Beck's Day

My favorite sample sentence from a grammar book:

"We all ended up somewhere with our various uncertain lives flapping about us in tatters and our pockets full of foreign coins."
-- Karen Elizabeth Gordon
The Transitive Vampire

The death of a friend

2009-07-22T20:48:00.005-06:00

Theron Read died Monday on Trax on his way to work.
He was a good friend, a good person, a good Cubs fan and an amazing writer.
I feel like I've lost a member of my family. If you knew him you probably know what I mean. If you didn't you missed out on one of the kindest, funniest people ever. He drove me nuts sometimes, he even made me angry, but I loved him.
The turn-out at Junior's last night was amazing. There must've been 100 people through, mostly old faces, some I haven't seen in years.
I felt sorry for any random people who went in because it looked like a happening place. It was, lots of hugging and laughing and people breaking down and crying at random moments.
Gina set up a memorial page on Facebook. There's a wake this Saturday, July 25, 2009 at Junior's - no one has told me the time yet, but they were talking afternoon. As I understand the state of events now:
Viewing at Jenkins-Soffe, 4760 S. State, Murray on Sunday July 26, 2009 5:00-7:00.
Viewing & Funeral at Jenkins-Soffe on Monday July 27, 2009 10:00 & 11:00
will update if I find out something changes.

Rant alert: Perfume & Cologne, Health and Manners

2009-04-21T15:42:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I get nasty, quick, make me want to cry and or vomit headaches.
Usually a few minutes of fresh air will clear them up, which is good because aspirin and ibuprofen don't help with these.
The reason for today's rant is related to my review of the B.B. King concert. One of the young men sitting next to us was doused in cologne or body spray. It smelled nice, but I had to change seats with my honey, hoping a few feet of distance would help (it did a little), and still I had to through the show with my eyes closed most of the time just to keep the pounding down.
Both men and women have become very inconsiderate in their use of perfumed products.
They aren't migraines, per se, but a chemical reaction or reaction to chemicals found in many, but not all, things perfumed. The list of problems for me includes, but is not limited to, perfumes (though those manufactured in Europe don't often have whatever the problem chemical is), scented candles (the worst), air fresheners, scented bleach and other cleaning products, paint, lost of incense and cologne. Usually I explain it as allergies so I don't have to explain what Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is.
One of my friends has reactions to some, but not all, of the same things I do. There are days when we will be out at the bar that he and I will have to go out to the patio, no matter how cold it is, just to clear our heads.
I have to limit the duration of my visits to my honey's very nice neighbors because they always have scented candles burning and I don't feel like I know them well enough to complain.
I do mention to friends when their perfume or lotion causes me pain, and most of them are very kind and understanding. They ask if something they're wearing is a problem for me, and I will give an honest yes or no. If yes, most of them remember to avoid the offender when they know they'll be seeing me.
Another strategy I've devised is to ask someone I don't know who is wearing an offending chemical what brand it is so that I can avoid it in future. The very worst are things that smell good and give me headaches. That and the slow acting ones that don't give me the quick headache but slowly build.
I don't want perfumes banned, I like it. I have found a few perfumes, through trial and error, that don't make me hurt which my honey and I both enjoy. But I also wear very small amounts. Like so many things a little goes a long way.
This is my advice for wearing scent in public: bathe, wash your clothes (clean is good) and put on a little scent, just a little. If you can smell it on yourself after a few minutes you've probably used too much. This is especially important in indoor settings like movie theaters, concerts and bars. At an outdoor even in the summer less scent will mean fewer bugs attracted to you.
Please educate yourselves, this web site seems like a good place to start: http://www.multiplechemicalsensitivity.org/

Mr. B.B. King

2009-04-21T15:22:00.003-06:00

Pardon the delay, but I had a paper and a presentation for school last week.
B.B. King and the B.B. King Blues Band played last Tuesday, April 14, 2009, my honey's 38th birthday, at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus.
I've seen him play here three or four times over the last 20 years and at age 83 the man still put son one of the best shows I've ever seen. He can still play circles around anyone, though he sang and talked a lot more than he played. His voice is as rich and stunning as ever. And he can spin a story, that cracks himself up as well as the audience.
The youngster in the band, bass player who's name I cannot find quickly online, was probably in his late 50s, but who cares? The band (especially the horn section) and B.B. were having more fun than most performers I've ever seen. I would recommend spending the price of a ticket to any young musician so that he or she can see what putting on a show is really about.
Willie Nelson's son Lucas opened, and I must admit I preferred the first song he did, solo, to the performances with his band. The kid has potential, though, if he can get away from any expectations his father's fans might have.

Been too long

2009-03-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

This is a very important article for news junkies.

Punk Rock in SLC or I don't feel too old for this

2008-12-31T13:45:00.004-07:00

So, my honey and I went to a full on, balls out, hardcore show last night. Doors opened at 6, the first performer went on at 7. It was at a coffee shop.
A coffee shop called Baxter's Cafe next to the Salt Lake Community College South Campus nee South High School.
A coffee shop which, despite the lack of smoke and booze, reminded me and Curt of lots of old punk clubs: cinder block walls, hard floors... You know the places.
When we walked in, paying our $5 for 6 bands, we were the oldest people in the place, old enough for me to have been a college graduate and still been the mother of at least half of the crowd. We must've looked like either parents or narcs.
My friends Nick and Mike were playing. They're in Dubbed a hard core, ska, fun as hell band who are good and I'm not just saying that because those Yankees fans are friends of mine - despite being Yankees fans. Of course they played last so we listened to everyone else, too. They were all pretty good, though the bands got better as the night progressed, let's just say you can tell which bands practice. It was the bands with older members who were tight and gave off more energy than the younger performers.
Turns out that my sweetie knew people in one of the bands as well, after all he's played guitar and occasionally bass in several bands since he was in his teens.
Anyway, it was loud, fast, young, hard and a lot of fun. I may not dance anymore, and I never danced much, but I didn't feel too old to throw an elbow when the pit got too close to where I was standing.

Oh yeah, Curt and I are still giggling like cartoon mice a little more than six months later and my friends can still make me blush. Oh the happiness.

Curt's brother

2008-11-11T13:47:00.004-07:00

Curt's brother Brent died on Sunday from complications after a surgery. I'd only met him once, but he made quite an impression on me. He was one of those friendly, funny, boisterous people who you just take to or not immediately. I took to him. I'm glad I got to meet him.
I've been spending time with Curt, being there in case he needs me (and I'd go away if he wanted to be alone), reminding him that he is loved. Holding him until he falls asleep.
I've messaged Brad, Brent's now solo twin, a few times, letting him know that I care, offering kind words and cups of coffee.
Curt understands that I probably won't be able to go to the funeral because of my new job and school that evening. I will try to go, my boss is an old friend and kind, though it won't be the best time for me to meet the rest of his family.
Gentle reader or readers, if you are out there what else can I do to offer succor to the one I love?

More about wishing on stars

2008-07-29T16:12:00.004-06:00

I'm blissful. Full of bliss. Two wishes out of three, no hot job - yet.
The first semester of school went very well, 2 As, 1 A- and I feel good about the summer term that is just over, but I'll have to wait for grades to know for certain.
And I've met a fella, his name is Curt. He's younger, shorter and cute with his glasses on, almost handsome with them off. Dark hair, blue eyes, sigh...
Frankly after the debacle of the spring I had pretty much given up on anything more than the occasional casual hook-up with old friends. But I've been going out with a breath of fresh air for about 6 weeks now. We're both smiley and bouncing off the walls. We giggle like cartoon mice, and he actually said "boyfriend" before I did and volunteered to meet my family, chose to meet them. My friends and family like him and he holds my hand.
What's a girl to do?
We aren't much alike on the surface. He isn't educated, he's a server/busboy/host/dishwasher/prep cook - whatever the restaurant he works at needs. He is also a very talented piano and guitar player, and he plays for me. He spends like a sailor on leave and drinks like a fish. He's not a huge reader, and hasn't been to a movie in ages. He has gone to two baseball games with me, half again as many as he'd seen until this summer. He isn't a sports fan, except for a bit of baseball. I don't care, I like him more than I have anyone in a long time if ever.
We have a lot of little things in common, though. We both like stupid jokes and music. We were sitting on his balcony and both sitting exactly the same way, with one leg under and the other foot on the couch.
I was already starting to feel more positive and like my best self when we met, and he made me laugh, but he's helped accelerate the process.
I'm probably more playful than I've been since I was in my early teens. We sit and goof around on his keyboard until all hours, and invent back stories for songs on AM country radio and laugh. My how we laugh. My friends think we're cute and have taken great pleasure in making me blush. I've cooked for him twice and fixed a picnic once.
I am ready to tilt at windmills, climb mountains, flirt with deadlines.
I am the best me I've been in a very long time.
He tells me he's happy, too. He also tells me that I'm the most beautiful, smart, sexy, funny woman ever, and loves that I've traveled and am working on my Master's Degree.
I accidentally had beers with one of his friends, who is a roommate of a mutual friend, and the first words out of his mouth were "Are you still seeing Curt?" When I confirmed this truth he said "Good. We were talking about you and he was bouncing off the walls," or words along those lines. It was nice to hear that, unsolicited, from a man.
We're both being cautious, but I do like him more than baseball and it's starting to feel like something that could last. Each kiss feels like a first kiss, and the radio in my head is on overdrive.
Keep wishing on stars, gentle readers, keep wishing on stars...

Ah, the sunset tonight

2008-06-06T22:13:00.002-06:00

I wish I'd had a camera as I left class this evening. The alpine glow was amazing and then I turned west and it was pretty enough to make you cry. Too bad I didn't have a camera on me.
It did make me think of the late Matthew Haun. He sent me a letter from Saudi Arabia asking me to take photos of the sunset, it was what he missed most about dear old Salt Lake City. Dear Matthew, I think that one was for you, and I will probably always think of you when the sunset is particularly nice.
It still hurts that I can't apologize to you for everything that did and didn't happen.

So remember gentle readers, apologize when you can. You don't know when an accident can happen to make the apology impossible and something you have to live with. And take time to enjoy a sunset from time to time.

Going to church

2008-04-28T15:09:00.003-06:00

Cross posted with Beck's Balls where I go to ramble about sports without boring my friends.

Please do not read this if you are a serious church goer with no sense of humor. I mean no disrespect, just to say that my perfect Sunday involves a matinee baseball game, a movie and karaoke at Burt's Tiki Lounge. If that's a problem for you I'm sorry and can't do a thing about it.

First to explain. A former co-worker, now returned to Nebraska, walked over to me on a Friday and said "Will I see you in church on Sunday?" I was confused since I haven't actually been to a non-wedding or funeral church service since Easter 1989 in Frankfurt, (then West) Germany. He explained that he was talking about the Sunday matinee baseball game that weekend, the only day he could go to games since he worked the night shift.
Since then the Sunday games have been "going to church." I sit outside and revel in the glory of the sunshine and sky, watch well-tuned people glory in the use of their bodies, partake of a communion of hot dogs and beer and sing a hundred year old hymn in the middle of the 7th.
Hallelujah and pass the peanuts.

I've got a somewhat weak poem that I wrote during the first inning of last Sunday's 8-1 Bees win. I won't be bothered at all if you stop reading here. In fact, go to mlb.com and check how your team is doing, or how my poor Tigers and not so bad Brewers are today.
Let's make that 2 poems, though the Salt Lake Bees and Fresno Grizzlies wrote the first one:
R H E
Fresno 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 4 2
Bees 5 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 8 15 2

Pilgrimage
I passed three churches
on my way to the library,
the congregants didn't look happy
going in or coming out,
but I was listening to bluegrass
and not concerned
with their fear of damnation
only with renewing my book.
Then I drank some coffee
and chatted with the boys.
Here, at the ballpark,
the congregation is happy,
taking a communion
of hot dogs and beer.
A weird mix of Pentecostal noise
and Catholic ritual.
2 runs, 5 hits, 1 out in the first
with three men on.
What better church in April,
month of poetry and early season hope?

More on kissing

2008-04-15T14:15:00.002-06:00

Funny that since I blogged about kissing in February I've given in to social kisses.
I've been a hugger since high school and learned about social kisses in Austria, but have rarely practiced social kisses here. Nothing that'll get my guy friends in trouble with their wives or girlfriends, just a kiss on the cheek or neck with a hug, an occasional peck on the lips.
Social kisses are a bit of an art, lips medium hard and no saliva exchange are my best tips. I don't know how to describe these kisses well, but it's slightly more than a brush against the cheek and doesn't last more than a second.
Of course I'm keeping it lips off with the one I really want to kiss, the one I kissed with intent about two months ago. It's all about damage control and friendship building, because I'd rather have his friendship than nothing.

