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I finally got started on this year's run of Christmas movies last night, something it really feels like I have less time for than I did for the eight Christmas movies I got through last December—it's very unlikely I'll get through that many this year. Last year we had a lot more lockdown measures and no movies to see in theaters, neither of which is the case this year; plus we have even more great movies
to go see in theaters this year due to delays from last year.
But, still, I did listen to the "
Holiday Movie Draft" this year by
The Big Picture podcast, and one of the movies chosen by one of the hosts was the 1960 Jack Lemmon and Sherley MacLaine movie
The Apartment, which, so far as I can remember, I had never seen. It was playing for free on the Tubi app, but I could not get the damned thing to mirror without erroring out on my Apple TV; I gave up and just went ahead and rented it for four bucks so we could watch it on Prime Video.
It's a very good movie. Shobhit even commented on how good the script was after it ended. It won five Oscars, none for acting but the wins included Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay—all for Billy Wilder, the first person to win all three awards for the same movie. That said, I feel like calling it "a Christmas movie" is a bit of a stretch—much like
Die Hard, it's just a movie that happens to take place over Christmas, and there is a clear distinction to be made there. I can't imagine making it an annual Christmas tradition to watch this movie.
I'm glad I saw it, anyway.
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Then, I got on the phone with Apple Support, for ongoing issues with my Apple Music app not syncing my entire music library properly to my phone. This shit goes on and on, and I've been dealing with similar issues for about two years now, ever since they got rid of iTunes in favor of the Music app. And I am so tired of encountering suggestions, both in online forums and with live support agents, which assume I am an Apple Music service subscriber. I don't and I won't subscribe to a music streaming service! I already paid for nearly all of the many hundreds of albums I have; I have no interest in paying $10 or more per month just to gain access that way to the same music I already have—plus, even $10 a month means annual spending on music that exceeds how much I spent annually anymore on new music. So, fuck that. But, they sure did fuck up my music library, especially playlists I have had maintained for literally 15 years now. I got an agent to show me how to restore them sometime last year after a similar thing happened, but can't remember how to do it now, and the lady I got on the phone last night clearly had no idea how to do it either. What a pain in the ass.
I had already scheduled another call with Apple Support on Wednesday (tomorrow, now) at 5:30. The lady last night told me I need to ask for a "senior advisor for Mac," so that's the plan—even though I know the first person I get on the line will go through the motions of assuming they can fix my problem even though I already know they will ultimately need to pass me on to a more senior agent.
I have never and will never idolize Steve Jobs, who was really just an asshole. But! I do think that if he were still alive, he'd never have allowed shit like this to be possible. My loyalty to Apple as a brand is less heartfelt now than it's just because they have their hooks in me: all the music I purchased since 2006 has been through their iTunes store, and god knows how many more stupid issues I'd have to deal with trying to transfer them to, say, a Samsung phone. All of this goes back to capitalism, really, which is the root of all the world's greatest problems.
Anyway I got off the phone with that lady and then watched a couple episodes of the first season of
Maude with Shobhit on Prime Video. We both agree it's not nearly as good a show as
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and a lot of its "liberal gaze on social justice issues" themes of the time get close to uncomfortably problematic, but it's still pretty funny and actually most of it holds up surprisingly well.
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[posted 12:22 pm]
