A change of scenery is always nice.

The wind is picking up in great gusts all that enters its path. We entered the movie theater to watch Wall-E, leaving behind a bright, sunny day, and exited the theater to an overcast sky and warm, strong gusts of wind that turned all the leaves on the trees upside down.
I heard so many good reports about Wall-E. The critics loved it. The people who aren't professional critics loved it. When I saw the previews, I thought it looked like it would be annoying and couldn't imagine that it would have much merit.
I put all my faith in the people who said good things about it. In fact, there was nothing bad said about it. How could I not?
I'm still waiting for a good movie to watch. How can a movie about robots that have feelings be good? That's right, I said robots THAT have feelings, not robots WHO have feelings. They're not "who"s at all. I didn't like that Wall-E looked realistic, but that the people looked like cartoons. The best part was at the end, as the credits were rolling. Peter Gabriel's passionate and calming voice came on, and countless styles of drawing and painting depicted the whole rest of the story that you want to see, that you will imagine after the movie ends. That was the best part. People walked out during that.
The rest of the weekend was spent running down to the hometown and back and then to Pittsburgh. There were quick stops to Trader Joe's, a pet store, Buca di Beppo's, and an actual mall. At the mall I bought stuff for other people. Some stuff I bought for myself included some Indian food and ginger granola from Trader Joe's. I also bought some brownie mix that requires only that you add yogurt to it and then bake it. Hm. I was too curious to resist. A man asked us at two different times if we could give him 70 cents.
I got to go out and do stuff and see stuff. Now I feel better.

Let's Play Soup-Heroes, My Cousin Used to Say When He Was Four and I Was Eight

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
I watched this movie last week because I suddenly got interested in Alan Moore after hearing about The Watchmen/Minutemen, and he wrote comic books (I mean graphic novels; what's the difference?) that the movies are based on. My TV isn't very big, and it's a movie that has characters and objects that are supposed to be big, big, big, so it would have helped if my TV didn't make everything look small.
I didn't fall asleep on this one, though, so that says a lot for the movie. Overall, it wasn't a waste of time. I'm glad I saw it.
It was amusing how the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen consisted of an eclectic mix of characters from other stories -- Tom Sawyer, a vampire, Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll, Captain Nemo, and Dorian Gray ... I kept thinking Dorian Gray sounded like Oscar Wilde's creation that I read a long time ago, and it turns out that I was right, but I was sure I was wrong (Oscar Wilde influencing a comic book story? How could it be possible?) ...
That vampire was a woman and she was part of the league, too. No one mentioned the insult to her gender in the name of the group, The Extraordinary Gentlemen. That's the one thing I disliked about comic books, always. They're sexist (Crumb?). Women are typically objects. Sometimes they're clever and they do good things. But mostly they're there for the benefit of the men. That's why boys tend to like comic books more than girls do.
Anyway, combining the mismatched characters is just funny, because it's characteristic of all the comic book and superhero fans and their imaginations that have taken off as a result of reading them -- maybe it's a classic superhero story move, where eccentric characters come together to fight evil, but these characters are odd because they're creations of other artists from various times, banded together. Going back to when I was very young, my cousin's impassioned plea upon the passage of every 20 minutes: "Let's play soup-heroes; you're Wonder Woman, I'm Superman, she's The Great Shark, she can be Flash ...." Then we'd have to go over all the superpowers each of us would have before we got started with the story .... I miss being eight. Sometimes.

More Batman

I spent a few hours watching Batman Begins at home today. I already had one nap, but I went to sleep during the slow part anyway. After the movie ended, I went back and watched the part I missed and then it made a lot more sense. I didn't catch the part about Ra'l Salz ... Whatever dying and then being replaced by the goatee guy at all. I read about it afterward when I tried to figure out who Liam Neeson played in the movie. That scarecrow villain guy was way cool. The actor was delightfully psychotic and the scarecrow mask was workably scary. The actor reminded me of a young Rob Lowe. I wish I would have seen Batman Begins before I saw the Dark Knight. It's not that I missed anything in the storyline by not seeing it first; well, perhaps I did, I just didn't know it. I would have already understood who Commissioner Gordon was, and a bit more about the feeling of the movie.

The Italian Job

A quiet, peaceful weekend, except for the bikers everywhere. Once I got a couple good-nights' sleeps, the extreme noise pollution didn't bother me. Well, it didn't bother me as much. Sometimes I just need a little rest, and then everything's fine. Oh, also, as the weekend wore on, that meant that the biker fest was coming to a rest, so having the end in sight helped.
Last night I watched The Italian Job, a movie I rented that came in the mail. After watching the first five minutes, I thought there was something familiar about it. Had I rented it before? Had I seen it in the movie theater? It was all very vague. I knew I must not have been paying very much attention to it when I watched it, so I knew I must have been at home. As soon as I saw Charlize Theron in her red Mini-Cooper, I was sure I had seen it because I suddenly remembered the big scene at the end, the climax of the movie, when a whole bunch of mini-Coopers saved the day. Despite the annoying Hollywood-ness, the arrogance of Mark Wahlberg, the flimsy plot, and the fact that I'd seen it before, I miraculously held out 'til the end, except that I fell asleep before I got to the end and finished it in the morning. It couldn't have been all that bad. Now I find out there's a sequel coming out next year. Why did this crime/thriller/adventure/car chase/gold thievery movie hold my interest? I will explore the idea fully, knowing that no one cares; that is, unless Mark Wahlberg happens to Google himself and finds this post. Anyway, the cast consisted of a really good group of actors. The camaraderie of the group and the quirkiness of the actors were somewhat compelling. Plus, I wanted to see what Charlize Theron was doing. Edward Norton's always pretty good. I wanted to see what he was doing. The complexity of the plan to steal the gold (twice) was somewhat interesting. Now that I've got my thoughts together, it was the cast. It was all about the cast. The plot was crap.