Sorry I just looked outside and the rain is turning to snow. Glad I'm not going to baseball tonight.

Baseball on the second day of Spring

2008-03-24T16:22:00.005-06:00

So I made it to the U of U Baseball game on Friday, the second day of spring, and they won 7-5.
There were only four problems with the game:
1: It was cold sitting there: nothing to be done, I should've brought a blanket or a warmer coat, I'm sure the weather was great for the Saturday day game but I was busy
2: The $2.75 coffee at Not-Derks (Franklin-Covey) Field was highway robbery, at least they were going through enough that it was fresh, at least they had coffee: but come on people, don't charge Starbucks prices for coffee that isn't as good as the 7-11 across the street
3: Only about 100 fans out: where are all those U fans? It's $5 well spent -- better and cheaper than most movies
4: Metal bats just don't sound right, though I do like the little "plink plonk" tune when a pitch skips across one back to the catcher.

Last year I went to the game on the equinox, I guess the day after is close enough for celebrating spring. At least I got my baseball fix and can probably hold out now until the Bees home opener on April 11.

I also found one more reason I'm going to hell: just keep in mind it was Good Friday - they played Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young" on the PA, I couldn't stop laughing. I hope it was intentional, but since we are in Utah it probably wasn't.

(Altered version from my Beck's Balls blog)

Needs, Wants, Desires

2008-03-17T17:28:00.003-06:00

What do you say when you wish on a star? Come on, I know that you still do it, even as an adult, maybe not nightly but once in a while when the world weighs heavy on your shoulders. So what do you need, want and desire?
My wish of late has been to do well in grad school, find a hot job and find a good man who believes me when I say I'm thinking about baseball.
It's that simple and that complicated, so I've been working on all three, studying until my brain is full, sending out resumes and just being myself around new men who catch my eye.
Of course that self is a little shy, a little brash and a bit of a know it all. Is it so much to ask that people like who I am? I'm too old to play games of pretending to be someone I'm not.
So just who is that self? I'm smart and intelligent. I love baseball, hockey and U of U sports. I'd rather read than just about anything. I love movies and music. I laugh and cry easily. I don't usually dance, but if I find someone who can lead in a formal dance I can follow. I'm more likely to have polished nails than to be wearing any other makeup. I have a good ear for accents, which I can't recreate, and music, though I sing poorly and don't play any instruments anymore. I'm a loyal friend and try to be indifferent, yet polite, toward people I don't like. The song "Lady is a Tramp" (listen to what it's saying) fits me well. Though I don't like phones, I eventually do call back when I get messages. I'm not really comfortable with this "I... I... I..." but need it here. I like coffee and tea and social beers.
It hurts when the brash comes out and I put my cards on the table and have them returned in a gentle and gentlemanly manner by someone I thought had a mutual interest. The worst thing is it's been a long time since I've been really interested in a specific man. He's sweet though and still a friend whom I chat with and get hugs from, so at least I didn't break what was already there.
I guess I'm lonely more often than usual lately. I have lots of friends who give me love and affection, but no one to curl up with when I'm tired or sore or having a bad day. I want someone to be quiet with, and even the couple of guy friends who offered me that have taken off for points north west, and that's the kind of friendship that takes years to develop, even when you feel it the moment you meet.
So back to the title of this post. I need to do well in school, want a hot job and desire someone who loves me back.
Doesn't sound so bad when I put it that way.

Spring in the air

2008-03-17T16:41:00.004-06:00

Today feels like spring and I'm jonesing for baseball. I haven't been to a movie in weeks because grad school is filling so much of my time, and I am missing movies, but it's spring and I want baseball. Here. Now.
I'm sure it's the changes in the weather. There's a bit of a breeze today that's making the weather chilly, but it smells like spring, and there are crocuses and daffodils in bloom if you look in the right places.
I turn on Sports Center and see highlights from the spring training games and long to hop in the car and drive down to Arizona for a Cactus League game or 10. I'm antsy and baseball seems to be the answer to my discontent. Well, one of my discontents, the one I'm thinking about now.
It's St. Patrick's Day, less than a week from Easter and I took the new Flogging Molly disc (Float), which has been rocking my world for over a week, out of the car CD player and put on some bluegrass because it feels right for the weather.
I'm just done with this long cold early spring we've been suffering in Salt Lake City and want some summer, right now. Baseball ≈ summer, or maybe I've got that backward.
Anyway, I may hit the U of U v San Diego State games at Franklin Covey Field this weekend, even though metal bats don't sound right.

Poem I've had in my head

2008-02-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

"I'm really very fond"

I'm really very fond of you,
he said.

I don't like fond.
It sounds like something
you would tell a dog.

Give me love,
or nothing.

Throw your fond in a pond,
I said.

But what I felt for him
was also warm, frisky,
moist-mouthed,
eager,
and could swim away.

if forced to do so.

- Alice Walker

Possible ultimate pick-up line

2008-02-24T14:37:00.001-07:00

Thought of this one the other day: "I feel like kissing the wrong man tonight. Could you be him?"

Karaoke at Burt's or Why I Sing on Sunday

2008-02-24T14:28:00.005-07:00

The reason I love Burt's Tiki Lounge (http://www.myspace.com/burtstikilounge or just head to 726 South State Street S.L.C. UT) is that it's a grungy punk dive still, but most of the patrons, depending on the band of course, are like us, older but still fun, the average age on any given night is probably in their mid-30s, and I'm not the oldest person there at 41 most nights. As one dear friend said when we caught bands a few weeks ago, "I love this place because all of the pretense washes away at the door."
On Sunday for karaoke there are a few people with wonderful voices who are there most weeks and they are the ones leading the applause for people who give it their best shot. I don't sing well, I have about a 5 note range most days and do well with songs by weak tenors.
It also digresses (or perhaps progresses) to sing-along on a regular basis, which I adore. I think that communal singing is important and makes us better people, whether it's "Dirty Old Town" in a dive, "Take me out to the ball game" or a congregation singing a hymn.
On first glance, the scariest looking guy in the bar is a tattoo artist who is one of the biggest sweethearts I've ever met. There's a woman working on her PhD in I believe developmental psychology or something like that. One of the bartenders, who is usually a Sunday patron, is studying elementary ed, his volunteer work in a 2nd grade class is breaking his heart "7-year-olds shoudn't be that sad." One of the most talented visual artists I've ever met shows up at least once a month - though he won't sing. My friend's roommate whom she describes as "like having a 13-year-old daughter again, but a girly one this time," gets up there and sings songs like "Man After Midnight" badly and even the straight guys sing along.
It's good community.
You need to be in Salt Lake City on a Sunday night and come to Burt's.

Another Valentine's Day thought

2008-02-14T15:11:00.003-07:00

Sex is sex and that's what it is, but kissing...
I'm a sucker for kisses - on screen, as a voyeur in public places (though eventually I always want to say "get a room"), in books, but especially the kisses I've given and received. I don't give those kisses as lightly as I used to - I've come to realize that every kiss has meaning at least at the moment it's given.
First kisses are generally the best ones. I may not remember a few of the names, but I do remember every first kiss I've had, from sloppy tongue down the throat to the nearly chaste. My very first first kiss was pretty bad, I even knew it at the time. If you know yourself you know instinctively what you like, I did not like that kiss even though I liked the boy.
I've learned to trust the instinct, there are just some men I will not kiss again.
I can tell you how my guy and some girl friends have kissed me on New Year's Eves. It's nice to give the kisses like that to friends. Those hard lipped, no saliva tokens of friendship and love. When I lived in Austria I really enjoyed the kisses on the cheeks in greeting and farewell.
The other day The Salt Lake Tribune had an article that said the average woman kisses 79 men before she marries. I guess I'm just more picky and/or date less than the average woman. Time to get smooching.
Until two weekends ago I thought I'd given up on kissing boys in bars. I only get in trouble that way, and this one may be trouble, too. I want to find out. It's a nice first kiss when the one you kiss smiles and lights up the room.

Valentine's Day crosspost slightly altered

2008-02-14T14:15:00.003-07:00

Valentine's Day. Schmalentine's Day. I don't remember the last time I had a Valentine's Day date (so if anyone can tell a story of a good Valentine's Day date, I'd love to hear it) and even more than usual this year it doesn't matter.
This year, today, February 14, 2008, pitchers and catchers start reporting for Spring Training!
Despite about 8 inches of snow yesterday afternoon and last night (you wouldn't have know this morning that I shoveled at midnight) spring is in the air.
As always, I don't predict but hope for a Tigers/Brewers 7 game World Series.
I promise to get back to the other few Sundance Films I managed to see this year, but for now it seems to be all grad school all the time.

Sundance 2008 - Sugar

2008-01-24T13:01:00.001-07:00

What a weird Sundance, yesterday, Wednesday, I finally made it to my first movie.
Well, I wasn't able to get a locals pass or ticket package for the first time in years and I just started my grad school classes last weekend and would've missed Friday, Saturday and part of Sunday - about 8 films.
Anyway, my first movie for this year was "Sugar" brought to us by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the fine folks who have brought us the short "Gowanus, Brooklyn" and it's feature length follow up "Half Nelson."
"Sugar" is, in the words of Ryan Fleck at the Q&A, "just a baseball movie."
(Baseball, movie -- two words that rock my world)
It is, of course, more than "just" that. "Sugar" is the story of Miguel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), a young Dominican pitcher who has been signed from a development camp in the Dominican Republic by the fictive Kansas City Knights. With minimal English skills he and some of his compatriots are sent to Phoenix for Spring Training. He does well enough that he skips Rookie League ball and is sent straight to 1A in Iowa, where he starts strong. After he is injured and has a hard time coming back Sugar runs away to New York, to find his friend who was cut from the team a few weeks earlier.
I enjoyed this movie, but after sleeping on it I saw so many threads that could've been stronger: the contrast between the bargain basement Dominican Sugar and the million dollar baby second baseman who graduated from Stanford; language and cultural barriers in Iowa while he lives with an older couple who speak almost no Spanish; what to do when the dream (whatever dream it is) falls apart...
It is also nice to be reminded that just because a movie doesn't have the best of all possible endings, it doesn't mean it doesn't have a happy ending.
It's not the best baseball movie ever (in my opinion that would have to be "Bull Durham") and it isn't the best immigrant story ever but "Sugar" is fairly good at being both.

Neglecting my blog

2007-09-14T16:36:00.002-06:00

I just got another "thank you, but we're going another direction" e-mail. I guess I'm more depressed than I thought about not working.
I haven't been writing, here or anywhere, despite a surge in creativity right after I was let go. I haven't been taking photos or working out.
All I've wanted to do is watch baseball games, read and drink iced tea. I've even been neglecting movies.
Three of my best friends (male) have run away to the Pacific Northwest, though I was only ever involved with the first one, it was the most recent one to leave who made me feel like my heart was breaking. Too much all at once.
Fortunately I heal fast, and there's a new man, whom I have vaguely known for about 20 years, whom I am feeling some interest in. I think the morning I woke up from a dream about him has made me consider him while I'm awake. He seems nice and even my protective male friends who know him only have good things to say when I swing the conversation that way. ie "I had coffee with W. today. He seems nice" And then I hear a story confirming that he is.
I think I'll ask him to a dollar movie. That's the date I can afford.
No more young wild men, just men who were young and wild and have let time and experience temper their personalities.

"A Mighty Heart" Review

2007-06-19T12:16:00.001-06:00

So I went to the sneak of ""A Mighty Heart" last night.
It is the story of the search for Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl after he was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002 and is based on Mariane Pearl's (his widow) book, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life & Death of My Husband Danny Pearl.
Angelina Jolie, whom I really like - even in her silly movies, is radiant as the pregnant Haitian-French radio reporter Mariane Pearl. Dan Futterman as Danny Pearl is as soft spoken yet dogged as Pearl was by all accounts. I suspect this movie will be a real breakout for him after a career which has largely been in television projects.
The movie is good, and based on the facts as I remember them. The cast is strong. But I thought there was something missing. Maybe I was too caught up in the story when it was happening, despite the distraction of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games here in Salt Lake City, and remember the news too well. But I thought the movie lacked passion. I expected the movie to be more frenzied, more desperate. It may be that Mariane Pearl was that stoic, that seemingly calm, but you'd think someone, one of their friends or a member of Danny's family, would have broken the calm reserve while they were still searching for him and hoping that he was alive.
There are some wonderfully human moments, but they seemed few and far between.
Maybe it's me, maybe I used up all my emotion for this story five years ago. I just wanted to like both of the Pearls more in this movie, since it begins on the day of the kidnapping we only get to know him in flashbacks and really only see the good side of her the same way.
It's a difficult story to tell and it is told well in this movie, but that's all. I can get more feeling for both of them in newspaper accounts.
Guess I'll have to grab the book on my next trip to the library to see if it has more passion than John Orloff's screenplay.

