fact: me + hitchcock

A fact, just realized and of little interest to anyone aside from me:

I have never seen a Hitchcock movie by myself. This is odd. I enjoy seeing movies by myself. I like to go and sit anonymously among retirees at early matinees. I like crushing myself beneath piles of blankets and playing something on the magical computer box far into the night.

I remember with whom I've watched all the Hitchcock movies that I've seen. This is odd. I have a terrible memory for this kind of thing.


Rope: Eric
Notorious: Eric
The Trouble With Harry: Mike
The Lady Vanishes: Jesse
Vertigo: Shan


Each of these occasions claims an unusual brightness in my head, an indelible commitment to the fluttering slivers of personal feeling that are now stuck to the edges of the films themselves. Movies, for me, usually exist apart from the circumstances of their viewing. Even the ones that seem like they should be attached, by nostalgia or repetition, to certain people and places and times drift, for the most part, in the bubble of their own universe. I would expect The Ten Commandments--a movie I've found inexplicably enjoyable since childhood, a movie that appears in my life once a year to invade my family's secularized version of a religious holiday as a sort of springtime counterpart to It's a Wonderful Life--to trail memories behind it like drooping swathes of Easter ribbons. Nope. It's just The Ten Commandments: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, a burning bush, the Red Sea, roaring up and parted. There's not a scrap of personal experience thrown in among all the desert and idols and plagues.

It seems something about Hitchcock movies nails the memory of their viewing to the memory of the movie itself and makes me feel disinclined to watch them alone.

the Castro (Vertigo, September 2012)

on meeting a second time

When I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the theater, six years ago, I felt like I was watching a party from the wrong side of a thick piece of glass. I was younger and had misconceptions about the world. Love came in primary colors. Memory was fallible, but mostly immutable. I didn't get it.

I never bothered to see it again. People told me how wonderful it is, how much they loved it, how much I must love it, seeing as it's an oddball story about memory and vanishing. "It's just your kind of thing!" people would say, but I didn't get around to seeing if they were right until the other evening.

I loved it.

Sometimes, second meetings are like that. Not very often. Usually it's just more of the same. But sometimes I meet a person, or a book, or a song, or a place again, and I've put on some more time, or taken off a bit of prejudice, and suddenly it makes absolute sense.

gently, but firmly

I saw my first Hitchcock film last week. It was Notorious, and it was pretty much what I expected: stylish black and white, wit and gleam and melodramatic music. Nothing that I particularly loved, but enjoyable, and I saw it at the Stanford Theatre, which makes most movies into a pleasant occasion.

I went with a friend who had never been before, so I got to introduce him to the gilded carvings and painted ceilings and plush red curtain. I got to see the helpless delight hit his face when the Wurlitzer organ rose from its trapdoor in the stage with the little Japanese organist perched on the bench and playing the closing music before he was even level with the stage.

We went to see Rope last night, because the lovely Heather said that we should. It was absolutely delicious. I loved it from the moment when the dreadful Brandon says that the man they just murdered will soon be resting "gently, but firmly" at the bottom of a lake. Gently, but firmly. Such off-handed and stylish cruelty. The story is quite thin, but it's told in such an interesting way, with these placid, long shots that actually move from place to place rather than cutting in and dropping out, that my imagination went into overdrive during the eighty or so minutes. It's the first film that I've felt such an intrusive sense of narration in. It made me think that I was watching events through the eyes of another character, someone silent and invisible and incapable of touching anything in the room. Which made me think of ghosts, which made me decide that we were watching the sadistic dinner party in the company of the murdered man's ghost. Which made the movie entirely more interesting.

And now I want to write a story told by a ghost about his murderers, though it has been done to excess and will soon explode across too many screens in the form of The Lovely Bones.

it's the little things

I am really easily amused. These are little things that have made me snort or giggle or laugh very loudly when I should be seriously contemplating the nature of Literature.

OK, so you probably can't see that. I don't really know how to use the camera on my cell phone. Let me translate the blur: "There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn-- Albert Camus." This is on a rectangular slip of paper, fortune cookie style, taped up in the back of one of the fiction shelves. How jolly. Did someone feel unsatisfied by The Emperor of Ocean Park?

Peter Carey, who I have excessive admiration for, blurbed this writing book. Once again, let me translate my inability to focus on the foreground: "Read it because it will teach you everything you need to know about writing good fiction, whether your characters are having sex or having breakfast. -- Peter Carey, author of the Booker Prize-winning Oscar and Lucinda" How could that not make you laugh?

This is actually in Bell's Books, which is one of my favorite bookstores (there is an upstairs crammed with odd history books, and books bound in leather with embossed titles, and a large globe... and it smells like time). But I quite liked the idea of a shelf of intelligence.

In other news, the magnificent Heather returned from L.A. this week. To celebrate, we went to see Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. It's amazing. We loved it. No, really, the jokes are hilarious (Hank Azaria as an evil, power famished, Egyptian pharoah with a lisp; Ben Stiller's flashlight martial art; Ivan the Terrible, but really the Awesome; Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan having an epic sword fight with the shoes of Al Capone...) and the visuals are like leaping headfirst into a metaphorical candy store. I adore museums and the idea of one coming to life is just skin-burstingly delightful. There's a scene where Ben Stiller and Amy Adams crash into Eisenstaedt's V-J Day in Times Square, and the weird twisting sensation of seeing that world in motion was impressive. It's sheer fun and it made me progressively happier.

before bed mutterings

I've just started a book which opens with a character performing a coin trick in his pocket where nobody can see it. Brilliant. Wish I had thought of that.
(book: The Magicians by Lev Grossman... I believe it comes out in August)

***
I'm writing a short story right now. Well, not right now. I was writing it earlier, back when there was sunlight and my brain still worked. Anyway, it's about the strange chill that falls upon you when you drink too much wine in the summertime. Or, it's about dancing. Or, possibly, it's about an old woman who guards the door to faery. Or, then again, it might be about losing things. I'm not entirely sure. It's all vague and foggy, and while I know what happens, I don't actually know what it's about, so it's hard to figure out what I need to tell and what is best left untold.

And, I have a character named B. because I can't think of a name for him. Sad.

***
My sister has the best taste in YouTube treasures: How Wings Are Attached To The Backs Of Angels (Comment Les Ailes Sont Attachees Au Dos Des Anges) by Craig Welch. An easy comparison of flavor would be to Edward Gorey. Also, I've always liked that Chopin nocturne.

thoughts on dancing together

Tonight, in the company of the lovely Emily, I went to see Smuin Ballet's 2009 Choreography Showcase. The performance was interesting for various reasons (more on that later), but Em and I started talking about dancing in the car, and now my brain is stuck on the thoughts we batted around.

When you're dancing with someone, and the dance is going well, it's at once the most pared down and the most textured, layered, and vulnerable kind of conversation that you can have. It's a physical thrill to crack yourself open and communicate everything inside to another person without having to confine any of it to the solid hallways of letters and words. You don't have to love them, or even like them, but for the space of a dance, you're stepping in each other, and it's a weird, vast kind of intimacy.

***
And, for some silhouetted, steamy goodness: The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello is pretty much wonderful.

the glamour of vampires

My favourite part of tagging along with my cousins and sister to see Twilight on Thanksgiving? Watching my sister pantomime the way the handsome (?) vampire looks like he's about to throw up when he first meets the human girl (who blinks excessively); and hearing her repeat the line, "You're like my own personal brand of heroin," and then crack up.

Dear Twilight, the movie:
What is with all those 360 degree panning shots that so obviously happen with a camera zooming around on a miniature track that traps the actors in a tiny circle? One is nice. Too many make me dizzy.

The lack of continuity in color and details between close ups and the rest of the scenes hurt my eyes.

If you have to resort to a montage to show how much your guy loves your girl in a romance... well, it's a bad sign.

cheers,
Me.

puccini, plus explosions

I've been thinking about why I love action films so much, and I think it's for the same reason that I love movies about cons and heists: I like watching people who are terribly, terribly, outrageously and delightfully, good at what they do. There is something irresistible about a hero who can shoot a gun and leap off of buildings and drive cars at the speed of insanity, who can make every woman fall in love with him and catch the bad guys while still offering up, now and then, a wry remark that makes everything seem ineffably fine.

