What I Watched -- The Hunting Party

This movie was not at all what I expected. I judged the movie by its title. Let that be a lesson to you.

What I expected was some Victorian drama which included a gaggle of basset hounds. No dice. Instead, I got a trio of in-over-their-heads journalists out for some vigilante justice in the wake of the Serbian genocide. Not a bad trade actually, once you make the adjustment to the totally different genre.

Richard Gere and Terrence Howard are former partners (reporter and cameraman, respectively), who reunite - joined by an intern played by Jesse Eisenberg - with the hare-brained idea of bringing one of the world's most hated and elusive war criminals to justice in the years following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Nothing, needless to say, goes as planned. It's sort of a modern day comedy of errors.

Eisenberg and Gere actually do a great job in their respective roles. Richard Gere is just crazy enough to make you think he might really be crazy - until you learn the back story. Eisenberg plays his character with a Michael Cera-like innocence, except with slightly less boyish dopiness and slightly more adult wit. It works.

What did not work in the movie was the weird combination of humor and horror and politics. This movie addresses the atrocities of a genocide, for Pete's sake. (Who's Pete?) For example:

Boris (UN official): "It took me months to gain the trust of certain people who normally would be protecting the Fox. That's how I know you didn't just stumble on the fact he's up in Celibici."
Duck (Cameraman): "Well, it's been printed in the press."
Boris: "So are the horoscopes. Do you believe them?"
Duck: "You're not making any sense now."
Boris: "I know. I'm the United Nations."

So, it totally doesn't fit together. The whole thing seems very discordant. Except you know what the weird thing about it is? It's true. It's a true story - or based on one, anyway. I guess sometimes life doesn't fit together, and seems all discordant. Sometimes we have to laugh, or else we would just cry.

Anyway, the real experience happened to a group of journalists, one of whom wrote about the experience for Variety in an essay entitled "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." The article is available online in full, and is worth a read.

Bottom line: entertaining if you think it's fiction. Even more interesting if you know it's mostly fact. A decent film which, however oddly, takes a semi-serious look at an oft-overlooked political disaster.

What I'm Reading Now -- The Girl Who Played With Fire

Finally! I'm on to the second book in the Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire. It's about time, since I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (book #1) over six months ago, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (book #3) has already been published! Although in fairness, they did rush the publication because the first two were such huge hits. At least it's not out in paperback yet (except in large print), so I don't feel quite so bad.

As of the writing of this post, I haven't actually started reading yet, so I'll keep you posted on my thoughts later on.

Quote of the Day

"When you love, you see what you want to see. Everybody knows that."
- Ira Glass, This American Life, "Reunited"

Wanted: Rowing Coach -- Take 2

Another book it took me way too long to read, not because it wasn't entertaining, but because I was doing other things. Like watching movies. (Anyone noticed that I've watched a ton of movies lately?) And other things which I'm sure were very important, but don't really excuse my taking so long to read someone else's book.

For anybody who's starting out as a rowing coach, this is a must-read. For anyone who ever rowed, it's an interesting read because it allows you to see things from the other side. And for those of you who never rowed, a lot of it probably won't make any sense at all; he might as well have written half the book in Japanese. Unless you speak Japanese, in which case, he might as well have written it in some other language you don't speak.

The book is an interesting mish-mash of rowing drills, coaching tips, life lessons, and general observations, such as the following:

"As I drove home I thought about how everyone acts about the same when things are rolling along well. The human animal becomes quite interesting when a monkey wrench is thrown into the works, or a buoy pops out of nowhere, or you're suddenly presented with some crisis that jars your sense of normalcy. That's when a person's character is tested. You get a peek into their soul. Quite revealing. Sometimes scary, as in this case. Other times refreshingly reassuring."