More on Crimes and Misdemeanors

Fast forward to another conversation with a different friend fawning over "Crimes and Misdemeanors." He says it was his all-time favorite Woody Allen movie. I aired my complaints, centered on my disappointment about all the negativity and pessimism emanating from the storyline and dialog, especially the part where the guy feels horrible at the end of the movie for the crime he's committed, and has to live with the guilt tearing him apart on the inside for the rest of his life. My friend tells me that the human despair, about those and other events, that is so successfully conveyed to the viewer is why it's so good. Maybe. But the ability to convey that feeling of guilt and despair to me, the viewer, doesn't make me feel all good about it as a movie. My friend's favorite line comes from Alan Alda's bit about comedy failing when the truth is broken, rather than just being bent.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Last night I had insomnia. I thought that if anything would cure it, it would be watching the unfinished movie I started the preceding afternoon. Woody Allen movies run like straight dialog; the scenery is meaningless and useless. If you only listened to the whole movie you wouldn't miss a thing, unless you happened to deeply appreciate the sight of New York City buildings and lackluster costuming. Someone once told me "Bullets Over Broadway" was one of the greatest movies ever made. How could that be? Someone else told me "Crimes and Misdemeanors" was his all-time favorite movie. How could it be?
Amazingly, finishing "Crimes and Misdemeanors" from 2:45 a.m. to 4 a.m. did not put me to sleep. The movie ended, and I felt sorry for all the characters' plights at the end. If I remember correctly, "Bullets Over Broadway" ended in bullets over Broadway, and, in other words, a very unhappy ending. Since I was fully awake and it was only a few hours ago, I remember that "Crimes and Misdemeanors" ended with the commission of crimes and misdemeanors. Why does negativity result in critical acclaim? Why can't the story end in some semblance of hope for the future? Something funny to leave you amused and hopeful at the end? I suppose we're supposed to erupt into fits of laughter at all the witty banter and pessimism that fills Woody Allen movies. I suppose that, maybe, he's made so many movies that, after awhile, all that negativity is expected and appreciated and passes for profundity and intellectualism because it is repeated often enough.
Why do people like Woody Allen movies? I keep watching them, hoping I will find out.

Sunday Afternoon

Questions to Ponder After Seeing The Dark Knight:

Does that guy from Lost who played the mayor in Batman wear mascara and eyeliner? Does he have permanent makeup? Does he just really only have very, very, very thick eyelashes?

What happened at the party after Rachel fell out of the window? Where did the joker go? How did Harvey Dent get out? Why did the scene just end (surely there must have been more to it)? Was the scene just a victim of bad editing?

Why does Maggie Gyllenhaal look so much like Kirsten Dunst in this movie?

What part did Anthony Michael Hall play?

Doesn't Two Face have a whole set of adventures in the Batman stories?

Why don't I feel happy at the end? Shouldn't I feel happy at the end?

Should I have watched the 2005 Batman movie before I saw this one?

Wanted, Kinky Boots, and Strike!

This weekend I watched Wanted, even though I almost always steer away from action movies, which have never really interested me. I find that they almost always lack substance and instead draw upon car chases and mindless violence, and if it was truly playing into the formula, nudity and sex; but I thought Wanted would have something more. It didn't.

Some other movies I watched this weekend that looked better and had more substance included Kinky Boots and Strike! I fell asleep watching one of them and woke up watching the other. Kinky Boots had far more potential and a positive comment from a credible friend about it being one of her favorite movies. It is about a man who reluctantly takes over his father's shoe factory after his father dies. The man has just enjoyed his freedom and moving into his first apartment with his girlfriend when he found out he was being compelled to return. A feisty transvestite enters the picture, and I am supposing that the transvestite's big, red, high-heeled boots inspired him to transform the shoe factory into something a little more exciting. I don't know though; that's where I thought the movie was heading when I fell asleep. When I woke up, Strike! was on and it caught my attention so much that I was suddenly wide awake at 1 a.m. Kirsten Dunst and Gaby Hoffman played girls who attended a private school and were trying to stop the board of directors from caving into pressure from the neighboring boys school to go co-ed. I woke to a line from the headmistress of the school, saying that the influence of the men would be subtle and insidious, as always, and that their influence would slowly reduce the women's and female students' roles at the school into insignificance. That's the kind of movie I like. Something that makes me think.

Saturday, June 21

The weekend started off with a garage sale, at which we were able to yield $18.00. It wasn't my idea. Our house is difficult to find. Our fine merchandise was mostly marked at rock-bottom prices, and our highest-priced item was a coat tree for $5. Nobody bought it. We sold one cup of lemonade but we forgot to charge for it. A fun day. The garage sale was blanketed between a trip to the farmer's market, where we purchased cheese, coffee and lettuce, and the arts/music river festival, where the weather was perfect and the arts/music was the same as ever, but did make me glad to live where I live. The day ended by watching The Love Guru, which was as bad as the reviewers said it is. I can sum it up with one description: one-dimensional. The characters were all one-dimensional, as was the plot. There were two one-dimensional plots: guru wanted to be on Oprah and be the number-one guru in the world; and he was hired to make a husband and wife get back together. Those plots were strung together by one-dimensional jokes that kept centering on stuff that really wasn't funny. Comments coming out of the theater included "weird," "bad," and "not that funny."