"Shoeless Joe"

2007-04-29T14:10:00.001-06:00

Oh my God. I just read the first chapter of Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, the book better known as being the inspiration for "Field of Dreams."
It sent shivers down my spine. The last thing I remember reading that rocked me this hard was one of Roger Angell's descriptions of a ninth inning play.
I don't know how I missed this book before, but based on the first chapter I must say read it. I'll have it back at the library sometime in the next week, but it is worth buying if you love a well written story and/or baseball.

48 Hour Film Project - "The Usual Stuff"

2007-04-24T14:22:00.002-06:00

Wow, what a weekend.
I was awake from 8:30 Friday morning until 1 am Sunday with a fitful hour of near sleep in my car on Saturday afternoon.
Then I was back to watch the editors at work around 3pm on Sunday.
What inspired this sleeplessness? The 48 Hour Film Project that's what.
About two months ago I received an e-mail from either the Salt Lake Film Society or the Salt Lake Film Center (I forget which) about this project. 48 hours to make a film from script to final edit. Sounded fun. It was.
I ran into Lance Youngberg of G. Why Productions at Junior's Tavern that night and told him about it and ended up forwarding him the e-mail the next day.
Once we finally were in the competition, because the organizers expanded the pool because of demand, the wild ride started.
Theron Read, Tom Fightmaster and I were the writing team. We had a few formal idea pounding sessions and many more informal ones. We couldn't write anything in advance, but came up with a few scenarios which could go several different genre directions. As I predicted we pretty much threw everything away on Friday night. Everything except the title and very loose structure that Tom had come up with. His idea was a waitress with three tables who kept missing the mayhem at the tables. What we worked out was a waitress who was in on the whole thing.
Unfortunately, Tom was not able to be much help on the panicked second story (after the first one was tossed because it sucked) which grew out of his idea. Theron was writer blocked and I was idea impaired. That ended up working very well. Theron would start on an idea, and I'd have half a page of dialogue written before he finished telling it to me. Alas, Tom's lines which we put in were among the first that the director, Geno Salvatori , Lance and others on the production end asked us to cut. The other early cuts were mostly from a frivolous idea Lance sent our way.
So Theron and I wrote a hell of a short play between about 2 and 4am which was turned into a fine short film. I'm really uncertain about time at this point, but the last save on the first draft of the final script is 4:35 am which should give you some idea.
This is the first time I've done more than a little script doctoring, off set, so it was exciting (and sometimes frustrating) to be on a set watching my words come to life. The crew was good natured and professional. The cast as well.
I particularly admired the cast members who sat around literally all day, shooting, reshooting, and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes waiting for their scenes - two of them were not shot until after I left at 1am. Our production dominatrix, Gina Vigor is a goddess. She was there Friday until about midnight, on her bicycle at 5:45 for the 25 mile race that was concurrent with the Salt Lake Marathon and back at HQ (Urban Bistro) at 9:30 keeping track of every scene to make the editors' work easier. She didn't get home until 5am and was back at Urban, cleaning and scrubbing by 4pm on Sunday. What a woman.
Thanks to everyone involved and all of their spouses, kids, pets and others who loaned them to us for the weekend. You worked long and hard for a few meals and an ocean of coffee. Thanks also to the folks who showed up whom we did not end up needing. The fact you wanted to play, to work long and hard for nothing, shows that you have the kind of character to make a good go at taking over the world.
As someone said as the editors were packing up their gear, "It began with one Becky and ended with another." Thanks, Becky, for the editing and letting me look over your shoulder.
I couldn't have asked for a nicer group of people to spend a weekend with.

Spring

2007-03-21T21:17:00.001-06:00

Just because the equinox occured without controversy and I went to a baseball game (see Beck's Balls) yesterday, and the Utes beat BYU all to celebrate spring I feel the need to post my favorite spring poem. Though I must say I was a girl who prefered (and still do) "marbles and piracies" to "hop-scotch and jump-rope."

'In Just-'

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

-- e. e. cummings

Job Interviews and Censorship

2007-03-16T14:09:00.001-06:00

I originally sent this as an e-mail to JD, but thought is was worth posting in a slightly revised form, it's also on my myspace.com page. The background is that I have a job interview on Monday at 11.

Thanks for the wish of luck. Everything helps. It's hard when I worked for the same company for nearly 14 years and have an odd skill set, at best. I find I don't fit the algorithms on Monster.com or any other job site I've looked at, except for the Special Libraries Association.
I'm not certain about this job, it's for a web filtering company and I don't think that institutionalized censorship is a good thing. Businesses should trust their employees (until that trust is abused) and parents should teach their children something about moral judgment, leaving communication open so that the kids can approach them and ask when they see something (online, in a book, on tv, wherever) that makes them uncomfortable or that they don't understand.
Silly me, expecting people to act like reasonable, thinking beings. Now, if I'm just filtering things that are illegal, or even to the level of R rated movies I don't have a problem with that. I'll have to bite my tongue and curb my attitude a bit for the interview, meanwhile I have all weekend to find out what I can about the company.

"Music & Lyrics"

2007-03-05T16:27:00.001-07:00

Cute romantic comedy. A fine popcorn movie (satisfying on superficial levels, but not nutritious).
Take your mom and dad, take your 13-year-old niece. I don't think there's much that would offend anyone in this movie. OK, maybe unwed sex but that's it. Even the language isn't very bad.
A lot of the humor is geared to the 35-45 year-old crowd, people who remember MTV when they played videos.
It's just a sweet movie with nothing to recommend against it, unless you don't like either Drew Barrymore or Hugh Grant. Brad Garrett has a very funny manager/sidekick role as well.

Is it too much to demand...

2007-03-05T16:18:00.001-07:00

You know that Mary Chapin Carpenter song "Passionate Kisses"? That's how I'm feeling.
Is it too much to ask for an intelligent, funny, non-alcoholic man who drinks a little and looks good with his shirt off? The shirt, as my track record indicates, is the first requested trait to go. Really.
I've been flirting with a man I've known for about 15 years, whom I have adored since the day I met him. I almost picked a fight with my then-boyfriend who introduced us so I could be with this one, I didn't because I thought calling after meeting once would be presumptuous.
It's driving me nuts to want someone this much and to be afraid to make a move because I don't want to scare off the friend he is. AARGH.

Two movies in one post!!!

2007-02-27T14:33:00.001-07:00

Wow. I saw "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Babel" in the last few days. Both are brilliant.
If you've seen the trailers for "Pan's Labyrinth" you probably think it's a fantasy movie. Well, you're part right. It's actually as much about the brutality against the rebels at the end of the Spanish Civil War as anything.
Bookish 10-year-old (or so) Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) have been moved from the city into the countryside where Captain Vidal (Sergi López), Carmen's new husband, is stationed at an old mill where his job is to eradicate the remaining rebels in the mountains.
The housekeeper at the mill, Mercedes (Maribel Verdú) becomes Ofelia's caretaker and a nurse to Carmen whose advanced pregnancy is put in peril by the long trip. Mercedes warns Ofelia to stay out of the ancient stone labyrinth next to the mill, saying she would get lost forever. Of course, being a curious, intelligent child Ofelia can't resist when a fairy leads her into the maze. It is there she meets the faun who is so creepy in the trailer, and who tells her she is a fairy princess who needs to perform three difficult tasks before the full moon to be restored to her true family. When Ofelia asks Mercedes if she believes in fairies Mercedes says she did when she was a girl. When Ofelia asks about fauns, Mercedes tells her that her mother said not to trust them.
I've been telling people not to take anyone under 15 to this movie without seeing it first. It is a harsh and brutal movie. Everyone has things to hide, except the Captain. He could be a be a central casting Spanish fascist, but Sergi López gives the character more depth than that. He is disturbingly attractive.
The line between ancient magic and 20th century human evil is very fine in this film, and I was left hoping that one would interfere with the other.
It is hard for me to know where to stop and avoid spoilers talking about this movie, so I've tried to stick to talking to people who've seen it. So I'll just stop now.

"Babel" is a marvelous film. There are very good reasons why Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi were both nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar.
"Babel" is kind of a strange film to watch. Stories in Morocco, Japan and San Diego are all told separately and you spend part of the movie wondering how they are tied together. An American tourist (Cate Blanchett) is shot in Morocco. A horny deaf teenager (Kikuchi) in Tokyo is interested in one of the police officers who comes to ask her father questions. The undocumented worker housekeeper (Barraza) takes her two charges to a wedding in Mexico while their parents are out of the country and she can't find anyone else to look after them.
As unlikely as it sounds the stories are all tied together.
Once you find the connection, there's a period of "ok, now what" where I even checked my watch. Then, in this amazing ending that I'm hard pressed to explain, everything comes together as it comes apart and the effect is very powerful.
This is another movie that I don't really know how to talk about. I'm afraid I could tell the three stories point for point, tell you about how they tie together and fail to convey any of the power of this film.
The only reason Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are first listed in the U.S. publicity is they are actors whom the casual movie going public know. This is truly an ensemble piece. The official Japanese web site (which has a very cool intro) looks like it is more about the movie as a whole, while the official Paramount U.S. site seems to be worried about awards and nominations.
One more thing, 8-year-old Elle Fanning is as luminescent in this as she was in "The Nines" at Sundance. In my opinion she is the hot young actress of the moment. A beautiful little girl who looks, dresses and behaves her age. And I'm not saying this just because she reminds me a little bit of both my oldest and youngest nieces.

Mozart and mocha

2007-02-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

The party shuffle on iTunes has just given me "Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 622 - Adagio Clarinet Concerto". What better with a mocha on a rain-snowy day.

candidates worth keeping an eye on

2007-02-13T15:14:00.001-07:00

Luke Garrott is running for Salt Lake City Council in the district just barely north of where I live. I've met him, talked to him, he's worth listening to and I think he could be good for Salt Lake. His site is: www.votelukegarrott.com.
Also, though it's a year early it's that time again. I'm one of the 2,590 people in Utah who voted for Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 Democratic Primary. He's thrown his name in the hat for 2008 and I still like him, something about Midwestern populists who aren't afraid to use their intellect... His site is kucinich.us.
If you didn't catch the interview with Kucinich on the Diane Rehm Show today on NPR, you can find it here.
Of course even this far out the presidential competition is a lot more interesting now than it was in 2004. So I'll keep you posted on where I am, but keep in mind to look beyond the obvious and highly publicized candidates. After all, except for the political junkies who outside of Georgia had heard of Jimmy Carter in February of 1975? (Frankly I'm too young to answer this question. My first chance to vote was in the presidential election in 1988).

Monday Movie - The Last King of Scotland

2007-02-06T16:32:00.001-07:00

"Bird" is the first movie I really remember Forest Whitaker standing out in, and I've been a fan every since. "The Last King of Scotland" did not let me down.
I don't know how historical this story is, but the relationship between Idi Amin (Whitaker) and the Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) is a microcosm of the little I have read about Amin and how he treated the people close to him. Amin likes Garrigan immediately and takes him from the rural hospital he is working at to the capitol to be his personal and family physician. Their relationship ranges from "You are my closest advisor" to "you are only my doctor."
Nicholas is a bit of a randy lad (with an extra soft spot for married women), but he is also compassionate. When he becomes involved with Amin's wife Kay (Kerry Washington), who is exiled because one of her sons is epileptic, I think there is as much friendliness and compassion in his initial interest as lust.
Whitaker is charming and frightening as Idi Amin and deserves the Oscar nomination, though I haven't seen any of the competitors except "Half Nelson" for which Ryan Gosling was nominated.
James McAvoy's Nicholas Garrigan is grand as a clueless young man on an adventure as much to get away from his father as to help the people of Uganda as a physician. Though he is the main character I would have liked to have seen a bit more of his psychology. For one thing I can't imagine how he was able to ignore everything going on around him, i.e. the disappearances and deaths.
This is a movie worth seeing, and like "Notes on a Scandal" the novel is now on my reading list.

The Swell Season - album

2007-02-05T20:58:00.002-07:00

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, from the little Irish Sundance film "Once," recorded "The Swell Season" in anticipation of filming the movie.
On the album, as in the film, they make beautiful music together. Now I just may have to pick up some tunes from The Frames, Hansard's band.

