Mary and Jeff returned from the antipodean climate they have been in for six months. They got back on Monday, which probably felt like Tuesday to them, and have been sleeping at weird times since. I was going to go out with them on Wednesday night, but I was very tired and had to be on my game at work the next day. I had a useless data entry task to work on and had to make progress, since I'd been putting it off for awhile.
So Thursday night I got to see them, over at Mary's sister's house in Willow Springs. Krissy (Sullivan) is pregnant and her husband Pat (who is probably reading this right... now) are having a baby in a couple weeks, and Krissy is carrying around this baby in her belly that looks totally fake. I don't remember seeing many of my aunts really pregnant like this, so this may be the first time I've seen up close a woman so pregnant. I'm telling you her belly looks like a special effect. It's weird and fascinating.
So Jeff and Mary were telling me about Thailand in between their eight-o-clock yawns and showing me pictures of a place that at once looks beautiful and also a clusterfuck, or an attempt at organized chaos. A beautful clusterfuck. Bangkok looks insane, like there's no room to breathe, and apparently there are no rules of the road either. There may be road lanes but no one follows them, so it's essentially a free-for-all. In a country of 15 million people, says Jeff, 10 million are in Bangkok. 10 MILLION PEOPLE!
Chiang Mai, 15 train-hours to the north, is much more sedate. From the pictures it looks a bit like a rainforest, all lush and verdant and greener than green. Except of course for what Pat and I were calling the shit-river. There was this river in one of Jeff's photos that looked like it was a big fucking river of liquid shit. Jeff said that he was caught up in a wayward branch while boating on it and fell in. And he thought the river got mad at him and stole his sandal, but then he heard a popping sound and saw it sail to the top. The image alone of Jeff falling into such a waterway to hell is absolutely hilarious.
Anyway, I should let them tell their own stories, and hope that they will soon. But it says a lot that Jeff and Mary were in the recently rated top three cities in the world (Sydney, Bangkok and Chiang Mai) in the last six months. So much beauty in one year of someone's life might cause eye strain, but the tests have yet to be concluded.
So after the picture show Krissy and her belly joined the conversation and she was showing us her fetus. Baby Sully was kicking and generally causing what looks like a painful ruckus. We were up close and staring looking for a bump somewhere when a whole arm, elbow to fingers, pushed up and moved the length of her belly as if it were flopping around on an uncomfortable mattress in a room without air conditioning. It was like a scene out of Alien and it thoroughly creeped me out.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
HUSTLE & FLOW
Last night I saw Hustle & Flow. It was really great; very entertaining. Terrence Howard, whom I first noticed from beyond the background earlier this summer in Crash (my favorite film of the year so far) was great as a Memphis pimp with dreams of something bigger and better. I have no idea how accurate this portrayal is of the stereotypes of 1) Memphis, 2) rappers, 3) pimps or 4) black people, but this was definitely an affecting story. I think none of those "accuracies" matter much anyway, because even if stereotypes are more often true than not, there is still a "not." There are always anomalies; exceptions that break the rules. And why can't there be a witty poor pimp who has the stuff and the werewithall to make it as a rapper? That's not to say that happens in the film, or doesn't, but it's a trajectory established early on.
The acting was fantastic. Beginning with Howard, who really came out of nowhere and has been turning in stellar work since Ray, though I can't remember seeing him ever before to say his previous stuff was not stellar. I love when a great actor emerges from those character roles that seem to blend in with the background so much you can't make out any distinctive features. At first, he mumbles a little trying to get down that Memphis twang (most noticable when he say the word "man") but after you acclimate yourself to that accent, just like reading a book written in dialect, you no longer have any trouble hearing what he is saying. He's best when the camera is just watching him doing nothing, or reacting, or listening to something. He's not overacting, but it is fascinating watching someone take in a sound or a word or absolutely nothing, or watching someone think.
Anthony Anderson is equally good (surprising?) as the more intelligent, more successful, wealthier, high school friend of Howard's. He plays what is looked down on in that geographical and cultural place as "white." I think that's a horrible stigma to pin on someone who is successful and clean (as in no drugs) and upstanding, for I think it's patently untrue. But we can discuss the element of poor whites another time. He bears the guilt of someone who made it out of his pre-destined slums and he comes back to help achieve the dream of someone he once knew.
Ludacris, who doesn't really appear until the last third of the film, continually surprises me. Like Howard, he was in Crash and was phenomenal in both. The words written for Ludacris and Howard in their long scenes together are the type that are profound and intelligent yet sound perfectly right coming out of the mouths of these characters. I suppose it's the inner human, the innateness in all of us, our guts speaking through our mouths that comes across; that everyone is capable of such thoughts and words and no one is unworthy of showing it.
