Eight days ago (Saturday, 4.13) I was trying to figure out ways to reduce the crap and clutter on my decade-old Macbook Pro, which has less RAM than my 2019 laptop and is all gummed up.

I had this dumbshit idea, you see, that erasing the music, photo and video files that were sitting on the laptop would accomplish this task.

Why didn’t I simply say to myself “uhm, wait…if you delete these mp3 items from your Apple music library on this computer all your music files will be wiped off your Cloud-based library…all your songs and albums will be gone from all your devices.”

I’ll tell you why I didn’t say this. It’s because I’m a doofus on tech stuff.

Anyway, I deleted the mp3s and realized the next morning that all the music was indeed absent from my Apple music library. Just under 4000 songs, roughly 1200 album portions. Plus there was a ton of music library stuff from burned CDs and old Napster files from…Jesus, a quarter-century ago.

I was told by a couple of senior Apple reps that there was no easy remedy…that the music might simply be gone for good. Then a Genius Bar guy explained after some study that I could at least download purchased song files from my iTunes app, which I began doing on Wednesday….relief. This simple remedy hadn’t been mentioned by those senior Apple tech adviser bozos. The term “iTunes app” never so much as passed through their lips.

A day later I was cleaning out the same Macbook Pro when I realized that the “deleted” music files were still sitting in my trash bin app. It was simply a matter of selecting “all”, going to “actions” and reinstalling the files in the Apple music depository.

As we speak everything (3819 items) is back on the phone and in the Cloud, of course. And I have the option, of course, of downloading new albums and whatnot from my Apple music Library subscription service.

Did anyone even see Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups? Barack Obama was still in the White house when it opened. I reviewed it (“King of Flakes“)during the 2016 Santa Barbara Film Festival.

What I wrote: Last night I sat through Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups (Broad Green, 3.4) at Santa Barbara’s Arlington theatre.

I didn’t watch or absorb it — I “sat through” it like I was waiting for an overdue bus. It’s about warm climes and lassitude and a truly profound lack of effort by everyone involved, particularly Malick.

What a tragic journey he’s been on since The Tree of Life. Self-wanking, anal-cavity-residing…the man is so lost it looks like home to him. And it is a kind of home, I gather, that producers Sarah Green and Nicholas Gonda have seemingly created for the guy. Take your time, Terry…take your sweet-ass time.

Once regarded as one of Hollywood’s great auteurist kings (Badlands, Days of Heaven) but more recently renowned for his whispery mood-trip films (a tendency that began with The Thin Red Line) and for indulging in meditative reveries to a point that the reveries become the whole effing movie, Malick, free to operate within his own cloistered realm, lives to “paint” and dither and go all doodly-doo and mystical and digressive when the mood strikes, which is apparently all the time when he’s shooting and cetainly when he’s editing.

40 years ago I was convinced Malick had seen the burning bush and was passing along God’s-eye visions, and now look at him.

Knight of Cups is To The Wonder Goes To Southern California with a lot more dough and a greater variety of hot women. They could re-title it Terrence Malick’s Wide, Wide World of Delectable, Half-Dressed, Model-Thin Fuck Bunnies.

They could also retitle it Terrence Malick’s Beaches…boy, does Christian Bale love going to the beach at magic hour and sloshing barefoot through the tides! This meandering dream-doze movie is all beaches, all deserts, all swanky condos and office towers and absurdly arrogant McMansions. And all half-captured moods and fall-away moments and conversational snippets.

Who am I? Why am I so damn lazy? Can I do anything besides wander around and gaze at stuff? Either Bale is on Percocets or I need to drop a Percocet the next time I watch this.

The most attention-getting thing that happens in Knight of Cups is a semi-serious earthquake (lasts around ten seconds, feels like a 7 or 7.5). The second is a home robbery by a couple of shaved-head Latinos. The third is a nude blonde standing on an outdoor balcony (possibly Bale’s). The rest is spiritual ether and vapor and kicking sand.

If you know Los Angeles you know Malick is hitting all the visually arresting spots within a 100-mile range — the beaches, downtown LA, Venice, Malibu, LAX, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree rock formations, etc. Malick’s Los Angeles is like Woody Allen‘s Manhattan — all affluent eye candy. I’ve wandered around all these places and looked up at the sky and have channelled the same moods and thoughts that Christian Bale‘s Rick seems to be having. I’ve done it over and over. I know this realm up and down.

…because I’d be able to follow it this time with subtitles.. But forking over $20 bills for an Amazon rental feels excessive.

I know what this film basically is — cerebral dialogue, icy vibes, convoluted twist-plotting, more cerebral dialogue. I know this sounds dilletante-ish but I didn’t find my first viewing intriguing enough to pay this much for a re-match…sorry. Get that rental down to $4.99 and we’ll be in business.

The Wiki synopsis is up!

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