A lazy sunday afternoon spent alternating between watching movies and napping. Dunno why but I seem to take a lot more short naps these days than I used to. Probably compensation for getting less than 6 hours sleep a night on average.
On the other hand, split sleep is nothing new to me; I used, back in 1976, to sleep for three or so hours in the early evening so I could be awake for the late night movies[^]. Back then I had the excuse that the technology to record the stuff was prohibitively expensive.
One of tonights movies was The Great Garrick[^]. A better movie than the precis would indicate but not great by any means. I note that one of the peripheral but still important to the plot actors was born in 1856! Man, that's a long time ago, even for me!
I have to admit that Hollywood did try. The movie is set in France in about the year 1750. Someone on the staff somewhere must have pointed out that in France they measure distance by the metric system, for there in closeup early in the movie is a sign pointing to Paris, 160 KM. Full points for trying but a deduction for not realising that in 1750 the metric system was still about half a century into the future. Uh huh, a Napoleonic era invention.
The other anachronism is a trifle more subtle. There's music in the soundtrack and music 'in' the action. I can go with the incidental music being of the wrong era but when the orchestra strikes up a tune to accompany David Garrick onto the stage and it's obvious that a 1750 orchestra is playing music that could not have been written earlier than 1800 I have to smile.
I enjoyed the movie. I'll probably watch it again sometime.
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