Your Best Movie Recommendations

Bedridden artist seeks relief from boredom

I’ve been sick for days. I’ve got what everyone else I know seems to have. Lots of coughing. Lots of nose blowing. Zero energy. Blah blah.

It’s so boring being thick sick!

As I loll around my house in my torpor, I’ve been spending a lot time watching favorite movies that comfort me. I notice that all of them are strong narratives with with little violence or heartbreak. Films like Pride and Prejudice, Moonstruck, or Michael Clayton.

I’m now running low on my usual suspects and looking for suggestions. Can you recommend anything? They don’t have to be “great.” They just have to be enjoyable.

Artist Inspiration

In this state, I find I don’t have much to offer this week except to recommend two lovely documentaries about two very different artists that I re-watched and found inspiring as I lay in bed and coughed and blew my nose.

The Real Beatrix Potter

The first is the story of the amazing life and career of Beatrix Potter. Far more beloved in England than in the United States, I had somehow managed to misunderstand her as some minor illustrator of sweet children’s books.

And yes, she became a best-selling author of 23 children’s books, but she might never have written those books if she hadn’t been denied entry into the scientific circles of her time because she was a woman.

So yes, she was a hugely successful author, but she was also a masterful scientific illustrator, a researcher, a creative entrepreneur who developed the first-ever licensed toy based on a fictional character, a farmer, a naturalist, a conservationist, and an all-around human powerhouse who managed to be wildly successful on her own terms despite the constraints on women in her day.

She was born in 1866 and died in 1943. To this day, one of her books is sold somewhere in the world every fifteen seconds.

Here’s the video below. (It officially starts at the 2:56 mark in the video if you want to speed ahead.)

Let me know what you think if you watch it.

Lee Kang-hyo

This second video is about a contemporary Korean potter who is a master of an ancient form of Korean pottery called onggi. I watched this video almost 8 years ago, and I still think about it from time to time, so I thought I’d watch it again.

I’m fascinated by his life as an artist seeking to uniquely express himself—but through an ancient vessel form that is completely interwoven with his culture in a way that’s so different from my own experience as an artist living in a future-oriented, hyper-individualized society with little sense of lineage or history. It’s like his art form has this intrinsic role and universally shared significance in his society that I envy—even though I realize there are benefits and drawbacks in either cultural situation.

I hope you enjoy it:

Reactions and Recommendations

I’d love to hear your reactions to either of these videos.

And don’t forget that I’m running out of good stuff to watch, read, or listen to as I sniffle my way back to normalcy. What do you watch or do when you’re sick? Or what’s an old fave movie or show of yours that you love to recommend to anyone who will listen?

Hang out with me—I’m bored of myself at this point in my nose-blowing!