The Number Field

On Wednesday night, Jenny wanted to watch a movie, mostly because she didn't have to get up early for work the next day. We didn't have everything that we were supposed to prepare for Thanksgiving, so she sent me to the grocery store, and told me to look for a movie at the movie-rental kiosk. (It's a Movie Cube, not a RedBox or DVDPlay, but operates in the same way.) These rental things work best when you know what you want, and you want a new release. After scrolling through a couple of screens, I couldn't find anything interesting, and a line was developing behind me, so I abandoned the search.

At home, I resumed the search by connecting to Hulu . We narrowed our choices to Sleepless in Seattle and a childhood favorite of mine, Hans Christian Andersen . Jenny let me make the final decision, and I chose Hans Christian Andersen , because it has Danny Kaye, and I hadn't seen it in so long, and I could only half-remember the words to the math song "Inchworm" . To my dismay, that song had been edited out, but can be found on Youtube . The show is delivered over the internet, so there aren't any time constraints. I don't know why they removed that song, along with "Copenhagen," "Thumbelina," and possibly others. Still, it's a great movie and worth watching. I don't think that it's possible to make a movie like this anymore; the entertainment landscape has changed. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong, or can recommend recent movies that share the same gentle spirit.

I highly recommend other Danny Kaye movies, especially The Inspector General (based on a play by Nikolai Gogol) and The Court Jester . You can watch Hans Christian Andersen for yourself here .