These characters are on their face, one-dimensional. They're caricatures before the house lights dim and the reel begins, but once they do and it does, they are full people, with thoughts and dreams and successes and failures. They're like you and me, but with different standards and different hurdles and different people in and out of their lives. We all achieve something in our lives, or seek to, and even if we only get so far as halfway on the course before something goes wrong or crashes down around us, we tried.
This film was so alive and so meaningful, and the music is good. The acting is really what makes this movie great, for in lesser actors' hands these truly great words would ring hollow and fake.
The acting was fantastic. Beginning with Howard, who really came out of nowhere and has been turning in stellar work since Ray, though I can't remember seeing him ever before to say his previous stuff was not stellar. I love when a great actor emerges from those character roles that seem to blend in with the background so much you can't make out any distinctive features. At first, he mumbles a little trying to get down that Memphis twang (most noticable when he say the word "man") but after you acclimate yourself to that accent, just like reading a book written in dialect, you no longer have any trouble hearing what he is saying. He's best when the camera is just watching him doing nothing, or reacting, or listening to something. He's not overacting, but it is fascinating watching someone take in a sound or a word or absolutely nothing, or watching someone think.
Anthony Anderson is equally good (surprising?) as the more intelligent, more successful, wealthier, high school friend of Howard's. He plays what is looked down on in that geographical and cultural place as "white." I think that's a horrible stigma to pin on someone who is successful and clean (as in no drugs) and upstanding, for I think it's patently untrue. But we can discuss the element of poor whites another time. He bears the guilt of someone who made it out of his pre-destined slums and he comes back to help achieve the dream of someone he once knew.
Ludacris, who doesn't really appear until the last third of the film, continually surprises me. Like Howard, he was in Crash and was phenomenal in both. The words written for Ludacris and Howard in their long scenes together are the type that are profound and intelligent yet sound perfectly right coming out of the mouths of these characters. I suppose it's the inner human, the innateness in all of us, our guts speaking through our mouths that comes across; that everyone is capable of such thoughts and words and no one is unworthy of showing it.
These characters are on their face, one-dimensional. They're caricatures before the house lights dim and the reel begins, but once they do and it does, they are full people, with thoughts and dreams and successes and failures. They're like you and me, but with different standards and different hurdles and different people in and out of their lives. We all achieve something in our lives, or seek to, and even if we only get so far as halfway on the course before something goes wrong or crashes down around us, we tried.
This film was so alive and so meaningful, and the music is good. The acting is really what makes this movie great, for in lesser actors' hands these truly great words would ring hollow and fake.
A COMPULSION?
Is it me or have Law & Order reruns caught on specifically with middle-aged women? For years, my mom has watched on average two a night. She's seen them all by now, she must have, yet she continues to watch them as if for the first time. She has been reading mystery novels for most of her life, and there are only so many ways to kill someone. Surely she's read of them all or seen them on tv by now. How can they continue to surprise her? How can she forget a Season 1 episode outcome enough to watch it and still be engrossed?
Dannette/Sharise once told me that she's too old for Donard. She never said his age, but I know she's 39. She said that he wants to go to the South Side of Chicago (from Romeoville) all the time and get wasted and party, and she just wants to sit and watch Law & Order all night after work. If she's disturbed during her L&O episode, she won't look up or answer until commercial break.
I'm reading a book right now, Eleanor Rigby by that great Canadian, Douglas Coupland, and the main character, Liz, also watches Law & Order repeats religiously. Is this just a string of coincidences, or is this a pattern?
I don't know any men that watch the reruns like these women do. That doesn't mean they can't, I'm just pointing out what I've noticed. I haven't seen the show since Angie Harmon left. She was my favorite ADA. Does Dick Wolf know something about the female race and his tv shows? Are they psychologically tailored for women, or is that some unintended consequence?
Or perhaps, I'm just reading way too much into nothing.
Dannette/Sharise once told me that she's too old for Donard. She never said his age, but I know she's 39. She said that he wants to go to the South Side of Chicago (from Romeoville) all the time and get wasted and party, and she just wants to sit and watch Law & Order all night after work. If she's disturbed during her L&O episode, she won't look up or answer until commercial break.
I'm reading a book right now, Eleanor Rigby by that great Canadian, Douglas Coupland, and the main character, Liz, also watches Law & Order repeats religiously. Is this just a string of coincidences, or is this a pattern?
I don't know any men that watch the reruns like these women do. That doesn't mean they can't, I'm just pointing out what I've noticed. I haven't seen the show since Angie Harmon left. She was my favorite ADA. Does Dick Wolf know something about the female race and his tv shows? Are they psychologically tailored for women, or is that some unintended consequence?
Or perhaps, I'm just reading way too much into nothing.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
GET ME IN A ROOM WITH KATIE MALLMAN
That was for you, Will. It's how you might be able to help me to get some solid sleep. I know you're in Boston, but when you're back. Pull some strings, puppetmaster.
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