Fatigues.
Who knew that having a full time job would be so draining? I really need the weekends to recover. At least this weekend, I'm not doing much except volunteering on Saturday. I really need to catch up on sleep. I only got six hours last night because I was reading a paper for work. A paper that my boss said would only take a couple hours to read, but ended up taking me half a day to understand because it was so dense with material.
This weekend, though, I did have the chance to watch A Prairie Home Companion. And it was fantastic. It is one of those movies that just gets better and better the more you think about it. In Hollywood these days, that's a rarity, since quite often my reaction is that a movie was good immediately after watching it, but after the sheer entertainment value wears off I start to notice the plot holes, the emptiness of the "moral," or how something claiming to be original is really a rehash of things that are better than it. Thinking of the latter, The Squid and the Whale comes to mind. Independent films are nothing if they actually try to be an independent film. The whole point of independent film is to do something that defies genre. You could just tell that TSATW was trying to be quirky and off-beat and that just bugged me.
Prairie Home Companion, on the other hand, made no pretenses whatsoever. It did not claim to be about anything (quite like the radio show) and ended up being about everything (again, quite like the radio show). And I am not saying this as a fan of Robert Altman, which I'm certainly not. I HATED Gosford Park. It is one of my bottom ten worst movies. And it's not just because I love Lindsay Lohan (she was definitely the weakest cast member). It's because it has been a long time since I found a movie that was so much fun and so poignant...together.
This weekend, though, I did have the chance to watch A Prairie Home Companion. And it was fantastic. It is one of those movies that just gets better and better the more you think about it. In Hollywood these days, that's a rarity, since quite often my reaction is that a movie was good immediately after watching it, but after the sheer entertainment value wears off I start to notice the plot holes, the emptiness of the "moral," or how something claiming to be original is really a rehash of things that are better than it. Thinking of the latter, The Squid and the Whale comes to mind. Independent films are nothing if they actually try to be an independent film. The whole point of independent film is to do something that defies genre. You could just tell that TSATW was trying to be quirky and off-beat and that just bugged me.
Prairie Home Companion, on the other hand, made no pretenses whatsoever. It did not claim to be about anything (quite like the radio show) and ended up being about everything (again, quite like the radio show). And I am not saying this as a fan of Robert Altman, which I'm certainly not. I HATED Gosford Park. It is one of my bottom ten worst movies. And it's not just because I love Lindsay Lohan (she was definitely the weakest cast member). It's because it has been a long time since I found a movie that was so much fun and so poignant...together.