Working in a corporate job always results in making lots of comments about what day of the week it is. For the most part there’s not much to say, but still wanting to be polite I hear myself week after week robotically intone “Oh you know, it’s a Monday.” or “So glad it’s Friday!” or “At least it’s Thursday, we’re almost to Friday.” Until suddenly you realize you have been repeating these lines for years, and honestly you don’t even give a shit what the hell day it is anymore, you just want to say something meaningful and intelligent without even mentioning how far away the weekend is.
Still today feels very much like a Monday, a slow slog into the beginning of the week. The new meds I’m taking have me groggy and dizzy and nauseous, but hopefully in a few days that will all go away once my body adjusts. Sometimes I think they just want to give us pills to make us physically miserable, so as to distract from that yawning pit of despair hovering ever below the surface.
But I want this blog to be about what I hear all day long, things that never mention what day of the week it is, or whether it might rain later.
Filmspotting this week was OK. They talked about a movie called “Ruby Sparks” starring Paul Dano and directed by the same team who made “Little Miss Sunshine” a movie I consider imperfect but joyful. I would love to go see “Ruby Sparks”, but lately I’ve been a slacker about seeing movies in theaters. I dearly wanted to see Prometheus, Moonrise Kingdom, The Dark Knight Rises, Safety Not Guaranteed…and some others. But somehow I can’t seem to find good times to visit the theater. So “Ruby Sparks” may have to wait for DVD, but the Filmspotting top five list this week was one I could not resist. Top five movies about writers! Of course I’m in.
Some movies that will not be included: I have not yet seen “The Raven” with John Cusack, and started but did not finish “Author! Author!” will Al Pacino. I never saw “Sylivia” but heard it was an abomination. I also have never seen “Barton Fink”, but I’m picky about my Coen brothers movies so my guess is I would either love it or hate it. Breakfast of Champions is a movie which I would consider about a writer, but I’ve not seen the movie and only read the book. As it’s one of my favorite books of all time, I just had to mention it here. I also should mention “Misery” as it is an excellent movie about a writer and probably should be on this list, but I ran shrieking from the room one too many times during my viewing to include it. There’s also “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” but that seems to be more about Hunter S. Thompson being nuts than about him writing anything. There’s also “The Hours” which I enjoyed way more than I thought I would, but I still felt was a bit over ambitious and fell a little too short of what it was gunning for to make this list. “Adaptation”, as much as I love it, just feels too obvious and although I’ve gotten over my initial resentment of the film (I felt it was sooo manipulative) it still tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth at the end.
My list isn’t of five, but of eight because I can do that and here they are:
1. Stranger than Fiction: I love this movie’s points about characters and about the worlds we build as writers. Will Ferrell is excellent in it (and if you liked him in this more serious role, I recommend “Everything Must Go” a movie I saw recently and was quite impressed with. It takes its concept from a Raymond Carver short story, and though is mostly radically different from the story itself, the tone is there and Ferrell gives a performance that would fit right into Carver’s world perfectly. It’s on Netflix watch instantly) Back on track, “Stranger than Fiction” is a strange, unexpectedly good film. Emma Thompson is exceptional in it, I feel stealing the show from Ferrell. It’s also second in my top favorite uses of voice over.
2. Sideways: Paul Giamatti is obsessed with wine and struggling to finish his novel in this Alexander Payne masterpiece. Yes I called it a masterpiece. This film to me is near perfection, and I won’t go on babbling about it, I will spare you that.
3. Midnight in Paris: I first saw this on a plane and the people around me were taken aback at my excited squealing. As Owen Wilson (also a struggling writer) gets transported into the Paris of the 1920s and starts meeting all his literary heroes, I felt like I was meeting mine as well. I squealed like a Justin Bieber fan when Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway came onto the screen. He was my favorite part, and also I just looked him up and he graduated from Oberlin! I feel so close to him now. In any case, not to digress, this movie is my Favorite Woody Allen Movie (caps because it is a bold statement). And the way the worlds are woven together, and how well the struggle to make art is portrayed, it is just incredible.
4. Zodiac: Yes it’s about a serial killer, which sort of distracts from the writing element, but I think this movie has a lot to do with writing and the effect it has on the public at large. David Fincher’s exhaustive account of the police and press investigation into this Zodiac killer is based on a book written by the Jake Gyllenhal character of the movie. It’s Gyllenhall’s character’s desperate desire to methodically record and organize all the events of the years long killing spree that drives the movie. There’s also the elements of the Zodiac’s mocking letters to the press, and the response of the public to these letter and coverage of the story. I think it’s a movie about recording actual events in an attempt to make some sort of sense of the nonsensical, which is often a big part of what writing is about.
5. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil:Fantastic performances by John Cusack and Kevin Spacey, an intriguing story, and eerie set pieces make this movie one of my favorites. John Cusack plays a writer called to Savannah to write a piece covering a simple Christmas Party, but when trouble strikes he stays on to try to put some pieces together that just aren’t adding up. I particularly find the ending of this movie haunting and it sticks with you. If you ever want to see it just go to a bar in Savannah, it plays on a loop in many of them.
6. 1408: Another John Cusack as writer movie, and still with eerie set pieces, but a completely different movie than “Midnight”. Based on a Stephen King short story, there are a lot of elements of straight up horror that come out in predictable ways, but still there is a soft spot in my heart for this movie. It again employs our running theme of a writer trying to come to terms with something incomprehensible by recording it methodically… and here we have also a rather poignant layer of Cusack coming to terms with a past grief, all thrown in among the crazy haunting stuff which made me hide underneath my movie chair. I really enjoyed this film.
7. The Trip:A movie I saw recently with Steve Koogan and Rob Brydon playing themselves. Koogan is setting out to write a travel piece on Britain’s various fancy restaurants, and due to his failing relationship with his girlfriend, Brydon comes along instead of her. They drive each other nuts and Koogan attempts to make the trip strictly about his writing and the visits to the restaurants, but it fast becomes about much much more than that as Koogan is jostled from his many denials and is forced to address issues he would rather not. A quiet but funny movie that I found very touching.
8. I Capture the Castle:A decent adaptation of my favorite book in the whole world. I suppose you should describe it as a coming of age story, but I hate that term, so let’s just say it’s about a girl trying to deal with the reality of her unique life living in a castle in the english countryside by keeping a detailed journal of what is happening around her. Her own father was once a famous writer but has succumbed to writer’s block and depression, leaving the family broke and desperate. Cassandra records the going ons around her with sharp wit and perception. It is a beautiful and sad book who’s ending I have copied out long hand in awe at many tough points in my life… and the movie is pretty good too. But read the book first. Really. It’s my favorite.
Well the dizziness is starting to fade. And I hope this post wasn’t too long. May the force be with you all.
Out Loud Writing 