Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Robin Williams, RIP

Well, there is not much point in rehashing Robin Williams' career or his death.  I generally am not a fan of the type of movies he thrived in, mostly broad comedies.  I suspect that of the movies he made, I would like Good Morning, Vietnam the best, but I've never seen it all the way through.  Will I be inspired to watch it anytime soon?  Not really.  The truth is I'm just not really in a movie-watching place at the moment, though I made an exception to see a couple of films by Satyajit Ray at the TIFF Lightbox and then Terry Gilliam's film The Zero Theorem (basically a rehashing of Brazil) because it was only going to be on the big screen for two weeks and then vanish forever into VOD-land.  While this Sat. looks totally oversubscribed, I might break out Aladdin to watch Robin Williams as the genie, which is probably my favorite Williams' performance.  (Actually, now that I think about it, I also really liked Moscow on the Hudson, and will look into renting that this fall.)

I guess it is just one more reminder of how difficult it can be to cope with truly overwhelming depression.  I get low-grade depression from time to time, but it is mostly being depressed over the idea that I will never get through my collection of books (and almost certainly not all the movies I've gathered up over the years).  I'm trying to be more careful about only taking in new things that will stand the test of time and/or be of interest to the kids, and then I inevitably slip up.

I regret that Robin felt that he couldn't cope any longer, as I think the world lost an incredible talent, but I am not going to judge him or say that his premature death diminishes his legacy, just as I didn't think that about David Foster Wallace.

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