Browsing - Friday Video Distractions with Mike Norton

   This week has blossomed into a personal existential crisis, lead into by nearly all-consuming work issues this past week that didn't have the decency to leave me with a conclusion as I staggered, dazed, into a holiday weekend. Please hold. I'm transitioning from this stunned, suspended and  disappointed state into trying to quietly self-examine this weekend, before the dread of Monday builds and doubtless robs me of any prospects for a good night's sleep, Sunday into Monday.
   Being decisive is seldom a strong point with me, so I'm going with that and taking a different route in this week's piece.

   Browsing for entertainment in a world exploding with passive options has long been a First World activity, occasionally treated as a First World Problem.
 It arguably began once people got cable, a world that required a remote control because it took people beyond the basic network and local UHF channels those of us in the plus-40 set grew up with. Channel surfing, especially back in the days when the channel guide was nowhere as dynamic as it's become in an Internet age, was a regular activity for many who didn't have a show of standing choice on their schedule at the moment. Half an hour or much more could pass switching from one station to another, watching a scene, then moving on like a bumblebee.

Along with that, in the '80s and '90s, there came the video rental stores. This was the peak effort to date. People had to go to a store and browse through walls of shelves of first video and then DVD cases, lined up by someone's notion of appropriate category, eternally-disrupted by the careless chaos of other browsers who didn't put things back where they found them, all the while looking for something promising. Uphill. Both ways. Younger generations will never understand the struggle. One then had to make discrete choices, including how many to rent, then take them home to discover if any of them were worth the time, effort and rental fees. 

  In today's environment there are more choices than ever, and provided one's technically hooked-up, very little physical activity is involved. Along with cable, if one still has that, we have the Internet in

general. This includes spots like YouTube, and an expanding array of specialty channels supplied by smart tvs, some with Firesticks or similar plug-in units. Some of these channels are of the old school variety that run on their own time, and must be viewed as they appear. Then there are the watch-when-you-wish options of the various streaming services, several of which I routinely point to in these weekly columns.

   With greater choice can come greater angst (again, though, it's always important to

remember that it's First World angst - a privileged angst), because experience informs you that you'll eventually learn of some other show or movie which was far superior to whatever it was you settled for watching. A life wasted! Still, this was worse back in the Olden Times We the Aged came up through, when entertainment was like the weather and had to be taken in its own time. Missing one thing in favor of something else meant an opportunity at that other thing might be a long time in coming

'round again, if ever.   This week I'm going to suggest a string of short, choppy items that have some entertainment value unto themselves, each of which provide a series of possible recommendations.
    GQ has gradually assembled a collection of career spotlight interviews with actors, in which they move through their careers key role by key roll. They talk about how the role came their way, often including the director and writer, and

what went into each part, and often heavily name-drop. These are found under the general heading of Iconic Characters. The link I've supplied there is to the search page over on YouTube, which is the most open-to-all access to these. A more limited selection of them are offered as one of the series choices over on Hulu.
   Note: The ones I watched were over on Hulu, where they had the subject in a studio, with reliable audio. Many of the ones in the much larger assortment on YouTube seem to be ones done as people are sheltering in place in their homes, and the audio's not always that great.

  These range from under thirteen minutes to just over half an hour, and the variety of them I've looked at  have all been entertaining in and of themselves - though the two-camera feed (from only mildly different perspectives) they edited some of these from can be choppy, with occasionally manic switching between the two shots with every line. That sometimes ADD-addled editing aside, it quickly yielded many suggestions for movies and the occasional show for me to visit or revisit. They're bare-bones productions where

we only see the star being interviewed, along with superimpositions of still shots from or of whatever's being talked about.
   I'd suggest you give it a try, whether you start with an actor you already really like, or go for one you're less familiar with. As mentioned, these don't involve a great investment of time, and each is a sort of fishing expedition unto itself, including offering some behind-the-scenes insights on each production -- so you may come away with some insights on personal favorites.
 Any one of them will almost certainly lead to some good possibilities, and may also see you seeking out work by specific directors.   If you give it a try, and especially if it leads you somewhere interesting, I'd appreciate if you'd dropped mention of it in the Comments below.
   That said, with this being the July 4th weekend for those of us in the U.S., I'll also give a quick nod back to the latter half of last week's Friday piece, for a couple Independence Day-related items.
   Enjoy the weekend, holiday or not for you, and stay safe. Here's hoping, once again and forever, that next week finds each of us in finer fettle.   - Mike