fine whine

As another aside to yesterday's Straight story story, Harry Dean Stanton, who played Alvin's brother Lyle in the film, is still alive and acting. He just finished a small role in the Wilson Brothers' The Wendell Baker story, which looks to be perhaps a pretty decent film.

Owen Wilson is probably the best-known brother, and I just saw him in that travesty known as Starsky & Hutch. Actually to call that remake a 'travesty' is akin to calling being beaten to death with one's own brutally amputated leg a 'flesh wound'.

Not that I'm bitter or anything. I'm no longtime fan of the show, having first seen any of it in March of this year. The first season DVD set was a nice introduction to a show that deserves more respect. Certainly more than is given it in the movie that recasts Starsky and Hutch as buddy-movie stereotypes and tries to inject in-jokey humor that was probably a blast for the actors but only drags a bad movie even more for the rest of us. To have made the partners a laughingstock in the movie world is a fitting finishing touch on what the filmmakers did for the whole project in the real world. As for Vince Vaughn, woo hoo for him and the whole bat mitzvah thing. At the movie's release, much was made of him playing the part as such (for reasons better left unknown) but to me he's just playing the same part he's played before in, oh, Swingers, Made, and Old school. Nothing to see here, folks, keep moving.

For another re-hash (I expect a 'remake' to stay closer to the source material) we go next to the straight-to-DVD Ripley's game. It's somewhat based on the same Patricia Highsmith novel that spawned Wim Wenders's The American friend (with Dennis Hopper), but this time around Tom Ripley's been reimagined as much older and a fair bit more sophisticated. This also has little to do with Anthony Minghella's The talented Mr. Ripley, its roots lie in a different Highsmith novel. Back to Ripley's game, we have not Dennis Hopper nor Matt Damon but John Malkovich in the titular role. He does pretty well in a role that seems well suited to him, having played everything from an addlepated moron (Of mice and men) to an evil genius (almost everything else). The movie is a bit slow and a bit sad but is worth picking up if it's on the library shelf, for Malkovich and Highsmith fans if nobody else. I've checked out the novels but haven't slogged through them yet.

Third in the sort-of trifecta of remakes, rehashings or re-imaginings is the 1999 Dark Castle House on haunted hill. I'd seen it a couple years ago and wasn't too impressed (or scared), but having seen it on the shelf at the local entertainment resale shop for under three bucks I decided that the few noteworthy scenes were noteworthy enough to part with less money than it would've cost to rent the disc.

I'd like to plug said resale shop, as I like it and would like them to stick around for a while. It's called Buyback, and can be found at the intersection of Cleveland Avenue and Dublin-Granville (161). The store's something of an experiment by the CD Warehouse people, but the prices are more resonable (if not quite rational, as some discs are marked at $1.51 or $0.01 or $2.43 or $7.52 and others at $9.99 and so on). If you're in the area, certainly drop in and buy something.

Back to the film, though, I'm not so willing to recommend it as readily. I've mentioned it before as a movie with a couple interesting moments and having re-watched it, stand by my opinion then. Watching it again, even with the commentary, didn't add much to my opinion of the film. But I did re-watch it recently, and it seemed to fit well with what I am writing. Let me know if you want to borrow it, by the way.

Linking House on haunted hill to X-men (1.5), another film I've previously seen but not mentioned before, is Famke Janssen. I'd seen this in the theater on first-run with some buddies, but not Jessica. This time I brought it thinking that she'd like it, and she at least paid attention to it. I'll let her weigh in with a comment, hint hint. We'll watch the sequel soon enough, I suspect, as I am number one on the reserve list for it at the library. As for me, I think it's a pretty decent movie, going in with little knowledge of the universe as I did. I'm not among the fanboys who demanded more naked blue woman screen time, either. Frankly I thought Mystique looked somewhat nasty.

I don't know of any way to link X-men with Jim Jarmusch's Ghost dog: the way of the samurai (and I'm not going to try) other than that I enjoyed both. Ghost dog is a better film, though in nowhere the same league, action-wise, despite its subject matter. The most recent Forest Whitaker movie I'd watched was David Fincher's Panic room (which cost me $1.86 at Buyback) and I'd like to track down more of his work if these two films are any indication of his capabilities. He carries Ghost dog effortlessly, and for that matter everybody gives a good turn, particularly the stage actors playing mobsters. The little touches really add to the film, whether it be the boss's favorite cartoons or the delightfully repetitive conversations between Ghost dog and his French-speaking, ice-cream selling best friend. Neither understands the other's language, but both end up at the same conversation one way or another. I've reserved the soundtrack from the library hoping to get more of the score than the actual songs, but overall the beats and whatnot were rather quite appropriate, or at least not too distracting. This is a movie well worth watching.

