Junior high all over again

More than once this week, I’ve spent time with people who were meeting me for the first time. This is unusual for me. Nice, but unusual. And I think I tend to forget that I’m pretty strong coffee for many people, especially at first blush. I think of myself as a low-key person who tends to hold back, maybe even too much. Then I get near new people and I feel like this bizarre Godzilla creature, trampling on everything, being loud and odd and making a terrible impression. Maybe I’m just trying too hard and it’s backfiring spectacularly. Or it’s just in my head. Anyone else ever feel the same way?

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

For some reason, I won’t go on the stand-up roller coaster, but I really want to go on the “Superman”-style one where you lie down.

Not sure what this means.

Something to ponder

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

-Gandalf the Grey, Lord of the Rings

Because I don’t want to let my audience down, I taped “Joe Millionaire” so I wouldn’t miss it last night when we went to see “The Hours.” (Now there’s a sentence you won’t see on a lot of weblogs.)

I’m still enjoying it, but mainly now because we can more clearly see that 1) “Joe/Evan/Whatever” is basically a nice dullard, with very little going for him other than his looks, and 2) none of the women seem all that interested in him. So it remains fun in a “watch this colossal mess fall apart” sense. That butler, the unfortunately-named Paul Hogan, has a future, though.

My favorite moment last night by far was when Evan presented atomic-perky Melissa with a hideous painting/caricature of herself. She cooed over it to his face, then understandably laughed at it with another woman afterwards. What a disaster this show is. Bring it on.

Just got back from “The Hours.” While it’s not successful in what I think it set out to do – tell three interrelated stories about three women in three different eras – it succeeds wildly along the edges. Nicole Kidman is miraculous as Virginia Woolf, and let me tell you, the genius of her performance has very little to do with the now infamous fake nose. The intelligence that comes from her eyes is startling; it’s the performance of a career.

Even more wonderful is seeing a mainstream movie that deals intelligently with depression and the creative process, without turning it into a Lifetime Movie. Watching Woolf puzzle out the beginning of “Mrs. Dalloway” is worth the price of admission alone, and there’s painfully true detail about her depression and its effect on everyone around her.

If only the story were just about Virginia Woolf, since the other sections (despite great work as usual from Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore) just serve to prop up and illuminate Woolf’s story, and not all that successfully. There’s just not enough time to give those other stories justice.

Recommended.

Questions I’d Like To Ask Pro-War People

1. Don’t you think the terrorist threat on American soil will skyrocket with an invasion of Iraq? Is overthrowing Saddam worth that?

2. Why now? What changed to warrant an invasion?

3. What specific threat does Saddam pose to Americans?

4. Does the U.N. inspection even matter? In other words, would you want to go to war no matter what they did or didn’t find? It’s impossible to prove a negative.

5. While we’re at it, aren’t there other repressive regimes we should be overthrowing?

6. Let’s say we go in, and kill Saddam. Yay. Then what?

A major problem I’m having is that no one seems to be asking these or many other questions of those either in support of war or in charge of it. We are shockingly passive. I’m pleased about the protests. But I think we have to start demanding answers as well. We deserve them.

“When I was 10 years old, I was an aristocrat. I rode around in taxis, and all I thought about was art and music. Now, I’m 36, and all I think about is money.”

-Wally Shawn, “My Dinner with Andre”

Have I mentioned recently how much I love this movie? I saw it first when I was in college, and it’s stayed with me ever since then. My friend Elizabeth recently gave it to me on DVD, and I watched it again last week. It’s an unlikely masterpiece, since it’s hard to imagine sustaining a two-hour movie with a conversation between any two people, no matter how interesting. But it works. And each time I see it, it’s like a kaleidoscope, catching the light in different ways.

One thing I know: as much as I want to be like Andre, I’m really Wally at heart. I want my electric blanket. But like Wally, once in a great while other people can give me a glimpse into that other world, where my electric blanket isn’t all that important.

Highly recommended. And let me know what you think in the comments.

Been reading a lot of well-written, angry articles about the impending war on Iraq. There’s Mark Driver from Blind Wino (warning to the sensitive: profanity); and Mark Morford’s article for SFGate, which starts with “This is not a war,” so how could I not like it? Great stuff. But I’m beginning to wonder if any words, from anyone, will make a difference in this situation. I feel defeated. Minds are made up, and that’s it. The country has decided that whatever plan Dubya comes up with, on this or any other issue, Toby Keith will sing and they will clap and hang up flags and there’s the end of it.

I guess I’m just pleased that voices like those I’ve linked to above still exist. For now.

“Equilibrium” is a prime example of the “so bad it’s good” movie genre, of which there are precious few examples these days. Plenty of “just bad” wastes of millions of dollars out there, but not many where you just sit back and marvel at, as Matt said, its utter wrongness.

Putting about 12 other movies in a blender (1984, Fahrenheit 451, Logan’s Run, The Matrix, Total Recall, Gattaca), this screenwriter’s-seminar concoction stars Christian Bale as a future cop who must enforce people taking an emotion-dulling drug. And guess what happens? If you’ve ever seen a movie before, you already know.

“Equilibrium” tops itself off with at least two “So Bad It’s Good” Awards:

Most Flagrant Use of a Puppy for Plot Development
Best Gratuitous Face-Slicing-Off Scene

Recommended, but for all the wrong reasons.

Latest lucky8ball site launch:

Corneillelaw.com

I’m especially pleased that they are using a weblog format for their case news. Now I just have to convince some other law firms in town that this would be a good way to go.