Thumbnail Movie Review #2

Alain Chabat and Gael Garcia Bernal face off

So we made our annual pilgrimmage up to Austin to see a movie last weekend -- since San Marcos has outlawed legimate theaters within city limits -- last fall it was Capote, an excellent, albeit limited film featuring a star turn by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who immediately disappeared (though he apparently has several films coming out next year). This year, the Science of Sleep, written and directed by Michel Gondry, who also directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, an excellent film from two years ago but one which was co-written by Charlie Kaufman, who also wrote Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. Got all that? It's important, because the barely cohesive wackiness that Kaufman brings to the table was exactly what was missing from this film, leaving us with a series of vignettes that almost seemed to loop back on themselves into a big, confusing mess.

That mess was pretty endearing, however. You really couldn't help root for Bernal, as well as the oddly attractive Charlotte Gainsbourg (who not only is, in fact, the daughter of Serge, but also shares my birthday). There is a recurring motif in the film where Bernal, who seems to exist at least 75% of the time in his own dreamworld, has a sort of homemade movie studio where he creates and "projects" his dreams. The idea, and the energy that Gondry and Bernal puff into it, is really what drives the film, even moreso than the love story with Gainsborg, which is somewhat conventional. I couldn't help wishing, however, that Kaufman or someone had come along and put that little extra bit of shine on the story so that it held together better.

The whole thing was made enormously more enjoyable by the fact that we saw it in the Alamo Drafthouse South, the theater was largely empty, and we were able to enjoy good food and beverages which came just as the movie started. Yet another of the strange and wonderful things that Austin manages to get right.

The Departed

Are you @$%$@-in' kiddin' me? Damon and Leonardo duke it out

Went and saw The Departed last night, since it'd probably be our last chance to do so before all the relatives arrive for the weekend and the World Series starts. My thumbnail review is that it was all right. Not nearly as tight or compelling as Infernal Affairs, the 2002 Hong Kong film it was based on. In that film, the focus was almost totally on the cat-and-mouse of the two moles, one deep undercover in an organized crime outfit, the other undercover in the police anti-crime unit. Since Infernal Affairs gave us a quick montage of the two officers going through academy and working their respective ways up over the course of 10 years (instead of just one year, in The Departed), this part seemed more believable and made the moral ambiguities of both moles a bit more poignant to watch. I'm assuming that Scorcese dispensed with this because a)he's working with young actors in the mole parts, and b) he wanted much of the film's focus to be on mob boss Nicholson, so spent his "foreground" time on that character.

But come on, now: a new guy who just got booted out of the police academy joins your squad, you find out there's a mole, and you're wondering who it is? Please. Conversely, the cops find out there's a mole, and they put a guy who's only been on the force for about a year in charge of finding him, giving him power to wire-tap/follow/spy on any of his superiors? Really? (Actually, I can almost believe this one...)

Bigger problem is the convoluted shrink/love interest subplot. Played by Vera Farmiga, this character was also attempted in the original, though not in the ill-advised, both leads somehow striking up a relationship with her way it is here.



Of course she's about ten times better looking than a police shrink has a right to be, but lacks the requisite gravitas to pull the character off. Total waste of time. Paltrow or somebody would have been better, but really, did the movie even need her? More to say, but time to head up for my 10am class...

The Move

It's been a couple weeks but I'm back... The move was more intensive and difficult and consuming than I thought -- and this is coming from someone who's moved at least a dozen times in the past five years. This morning I woke up in the dark to a house that had no lights -- except, thankfully, in the back bedroom. Moments of murderous bitterness at the thought of the coffee maker possibly not working. . . Yesterday, the landlord had stopped by with a handyman to work on a burnt-out light in the kitchen, and he succeeded in shorting a fuse that took out most of the lights in the house. Already, our fridge had gradually been getting warmer and warmer for some mysterious reason. Now it's little more than a box to keep stuff in. Supposedly that's getting fixed today.

Alas, the coffee maker did work. Sat down to a gross breakfast of lukewarm soymilk over cereal, a glass of warmish orange juice, and the life-saving coffee. Got ready for another exciting day of school...

Anger

Angered at giving up 17 straight points in racquetball, I reared back and kicked the plexiglass wall as hard as I could. There was an immediate shiver of pain, but I kept playing. Later, swimming, every kick caused a sharp, stiff sliver of pain in my foot, starting where the toes branch from the foot and running almost to my ankle. Later still, at home, the foot stiffened up so much that I could hardly bear to put weight on it, and the thought of walking upstairs was abhorrent to me. I stood in the kitchen feeling it ache, and it seemed to me that the force of the wall in response to my kick was slowly traveling up my foot. Already it had gone from my toes to the top of the foot and nearly into the ankle. I imagined it moving up my whole body, like mercury up a thermometer, till it burst out the top of my head.

Who's Running?

The dog, anticipating my coming into the room, was already curled up on the floor beside the sofa. The cat slithered up onto the sofa through the gap between the armrest and the cushion, mincing close to be petted.

* * *

Walking to the school rec center after class I thought I saw one of my students coming the other way. This made me dip my head and walk faster to avoid the inevitable encounter which, I imagined, would be awkward in this context. But it was not a student of mine; only a girl with the same color hair wearing the same school t-shirt.

* * *

Turn on the TV to the still powerful, awful image of the towers coming down, the billowing gray smoke, so thick it's liquid, the slow crumbling, the sudden collapse; then people in business suits running, glancing back at solid waves of smoky debris chasing them... But I don't want to hear the testimony or the commentary, so I turn it off.

* * *

Who's running? I am running in time. I am running on time. I am running from time. I pass by the brown-haired woman on the track once, twice, three times when she stops to stretch and tie shoes and get a drink from her water bottle. Another woman begins running, and I pass her easily at the sharp turn corner of the track, we are a clock, I have till noon to run when the car needs to be back. I want to pass the brown-haired woman one more time. I gain on her on the straightaways, measure the distance when a turn puts her in profile, do some rude figuring of her stride against mine. Another lap and I'd make it. But I get to the end of the lap and stop.

Two Dreams

#1 Saturday, Sept. 9: T. tells me that Q. wants to go to Yosemite. I feel guilty because there's not enough time left in our vacation to take him there (that's him, to the left of this text). Later Q. points to his right eye as if it's hurting him. I lean in close and hear, as if telepathically, "Yosemite." I have to apologize and explain to him that we're out of time...



#2 Sunday, September 10: I'm typing a letter to explain to the woman in charge how I could help out with marching band if need be, having played the drums in marching band years ago. But at the same time, they're having a meeting about it in a sort of outdoor amphitheater with raised seating, and the keys of the typewriter are also the seats where people are sitting. So I look back over the crowd as I'm typing the letter, and people sitting on the keys are shouting the letters at me: "I think this is 'A' over here," etc., and I have to look at them and think about where the letters are rather than just type with my fingers, and it's loud and slow. Finally I finish the letter and sign with the name "Michael."

Darwin<>TRUTH

At the traffic light on Sessums and LBJ, I'm forced to contemplate the object of my ire: a green Villager minivan that coasted to a stop just in front of me, so that I have to wait for the signal to change to make the right turn into the parking lot. There's a big soccer ball magnet on the left side of the hatch, the surface layer peeling at the edges and starting to come off. On the right, there's a small bumper sticker that advertises "Calvary Baptist Church, San Marcos," bright yellow letters on a friendly blue background. Further down on the right side: a chrome-plated, plastic fish with the word "Darwin" in it, being eaten by a bigger fish filled in with the word "TRUTH". An interesting salvo in the ongoing "ichthys" wars.