Not so worth watching was Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. I guess I wasn't paying enough attention, as I didn't notice that it was done as a near-seamless realtime composition. To me it was just long and relatively dull. It struck me a play on screen, down to the small set and obviously fake backdrop. For all I know this was Al's aim in the first place, but it made for a disappointing movie. He's capable of far better, and in all optimism I can only hope that he was able to leverage what he learned in making Rope to the making of his other better films. Jimmy Stewart was all but wasted as the only actor I recognized. Skip it.

I tried to watch The deer hunter but only made it through the first two hours. It just wasn't my cup of tea at the time, but since I've only got about one hour left of it to watch it shouldn't be too tough for me to finish some other time.

And not too long ago I watched Levity with Billy Bob Thornton and Kirsten Dunst, but I don't have enough to say about it at the moment to write a sentence not beginning with 'and', let alone an entire paragraph. Sorry.

And in other movie news, Altman's Secret honor, a little film starring Philip Baker Hall as Nixon, is being released as a Criterion Collection DVD. This means that I can stop chasing the laserdisc of it on ebay.

Tuesday's trip to NYC caught me by surprise, as I had mentioned, and I ended up needing to return a couple DVDs to the library unwatched as a result. I realized about five minutes after leaving the house that day that I should have grabbed my portable DVD player and a couple of those movies for my two two-hour flights, but alas, we cannot change the past.

We can, however, make it more dramatic or interesting by adding wide angle shots and a score by Angelo Badalamenti. At least that's what David Lynch did with The Straight story, the "true story" of an old guy who drove a John Deere riding mower from Iowa to Wisconsin in 1994 to see his estranged brother Lyle. The discrepancies between the film and the reality begin with the previous sentence, as Alan's brother's name was in fact Henry, not Lyle.

I've done a little bit of research, you see. I'd planned on writing a brief recap of several movies I'd watched lately today, but I instead will publish that material tomorrow and today will focus on Mr. Straight and his story.

Alvin Straight was born October 17, 1920, in Minnesota and died November 9, 1996 in Iowa. In between those dates he led a full life, as a soldier, farmer, laborer and more. He married twice and had seven children, though it is unclear whether any of them had the sort of developmental problems that Sissy Spacek portrayed in the film. I suspect not, but have nothing on which to base my doubts other than Hollywood's common desire to augment reality to attract more sympathy and heartwarmth. But I might just be jaded, taking out my lack of admiration for Sissy Spacek out on her character and its place in the film (I never got on the Carrie bandwagon, but haven't yet seen Badlands to really make a judgment on her abilities). His second wife Betty remained at home in Laurens, Iowa, not some mentally-addled daughter. It was she who sent him his Social Security check when he ran out of money in Charles City.

They divorced not long after his return from spending several weeks visiting Henry in Blue River, Wisconsin. Though he intended to return home on a replacement John Deere riding mower (donated by a Texas dealer whom I will mention more later) his nephew Dayne took him home in a pickup on a day off from his job at the cheese factory, reducing what would've been a six week drive into about a six hour one.

This was not to be the last time he was driven back to Iowa in a pickup. In July of 1995 he set out west to visit some other relatives in Idaho, but made it only as far as Pine Ridge, South Dakota before a breakdown. A local minister drove him and his ailing lawnmower, heart and circulatory system back, a 250-mile return trip. He'd likely been driving a brand-new John Deere mower given to him by Paul J. Condit, chairman, president and head honcho of Seminole, Texas farm supply company Texas Equipment Corporation. Paul swapped him the new mower for Straight's 1966 model and supposedly displays it at his dealership (1305 Hobbs Highway, Seminole TX 79360. Give 'em a call at 915-758-3643 to make sure it's still there before making the trek).

