Halloween

This weekend I watched the movie "An American Crime," with Ellen Page and Catherine Keener. The movie is based on a true story about a terrible, terrible crime. I was sad about it for the rest of the weekend. After I read more about the story, I felt even worse. In Indiana in 1965, a 16-year-old girl was imprisoned in a basement and was tortured. Her parents worked for a carnival, and they paid a woman who had six kids to take care of the girl and her sister for $20 a week. The mother and her children and the neighborhood kids all participated in the abuse.
The movie I watched the day before was surprisingly good -- War, Inc., with John Cusack. I'm always amused, as are most people, I'm sure, when Joan Cusack unexpectedly turns up as one of his cohorts, costars, sidekicks, in some kind of cameo appearance or small character. Why is John Cusack so infinitely cool? Is it because he plays complicated characters? Is it because he has pretty good taste in the movies he picks? The soundtrack was great in the movie. Hillary Duff stars in the movie and plays a sickeningly trite pop star, and she sings a couple of the songs. The movie seems to take place in the present, but in an alternate world where corporations have essentially replaced government, but the difference is that their influence is not subversive. The movie has, as all good movies have, a blend of the elements of many different kinds of movies in it -- comedy, beauty, tragedy, action, violence, philosophy, literature, action, and something interesting to think about. I'm sure there's a good word for that, but I'm too tired to be creative.