"Notes on a Scandal" spoiler if you haven't seen the trailers

2007-02-05T20:36:00.001-07:00

I wish I'd read Notes on a Scandal and could compare this to the book, but I haven't so it'll be all about the film.
Dame Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett. There's not much you can do wrong with these two as the leads, and there isn't much wrong with this movie. Not on a technical scale, there's a lot wrong with the characters though.
Dench plays Barbara, the history teacher of a certain age who describes herself as a "battle axe" who isn't liked but is respected.
Blanchett is Sheba, the new art teacher. She is just getting herself out of the house after being a stay-at-home mother to a teenage daughter and a son with Downs Syndrome.
Barbara starts off as a nice, if lonely, older woman who is somewhat cold to Sheba, but frankly develops a crush on her when Sheba goes out of her way to make overtures of friendship. They go to lunch and coffee and slowly Sheba begins to confide in Barbara, but not everything. At least not until Barbara see Sheba and new Irish student Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson) together in the art room.
Barbara, who is a compulsive diarist, who forces a confession from Sheba and uses this a leverage to put herself more into the life of Sheba and her family. When the scandal breaks, because Barbara creates gossip in a fit of jealousy, Sheba is fired, of course, and Barbara is forced into early retirement.
I didn't think that Judy Dench has ever played such an ominous, or pitiable, character. She's generally either cold and hard or rather charming - sometimes both. As Barbara, she isn't likable for more than half an hour. The range of feelings she evokes with this character is really amazing, as suits an actress of her caliber. From likable to loathsome to pathetic, and never showing any sense of lesson learned.
Blanchet's Sheba is not as deeply interesting, but I suspect she isn't supposed to be.
So far Helen Mirren and Judy Dench are my order of choices for the Best Actress Oscar, but I still need to see "Volver."

Ye Olde Job Hunt

2007-02-02T16:41:00.001-07:00

Things are looking up today. I've applied for one job in Salt Lake that I could really love and am working on the application for a federal job in Seattle that looks just fine. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to be an archivist again. I really do love the work, even when I have to deal with people.
I knew it was feeling like spring despite the cold and things were bound to be looking up.
Wish me luck!

Sundance 2007 - the round up

2007-02-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

Well, with the "best of fest" movies on Monday I caught 33 films at Sundance this year, and missed countless (because I don't want to count) more that I wanted to see.
It was a good year, I didn't see anything I didn't like and the ones I liked least I can still appreciate. I even liked all of the films in "Shorts Program I" which might be a first for a shorts program. The "Animation Spotlight" was a crap shoot, but I expect that.
In the documentary categories "In the Shadow of the Moon" rocked my world. "Joe Strummer..." and "Three Comrades" were also very fine.
I liked all of the fictions I saw as well, but if since I've decided to go with a top 3 here we go (drum roll please...): "Once" (I'm waiting for the album the leads recorded together before the filming, I've ordered it and it should be here any day now), "Teeth" and "Angel-A" with an honorable nod to "Blame it on Fidel."
These may not be the technical best of Sundance, or the one the real film snobs love, but they're the movies I loved this year.
It's Friday now, I haven't been to a movie since Monday. Maybe I'll go tonight.
One more thing, if you're reading this click on the ads at the bottom, consider it a contribution to my delinquency.

Sundance 2007: Best of Fest: Rocket Science

2007-02-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

I would have liked "Rocket Science" a lot more if I hadn't been so blown away by "In the Shadow of the Moon", but I did like it all the same.
Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) is a shy teenager with an intermittent stutter. His parents are divorced, his brother Earl (an hilarious Vincent Piazza) is a very organized kleptomaniac and bully, and the school speech therapist is in the wrong job. Things just aren't good for Hal.
Hal's as intelligent as anyone, he just literally has a hard time expressing himself. When star debater Ginny (Anna Kendrick) approaches him to join the debate team as her partner he has his doubts but goes along with it - as much to be around her as anything. When she abandons him by transferring to another school he quits the team, but can't quit the idea of debate and living up to Ginny's apparent idea of him or getting revenge on her - it's about an equal measure of each.
This is a love-revenge comedy that works on most levels.
Writer/director Jeffrey Blitz has made a fine, funny, hopeful movie about youth finding its voice.

Sundance 2007: Best of Fest: In the Shadow of the Moon

2007-02-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

See "In the Shadow of the Moon," I don't care if you wait to see it on the Discovery Channel or in a theatrical release, but see this movie.
I am 40-years-old and don't remember the first moon launch though I do have images in my head of the later launches. Like so many people my age I have a small disappointment that there aren't colonies on the Moon and people haven't set foot on Mars yet. This film reminded me of what the future used to be and maybe can be again.
This really amazing documentary has very little to do with the science and technology of the NASA Apollo program, it's all about the people, the men who went to the moon.
"In the Shadow of the Moon" is the story of a group of modest, soft spoken mostly Midwestern and Texan Air Force test and fighter pilots who knowingly did one of the coolest and most potentially dangerous things ever. We've all seen footage, read text books, watched TV specials on the moon landings, but I've never seen it presented so well.
Using NASA footage and interviews with the surviving astronauts, David Sington made a film which reminds us that once upon a time everyone could be proud to be an American and member of the world community.
"In the Shadow of the Moon" is hands down the best movie I saw at Sundance this year, even if I saw it as a "Best of Fest" screening after the festival was over.

Sundance 2007: Eagle vs. Shark

2007-02-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

"Eagle vs. Shark," is a little movie from New Zealand which is everything that "Napoleon Dynamite" failed to be in my eyes. It's a charming, funny tale of social misfits.
Lily (Loren Horsley) is a lonely, weird, sweet girl who lives with her kind by inept older brother. She develops a crush on Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) who goes into the fast food place she works at every day on his lunch break. After her co-worker, whom Jarrod has a crush on, throws away a party invitation, Lily decides that she will go and impress this geeky man who has the same mole she does.
She and her brother crash the costume party (dressed as a shark and tarantula respectively) and Lily proceeds to get Jarrod's attention by beating everyone at a video game she has never played. It comes down to Lily and Jarrod in the final and she just can't pay attention to the game because she is standing next to him (he is dressed as an eagle in case you wondered about the title.)
The two hook up and Lily and her brother end up driving Jarrod to his hometown so that he can wreak vengeance on a school bully who is returning from Samoa. It turns out that he also has problems with his family, particularly his dead brother.
Jarrod is more haunted than he lets on and Lily is much stronger than even she could imagine.
This is a funny, odd love story that deserves a wide audience.

Sundance 2007: The Nines

2007-02-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

This movie contains what looks like three stories, all acted by Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy.
In the first chapter of "The Nines," "The Prisoner", a television actor (Reynolds) finds himself under house arrest for things ranging from crack use to arson. McCarthy works for his publicist and specializes in dealing with the disturbed and drug addled. She and the actor form a childlike friendship of name calling and giggling. Davis plays the stay at home mother next door who nearly seduces the actor out of what seems like boredom.
The second chapter "Reality Television" follows Reynolds as a screenwriter who has filmed a pilot with his best friend, McCarthy, as the lead. In his effort to have the show picked up he gives in to the unscrupulous demands of Davis to replace McCarthy and reshoot the pilot.
"Knowing," the third chapter, is the story of a video game designer, Reynolds, and his wife, McCarthy whose car breaks down after a hike. Reynolds goes in search of either help or cell phone reception and finds Davis, again trying to seduce him.
Elle Fanning is adorable and quite creepy in all three chapters as Noelle, first a mystery girl, second the daughter in the pilot and third the daughter of the stranded couple. Only she and McCarthy seems to have an inkling about what is really going on.
This is a stylish film that blindsided me - I really didn't expect that this was a speculative fiction story, I thought ghosts might be involved. Until the end the framework and actual plot is only hinted at.
I do like a movie that surprises me. It didn't play out to be a major sideswipe like "The Usual Suspects" or "Fight Club" (I was so suckered and delighted I laughed my way through the credits on both of these), but a good twist all the same.

Sundance 2007: Life Support

2007-02-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

Queen Latifah really shows her dramatic chops as Ana Willis, an HIV positive, AIDS activist, former junkie in "Life Support."
But this is more a movie about family than disease. Ana signed over custody of her oldest daughter, Kelly (Rachel Nicks) to her mother 10 years earlier. Ana, her youngest daughter Kim (Rayelle Parker) and husband Slick (Wendell Pierce), also HIV positive, function as a family, but Ana and Kim really want Kelly around.
Ana is a hard working woman who takes her messages to the streets, sometimes with fatal results. She is told several times in the film that she is stubborn and selfish. The stubbornness is always there, but she is so selfless in her work that she is selfish in her personal life. She needs everything to be her way. But when Kelly's best friend the HIV positive Omari (Evan Ross) goes missing without his medication she is forced to readjust her outlook.
I really like the way this movie deals with AIDS and HIV. It could be any medicatable disease - high blood pressure, diabetes, MS... AIDS/HIV is important in this movie, more because of Omari than because of Slick, Ana or anyone else who works with her in the outreach group. The audience is reminded that disease can control a person's habits, in this case loads of medication and condom use are essential, but the disease does not make the sufferer less of a person.

Sundance 2007: Year of the Fish

2007-02-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

"Year of the Fish" is a charming Cinderella story, as well as another movie about the plight of illegal immigrants - this time Chinese in New York.
Using a similar technique of animating film as was used in "A Scanner Darkly", "Year of the Fish" has a dreamlike quality even at its darkest moments.
Ye Xian (An Nguyen) is a very pretty young woman (17, 18 if anyone asks) who has been smuggled into the United States and finds herself at a distant relative's "massage" parlor. She is also a nice girl, with all of the meanings I can think of for the term. The relative Mrs. Su (Tsai Chin) is a particularly unpleasant woman who throws wonderful tantrums. When Ye Xian refuses to "give massage" she becomes the one who cleans, cooks and does all of the crappy jobs at the parlor - essentially an indentured servant. On her first day at the market, with two of the other girls, she is given a fish by a mysterious fortune teller, Auntie Yaga (Randall Duk Kim, who also plays a few other characters). She is told that the fish will bring her luck.
Since we all know how Cinderella works that's all I have to say about this movie except that it is a charming film that gives hope through magic.

Sundance 2007: Black Snake Moan

2007-02-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

I've only seen two of Craig Brewer's movie, but he is well on his way to becoming one of my favorite writer/directors.
"Hustle and Flow" was amazing, and now he's topped himself with "Black Snake Moan."
Lazarus or Laz (Samuel L. Jackson) is a farmer/musician whose younger wife has just left him. For the first time in a long time he goes on a drinking binge and assaults his brother.
Rae (Christina Ricci) is a nymphomaniac (who was sexually abused as a child) whose boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) has just left for a tour of duty with the National Guard.
When Laz wakes up with a hangover he finds what he thinks is a body in the road, until she moves. Rae had been dumped for dead by Ronnie's best friend.
Laz gets medicine from a friendly pharmacist Angela (S. Epatha Merkerson) for Rae's cough and fever and bandages the wounds he can. When Rae starts wandering into the fields in her fever, he chains her to the radiator. As he tries to fine out who she is he discovers she has a reputation for promiscuity. He decides that he can help her change her ways, mostly by keeping her in his house and making her face her demons.
Their relationship moves from anger and resentment to loving friendship and an interesting take on the old redemption drama. Laz picks up his guitar again (Jackson is a fine musician with a beautiful voice) and Rae starts to pick up the pieces of her life. No one is redeemed, but everyone is going in the right direction.

Sundance 2007: The Good Night

2007-02-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

Martin Freeman plays Gary, a one hit wonder rock star who is now doing contract work for an ad agency. Gwyneth Paltrow is is somewhat shrewish girlfriend Dora who works in an art gallery. Penélope Cruz is radiant, as always, as Anna - the literal girl of Gary's dreams.
It is the search for the dreams that Anna is in that leads Gary to Mel (Danny DiVito) who leads a workshop on lucid dreaming, in the hour between the ballet and karate classes.
Gary does everything, including driving Dora away, in this film which is part straight narrative, part mockumentary.
Jake Paltrow (Gwyneth's brother) has made a funny, dreamy, generally unoffensive movie. I'm not being snide by saying unoffensive, I mean this is a nice movie you could take your parents to, or a teenage niece, and not be embarrassed to be enjoying it.
Argh, that still doesn't sound right. I like this movie, it's a great first writer/director effort by Paltrow and doesn't have many of those first film flaws that show up so often.
I do need to say that I like the role DiVito seems to be taking more often lately as the flawed wise man (I'm thinking this film and "The OH in Ohio" in particular). He's very good as the character who gives wise advice that he doesn't want to follow himself.