I figured it would take me about two days to drive there in my Galant if I drove the 22-hour trip stopping only somewhere in Missouri for the night. If the mower's still there it would take me at least thirty days if I kept up Alvin's 8-10 hours of 5 mph "top speed", or over thirty weeks if I matched his 240-miles-in-six-weeks average (though he did stop for a while to get his Social Security check) on his first Deere. That said, I don't know if Paul and company would part with it. They did have some financial difficulties in 2001 and likely then lost their official John Deere status during those Chapter 11 proceedings, which might be why they don't appear in the johndeere.com dealer locator. They'd probably want to keep the mower anyway. I'm guessing the $5000 retail value of the mower they gave Alvin wasn't what pushed them over the edge into bankruptcy.

A couple other details different from the movie: Straight's mower did break down not far from Iowa, but the repairs in West Bend did cost him $250. There was no word whether twins worked on the mower. He camped out (to wait out his check) in Charles City, ninety miles further. The movie combined these two events, possibly in an effort to keep it around two hours. Nothing anywhere indicated whether he did, in fact, pick up a hitchhiker and have a touching conversation about family, nor did anywhere indicate his campfire food preferences. His journey began July 5th and ended August 15th of 1994.

One preliminary film contract had his payment as $10,000 plus 10% of the profits. He turned down all television appearance offers (and didn't really like Jay Leno's show, he said).

His brother Henry was seven years older, and both of them had lost their licenses due to deteriorating eyesight.

Richard Farnsworth, who portrayed him in the film, had health problems of his own. In cancerous pain, he shot himself in October of 2000. There is no indication that his Best Actor Oscar loss to Kevin Spacey for American beauty had anything to do with his suicide.

On another film related note, I felt that Angelo Badalamenti's fiddle-driven score was somewhat off-putting. ANGelo BAdalamenti. BaDAlamenti. BadaLAmenti. BadalaMENti. BadalamenTI. What a fun name to say! I suspect it will be bouncing around in my head. Oddly enough, I can assign musical notes to it, say E-D-C E-D-E-F-E in the key of C major. Of course considering his track record (Christmas vacation) perhaps a minor key would be more appropriate.

Please realize that that previous paragraph was just a mental meandering and had absolutely no point. This whole endeavor is my brain dump, after all. If something I write happens to amuse or interest you, it's just a side effect.

As for my sources, I'm not listing them. If you really want to check my work, search Google and Lexis Nexis. That's what I did.

Yesterday I got out of bed at six in the morning. I left the house around six thirty, and didn't get home until a little after eleven at night. I'm a little tired. The stewardess on the return flight was making sure to keep us all happy by keeping a cupful of beer or booze in front of us for the whole flight. I was more than willing to oblige her.

After all, they say that flying causes dehydration.

Come to think of it, my morning flight was also rather fluid, with the stewardess refilling my water twice and bringing me an extra apple juice.

I wasn't doing so well in the morning. I'd asked the stewardess for a water with ice so that I could put the ice into my water bottle, but she kept refilling my cup with warm water so as to melt my ice. Darnit.

Then, what little ice remained got spilled by some clumsy oaf with his knees up against the back of the seat knocking the tray table.

Yeah, I spilled the ice and about a centimeter of water all over my pants and backpack. And then I went back to reading Koji Suzuki's Spiral. This book (in translated form, as my efforts to learn Japanese have yet to advance past the book-buying stage) is the sequel to the novel Ring which was made into Ringu and remade as The Ring (about which I have written before). Spiral is the sequel to the book, not either movie, so it plays out a lot differently than it would've having followed the movie, unlike say a Lost worldesque sequel-to-the-movie-not-the-book book. For example, the reporter remains a guy and the whole smallpox thing remains.

The book picks up about a week or so after Ring ended, though this time around we follow Ando the medical examiner, not Asakawa the reporter. That shift alone seems enough to change the book from a somewhat tense thriller to more of a Michael Crichton medical/science detective yarn complete with diagrams and high-level studies of genetics and cryptography. Those aforementioned intellectual bits aren't that uninteresting and fit well into the story, but they lend a (perhaps intended) clinical and cold air to the proceedings.

It also gets a little ridiculous in the latter half to third. I realize I'm talking about a book that follows one about a videotape capable of killing people, but Spiral pushes things a little far (though I'm not going to spoil it for the, what, one other person who wants to read it). That said, as soon as it hits the library, Loop will be in my reserve list, if for no other reason for me to see if Suzuki manages to get the world back to some semblance of sense before bowing out of the trilogy.

