In the Middle of the Fade
12:43 already? Where did the day go? It gets dark when I wake up, these days.
Lately I've had trouble stringing long paragraphs together when I write. Or perhaps more accurately I've noticed that I've always had trouble stringing together long paragraphs. We've had this discussion before on here... that's the way I like it. I love reading Hemingway and can't make it through Dickens novels. I write in dialogue and short, clipped sentences. My descriptive elements are ever so carefully chosen. I recall a conversation where I told someone that I wasn't very interested in knowing the shirt colors of all the characters... get on with the story! I'm very self-aware about this stuff, and that always makes me freak out. I read anything else that's good and I immediately think "I'll never be that good." I think maybe I have what might be called a "commercial sensibility". I want to write "The Da Vinci Code", but good... not "Gravity's Rainbow".
Even on the off-chance that I'm doing something right and I'm successful, am I doomed to be the new Michael Bay, the new Laurell K. Hamilton... making lots of money but hardly readable (or watchable)? And what if I'm not successful? My second biggest fear after death is that this all won't work out, and I'll have to go to plan F, and I'll never, ever, ever be happy.
I have to do this.
I'm not just in a mood because I read a good short story. I checked my phone messages last night and found a message telling me my interview for the Program Director position at the radio station was "tonight" (meaning Monday) at 8:15pm. I got this at about midnight on Tuesday, after spending over a week waiting for an e-mail or a note in my mailbox or something concerning this. I didn't go to the station meeting on Monday because I honestly didn't want to, and going to "Pan's Labyrinth" with
stdesantis seemed like a lot more fun. Flaky, maybe, but hardly any of the DJs even bother going to the damn meetings, so I think I'm still ahead... I even sent them an e-mail days in advance telling them I wouldn't be there and never got a response saying "oh, you should come because we're having these interviews"... I had my phone on me until at least 3pm on Monday, so this had to be VERY last minute. I honestly believe that this was intentional on their part, to try and find an excuse not to have to interview me. I've been told by neutral parties that some are still very upset with me behind closed doors for running against the very popular Music Director in the fall, even though if you ask what positions will be open all anyone will tell you is that "all positions are open every semester", and she's very good friends with and lives in the same house with many of the other top board members. I have put up with a lot of bullshit from that place (these are the same people who not only voted not to retain me as News Director, but didn't tell me until I showed up for the first meeting in summer and then said "By the way, we need your key back"), and I had pretty much had it. I also didn't hear about it afterwards... there was no phone call or e-mail saying "where were you?" So I had what one might call an animated discussion with someone in charge about this situation this morning after Broadcast Programming (though I stopped myself from calling it "bullshit" and instead said it was "pretty shady") and eventually managed to get him to schedule a replacement interview for this upcoming Monday night. This is officially the first time ever that the Chris trick of "stand your ground and eventually they'll give you whatever you want" worked for me. I'm just sick of this crap. I almost said "hell with this, I'm quitting the station completely", but then I decided that I wasn't going to keep from doing what was fun for me just out of spite.
So that pissed me off.
On that note, it's that time again...
REVIEWS!
"Pan's Labyrinth" - Magic realism at both its most magical and most real, this was a beautiful story that is about nothing less than the meaning of life. I felt like I could write a treatise on this film. All the individual elements are very strong, from the Score to the Special Effects. I'm not sure where this ranks in the pantheon of my favorite recent movies, but it was certainly my best experience since "The Fountain". I heard some complaints going in about the violence, but I found things mostly tastefully done. It is a violent story, but for most of the film Del Toro cuts and lights away from the worst of it. There was really only one moment where I found myself thinking "I didn't need to see that." Of course the best parts by far were the fantastical moments, which only take up so much of the film. The way they use it here, where fantasy is used to comment on reality, is why I love the genre as much as I do.
"The Queen" - Seeing this was a total whim, and it's certainly not what would normally be considered my kind of movie. I was into it, certainly moreso than, say, "Dreamgirls". The Oscars noms were right to put this in and keep "Dreamgirls" out, I think. (I can't remember if I reviewed that one on here or not. It was basically well done, and Hudson's performance was strong, but it suffered in my opinion from being a musical without good enough music.) Anyway, I found Michael Sheen's Tony Blair character to be the interesting, vital center of the film rather than Mirren's heavy Oscar favorite performance as Queen Elizabeth. I saw the film through his eyes... the royals live in an insulated world and are very strange, but their miscalculation about Diana's death is mostly innocent, and while they didn't like the girl they mostly don't wish her dead. I found myself taking the royal's side during the film... why cry that way, sleep out in the street, over someone who you never met? I found the grief over Diana completely confounding, both now and at the time. All the philosophical implications aside, the real strength of the film is the writing by Peter Morgan (Oscar Nom) and the performances... anyone with a remotely important part is absolutely flawless. And then there is the Queen's relationship with the lone stag haunting the Scottish highlands of Balmoral. I think that's the key to the entire film, and the moments that lift it above docudrama flatness.
"The Dresden Files" - SciFi's newest series is basically "Angel" watered down. Things could be worse... it could be "Charmed". I was into it when I watched it, wanting to know what would happen next. Thinking back, I find it borderline awful. So I think the truth is somewhere in between. Fortunately, the problems were more with the episode than the structure of the series... I think there might be enough pieces here (I've been talking about "pieces" a lot lately) to keep doing interesting stories. But the episode's plot was somewhere between dumb and nonsensical, and totally lacked an effective climax. (And that "Doom Box" is a major can of worms. Why doesn't our hero just do that every week?) It wasn't as funny or cool or as anything as it wanted to be. It just wasn't much of anything, in the end.
"Battlestar Galactica" - I was very happy with the return episode, including all the little bits of the plot. Here's hoping the move to Sunday wasn't a huge mistake. And most of all... nothing has ever looked cooler on screen than a star going nova. We learned this in "The Fountain", and it's still true here.
"Heroes" - It's back, too, and while not that much actually happened in "Godsend", all the elements were of such a high quality that I found myself very, very happy. It seemed like there was important stuff going on at the time. The fact that a hit American show sometimes pulls out the blatant poeticism of this week's last few moments, followed by that awesome final line... it makes me very happy. It also makes me redundant.
"Veronica Mars" - As if I needed a reason to love this show further: When their dorm has an International-themed party, where each room is a country (this sounds suspiciously like some of the crap that goes on here), the girls want to participate and meet guys without actually doing anything participatory. So they hang a sign on the door that says "Canada" and play Barenaked Ladies on their stereo. Problem solved. And it's a Mac episode! Hey ya!
For the record, Oscar's Best Picture choices: Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen
Off the cuff, my five favorites from the same crop: The Fountain, V For Vendetta, Children of Men, The Departed, and... okay, Little Miss Sunshine. Or maybe Pan's Labyrinth.