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Reeling
Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them -- as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.
-- Ben Hecht
Sunday, December 28, 1997
It's been a three-movie weekend, with a real date!
Saturday afternoon I met up with R--, who contacted me from my yahoo personal ad. We met at Goldies, since he lives nearby. He showed me his laptop, which he sadly had dropped on the floor a few days before. Have you ever seen what happens to an LCD screen after you drop it? Actually, most of the screen was still usable, but the upper left corner was in sad shape.
After a bite to eat, we went to see Deconstructing Harry at the Seven Gables theater. I ran into my former coworkers, Elle and Cilla! They were both editors and web site producers when I was working on the MSDN team in 1996. So we all sat in the same row. Cilla had never seen the coolest part of the theater: the painted curtain (a very bad lord and lady in front of a castle, dating from the seventies) is rolled up, and the little chandelier is pulled up into the ceiling when the show starts.
- Deconstructing Harry
This is Woody Allen's latest. I just can't feel as positive about him as a person anymore, and he used to be one of my favorites. I wasn't thrilled with the movie, either. The layers of fictionalizing are kind of interesting. Woody plays a writer who fictionalizes his own life for material for his books, so there are "real" flashbacks, plus dramatizations of the fictions. The tone of the movie is all over the place, from broad comedy to some very devasting scenes (from Judy Davis, especially). Worth seeing, if you are a Woody completist.
The afternoon with R-- was fun, and he showed the proper enthusiasm for me, giving me great compliments on being a fun person. I think that's a big plus for a date, don't you?
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My original plans for the evening on Saturday (going to Seattle Center to dance) fell through, when Denys had to do something else and Karrie wimped out. So I decided to walk down to the Egyptian Theater and see Jackie Brown.
- Jackie Brown
Now this was a movie that I really enjoyed. Tarantino has a gift for finding and rediscovering actors that have been neglected. James Forster, playing Max Cherry the bail bondsman, is sooo great! His eyes, when he first sees Pam Grier, would make you melt. I wonder if the Samuel Jackson braided goatee will become a fashion trend? Pam Grier is also great! I hope that she gets a lot more work.
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Sunday morning I should have worked on that site I'm supposed to be revamping, but instead I started my designs for next month's journal and played with my digital camera. I was thinking of things I could do (sadly, the only feature missing from my new camera is a remote cord.) and remembered that my buddy Lance had used images of just his eyes at various times on his Experiences. I probably won't use the resulting images in January, but I might incorporate them the month after.
In the afternoon I went to the Cinerama (this weekend has been a festival of Seattle's best theaters) to see Dirtworld, I mean The Postman. (I do like that joke!) I wanted to support the Cinerama, since it's an endangered theater. They played the Star Wars re-releases in the early part of this year, and have been going from month to month ever since, expecting to close any time. They should have played Titanic there, instead of The Postman.
- The Postman
David Brin's book is very good, and the original novella is even better, and deserved the awards it won. I hoped they would just adapt the novella, but instead they included all the plot of the book, to my recollection. The smaller scale of the novella would have been better. There was too much riding around on horseback, not enough time for conversations. Costner was pretty good, though. But he should have gotten together with Peggy Lipton, not the young chick!
I enjoyed getting caught up on the holiday movies during the long weekend. It just seems like the right, festive thing to do.
I got caught up on a good journal, belonging to Jeanne Lawrence. I recommend it! She's a pro writer and it shows. The stories she is currently telling about her parents as young adults in the fifties really made me envision photos of my parents in the same period.
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