Sundance 2007: Tuli

2007-01-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

"Tuli" is the story of Daisy (Desiree Del Valle) a young woman who does not fit into her rural Philippine village.
The story in the movie "Tuli" is not a happy one, but its ending is filled with love and a hope for the future.
It begins with four young boys going the the village circumciser, Daisy's father (Bembol Roco). The father is an abusive drunk baker in his daily life. Daisy's best chance of escape is marriage. She is being courted by a young man whom she does not want to marry, because she is in love with her best friend Botchok (Vanna Garcia). Botchok moves in with Daisy and her family. When Daisy's father dies the two girls decide that the best way to pull Daisy's disapproving mother out of her grief is to give her a grandchild.
Since Daisy assisted her father with the circumcisions she decides that the only suitable young man to father the child is the one who was not circumcised.
I know enough to get a lot of the references, but I wish I knew more about Philippino Catholicism and its relationship to native mysticism so I could've caught even more.
The rural landscape of this film is idylic, especially when it is compared to the macho culture that inhabits it. Daisy and Botchok are very strong young women to defy their community and grasp for happiness.

Sundance 2007: Welcome Europa

2007-01-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

Once more the plight of illegal immigrants reared its head at Sundance, this time in the documentary "Welcome Europa."
Bruno Ulmer tells the story of young, male illegal immigrants from Morocco, Iraq, Turkey, Romania etc. as they wander Europe looking for a better life and work. They travel, usually north, hoping that the next country will be more welcoming.
These are all once proud men who take to assorted lives of crime (prostitution, theft, whatever), because they cannot get jobs without papers. They sleep in boxes and abandoned cars when there isn't a shelter available.
Ulmer follows these men with his camera and also gives them candid opportunities to talk. Except for the ones who have been in Europe the longest and have given up most of their hope, each of them wants to work and send money home to help support his family.
There are moments of humanity and humor, of sudden friendship from fellow illegals, but mostly this is a harrowing story of poverty and inhumanity. It doesn't matter if the subjects are Kurds, Roma or Arabs, Ulmer reminds us that they are people.

Sundance 2007: Three Comrades

2007-01-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

"Three Comrades" is the story of three friends from Grozny. They met in school and listened to Western Rock Music together as young adults. Islam becomes a doctor, Ramzan a TV cameraman and I never did quite figure out what Ruslan did but his wife is lovely.
In 1994, when the first Chechen war broke out, Ramzan became the eyes of the world as he worked for Chechen TV. He also filmed his family and friends all of the time, as he had since he got his first camera. Islam left his cardiologist training to work in the hospital in Grozny as an anesthesiologist. During this war Ruslan was taken away to be questioned by the Russian Army and later found dead.
The second Chechen war broke out in the fall of 1999. Ramzan and Islam followed their callings again.
This is a link to the CNN report of Ramzan's death http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9911/11/chechnya.02/. Islam is in exile in the Netherlands.
Masha Novikova has made a touching personal portrait of these three friends using Ramzan's footage over the years and interviews with Islam and Ramzan and Ruslan's beautiful widows and other family members.
This is probably the best documentary I saw at Sundance.

Sundance 2007: Smiley Face

2007-01-29T15:24:00.001-07:00

I ended Friday with the very silly "Smiley Face."
Anna Faris plays Jane, an out of work actress and pot head who is living off residuals and unemployment. One morning, stoned to the gills, she eats some cupcakes that her roommate has told her not to touch. The cupcakes are loaded with pot. Realizing how stoned she is she makes a list along these lines:
1. Buy more pot
2. Go to audition
3. Buy supplies to make more cupcakes
4. Pay the electric bill
Her dealer shows up at the door and she buys more pot, with the cash for the electric bill which isn't enough but she'll pay her dealer back that afternoon. That's ok, she'll just stop by the ATM after the audition and have to buy even more pot since she ruins the first purchase when she's trying to make the cupcakes.
She makes it to the audition, late, but after that everything else goes wrong until she finds herself at point Z - a Ferris wheel on the pier at Venice Beach.
The movie is silly, the premise sillier. I didn't expect anything more. I was delighted Anna Faris and her supporting staff are all very funny and likable (except the roommate - but we aren't supposed to like him). Unlike so many comedies the pace of the movie never drags and even the old jokes feel fresh. It isn't high art (no pun intended) but "Smiley Face" is good fun.

Sundance 2007: Blame it on Fidel

2007-01-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

It's 1970 in Paris and 9-year-old Anna (Nina Kervel-Bey), whose father, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) is a Spanish lawyer and mother, Marie (Julie Depardieu,) writes for magazines, is about to have her world knocked on its ear - though her younger brother François (Benjamin Feuillet) is young enough to just go along with the adventure.
Anna's world changes with the arrival of her widowed aunt Marga (Mar Sodupe) and cousin Pilar (Raphaëlle Molinier). Her uncle was killed fighting Franco in Spain. This shakes Anna's parents out of their middle class complacency and makes them take a look at their lives.
Marie becomes a women's rights activist who is fighting the 1920 anti-abortion law and Fernando takes even bigger steps. He quits his job and starts working for Chili and Allende. The family moves to a smaller house which always seems to be full of communist Chilean exiles.
This really shakes up Anna whose Cuban nanny told her that Communists are bad, red men with beards. She slowly comes to terms with the changes in her world when she takes a liking to three of the Chileans (who explain Communism to her with oranges in a side-splittingly funny scene) and when her school friend comes to visit and is appalled that Anna now lives in a small apartment without a garden and they eat strange food (the nanny is Vietnamese at this point).
At the end of the film, in September 1971, Anna is still a spoiled princess, but one who is learning that the world is not centered on her.
I was delighted by this movie.

Sundance 2007: Acidente

2007-01-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

"Acidente" is an oddly pretty little film about nothing.
The Q&A on this was very helpful. The filmmakers, Cao Guimarães and Pablo Lobato, took interesting name of 20 towns in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, made a poem out of them and then took a road trip to each of these towns.
The ensuing poem/film has snippets of life in each of these places. Some are probably no more than two minutes long and others are as long as maybe 10 minutes. Sometimes they talked to locals, but mostly they just watched. There's a truck driver swimming, an old woman telling the story of the town, gas stations in the middle of the night, whatever caught their fancy.
I nearly left more than once, in part because of a large man with a large head that was blocking the screen. I always stayed because there was something stunningly beautiful right then.
There's not much to say about this one, other than it's pretty. The kind of thing which would catch my eye if I were flipping channels in the middle of the night.

Sundance 2007 - the second weekend

2007-01-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Sunday morning and I'm behind on chatting about 9 films, let's just be honest here and say I'm not getting to them this morning since the first of three movies begins in about an hour. I'll try to get all 12 caught up this evening and tomorrow.
Protein and caffeine are what it's all about. That and dried apples for sugar.

Sundance 2007 change of schedule for Friday night

2007-01-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

I've changed my mind about tonight's films. I now plan to see (subject to change at the last second) "Acidente", "Blame It on Fidel" and "Smiley Face" (not a change and the one that won't change).
I have a feeling that someone will distribute "Hounddog" and I was torn on "How She Moves." So away we go into the closing weekend with hopes for 12 films over three days.

Sundance 2007: Angel-A

2007-01-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Finally, a movie this year that knocked my socks off. As my friend Randy said right after, "I want to see it again." There's nothing quite like a movie with a happy ending when the last spoken word is "merde!"
Andre (Jamel Debbouze) is an Algerian in Paris with a U.S. Green Card who owes a lot of money to a some very bad people. He's so down on himself that he can't get arrested. When he jumps off a bridge to save a leggy blond stranger from killing herself he complains about her interfering with his suicide attempt.
Angela (Rie Rasmussen) is a chain-smoking enigma to Andre as she helps him solve his financial problems and makes him take a hard look at himself and acknowledge his good qualities. She does tell him she is an angel who is supposed to help him out, but he really has a hard time believing that anyone, even God or an angle, would care about him.
Shot in black and white Paris looks beautiful in this movie. I think the choice to go b/w was well made as color would have been a distraction from the story, and the metaphor works because Andre did not have a lot of color in his life when Angela entered it.
Much as this may sound like "It's a Wonderful Life" I think it is a closer relative to "Wings of Desire." In fact, that'd make a great double feature if/when "Angel-A" comes out on DVD.
This movie made me want to dance and drink vodka tonics.

Sundance 2007: The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun

2007-01-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

Filmed over five years, "The Monastery" is the story of an 82-87 year old Danish man who is donating Hesbjerg, a castle he purchased 50 years earlier for this purpose, to the Russian Orthodox Church to use as a monastery.
Pernille Rose Grønkjær has made a fascinating portrait of an interesting man, Mr. Vig, and his dealings with the Moscow Patriarchate through a headstrong nun, Sister Ambrosija.
There is the bureaucratic aspect, keeping the castle as part of the estate in a trust after he dies and who will be on the board, the disrepair of the castle, the ecumenical problems of turning a room into a chapel and the personality problems of two very stubborn people of faith.
I wish that Ms Grønkjær had told more of the back story of Mr. Vig. People who did not attend the Q&A will find they are missing valuable pieces of his story - so I'll tell you some of them here. Vig trained as a Lutheran minister but because he was single was discriminated against. His spiritual search took him into Orthodoxy and Buddhism concurrently.
What we know about Vig is what he tells us, he never really loved anyone except his father, he judged people by their noses, he only recalled kissing his mother once and the like. This fairly antisocial, rather odd looking man is, however vibrant and interested.
I would also like to have an idea of what the Russian Orthodox population in Denmark is. Though it is small enough not to be mentioned in the CIA World Factbook (one of my favorite reference sources) online.
The movie moves a little slowly for my taste, but is so beautifully filmed, and the people are so interesting that I can't complain too much about the tempo.

Sundance 2007: Grace is Gone

2007-01-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

John Cusack plays, Stanley Philipps, a father of two girls Heidi (Shélan O'Keefe) and Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk), whose wife, Grace, is serving in Iraq. Stanley is a store manager who is doing as well as he can to deal with being the parent of a 12 and 8 year old, he even attends a support group for the "wives" of service members - he is the only man present.
When he gets the dreaded knock on the door, that Grace has been killed in action, he cannot bring himself to tell the girls or face his own grief. So he takes them on an impromptu road trip from Minnesota to "Enchanted Gardens" in Florida.
They stop at his mother's house to find that his anti-war, lay about brother Jim (Alessandro Nivola ) is the only one home. When Jim receives a call about Grace they hit the road again rather than Stanley telling the girls and letting himself face his grief.
Cusack, at 40, is playing what is likely the most grown-up role of his career. He is convincing as the father who just wants to extend his girls' childhood a few more days. When he finally tells them the reaction of these two young actresses is very natural and real. I thought it was interesting that 12-year-old Heidi's crying sounded like an adult and 8-year-old Dawn's sounded like a small child. It reminded me of how much more grown-up my 12-year-old nephew seems than my 9-year-old niece.
This pro-military, anti-war (at least that's how I see it) movie is the first of this year's Sundance movies to make me cry.

A note on the perfume mentioned earlier. I know who you are and will be avoiding sitting within three rows or about five seats of you. Only the two rows between us filling up last night made your perfume bearable. If you read this and are putting on perfume it may or may not be about you, so please consider the people around you. Isn't the rule if you can smell it 3 feet away you're wearing too much?

Sundance 2007: Summer Rain

2007-01-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Director Antonio Banderas showed up to introduce his film "Summer Rain" ("El Camino de los ingleses") Wednesday night at the Rose Wagner. I really can't tell you much about what he said. I was distracted by the fact he is even more beautiful in person than he is on the screen.
The acting is quite good and the characters are 20ish people we've been or have known and maybe still know. The lead is a young man, Miguelito who just had a kidney removed and wants to be a poet, his girlfriend Luli (María Ruiz) who wants to travel the world with a ballet troupe, there's the rich boy Paco (Félix Gómez) who doesn't seem to have any ambition, his girlfriend, "The Body," whom his father wants him to get rid of and Babirusa (Raúl Arévalo) a hothead who worships Bruce Lee and just might love the fat, easy girl who will have sex with anyone. On the side there are "The Dwarf," an old friend who joined the paratroopers, and a slightly older man who wants Luli and offers to pay for her ballet schooling if she will dump Miguelito for him. I musn't slight the narrator either, I'm not certain who the actor is, since I didn't catch the character's name, but he sits in the bar and watches the main character's lives he is a radio weatherman and overnight dj whose poetic remarks offer a frame for the movie.
This aside, "Summer Rain" is a beautifully filmed coming-of-age story with beautiful* actors (all of who were born about the time the story takes place in the late 1970s), but has many of the weaknesses of first films/novels/albums. One of these weaknesses is that this exuberant, youthful film is a tragedy, no one gets a happy ending which is a shame.
An actor who is always worth looking at, Banderas just might also be a director worth watching.