The best quote about rowing which I found comes when Coach Lewis is talking to potential rowers at a recruiting meeting, and gives them this little lecture:

"Rowing can offer many things. You gain awesome physical and spiritual strength. You learn the secrets of focus and discipline, which are critical for success in any arena. You make friends that will last a lifetime. All good reasons. All worthy reasons. I'll end with a quote by one of my favorite authors, William Glass. 'If you are a fully realized person---whatever the heck that is---you wouldn't fool around writing books.' Nor would you fool around rowing. To spend copious amounts of time going backward on a self-propelled craft at 6:00 a.m. is not for everyone. We row to fill in some missing piece of ourselves. If you stay with it long enough, take enough hard strokes, win and lose enough races, you will find what you're looking for."

The Song I'm Loving Today

The Book of Love (Peter Gabriel)

This is another one from a movie I watched, this time it's from Shall We Dance. I guess that's a good thing about movies; other than the entertainment you get from watching the movie, sometimes you also find cool new songs. I was watching Shall We Dance while I was working out, so I had subtitles on to make it easier to understand what was happening. The subtitles said "Book of Love - Peter Gabriel" right on the screen - how handy is that? Then you don't even have to watch the tiny-print credits at the end and try to pause it in the right spot to see what the song is!

The song was written by a band called The Magnetic Fields and released on their album 69 Love Songs. Their version is linked to the song title, above. But I like the Peter Gabriel remake better, so a still-photo mash-up of his version is below.

The song itself is actually sort of odd if you listen to the lyrics, but I love its slow, melancholy yet satisfied sort of quality.



The book of love is long and boring,
No one can lift the damn thing.
It's full of charts and facts and figures,
And instructions for dancing.

But I, I love it when you read to me.
And you, you can read me anything.

The book of love is full of music,
In fact that's where music comes from.
Some of it's just transcendental,
Most of it is just really dumb.

But I, I love it when you sing to me.
And you, you can sing me anything.

The book of love is long and boring,
And written very long ago.
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes,
And things we're all too young to know.

But I, I love it when you give me things,
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings.
And I, I love it when you give me things,
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings.
You ought to give me wedding rings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all get to eat some delicious food today!

What I Watched -- Carrie

Carrie is one of those movies that you always hear about but have never seen. I have a bunch of those: The Godfather, North by Northwest, The Graduate, and The Bridge on the River Kwai, to name a few. I decided, for whatever reason, that it would be a good idea to watch Carrie. My goal was to watch it the weekend T was out of town so I could be good and freaked out while I was all by myself, but (a) I couldn't squeeze it in (I was busy going to Arrow Rock), and (b) it's actually not scary. So I failed on both counts. Story of my life.

Anyway, for those other people out there who haven't seen it, here's the rundown: Carrie is a poor, nerdy, sheltered girl who is tormented by her high school classmates to no end. What the classmates don't know is that Carrie, when she gets angry, can make stuff happen just with her mind. And Carrie gets her revenge when it all hits the fan at prom. Actually, the scariest part of the movie are the crazy eyes Carrie has for about the last 20 minutes. Creepy! Actually, as a general statement, Sissy Spacek is pretty awesome at being super creepy. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

There are a lot of things going on in Carrie, though. There's the issue of teen bullying, there's Carrie's super-Christian mother, there's the idea of revenge. And then there's the character of Sue Snell (played by Amy Irving), who together with Sue's boyfriend Tommy and the gym teacher are the only characters who show any compassion for Carrie - not that it works out terribly well for any of them, in the end. Somebody at LSU (with too much free time) took it upon themselves to write quite a summary of the underlying ideas.

Bottom line: see it so you know what happens. And so you can be freaked out by the creepy eyes.

Arrow Rock

What did you do on Sunday? Anything interesting? I went to Arrow Rock.

Never heard of it? I hadn't either. But it's a cute place. The town is tiny (population 80, or thereabouts), plus the 14 of us. The activity planner at G&G's place mapped out a trip to Arrow Rock for the day, which was actually quite lovely. We started out with lunch at J. Huston's Tavern, which was delicious. The servers were these two super-cute high school girls, who were dressed in period frocks! And check out the super-fancy menu:

I got the smoked BBQ chicken, and it was juicy and tender, the green beans had just a touch of sweetness, and the potatoes with gravy were perfect for sopping everything up. We also got warm bread rolls with delicious country style butter and - best of all - apple butter!