The book took me from a couple minutes before the flight (in waiting rooms and gate) to a couple minutes afterward to polish off the epilogue, so about two hours solid to read. Unfortunately this left me with only my backup book, Screenwriting from the heart (by James Ryan, highly-acclaimed for writing movies and plays of which I've never heard) for the return trip and that is a much smaller, yet more dense, book to slog through. Not good, not good.

In retrospect, I probably would've done better to grab a grey-market copy of The Da Vinci code or some such easily-acquired tripe from a street vendor. At least then when I fell asleep in the Teterboro waiting room I would have had a "normal" book clutched in my hands.

As it was, when I did in fact nod off in New Jersey it was with James Ryan's attack on films that were not created with the characters first, or something like that. He sounded like an angry guy embittered by countless movies created with a plot or contrivance first and then with characters added to allow for actors and actresses onscreen. I agree with him a little bit, but I also acknowledge that there are some classic plot-driven movies out there, and also that movies light on character can still be full of enjoyment.

'Twas an interesting book to be reading whilst swilling beers at high altitudes, though I don't think I gained much insight into my own (eventual) screenwriting. Namely since every plot I've pursued started first with a plot or a contrivance and only then got characters yoked to it. Oops.

I'm sitting in the waiting room of a small private airline in New Jersey. The company that employs me spent at least five hundred bucks (on paper) to fly me up to NYC today for a three hour meeting that started late and turned into a two hour meeting, into which I contributed a couple comments and as many nods and grunts.

I'm really only here because my boss is in Hong Kong. The guy upstairs (in the building sense, not the religion sense) who set the meeting up really values her input (namely I think because she's not afraid to disagree with him) so I guess he took me instead. I can only hope that I did okay.

I only found out yesterday I was supposed to be coming here, and even then I reserved my enthusiasm until the whole thin was approved by all the powers that be--except that in doing so I never got around to getting excited at all. Whoops. Jessica thought that it was pretty cool, when I told her, but to me it was just going to be another meeting.

Sure, I'd only driven through or flown over NYC, and sure, it's a really neat place, but this trip didn't bode well. Its purpose was vague and my potential contributions even more so.

I have often joked about getting "low man on the totem pole" emblazoned on my business cards... if they ever get around to giving me business cards. I won't even be able to complain about not having traveled anymore, as though this trip were somethign about which to write home.

I'm just tired, and it doesn't look like I going to get home anytime soon. The stewardess just came in, though, and she brought some stuff off the plane. Maybe I'm looking at some dinner here. More tomorrow.

When my little sister was, well, more little, she used to like to repeat a line from a movie. I think it's from a Laurel & Hardy picture, when Laurel says the only thing he ever says, "I have nothing to say."

You know, it fits.

I don't like to fail.

I mean, nobody does, but still it bugs me, a lot.

Today's failure was in trying to install a screen door. The one we have now sticks and doesn't close very smoothly. Moreover the plastic clips that hold the glass or screen in break easily.

So when our neighbor offered us a brand new screen door, we mulled it over and took it.

Oh, the humanity! Of course I measured it first, and it seemed like it would fit.

Well, the door's about 3/8" smaller than the existing one. That in itself probably isn't a problem, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The side "Z-bars" are too tall for my opening, so I needed a hacksaw to trim them down. Scott said he had one, and he happened to be dropping by today to pick up a pair of two-person passes to a screening of Princess diaries II: Electric boogaloo that Jessica and I managed to score at a recent neighborhood picnic.

I expect a full report, Scott. And sorry, Carina for borrowing Andrew Bird for so long.

Andrew Bird, for the uninitiated, is a really cool D-I-Y musician who does it all himself. The album was well-put-together but I guess I missed out on the whole bit of his live show.

Enter the newly-expanded Internet Archive, with its audio stuff. Check out IA's collection of his shows. It's worth checking out.

Myself, I'm digging the M. Doughty stuff.

But back to the door stuff. I cut the frame to fit, with a Meijer hacksaw, and still just couldn't get things working. I spent another half hour reinstalling the old door, and then vegged out for the rest of the evening playing Burnout on the PS2. The game's pretty fun, especially for five bucks.

It sure beats reinstalling a stupid door.