Evan Almighty

You know, I shouldn't even bother to write about how I didn't enjoy Evan Almighty because I never enjoy this kind of low-mid-brow concept pieces. I like the mid-high-brow ones, of course.

This was just so crappy, it was impossible to suspend disbeleif. Nothing was funny. Nothing was wise. Everything was corny and stupid.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

It took me a long time to watch Julien Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a beautiful, extraordinary movie about a quadriplegic who can only move one eye.

The imagery and narration went hauntingly, suffocatingly well together that I felt like I couldn't breathe, I felt like I was trapped in a beautiful but horrible dream. It took me a long time to watch because I would feel engulfed after about fifteen minutes and would have to stop, sometimes not coming back to it for a few days (!).

It is based on the man's memoirs, which were dictated by blinking his eyes as his... helper?... translator?... read the alphabet.

I'm not sure what to say about it now, just that it was perfect.

TV Party

TV Party: The Documentary is about this cool cable access show that was on between 78-82. It was that whole super hip downtown early new wave crowd, Blondie, David Byrne, etc. It was a wild mock talk show where people drank and smoked pot and cursed. I vaguely remember having caught a few episodes when they aired, but maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part.

I had trouble getting into it at first. Footage was sliced with contemporary interviews, and because the original show was so chaotic and low tech it was hard to adjust. But once I was in the right place I loved it. I wish you could watch full episodes, or at least longer sections than they showed.

Also, I felt cool because I knew a few people in it. I used to work for a rock and roll biographer who was a frequent guest (or, partier), and a friend of a friend was one of the regulars.

That was the scene I've always regretted missing.

Oh, and Debbie Harry was so, so, so fucking beautiful.

God bless us, everyone

Two nights ago I watched A Christmas Carrol. It happened to be in my queue from way, way back when I was reading some Dickens and felt in the mood to watch it all the way through. Didn't manage my queue and so it arrived in May. A little unseasonal but so what?

Aside from the sentimentality, which you just have to accept, it really is a good movie. Although I tend, always, to resist sentimentality, in this case it is actually the key ingredient, what makes it work. What makes it what it is. Scrooge's fear and joy get me every time. And I won't even mention Tiny Tim. Maybe I'll read the story. In the heat of August.