Reasons to enjoy Quantum of Solace in particular:

The title comes from a short story by Ian Fleming that is apparently in the style of Maugham.
A scene that cuts between a chase and a production of Tosca.
A big, climactic scene that is like watching a fireworks factory on a particularly unfortunate day.
The massive touch screen table the British Intelligence uses... I'm not anything close to a tech geek, but I was flipping out over that.
The MK12 designed main credits (can one have a crush on a graphics company?).
Anything and everything that comes out of Judi Dench's mouth.

***
Also finally got to type the words, "THE END", again. I'd forgotten how delicious it is to do that.

***
Peter Yarrow is coming to Kepler's on Monday. I wasn't too worried about this as I have a soft spot for Peter, Paul, and Mary... But now I'm a feeling a bit of trepidation as I've realised this means many small children crowded together on rugs around someone strumming a guitar and singing "Puff The Magic Dragon".

glitter

Three incentives for me to get past the sofa bound stage of recovery from surgery:

1. Atonement

2. The Golden Compass

3. Juno

I mean, I'll have to at least recover enough to drive myself to a movie theater where I can resume a sitting position.

Went to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I didn't really like it very much. I so liked the idea of it when I first read about it, but it came off as a bit trite. Expectedly quirky, not dangerously on the edge of mad weirdness. It felt almost calculated in parts. Here is the eccentric old man and his young protege who lacks only in being unable to see her own wonderfulness. Here is the odd child who teaches the man in the suit to have an imagination. And that last scene, with Natalie Portman waving her arms to conduct waves of glitter and color, embarrassed me. I was sitting in my seat and cringing.

So, not a brilliant pick. I much prefer Helm's Stranger Than Fiction.

Much more exciting is the first season of 24, which we started this weekend. I've never seen the show before and it's HORRIFICALLY addictive. Mainly, I suppose, because you get no closure at the end of the episode. You are nearly compelled to press the next button until your eyeballs feel like they might fall out.

My story about glass, which is called "Heart and Legs" at the moment, is now 4100 words. I think there might be about a third to go. There's a jester in it, and a prince, and a brave serving girl. There are also oceanic monsters that popped up without warning. I rather like them.

to see and not to see

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Bad puns on Shakespeare and all.

First off, what not to see:

August Rush. When I saw the trailer, I thought, how INCREDIBLY cheesy. But then I also thought, well, maybe it's one of those incredibly cheesy movies that somehow sweep you up in their flood of sentiment and make you feel all warm and fuzzy. After watching the scary gore of Jekyll, I was more than ready for warm and fuzzy. This movie isn't just cheesy though. It's ridiculous, sentimental, and unlikely, without the spirit to make any of it believable, even in a pastel-coloured, saccharine pop song sort of way. Exception: Freddie Highmore is adorable as always and there is this moment when, as the musical prodigy, he is jamming on an enormous church organ and it seems perfectly possible that he is the next Mozart. I'm partial to organ music though... It can be so gloriously moving, and I don't know if it's the sound or the spiritual connotations or what.

What you should see:

Olafur Eliasson's work. Aside from having an amazing name, Mr. Eliasson's work is sort of like the grown up version of exhibits at the Exploratorium, only with lashings of visual stun. I wasn't interested by the frozen BMW (except that I enjoyed watching people bundle up in the museum's grey fleecy blankets and troop into a giant freezer). My favourite piece was "Beauty," a dark room with streaks of light shining across a waterfall of mist pouring from the ceiling. The light made the water ripple and waver in the oddest ways. It looked like a surreal veil between dimensions, or a spiderweb in a breeze, or maybe a ghost.

Jekyll. BBC miniseries with the incredible James Nesbitt as Jekyll and Hyde. Some of the narrative seems a bit wonky and the American baddie has a dreadful accent (deep South on an alternate and mentally unstable universe?), but it's really shivery, especially in the moments of transformation.

Get Smart. I just saw the trailer for this movie and it looks amazing. Steve Carrell as an incompetent James Bond. Anne Hathaway as a beautiful spy named... Agent 99. Alan Arkin is in it, Alan Arkin! And Hiro. I've never seen the original tv show, so there's nothing to be disappointed by. It's all fun spy gadgets and explosions to look forward to. Did I mention Alan Arkin?