*overused adjective alert, no more of that word in this posting

Sundance 2007 - at the midpoint

2007-01-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

At the halfway point I need to stop and deconstruct Sundance 2007 for a moment.
15 down 16 to go. I am delirious with movies this year.
The audiences have been great. I've only heard one cell phone (though my friend Randy has heard two) go off mid-movie. I've only had one really bad talker experience (just because it isn't English doesn't make it less intrusive), and haven't seen anyone try to impress/bully Salt Lake volunteers with how important they are. I did have to change seats last night before "Delirious" started because someone was wearing perfume, or perfumed lotion, that was giving me one of my "shoot me now" chemical reaction headaches.
Fortunately this time and usually, those tend to clear up within a few minutes of moving away from the source of the problem, but they have made me feel for migraine sufferers.
Why would you wear perfume to a movie anyway? At least people who wear too much perfume to outdoor events are mosquito food and get a little of the suffering they deserve. I love perfume, I just have to be very careful about what I wear and never wear much so as not to offend anyone who might be allergic to it or suffer reactions to a different chemical than the ones that get me.
I've decided the snack/meal options that will help me through the rest of the week lean heavily toward protein and caffeine and away from simple sugars. I've tried to keep my evening sugar to dried fruit. That and to drink at least 8oz of water for each movie. It kept me going through five the first Saturday and I'll be testing it on six the second Saturday if things go as planned.
Except for a style point in "A Very British Gangster" and some of the animated shorts I've been lucky enough to like everything I've seen.
My favorites so far are "Ghosts", "Once," "Fido," "Teeth" and "Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten."

Sundance 2007: Delirious

2007-01-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

It's the Steve Buscemi film festival at Sundance this year and that is a very fine thing.
In "Delirious" Buscemi plays Les Galantine, a paparazzo of the sleaziest sort. He is approached by homeless wannabe actor Toby Grace (Michael Pitt) while he and his fellow celebrity photographers are staked out waiting for pop diva K'harma (Alison Lohman) and her slimy boyfriend.
Les doesn't really befriend Toby so much as decide to tolerate him and makes him his unpaid assistant, though there are a place to sleep, food and free head shots for Toby in the deal.
Buscemi plays almost the opposite of his character Pierre Peters in "Interview" the serious political reporter who hates celebrity "news" and paparazzi. Les loves his work and not much else in his life. His parents are unpleasant people who disapprove of his career and he only has slightly more than contemptuous tolerance for his fellow photographers - who seem to like him despite himself.
Toby becomes the only friend Les has, though the friendship is shaken when Toby and K'harama hook up by chance.
This is a really good story about friendship and celebrity. I was worried that it was going to turn dark but it manages to stay a comedy by focusing on one of the many "rule number one"s in the movie: "Friends is friends."

Sundance 2007: Once

2007-01-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

I had every intention of grabbing a sandwich or a slice between movies on Tuesday.
Instead, "Once" inspired me to have a nice plate of linguine with clams and a glass of wine at Mr Z's next door to the Broadway Centre Cinemas. (It was good, and I chased it with lemon sorbet and an espresso in case you wondered).
In the catalogue and even in the intro from director/writer John Carney "Once" is described as a musical. I prefer to say it is a movie about music.
The nameless, non-actors, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are lovely people who it would be fun to spend sometime with. He is a vacuum repairman/street musician/song writer. She is a Czech immigrant who lives with her mother and young daughter. She can't afford a piano, but is allowed to practice in a music shop on lunch break.
The two meet when she walks up to him and asks if he wrote the song he is playing. When he confirms it is his, she asks why he doesn't play it during the day. She is delightfully pushy asking very personal questions on early acquaintance. They become friends through their music and despite his failed pass at her.
Hansard and Irglova sing and play beautifully together and it's hard to believe that neither of them is a professional actor. Though Hansard was in "The Committments," and his character ends that movie busking on the street where "Once" begins, he is better known in Ireland as both a solo performer and the guitarist for The Frames.
"Once" is an inspiring and sweet film with a happy ending, though not the predictable happiest of all Hollywood endings. I walked out smiling and treated myself to a nice dinner.

Sundance 2007: A Very British Gangster

2007-01-23T16:42:00.001-07:00

A Very British Gangster
Disclaimer: the filmmaker’s cousin, Brian, is a dear friend of mine - but I'd have seen this anyway the topic interests me.
Investigative TV journalist and filmmaker Donal Mac Intyre has made a compelling and very human portrait of Manchester gangster Dominic Noonan.
As an openly gay Catholic, from a working class (on a good day) background, Noonan could be an interesting subject for a documentary. As a mob boss and self described community “social worker” who has spent most of his life in assorted correctional facilities Noonan is a fascinating subject.
He does bad, violent things. But he also supports his two children, his sister and her family, his nephews and godsons and encourages them in their endeavors whether legal or not. He tells horrible stories in a matter of fact way, and is disturbingly likable. His criminal record seems to focus on armed robbery and assault. His late brother, Desmond, was an enforcer and hit man suspected of between 20 and 30 successful hits, though his addiction to crack interfered with his career.
Noonan became a gangster to support his family (it was that or a poorly paid - probably gone now - industrial job) and is very successful, some of his younger associates are in it for the rush. Despite this success he still still lives in and is deeply tied to his working class community. Instead of calling the police with problems, people call Dom. He makes a few calls or knocks on the right door and suddenly the problems are gone.
Stylistically this documentary is beautiful. The music is perfectly apt, the film work and editing are sharp and amazing -- almost a feature feel to parts of it. The people are fascinating and many are likable if you don’t think of what they do for a living. I’m impressed that there is no violence shown in the film.
However...
There’s always an however.
I don’t like how much of Donal Mac Intyre we see in this movie. It is part of the TV style, so it’s the type of work he is used to, but just doesn’t work for me.

Well, I'm caught up through last night's films so I'll see you at the pictures tonight.

Sundance 2007: Interview

2007-01-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

Steve Buscemi took on quite a challenge with the remake of Theo Van Gogh's movie "Interview."
He, as formerly respected political reporter Pierre Peters, and Sienna Miller, as hottie actress and interview subject Katya, take the challenge and do quite well with it.
On the surface this is the story of a reporter fallen from grace and stuck doing soft pieces such as celebrity interviews and his probably failed interview with hot young actress Katya.
I see "Interview" as the story of any failed relationship in fast forward. It starts with a bad blind date, she's an hour late and he hasn't read up on her. There's passion, confession of both weakness and sin, humor, tears (crocodile), kisses, dancing and finally the bitter break up with nothing left but the bad feelings.
This "Interview" is a retelling and Americanization of the original, but stand up quite well on its own.
It seems to be the year of Buscemi at Sundance -- director, actor (also in "Delirious" which I'm planning to see tonight), interview subject in "Joe Strummer..." -- it's about time.

Sundance 2007: Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten

2007-01-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

My friend Robin describes Joe Strummer with a guitar as "soft porn." She is a wise woman.
Filmmaker Julien Temple (whose film work I am an unrepentant fan of) knew Strummer when he was in his first London band, the rock-a-billy 101ers.
He started filming Strummer and The Clash in 1976, when they lived in squats around the corner from each other. Temple attended a benefit Strummer played about a week before he died in 1992, they lived in the same small town at this point.
The frame for this documentary is the bonfire. Old friends, fans, bandmates, family, people with every reason to love and hate Strummer sit around bonfires and talk about him and sing along to songs on recordings of his BBC World Service program "London Calling."
Even people with every reason to dislike Strummer, such as two bandmates who were fired for being junkies, show their dislike of the circumstances but not of Joe. Even when there is residual anger at the circumstances of their dismissal, they don't seem to hold it against him, at least not completely.
Joe Strummer, guitar god, punk rock warlord, artist... Child of a diplomat who lived all over the world before being sent to boarding school in England. Loving and imperfect husband and father.
Julien Temple has made a touching tribune to his friend and neighbor.

Sundance 2007: Broken English

2007-01-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

Zoe Cassavetes and her movie, "Broken English" are being done a disservice by the reviewers at Sundance.
If this movie had been a regular release they'd be using words like "charming" and "refreshing." Instead the reviews are lukewarm at best.
How dare those audacious Sundance programmers let in a sweet, romantic comedy with a fairly predictable happy ending?!? This is Sundance, it's supposed to be gloom, doom and ambiguity. Damn it! Sundance is about film, and art, what's with programming in a movie?
Pphht. I like it, though I must admit I am a sucker for a fun romantic comedy and the older woman/younger man relationship is refreshing.
Until recently I haven't been much of a fan of Parker Posey, I haven't disliked her, just not been much impressed. But the last few movies I've seen her in have really made me like her work. She's aging well and growing into a better actor.
In "Broken English" she plays Nora, a woman in her late 30s who isn't happy with her job, only does things with her married friends and just can't catch a break on the dating scene.
Then, bored to tears she goes to a party at a co-worker's house and meets Julian (Melvil Poupaud) a 10 years or so younger Frenchman who is charmed at first sight and only in New York for a few more days.
Drea de Matteo, as Nora's best friend (whose character name I've forgotten), is touching and underplayed as the woman who is feeling constrained by her marriage of 5 years.
This is just a sweet movie. I've recommended it to my friends who like movies. They know there's a place film and for art, but sometimes they just want to be entertained for their movie dollars.

Sundance 2007: Chicago 10

2007-01-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Richard Daley, the 1968 Democratic Convention.
Even though I wasn't quite three when the trial started, these names resonate with me. It seems like I've always been aware of this event and these people.
Filmmaker Bret Morgen is even younger than I am, but he has made a powerful film which blends file footage and animation. This documentary/drama (I can't really decide which) is a reminder of the need to speak up and speak out with passion and humor.
"Chicago 10" has gotten so much buzz that I'm not going to say much else about it, except this: like everything else from Participant Productions SEE THIS FILM.

Sundance 2007: Crazy Love

2007-01-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

Readers of New York newspapers in the late 1950s may recall the story of Linda Riss whose jelous former boyfriend, Burt Pugach, hired a man to throw lye in her face. She was mostly blinded and he went to prison for the attack.
They were married a few years after his release.
"Crazy Love" is their story.
She was a beautiful working class girl in her early 20s, he was a lawyer and nightclub owner in his 30s - not really handsome but intriguing and exciting for a young woman. He didn't bother to mention that he was married and had a severely disabled daughter.
This is not a nice love story and the Pugachs are not nice people.
Burt lied to Linda throughout their early relationship, telling her that he was divorced and when caught in that lie telling her that he was waiting for the final papers. He also cheated on Linda after their marriage. His sanity is questionable throughout. Toward the end of the film one of Burt's oldest friends says, "Even Hitler had friends."
Linda acknowledges that she is difficult to be with, even saying something along the lines of his being married to her is his true punishment.
When the lye was thrown, Linda had dumped Burt for his lies (she was beautiful and tough) and had met and was engaged to another man. While she was in the hospital she offered to break off the engagement, her fiance did not break the engagement until she was out of the hospital and he realized that there was no way he could pay her medical expenses. She doesn't seem to have any hard feeling about this. Though mostly blind, Linda continued to work until she was fired after she married Burt.
When the song "You Really Got a Hold On Me" plays in the soundtrack, it just seems perfect. Especially the line, "I don't like you but I love you." It is a fitting summation of their relationship.
This is a sick, sad relationship but a really fun film.

Sundance 2007: Fido

2007-01-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

What can a person say about a zombie love story? "Hooray!" comes to mind.
After the Zombie wars, people live in fenced communities and the remaining zombies have been collared by ZomCon so that they make useful, if slow, domestic servants.
Timmy (K'Sun Ray) is not popular at school because he asks questions like "are Zombies dead or alive?"
The 1950s sitcom idyll is broken when Timmy's mother (Carrie-Anne Moss), tired of being the only one on the street without a Zombie, buys one (Billy Connolly). Timmy's father (Dylan Baker) has personal reasons to hate and fear Zombies and agrees to keep him only if he is chained up in the backyard when he isn't working. Timmy, a very compassionate child, decides to name him "Fido" after the Zombie protects him from the class bullies.
A funny movie, and quite sweet as it deals with issues of discrimination and fear.
There was a Lionsgate thingie (sorry I don't know the term) before the movie, so there's hope that a wider audience will be able to get a good laugh out of this movie.