After lunch I poked my head into some of the shops in the "historic shopping district" - there are probably 8 shops total. Lots of antiques and the like, but very cute. And of course they have a little coffee shop! I didn't get to stop in the ice cream shop, which was quite a disappointment, but after that huge lunch, I didn't have much room. They also have their own very cute little post office in downtown Arrow Rock, which is open from 8:00 - 9:45 a.m. on Saturdays. Charming. The weather was lovely - warm and breezy. Perfect for wandering around outside.

We finished off the day with a trip to the Lyceum Theater to see Nuncrackers, the Christmas production of the Nunsense series of plays.

The Lyceum, it turns out, is a fairly famous theater. It's Missouri's oldest regional theater (50 years), and draws actors from all over the country. The biographies of the company in the back of the brochure reveal that people come to Arrow Rock from as far away as San Diego and LA, and there are lots of actors from NYC, including one Rockette! There's even a girl who has performed at the Globe Theater in London! Who knew all of that talent was in little Arrow Rock?

Anyway, the show was actually really funny - lots of laughing out loud! It was a small cast: 5 nuns, a priest, and 4 school kids, as best as I can remember. They all did a great job!

I managed to sneak in a little nap on the bus on the way home, and got lots of reading done. And K had dinner waiting for me when I arrived back at the house! All in all, quite a lovely day.

What I Watched -- The Debt

K and I went with her friend M to another one of the SLIFF movies on Saturday night. This time, we saw one called The Debt, starring Dame Helen Mirren, the oh-so-eye-pleasing Sam Worthington, Tom Wilkinson, and the beautiful newcomer to the silver screen Jessica Chastain. (And for you LOTR nerds out there, Marton Csokas also stars, but you may know him better as Celeborn.) Wow, that was a linkalicious paragraph.

I shouldn't joke, though, because this movie is deadly serious. It's the story of three Israeli Mossad agents sent to Berlin in the 1960s. Their mission is to capture and bring to Israel for trial the man known as the Surgeon of Birkenau, who is famous for the brutal manipulations he inflicted on Jews in the camp during WWII. They find him, sure enough. But not everything is smooth sailing.

The first thing I noticed about this movie is how well the actors used their faces to express their emotions. At the beginning, for instance, Rachel's (Helen Mirren's) daughter is presenting a book she has written about her mother's adventure in Berlin. When she says how proud she is of her mom, you can tell Rachel is uncomfortable with the praise, but you don't know why. That's what the rest of the movie is for. There are many other similar examples, but I'll stop there to avoid giving away the secrets.

It's pretty clear in this movie who the bad guy is, what he did, and why the Mossad agents are after him. And you totally support them in their mission. They are the good guys. Aren't they? Maybe just one of them is. But which one? Even now that the movie's over and I've had a couple of days to stew about it, I'm still not sure.

Bottom line: awesome movie, but why are film festival movies always depressing? I guess it's that artsy thing.

P.S. I like Sam better with short, dark hair. And firearms.

What I Watched -- What's Cooking?

Here come the holiday movies! Thanks to E for reminding me about this super-insane Turkey Day flick.

This is a movie about four culturally-diverse LA families - stereotypically Vietnamese, Mexican, African-American, and Jewish - all celebrating Thanksgiving in their own way and dealing with their issues. And all the families are friggin' crazy in their own way (just like their dinners), which is great for making you feel like your family is actually kinda normal and not so bad to be around!

This movie is reminiscent of Tortilla Soup, although with slightly less emphasis on the food - probably because, when you're trying to tell the stories of four families, there are only so many food shots you can save from the cutting room floor.

Bottom line: a fun story of a crazy holiday. Something good to watch after dinner this Thursday when you're too full to do anything else.