Week in Review - oo8/1

Movies viewed this last week:

Lars and the Real Girl - Yes. Turned all of my expectations but one upside down. The exception going in was that I absolutely knew Ryan Gosling was going to be good. He was better than good. Otherwise I thought it was going to be creepy and prurient. Instead it was about getting past the surface of things, especially things creepy and prurient, to find hope, empathy and community. Wonderful film.

Capturing the Friedman's - Much more interesting than the first time I saw it. Still don't like the b-roll. I'd see it again.

Charlie Wilson's War - see yesterday's post.

Yi Yi - Very good film. Long. Too long really. I think the story could have been told in the same patient way and been much shorter. Great story, it captured the beauty of ordinary human needs. The acting was amazing. At one point I was like, Oh, these people in Taiwan feel like I've felt. Emotion at a certain depth transcends culture and they achieved those depths consistently and expertly. The efforts toward naturalistic cinematography became mannered after a while. Edward Yang won some very prestigious awards for this 1999 directorial debut - National Board of Review's Best Film of '99, something at Cannes. Yet he hasn't made another film. Makes me curious.

Pasolini's Oedipus Rex - Strangely beautiful. At once clumsy and elegant. The thing about Pasolini is that it really goes beyond opinion. Like and dislike don't really matter. It's like saying you like or dislike the Mona Lisa. It's art. It informs you and makes an impression on you. It doesn't matter if you like it or not. I'm glad I saw it and I'll watch it again when something led me back to it.

Away From Her - I really wanted to like this film. I adore Sarah Polley and I wanted her to succeed in her move to directing. And she may well do so. However, her film didn't do it for me. It does get better as it goes along if you can stay with it, though I'm not sure I did for any other reason than I did so want to like it. It looks boring - like TV from the 70s - frontal and conventional. It deals with Alzheimer's, which is interesting, and the ever beautiful Julie Christie does a fine job portraying a victim of the disease. Based on a short story by the Canadian author Alice Munro. Polley is also Canadian. And as much as Canada doesn't seem to have a very distinctive culture in my arrogant opinion, this film does seem very Canadian. For whatever that's worth.

Books read in the last week:

The Power of Play by David Elkind - Not nearly as good as his classic, The Hurried Child. A reiteration of the problems and little talk of the solutions.

The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman - Wonderful. It's an illustrated journal filled with poignant observations of the ordinary. It made me want to paint the hallway, do the dishes and pay attention to the backs of people's heads. My daughter was looking over my shoulder when I brought it home from the library and I just started reading it aloud to her. She stayed with it until I was about halfway into the book. I read the rest to myself all in one sitting. Which I relate in hopes of saying more about its charisma than my stamina.

Steven Soderbergh Interviews - Like all of the books in the Conversations with Filmmakers series put out by The University of Mississippi Press there's quite a bit of repetition in the interviews. While it can be irritating, the nuances that emerge are worth it. Much of the book deals with the early years of his career and the rest stops after Traffic and Erin Brockovich. I read it backwards, thinking I didn't want to revisit the whole sex, lies ... hooha. If I could only read one interview it would be Emotion, Truth and Solitude by Michael Sragow in Salon. But it's all good stuff. My admiration for him really grows.

Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry - I can't believe I hadn't read this book before now. I loved it and I don't romanticize that part of the country or that era anywhere near as much as I did in my past. Original Glory is all about nostalgia for that time and place. McMurty gets it a little better than I do. It's quite different than Hud, the movie based on the novel. Each stands on its own. I look forward to seeing the film again.

Adaptions - From Short Story to Big Screen by Stephanie Harrison - This is an amazing collection of thirty-five short stories that have been adapted into films. I love reading and rereading the stories. And I really get a lot out of the introduction to each section that connects the stories to the films and the authors to the directors. It's a fresh perspective on some of the greats.