Sundance 2007: Teeth

2007-01-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

"Teeth" was one of the movies listed on the box office door as not for people with delicate sensibilities. OK, that isn't what the sign says, and I don't remember the exact words but that's the gist of it.
It is also a movie that most of the audience seemed to be laughing, but the women laughed more than men. So there's a lot of blood and some disturbing themes (conservative Christianity, literal vagina dentata and penile amputation). It's a funny movie.
Dawn (Jess Weixler) is a beautiful, naive high school girl who speaks on teen celibacy at churches. Her slightly older step-brother, Brad (John Hensley) is about as bad as a bad boy can get, smoking pot and having anal sex (never vaginal) with his girlfriend. Neither he nor Dawn remember just how he lost the tip of his finger when their parents were still dating.
In her fundamentalist run town the sex-ed class can study the anatomy of the penis, but not the vagina. And the discussion of evolution, well that's something else as well, though the teacher is very poised. So Dawn doesn't realize until an unfortunate incident with the new boy in school, that there's something very wrong with her.
I feel like anything I say from here will be complete and utter spoiler, so I'll stop with just a few words more. This movie is bloody, not for the feint of heart and funny in a variety of very wrong ways. If it gets distributed I'll probably see it again - with the girls and may recommend it to a few former boyfriends.
One of the two guys from New York who were sitting next to us said, after the movie was over, "that'd be a great date movie." Yes, it may have been sarcasm, but who can tell. My first reaction was, "a man wrote that?"
Somehow I think this film could become the ultimate realization of girl power.
Oh, and if you think the premise of "Teeth" is something writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein pulled out of the air, do a quick hunt on your favorite search engine for "vagina dentata." You may learn a few things that were skipped over in your world mythology and religion classes.

Sundance 2007: Red Road

2007-01-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

This gritty Scottish movie deserves the five (Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress) Scottish BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards it won, not to mention the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes.
Jackie (Kate Dickie) is a widowed CCTV operator (she keeps an eye on the monitors for the Closed Circuit cameras which have caused so much complaint about the UK becoming a BigBrotherish nanny state). She is having an occasional affair with a married man and isn't getting much pleasure out of it. Her coworkers, mostly older and male, all seem to care about her in a brotherly way and her relationship with her in-laws is awkward at best. We see no signs of any close friendships in her life.
One night she spots Clyde (Tony Curran), the man responsible for her husband and daughter's deaths, on the monitor. She thought he wasn't out of prison for another three years and ends up essentially stalking him through the cameras - hoping for a slip up which will send him back to prison.
When Clyde seems to be a model ex-felon trying to get on with his life, she sets him up for a fall.
The unwanted sexual tension between Jackie and Clyde, who does not recognize her, is amazing. Jackie hates this attraction in part because it takes her out of her grief and puts her back into the world of the living, and in part because of who Clyde is.
I do seem to remember some comments in articles about this film in The Scotsman about my only major complaint about the film - it's subtitled. So it takes a bit of time for most English speakers to get their ear wrapped around Scots accents, I found the titles distracting and thought there was no need for this in "Red Road." Of course, I had a friend in elementary school whose parents were Scottish, so maybe I just know how to listen to the accents.
This is a dark, slightly predictable movie, and very human. The plot isn't what deserves the awards, but Dickie and Curran's characters are so familiar the viewer can't help but be caught up in their stories.

Sundance 2007: Animation Spotlight

2007-01-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

Again, the problem with shorts...
Of these 8 animated short films, I frankly found two of them tedious and just didn't like two others.
"One Rat Short," a love story between a lab rat and a subway rat was just delightful. Who could guess what a Cheetos bag could inspire? The most touching love story of the festival so far.
"Duct Tame and Cover" puts a new department of Homeland Security spin on the old "duck and cover" films.
Though it is a bit long, "Gold Age" was a kick. In a send up of all of those "whatever happened to" type shows, we discover the trials of former beloved cartoon characters including a movie concessions gum drop, a cartoon mascot and a trio of World War II dictators from war bond cartoons. I laughed and laughed. Thanks to Aaron Augenblick for that.
So I guess I only really liked three of them. This does not take away from the animation work and story telling skills of the other animators, just gives my opinion.
Some of these animation shorts are also available at: http://festival.sundance.org/2007/watch/index.aspx

Sundance 2007: Shorts Program 1

2007-01-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

I never quite know how to review shorts. I did like all of them in this program though. I guess the overarching framework on this one is the matter of truth, too much truth and personal growth/growing up.
In "Sophie" a woman asks her husband about his sexual past, even though she really can't face the answer. A young boy lies to his mother in "Pop Foul" to back up his father, only to find out that mom doesn't want to know the truth when he finally does fess up. Plane crash victims re-enact the aftermath in "The Dawn Chorus" because they can't stand the truth and are finally forced to grow-up - even the ones who were adults when the crash happened. Break-ins, burglar alarms and very smart children force the truth in "Windowbreaker." "Hard to Swallow" is the story of three couples dealing with alcohol, drugs and one man calling his girlfriend by the wrong name. "William," the story of four passengers in a cab, doesn't really fit the truth part of the theme as the growing up part.
As I said, I liked all three and "Windowbreaker" and "Sophie" were probably my favorites. Both of these, and "The Dawn Chorus" are available at http://festival.sundance.org/2007/watch/index.aspx.

Sundance 2007: Ghosts

2007-01-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay. I had a bit of internet disruption just before my 5 movies on Saturday. I saw this Friday evening at the Tower.
If you follow the news, you may remember just short of three years ago when a group of illegal Chinese immigrants in England were caught in a high tide while cockleing (an activity much like raking clams) during a storm - to avoid the racist locals. Most of the workers drowned. If you don’t remember, here’s the link to the initial article on the incident from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/3464203.stm
“Ghosts” is the story of one of the women who survived.
Ai Quin is a single mother who feels compelled to leave China so that she afford a better life for her son and herself. She hires a “snakehead” (much like the “coyote” people smugglers in North America) to smuggle her to the UK, the land journey across Asia and Europe takes 6 months and costs her $25,000. Once she arrives in England she finds herself working menial day jobs, ranging from onion picking to packaging meat, and living in a small house with 12 other people. 25% of her first paycheck goes to rent.
Nick Broomfield has made a touching human story out of this tragedy. It is a personal story as well as a parable on the global problems of illegal immigration. There is a brief sledgehammer moment at the end, but I can forgive that.

Sundance 2007: X: The Unheard Music

2007-01-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

The world is conspiring to make me feel like it’s the ‘80s again.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized that my new hair cut looks like it did in my college ID back in the fall of 1985. In fact except that the color was real then, I wear glasses and weigh more than I did I pretty much look the same.
So does the new print of “X: The Unheard Music” which premiered at Sundance in 1986. Actually the print is much nicer than the one I remember seeing back in the day at probably the Utah Theater.
It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen this movie, despite its availability on DVD,
I’d forgotten how personable the man we’ve been calling the “anamatronic Billy Zoom,” because of his stage demeanor, is in this film.
“X: The Unheard Music” is as much a labor of love on the part of W.T. Morgan as it is the story of a band. He shows the roots of why these talented musicians have worked together with a continuing and growing fan base for 30 years.
John Doe, Billy Zoom, Exene and DJ Bonebreak looked pretty much the same at their sold out show in Salt Lake last August as they do in the movie. A few more lines in their faces, a little heavier, a little calmer - but aren’t we all?

Men, or the frustration

2007-01-18T21:07:00.001-07:00

Ever extend an invitation to the entire table and have one guy think it was directed specifically to him? Seems I've done just that again.
Nothing against the gentleman in question, but I extended the invitation to my friends who were there. I included you as a friend of friends whom I like well enough to hang out with from time to time.

Hair High - end of my Sundance training

2007-01-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not certain if it took a long time for Bill Plympton's "Hair High" (listed as 2004 on IMDb) to make it to Salt Lake City or if it was just the "how do we market this" independent film problem, but it was worth waiting for.
This is a send up of '50s prom/horror films. There's the new kid, Spud (Eric Gilliland), who unwittingly offends the quarterback's girlfriend, Cherrie (Sarah Silverman), and the quarterback, Rod (Dermot Mulroney). Rod decides that Spud needs to be Cherrie's "slave" (carry her books, blow on her fingernails until the polish is dry, throw himself over puddles so she won't get her feet wet...) as punishment.
There is very little that isn't predictable about this movie, but I didn't care. I got caught up in the narration by JoJo (Keith Carradine) the owner of JoJo's soda fountain. I thought Beverly D'Angelo was great as Darlene the over the top high school villianess who teaches Rod what a double entendre is. I laughed. Monday night with one other person in the theater both of us were laughing
I'd rave a bit more about the voice talent, but you can look up the cast here http://www.hairhigh.com/index_flash.html and see for yourself the kind of people that Plympton's work is capable of getting.
The soundtrack was as much fun as the animation, the sort of thing that might make you dance during the credits.
Back when I was more patient with fart joke comedy, I'd hit all of the animation shorts fests hoping for a new Plympton cartoon. His crayoned style of animation and silly humor work for me, even when it disgusts me. I waited in line at Sundance to see Plympton's feature length "I Married a Strange Person" in 1998 and caught "The Tune" at the fesatival in 1992.
Oh, and there was a bonus at The Tower Theatre, Plympton's Oscar nominated short "Guard Dog" played before the feature.
Well, the rest of the week is looking a bit busy for getting in any more "Sundance training." I'll be back with the real thing.

Sundance Training part 4 - "The Painted Veil" some spoiling

2007-01-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Mmmm Edward Norton and Naomi Watts... Eye candy for everyone...
Despite the distraction of beautiful and talented leading actors, "The Painted Veil," based on the 1925 novel by W. Somerset Maughan, is a beautiful film. Set in the Chinese equivalent of the end of the British Raj in India, the nationalist upheaval which led to the Maoist revolution is just beginning. There are riots over how European and American businesses treat their Chinese employees and lots of anti-foreign agitating. There is also heat, disease and boredom for a society girl married to an infectious disease researcher.
Dr. Walter Fane (Norton), a young English medical researcher in Shanghai, meets, falls in love with and marries Kitty (Watts) on a trip to London. He marries her for love, she marries him to get as far away as possible from her dominating mother.
When they arrive in Shanghai, Walter is a bit embarrassed by his home, but promises Kitty that he will do whatever he can to make her happy.
The potential SPOILER BIT STARTS HERE and goes four paragraphs.
This includes ignoring her affair with Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber at his sleaziest).
When Walter reaches his breaking point he volunteers to go to an inland town which is suffering a cholera outbreak. He tells Kitty she can either go with him or that he will divorce her if Townsend divorces his wife and agrees to marry her.
Walter makes the trip inland as uncomfortable and long as possible for Kitty.
Through the eyes of the French Nuns who run the orphanage and hospital, Waddington (Toby Jones) who I believe is the British Counsel for the region (sorry I've forgotten his title), and Walter's own devoted work as a clinician for the first time in his career, Kitty learns to love Walter. He also comes to forgive her based on her own selfless actions during the epidemic. Alas, this mutual love in their marriage is too late, as cholera conquers love.
END OF SPOILER
This movie ends badly and well as 1920's novels so often do.
Kitty is a better person at the end of the film. Her personal growth may seem a bit rushed, but the movie is so well made it is easy to imagine the long days and longer nights of the epidemic.
Naomi Watts, like Helen Mirren in "The Queen", deserves an Oscar nomination for her role as Kitty. Though I still think that Mirren deserves to win.
Norton's performance is as good as I've seen this year and one of his finest since "American History X." I really liked "The Illusionist" at Sundance last year, and think this is better. Norton has found an unlikely niche in first quarter of the 20th century period pieces.

