Private verses Public Works - On Being Marginalized

I have since the Christmas holidays spent most of my waking hours in my library. My television viewing has for the most part resided in looking in on ESPN's morning First Take program - I'd rather get my sports second hand, it's more entertaining, there are certainly individuals who can ball, but few teams who ball; and watching Martin Lawrence and Alfred Hitchcock reruns.
   Given the cable television situation with Comcast, Time-Warner, Netflix, Amazon and the rest, my mission is clear: get rid of cable and ball with my books and music. But a strange thing has happened. I've been overdosing on movies that my wife and I had collected on our cable box. Last Saturday my wife and I watched Jean-Charles Tacchella's Cousin Cousine (1975) and Claude Lelouch's A Man and A woman (1966) with the very beautiful Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant; after which I watched Patrice Leconte's Intimate Strangers (2004) with Sandrine Bonnaire, Fabrice Luchini, and Anne Brochet.
   This morning, on my way to watch my usual dose of back to back half hour Alfred Hitchcock segments, I discovered the Ron Shelton's truly wonderful (one-star) film Play It To The Bone (1999). The actors are Woody Harrelson, Antonio Banderas, Lolita Davidovich and Lucy Liu. This film cost $24 million to make and grossed about $3,000 the first week. The actor's are superb, the script is tight and very funny. One problem with the film was most likely its initial release. It premiered on Christmas day. Although Harrelson's character has visions of Jesus Christ - among other visions; it's not exactly everywoman's A Christmas Carol. Because it was released on Christmas day and because it's such an intelligent film, it's my personal choice to be featured with Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (pace my being down on Mr. Allen, isn't everyone?) as the Christmas Holiday doublebill. Watching Play It To The Bone it was hard for me to imagine that this film was made in America. It also joins the ranks of my British favorite films - Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Layer Cake. It also joins the very dark French comedy(?) Crime d‘ Amour by the late Alain Corneau on my faves list.
   I'm sure I'll get over not having cable tv when we cut it loose. Television, radio, roads, electrical power, public transportation, symphony orchestras, museums, health care, cities were at one time reckoned to be for the public good - so were elections. Nations have been subsumed by corporations - Washington has been paid-off big time.
   "Power to the corporation!"