The arrival of Criterion’s latest Blu-ray disc made my day. I watched about 15 minutes of it, hopping around from chapter to chapter. I thought the regular DVD was devastating — one of the most perfect pure-film transfers I’d ever seen; the Blu-ray, believe it or not, is a refinement.
God is just not that into you. Sometimes he/she seems to intercede, which most of us interpret as a kind of celestial rooting gesture. But he/she could just as easily watch you get flattened by a chunk of concrete and or be roasted to death inside a burning building. Not because of your number or your karma, but because it’s not his/her call. It’s not that God doesn’t care, but that he/she is way beyond “caring.” I still find it truly mind-boggling that hundreds of of millions of adults believe that that some kind of activist moral force is quietly at work. It’s the biggest sucker fantasy in the history of the planet. And yet I always melt a bit when James Stewart says “oh, God, help me” near the end of The Spirit of St. Louis.