Movie -- "Little Children" Sundance Training part 3

2007-01-11T14:03:00.001-07:00

Despite an 83% positive rating on rottentomatoes.com, "Little Children" didn't do that much for me when I ventured out to the flicks last night.
Kate Winslet is beautiful as Sarah Pierce, as are Patrick Wilson as Brad Adamson and Jennifer Connelly in a supporting role as Brad's wife Kathy. The two children are charming, and act like kids. I was just left cold.
The movie starts well, I was taken with the characters and their sudden passions. I understood the well educated Sarah's loathing of the suburban mother's around her who seemed to have no ambition beyond being the cattiest women in the neighborhood. I appreciated Brad's desire not to pass the bar exam. The fact that their needs to break free coincided made for a potentially wonderful tale.
The subplot about the return of convicted exhibitionist Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley) to his mother's home and his subsequent persecution by former cop Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich) doesn't seem to fit until the end of the movie. It doesn't serve to tie Sarah and Brad together or move forward any other aspect of the plot.
The scene in the movie which amused me the most was the one at the book club, when Sarah's walking partner/baby sitter dragged her along as her "little sister" to discuss Madam Bovary. The other "little sister" there was Mary Ann (Mary B. McCann) the queen bee of the moms at the playground. Anyway the discussion of Madam Bovary was funny, if a bit obvious in relation to the movie.
By the last 45 minutes I was checking my watch. I was tired of Sarah and Brad, though I was finally starting to be interested in the relationship between Ronnie and Larry.
I think if I'd been reading the novel I'd have been fine with the ending, but I like my movie magic and hated to see this ending on film.
And to the projectionist at the Broadway, your undeleted expletive when you were starting the trailers was loud and clear in the auditorium.

Sundance Training part 2

2007-01-09T15:17:00.001-07:00

So instead of watching all of the BCS championship game last evening, I decided to hit the flicks.
I remember reading Perfume by Patrick Sueskind years ago. I remember it as being very odd, somewhat disturbing and a real strain to read. It took me a long time for a relatively short book.
So, of course, I had to catch the film.
First things first, this book translated to film very well.
"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" is the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Wishaw), born to a fish seller, sent to an orphanage and sold as the apprentice to a tanner before becoming an apprentice perfumer. Jean-Baptiste has a perfect sense of smell, he impresses his down-on-his-luck perfumer master Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) by recreating a popular perfume and then improving it. Jean-Baptiste wants, however, to learn to preserve every smell - and finds out that Baldini does not have all of the answers he needs.
In exchange for 100 perfume recipes Baldini gives Jean-Baptiste journeyman's papers so that he can travel to Grasse to learn more. In his travels, Jean-Baptiste finds a cave with close to no odor, the most comforting thing he's ever found, it is there, however, that he discovers his own lack of personal scent. This lack explains the sometimes hostile reactions people have had to him since he was a baby. It also explains how, when he moves quietly, he is all but invisible to people around him.
This movie is, as titled, "The Story of a Murderer." Though not all of the deaths in the film are murders, people around Jean-Baptiste seem to die starting with his mother. Some are set upon by cutpurses, others have fluke accidents, but nearly everyone who is somehow important in his life, for good or ill, suffers an unnatural death.
There are at least 19 untimely deaths in this film, but it manages not to be gorey. It is violent and dark, but there is very little blood.
The film is also full of beautiful women (most of whom die) who have very little dialogue but each has some personality even if she is on screen for fewer than 30 seconds. These women are important to the story, but because Jean-Baptiste is lacking in the most basic social skills even prostitutes become distant objects whom he cannot interact with in any normal way.
Like the book the movie "Perfume" is not easy, but it's worth the effort.
Spellcheck hates me again today, so sorry if I've missed any errors.

Sundance preliminary schedule

2007-01-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

If the gods smile and all goes well, I'm going to hit 31 movies at Sundance this year. These are all at Salt Lake City venues.
Here's my tentative schedule:
Friday
X: The Unheard Music
Ghosts
Saturday
Shorts Program 1
Animation Spotlight
Red Road
Teeth
Fido
Sunday
Crazy Love
Chicago 10
Broken English
Joe Strummer
Monday
Interview
A Very British Gangster
Tuesday
Once
Delirious
Wednesday
Summer Rain
Grace Is Gone
Thursday
The Monastery
Angel-A
Friday
Ezra
On the Road with Judas
Smiley Face
Saturday
Three Comrades
Welcome Europa
Tuli
The Good Night
Black Snake Moan
Year of the Fish
Sunday
Life Support
The Nines
Eagle vs. Shark

Shameless self promotion

2007-01-06T14:16:00.002-07:00

Well, I've started my sports blog:

http://becksballs.blogspot.com/

Henceforth all baseball, UofU athletics and other sports related rants should be there.
I've been reading The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. She's one of the few female fantasy novelists I've found who isn't afraid to be funny. I've grinned all through it and even laughed out loud in public.
Look for my Sundance tenative schedule soon. I just don't happen to have it at hand.
Need more coffee...

On the job hunt

2007-01-04T14:56:00.001-07:00

There is only one thing I regret about my education: that I do not have more of it.
Being on the job hunt has changed a lot in the last 14 years. Instead of looking through the paper, printing resumes and mailing them or going to look at job boards at the University and businesses (I had a routine for that) I sit in the coffee shop and hunt online. I e-mail the resume when I find something the least bit interesting and hope for the best.
Hello! I'm a 40-year-old, left handed woman with BAs in German and English from the University of Utah. I work well and as long as I'm not bored I work hard. I know stuff, and if I don't know it I'm not afraid to hunt the information down. It's what I do. I have a sharp temper, but after I explode I'm fine - so much better than letting things get bottled up. I have a foul mouth, but can usually keep it down to a dull mutter. Not being on the phone with the public makes me happy. So does good coffee. I prefer working with other single people. I want benefits and a good pay check. I fear no computer (though I loathe Windows I can use it) and learn fast. I'm not as shy as I used to be.
Anyone know of a job that will fit me like a pair of size 7 (women's 9) Converse All-Stars?
Maybe I'm not too old to go back to school for an MLS. Or another BA, maybe linguistics or cultural geography.... Something that lets me work with maps.... That'd be nice.
As for more important things. The Runnin' Utes basketball team look like the flailing Utes this year, so much talent and 6 games lost by 3 or fewer points.
At least pitchers & catchers report for Spring Training on February 17 and Feb. 21 for position players, so baseball is coming! 25 years since the Brewers won the American League, maybe they can take the NL this year. Looking at the snow today, I feel the need for a bit of baseball and the promise of summer.
Look for my sports blog coming soon.

Training for Sundance

2007-01-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

Went to see "Candy" on Monday night. That's the Australian junkie movie for those without an art house close by. I read the novel in 1998 and from what I remember about the book the film is a good translation.
Abbie Cornish is absolutely radiant as Candy even at the deepest darkest point of the film, Heath Ledger is Dan her as loving as a junkie can be boyfriend/husband, and Geoffrey Rush is Caspar, Dan's older gay chemistry professor friend who is as close as Dan has to a father (and also a handy source for very pure heroin). How can a film go wrong with a cast like that? Actually I don't remember seeing Abbie Cornish before and her credits on IMDB don't mean much to me, though there are two post-production projects there so we should be seeing more of her in the near future.
The movie has also left me feeling a bit twitchy or restless at the very least. Despite the red burn pollution day (no wood or coal fires, restrict driving), I must've driven around for half an hour after seeing it. I didn't stop at any of my usual bars or coffee shops I just drove trying to decide whose company I needed.
I decided, but then decided against dropping in. Sometimes it's better to keep things less complicated.
Anyway, Sundance is coming and my friend Brian's cousin has a film in the World Documentary competition "A Very British Gangster." If you search for it on the Sundance Film Festival page or IMDB (see links at right) you can read the blurb. The best thing is that Brian gets to come back from Dublin for Sundance to show his cousin around.
I'm having spell check problems again today, so pardon any errors.

December was an odd one

2007-01-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Haven't written much of anything for a while. Not even many e-mails, it's been all about the resume. But I'm convinced there is a perfect job that needs me waiting to show up. I hope it'll be after Sundance though.
My Great Aunt Babe, age 101 3/4 died in December. She had a good long life and was still quite sharp to the end. If you read my baseball posts you'll read a bit more about her.
My, I guess friend is the right word, of about 22 years, Sean Fightmaster also died in December. I didn't make the wake at Piper Down because I was still thinking about Aunt Babe. I did make it to Burt's Tiki Lounge the next night. That was a blast. As Cory says, "it was great sitting at the Tiki listening to punk bands with all of the people I used to go to punk shows with."
I just read through the whole guestbook at legacy.com (http://www.legacy.com/saltlaketribune/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=20201026). Lot's of people I know and used to know there. (Brendan I think you still owe me $5). I think my entry was a bit terse, even though Syd told me it was just right. But that's kind of how I reacted to Sean from the first day I met him at the Stockdale's house - he was Charlie's annoying little preppy friend in madras shorts, Docksiders and iZod shirts.
That said. I'll miss the kid. He was a great person with a heart of gold. He could talk about everything from physics to grilled cheese sandwiches with enthusiasm, if he didn't know the subject he listened and asked good questions until he was bored and bounced to other topics or conversation with someone else or managed to sidetrack onto something he knew and was interested in. More than once, on a bad day, he was the one who saw I needed a friend and and ear and offered me both. From time to time, since he returned to Salt Lake from Portland, I was able to offer the same to him.
He really, really annoyed me a lot of the time, but I still liked him and was usually happy to see him. He'd been doing so well the last few months, he was starting to take responsibility for his actions without losing his enthusiasm or sarcasm. Like everyone else I have a million Sean stories, drank as much coffee as beer with him and will miss him, even though my main image of him is pre-mohawk. Even when I just wanted to slap him he always managed to make me smile.

Utah-BYU: Hoping for the best

2006-11-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

Well, UofU men's basketball is off to it's worst start since 1970 0-3. I'm nearly glad I missed the game against Colorado last night, I don't think I could've stood another nail biter where they managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
More, however, I'm worried about Saturday and the BYU football game, after that I can set my mind to hoops.
Several people have asked me if I think they can win. I've been answering "I believe they can win."
If the U brings the team from the last three games, the team that plays, I have no doubts. I'm worried though. Second place in conference isn't enough if they lose to the Cougars.
My oldest brother and I figured out that it was 34 years ago when our parents bought us the kid's season tickets for the first time. Baseball aside, U football is probably the most important thing in my sporting life.
I've sat through blow-outs on both sides, I've watched what could be some of the worst Division 1 football ever, though the Urban Meyer two years made up for a lot of pain. But it was the McBride days, and the regular wins against BYU which made me feel like it was worth my while - finally.
But win or lose I don't change out of red on game day.
So a friend's husband said "24-10 Utah"
I believe strongly in 34-31, but one little extra point from Louis Sakoda or a two point conversion from the likely Hero of the Day Eric Weddle will do just fine.
I believe, I hope, I'll be the one in red... Yelling loudly and also saying "come on guys" under my breath.

so much stuff to babble about

2006-11-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

Reading Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos, the most under appreciated American author of the first half of the 20th century and Jerusalem Inn - one of the Richard Jury books by Martha Grimes
The Demos did really good in the election, except in Utah, but that's to be expected.
My football Utes are tied for 2nd in the Mountain West Conference.
Enjoying "Fade Into Bluegrass" a Metallica tribune album performed by Iron Horse.
But the very most pressing issue of the day is Bond, James Bond. Went to a matinee of "Casino Royal" today. I never ever go to movies on opening weekend. But it's Bond, so exceptions must be made. I'm in love with James Bond again, not that it's ever gone away, just cooled down a few times.
But this is Bond like the Ian Fleming novels, this is Bond like Connery. This is the Bond I love the best.
The funniest thing about the audience (other than their lack of humor which I'm used to around here) was that, although the beach scenes are impressive (Daniel Craig looks very nice with his shirt off), the scene which got the gasping intake of air from audience members was the scene where he puts on his tux. Lovely.
You can tell men made the movie, there's a lot of skin - male and female. A female director or writer would've probably had him mostly in the tux or street clothes. The only thing that looks anywhere as good as a man in a well cut tux is a man in just right jeans.
It's a shame what happens to the Austin Martin, but it is a Bond movie.
I don't expect good from Bond movies, I expect to be entertained. I was entertained and pleasantly surprise that it was pretty good.
It's long, about 2 hours and 20 min, so closer to 3 with trailers and ads, but I only looked at my watch once. I was afraid the movie was over and had to check if there was any time left. There was. Hooray.
Best line, imho, Dame Judi Dench as M, "Christ, I miss the Cold War." A sentiment and topic of discussion a few times a year with my 35 and older friends.
Well, my nostalgic trip upstairs at the Salt Lake Roasting Company has me well caffeinated. It's funny looking around, I see everyone I used to know here back in the day, but it's not really them, just our replacements, even mine. The differences? Lap tops, cell phones, i-Pods. Damn, back in the day we had notebooks, books, newspapers and face-to-face conversation. I hate the things that coffee shops aren't anymore, but I do like the wireless access.