. She specifically asked me if I felt as if I were in the wrong time.

She continued to tell me that she saw an air of an earlier era about me, circa the 1950s, which struck me as odd because my specialty in my academic work was 20th Century colonial/post-colonial Francophone Africa.

I gravitate toward post-World War II history and have to feign interest in anything 19th Century or earlier (though I can handle specific topics like the Industrial Revolution and Early French secularism because of their direct impact on the areas I enjoy) and have equal distaste for things that happened during my lifetime.

I love movies based on real events, and the rise of cinema celebrating real people and their achievements (like First Man, for example) and even historical settings (like the Downton Abbey feature film) are likely to get me into the theater.

Ford v. Ferrari had been on my calendar since I saw the trailer months ago.

In addition to “liking” the mid-Twentieth Century and, of course, how can you not look at Ford v Ferrari and not see a nod to American Industrial Complex v European Artisan Mindset… I also really like cars.

I can recite most of the Nicolas Cage version of Gone in 60 Seconds. My initial thought when I say the Ford v Ferrari trailer was “oh, they made a biopic for Eleanor.”

So last night my teen daughter and I saw Ford v Ferrari. We laughed. She cried. She jumped from her seat at every spin the car made. And squealed with every race lap.

And it was also interesting to see Lehigh Valley native Lee Iococca represented on the big screen.

But I left the film with a sense of homesickness, or maybe heartsickness. Perhaps a piece of my soul belonged to someone perhaps my dad’s age, born in the late 40s or maybe 50s, and perhaps they died young. Maybe these yearnings I have for the past are desires to finish a life someone else didn’t have the chance to complete.

Maybe they died in a car accident… who knows?