Good walk and talk.
On Friday Marisa and I saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly up in Westchester at the Jacob Burns Film Center, where I embarrassed her by talking a lot about the motivations and mechinations of Rambo (though, despite my willingness to talk them up at a classy art theater, I've never seen any of the Rambo series. I am weirdly interested in the new one coming out at the end of January because there's something about an elderly Stallone going around killing people indiscriminately that I find hilarious). The movie is good without really doing much for me; though it's well-acted and well-made, it doesn't have a whole lot of surprises up its sleeve, especially if you know the basics of the real-life guy's story (writing his memoir using a system of blinks while suffering from "locked-in syndrome"). The cinematography, by Spielberg's regular guy since Schindler's List, is effective, especially during lots of point-of-view shots and memories/fantasies.
Saturday was one more Christmas with Marisa's dad's side of the family, out on Long Island, where I played Guitar Hero for the first time. I get it now. Why people are addicted to it and stuff, I mean, not how to play well. I should note, though, that my interest varies wildly based on how much I like the songs at hand. Maybe that's true for everyone.
Today I came back to the city to take down Christmas stuff and then see The Farnsworth Invention with Alison, who received a pair of excellent (third-row center!) tickets as a gift and shared them with me, really for no good reason except she is awesome like that. Despite my frequent Sorkin-bashing, I was extremely interested in the play and, in turn, despite my constant attention to Sorkinisms in the dialogue (it's gone way beyond the rat-a-tat walk-and-talks for me; if you gave me a highlighter and a Sorkin script, I could go to town on his trademark exchange and joke constructions and you'd be forever distracted by it just as I am), I really liked it. It helps that rather than smugly passionate friends working against the forces of mediocrity, Farnsworth pits two visionary, passionate, idealistic people with very different goals against each other -- and, even better, only gives them direct conflict on the peripherary, as their actual physical paths don't cross much in the main narrative. They do get in some sniping as narrators; each tells bits of the other's story, a device I enjoyed, giving the play just enough back-and-forth without too much manufactured conflict.
All of this cuts down on my perception of Sorkin's self-image in the work; though I'm sure he sees a bit of himself in Farnsworth (Jimmi Simpson), the engineering genius who sort of invented television and I can hear some of his sermonizing in Sarnoff (Hank Azaria, excellent), the founder of NBC (there's no mention of the Shinehart Wig Corporation), and eeeeven though Farnsworth is shown marrying a devoutly religious woman who loves him for his sweet genius despite their differences of opinion (sound familiar?), The Farnsworth Invention, by necessity of its roots in real life, is further out of Sorkin's head than that Studio 60 claptrap. Charlie Wilson's War is, too, but Farnsworth feels a lot less minor. It actually reminded me a bit of last year's excellent film The Prestige; the intersections of technology and entertainment and obsession are there, even if it can veer into painfully earnest territory that the more sinister Prestige studiously avoided. Maybe Sorkin should stick to this theater thing for awhile.
Saturday was one more Christmas with Marisa's dad's side of the family, out on Long Island, where I played Guitar Hero for the first time. I get it now. Why people are addicted to it and stuff, I mean, not how to play well. I should note, though, that my interest varies wildly based on how much I like the songs at hand. Maybe that's true for everyone.
Today I came back to the city to take down Christmas stuff and then see The Farnsworth Invention with Alison, who received a pair of excellent (third-row center!) tickets as a gift and shared them with me, really for no good reason except she is awesome like that. Despite my frequent Sorkin-bashing, I was extremely interested in the play and, in turn, despite my constant attention to Sorkinisms in the dialogue (it's gone way beyond the rat-a-tat walk-and-talks for me; if you gave me a highlighter and a Sorkin script, I could go to town on his trademark exchange and joke constructions and you'd be forever distracted by it just as I am), I really liked it. It helps that rather than smugly passionate friends working against the forces of mediocrity, Farnsworth pits two visionary, passionate, idealistic people with very different goals against each other -- and, even better, only gives them direct conflict on the peripherary, as their actual physical paths don't cross much in the main narrative. They do get in some sniping as narrators; each tells bits of the other's story, a device I enjoyed, giving the play just enough back-and-forth without too much manufactured conflict.
All of this cuts down on my perception of Sorkin's self-image in the work; though I'm sure he sees a bit of himself in Farnsworth (Jimmi Simpson), the engineering genius who sort of invented television and I can hear some of his sermonizing in Sarnoff (Hank Azaria, excellent), the founder of NBC (there's no mention of the Shinehart Wig Corporation), and eeeeven though Farnsworth is shown marrying a devoutly religious woman who loves him for his sweet genius despite their differences of opinion (sound familiar?), The Farnsworth Invention, by necessity of its roots in real life, is further out of Sorkin's head than that Studio 60 claptrap. Charlie Wilson's War is, too, but Farnsworth feels a lot less minor. It actually reminded me a bit of last year's excellent film The Prestige; the intersections of technology and entertainment and obsession are there, even if it can veer into painfully earnest territory that the more sinister Prestige studiously avoided. Maybe Sorkin should stick to this theater thing for awhile.