Sleepy on the way home this morning. But I know I wasn't dreaming. "Isaac Newton" was on the train with an apple lodged on his brain. Some high schooler's costume on his way to homeroom. Nerds.
Enjoy tricking and treating!
Too much science in mind after exploring Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe." I'm a loop? I'm made up of fractals? (Thanks to this week's NOVA.) "I'm the seagull. No, that's not it."
Overheard at the arena before Janet Jackson's concert: "Which artists do you think are recession-proof?"
Since the economic woes, "We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover" from ANNIE keeps popping up on my iPod. Also brings to mind STEEL PIER. Could a dance marathon be around the corner?
Lyrics to "We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover":
ALL Today we're living in a shanty Today we're scrounging for a meal
SOPHIE Today I'm stealing coal for fires Who knew I could steal?
MEN I used to winter in the tropics
WOMEN I spent my summers at the shore
FRED I used to throw away the paper--
ALL He don't anymore! We'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover For really showing us the way We'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover You made us what we are today
Prosperity was 'round the corner A cozy cottage built for two In this blue heaven That you gave us Yes! We're turning blue!
They offered us Al Smith and Hoover We paid attention and we chose Not only did we pay attention We paid through the nose.
In ev'ry pot he said "a chicken" But Herbert Hoover he forgot Not only don't we have the chicken We ain't got the pot! Hey Herbie
WOMEN You left behind a greatful nation
ALL So, Herb, our hats are off to you We're up to here with admiration
SOPHIE Come down and have a little stew
ALL Come down and share some Christmas dinner Be sure to bring the missus too We got no turkey for our stuffing Why don't we stuff you We'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover For really showing us the way You dirty rat, you Bureaucrat, you Made us what we are today Come and get it, Herb!
Rock Witchu Tour on Friday night. Had a blast! She always delivers the goods. Whipped out those hits one after the other to prove her pop cred and music biz longevity. Performed less sharper moves in certain numbers. Marking? Conserving energy? Still recovering from her vertigo? Highlights: the S & M segment, "Together Again," and the mohawk! Best when she's kicking it old school. '80s: "Escapade," "Control," "Nasty" ... My oldies. Can you imagine PBS showing oldies specials decades from now? The way they do Doo Wop or Motown specials during their fund drives? We'll be singing "Nasty boys, nasty boys ..." while forking over $ for a tote bag.
Laboring over a Statement of Purpose for grad school. Be introspective? Tell them I love them? This is harder than I thought. Reminds me of the time a Board of Education lackey advised me to "sell myself" to an assistant principal so I can be enrolled in a better school outside my school district. Like that time, writing the SoP must be what polite whoring feels like. I feel so dirty.
Confidence. A word often heard these days. Bandied about like a hacky sack by pundits on the air. "Boost consumer confidence," "investor confidence." Think twice. Do not get played. They are not called "con men" for nothing.
Strolling down memory lane at work and only one other person knew "Histeria." Smart, funny, and edumacational - in other words, doomed for cancellation. The segment I most remembered from it is this:
Are you surprised my viewer response to this movie falls under a queer reading? Nearly four hours and not one female voice utters a word in its entirety. Can't deny the homoeroticism palpable between Lawrence and his two twinks, um, servants. And what did happen in Daraa? Let's just say David Lean leaves the door open a crack to hint at some other crack being violated. And how about Lawrence prancing around in his white flowy Arabian robes? Think desert, heat, and all those men. How gay is that? His being that way serves the film's persistent question about it's subject's identity. He questions his allegiance, his position in society (a bastard child), and why not his sexual identity?
Don't get me wrong, I love this movie. No one can deny its cinematic power. I had some dread before seeing this again, though. But as David Lean unspools one showstopping cinematic moment after another, you sit enrapt. The jump cut from match to desert, the mirage scene at the well, the Nefud desert crossing, Aqaba, and so on.
But as long as the movie is, in the end, Lawrence is as opaque as ever, as its movie poster shows. You still don't know him at all. And this somehow characterizes a lot of David Lean's films. His works thrive on dissatisfaction. The ambiguity in "Madeleine" and "Lawrence of Arabia"; the loves lost in "Brief Encounter," "The Passionate Friends," "Doctor Zhivago," and "Summertime." Yes, the bridge in the River Kwai was built. That was satisfying for like two minutes before it met its doom.
All this Lean because of Film Forum's retrospective.
I know, it's an ad for a credit card. And this is probably one reason why we're in this financial mess. But this commercial's plain irresistible. Wish I had one of those to drop off in school.
"I love those wide eyes," intones Alec to Laura midway in the movie. And I wanna say, "Me, too."
This is on the top heap of my all-time favorite films. If Robert Osborne asked me to sit next to him as guest-programmer for a night on TCM, this would undoubtedly be one I would choose to air - with a Kleenex nearby. Finally got a chance to see it in a movie house and it's as moving and clearly impeccable the fifth (sixth? I've lost count, really) as it was the first time viewing it.
Short and simple: A piece of grit gets into those said eyes, Alec brushes it off, and so begins an "affair" that threatens their British-ness. That economy adds to its sheen. Its beauty and artistry lies in how it's told.
I have tried to pinpoint the moment when I feel my eyes well up. I know it's near the end. But I can never quite say whether it's a word, a gesture, the music, or the image that gets me. And it's not any individual aspect of the movie that does. I believe it's the sum of all these parts, its gestalt, if you will, that slays me every time. Each cinematic element adds up to that emotional impact.
Consider the opening: two trains passing running in opposite directions. It is how the movie ends. That's not a spoiler because in the movie, we begin at the end. Note the noir-lit lovers that make them look positively criminal. You develop a Pavlovian response to those train bells. Hear it many times, as I have, and you too can distinguish the ring for the express train. David Lean embeds the lovers in Rachmaninoff (hearing it instantly conjures up cinematic images) - florid, but fitting to Laura's confessional. Most of all, those eyes. Celia Johnson's eyes express octaves of emotions. See the scene when she realizes Alec will never tell his wife about meeting her and contrast it with how those eyes ignite when she sees Alec really meant to meet up with her the following Thursday.
Just think, without seeing this 86-minute masterpiece, Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love" (or many of his movies, for that matter) would never be and the following scene from "The History Boys" would be lost on you:
