Do I wake or sleep?

Paging my inner junior-high girl (didn't we ALL love this one?), I watched that classic '70s tearjerker Ice Castles last night. The DVD is pretty bare bones with no real extras--no commentary track! Inexcusable! It's not as though Lynn-Holly Johnson and Robbie Benson have been tearing up Hollywood lately; why didn't the issuers of the DVD get them to do commentary? *Pout*

As Lifetime-y as the plot is (rising skating star gets in horrible accident, goes blind...will she skate again???), it holds up quite well in some ways. For one thing, *most* of the cast is excellent--Tom Skerritt, Colleen Dewhurst and especially Jennifer Warren are all kick-ass, much better than you'd expect in this kind of movie. Robbie Benson was--okay. I dunno, he never did it for me although he was quite good-looking. Lynn-Holly Johnson does about as well as you'd expect for a skater-turned-actress--she's not exactly exciting but she is quite pretty and in the early scenes when her main duty is to smile and skate, she's fine. The main problem lies in how her role is written--Lexie is so boring most of the time! There are so many scenes where someone else is determining what's going to happen to her--at least two scenes where someone else argues about what she's going to do, while she's right there, saying little or nothing. The role is really infantilized--she calls her father "Daddy," she's always being carried somewhere, and looks timid and scared for much of the movie; for some reason, I remembered Lexie as having much more spunk. Especially nauseating is the final sequence when she skates at the Nationals--it's her first time competing since the accident and the audience and judges don't know she's blind. There's this agonizingly long wait before she actually, y'know, skates--it is fucking endless, she kisses Robbie Benson, she kisses her dad, she says "Daddy?...thank you for being my daddy" (VOMIT) she waits on the ice, and then breathily whispers "this one's for my mom..." I enjoy a gooey movie as much as anyone, but after awhile it's like "stop the hanky circle jerk and make something happen!"

What redeems Johnson's performance, and basically the movie, is her skating, which really is lovely. I can only speculate on why she wasn't more successful as an amateur skater--maybe her difficulty wasn't high enough--but she looks fantastic in the skating sequences. The cinematography is great as well, not just with the gorgeous outdoor scenes with frost and snow in the forest and on the lake, but also on the rink--some really cool camera work there that whoever shot the skating sequence in Flashdance obviously ripped off! There are some nice touches from the director as well, like when Lexie leaves the hotel reception after her win at regionals to skate on the hotel rink and all the guests, her coach and sponsors and other people, all notice and fall silent and watch her. The opening sequence is lovely as well--the credits are running against her skating by herself on a pond, just kicking it by herself.

It should also be seen for the sheer '70-ness--almost every other girl in the movie has a big old Dorothy Hamill haircut. I'm not sure if they were actually emulating the Hamill (who still rocks after all these years, she has held up very well) or if the designer just wanted to set Lexie apart from the other girls, and make her seem more adorably homespun. The coach also has this very-late-'70s hairdo as well, with the long hair pulled back into a loose bun (paging Norma Rae). Also, there are some skating routines set to awesome disco music, like "A Fifth of Beethoven." Disco skating! God, I miss the '70s--I remember skating at the Village House Skating Rink in Falls Church (every Friday night in 6th grade) with that glitter ball. Memories....

I watched the DVD yesterday. Really great movie--the scriptwriter did a hell of a job making a screenplay out of an essentially non-narrative piece. I liked pretty much all of the acting (except for Donal Logue--he brings the funny in the VH1 pop commentary pieces like I Love the '80s but he always seems forced when he has to play dramatic. He's in the pilot of The X-Files--he's the guy who has lunch with Scully and warns her about working with Spooky Mulder--and was bad in that as well). Matthew Modine in particular is amazing--very understated but powerful performance. His instincts were dead-on--don't play the horror, react to it (especially since he's playing a character so concerned with facts and science). IOW, the situation will be spelled out for us--don't take on that job as an actor, don't tell us how bad things are. Trust that your audience will get it from the larger context and react to it. (The one time he did lose it was when he yelled at the blood bank people about "tell us how many deaths are acceptable so we don't annoy you until the amount of money you start losing on lawsuits makes it profitable for you to save people than to kill them!..."--very effective.)

I would've liked more imaginative directorial touches--I LOVED that bit at the Castro Street Halloween parade when the Michael Bennett character looks down and sees Death marching along. Another good scene was when one of the patients is being interviewed in his hospital room by Ronnie Masur (I think?) and he's quietly losing it. And then he shuffles to the window, the camera swings around....and outside his window are endless tombstones. WOW.

More thoughts:

I've always loved the title but it didn't hit me until recently what the title meant. It's a reference to the band on the Titanic, who played on the deck to help keep the passengers calm. And every one of them died.

Robert Gallo does not come off well at all--I wonder if he sued?

Alan Alda is so good at playing assholes. He's like Richard Dreyfus that way--it's as though those roles bring out the best in them (as actors).

Anacronism: Gaeton Dugas says he's a flight attendant--I'm pretty sure at that time, they called themselves stewards/stewardesses. The term had started to change sometime in the early-to-mid '80s--I remember in the movie Airplane! at one point you hear a passenger offscreen call for Elaine "Oh stewardess..." But I guess it's possible Dugas could've been on the forefront of that trend, since he was in the industry.

Photos of people portrayed in ATBPO.

Very effective how they keep updating each scene with the number of cases, and the number of deaths. This is what I mean about don't emphasize the horror too much, don't overplay it--just present the facts, they're horrifying enough.

I wish they'd had names for the photo montage at the end--it was also confusing since it included people who didn't die of AIDS, but were active in the fight against it (like Elizabeth Taylor and Diana, POW).

So I'm watching Eight Men Out right now. The second half is better than the first, which is an interminable procession of conspiracy scenes with shady gamblers, etc. (but the dramaturgy is impressive). The second half is better but it's still an unwieldy story with a ton of characters to keep track of. But I did came away with a few thoughts:

Joe Jackson and Bucky Weaver were shafted.

Kennesaw Landis sounds like a first class, self-righteous prick. A lifetime ban after they were acquitted, based on rules he pulled out of his ass? Jerk.

I can't decide which is worse--the old era, where the players were so poorly paid, they were ripe to throw the Series, or this one, where arrogant overpaid assholes have no loyalty to the hometown for which they play, and go to the highest bidder every few years. Can't there be a happy medium?

Ty Cobb should be in this movie. I know he was a flaming jerk, but he was my favorite vintage player when I played Little League.

OMG! The last scene has Shoeless Joe playing in Hoboken!!

I just puttered around the apartment last night, taking care of a bunch of little things like cleaning Tatia's teeth (she was quite the drama grand duchess about it), trying on dresses for the Spotlight On affair this Saturday, watching all the extras on the Friday Night Lights DVD. The commentary was interesting; the director and the author of the original book did the commentary, and they happen to be cousins. They were both quite funny and articulate and very willing to poke fun at themselves. As I'd said before, the story really shuts out the girls' 2nd-class participation in the system--it hardly shows them at all, and the one girl you remember is the girl who boinks the QB at the party and then swans off. Interestingly both commentators would tease each other about how girl-crazy the other was--they both loved the boinker (who did a great job with the two scenes she had, as much as you could with such a crappy role), and they laughed about how the editor kept cutting to the Carter cheerleaders in the final game. Yeah, they're girl-crazy but they give the girls less-than-short-shrift in the movie. It would've been nice if they'd focused less on the short skirts and at least hinted at their actual story.

I also started to watch an old documentary series about Judaism and civilization (another Netflix DVD). Very interesting--I didn't know that Saul was the first Jewish king. Watched some Real World as well--haven't been able to watch much TV because of Midsummer, it's been nice just relaxing this week, although I've been sleeping through the alarm in the morning. Thank goodness my banker is out of the country this week.

So I decided on a darling little black dress for the Spotlight On dinner. It is very short--I modeled it for Doug via webcam and he wrote "holy jesus thats short." It's a tank dress--no cleavage up top, not tight, sleeveless, and a belted A-line skirt. Haven't decided yet what shoes to wear, because I'm still thinking about accessories. As they say, accessories make the woman.

My current temp assignment will be ending soon--although I'll miss the money, it's a lot of stress, and I'd like a day off every now and then. I have some ideas percolating--I've been trying to work on some poems and have had little free time, and last night I came up with a neat idea for an adaptation of Macbeth that I'd like to work on. But I haven't had time. Soon.

I caught up on some of my Netflix DVDs last night--I watched a disc of The Greatest American Hero which included the pilot episode for the attempted spinoff, The Greatest American Heroine. I've never seen this episode, and only found out about it recently. WEIRD. First, it was filmed three years after they'd canceled the original series, and William Katt and Robert Culp show every bit of that three years. Culp's hair is white, for God's sake. The idea is that Ralph get outed by the government and has to give up the suit, so he finds a new person--this younger woman who is OVER THE TOP tree-hugging, animal-loving, "one nuke can ruin your whole day" hippy-dippy liberal. The best part of the episode is the first 20 minutes (before we meet her), especially when Ralph and Pam say goodbye to Bill, who stays on to train the new person. He's great as always, as are Ralph and Pam, but the new person is pretty damn annoying. And her HAIR--oh my God, the '80s just came moonwalking back. She has the bangs from hell--curly, poofy, big ass hair. She's quite pretty but her character is cringe-inducing.

I also watched a documentary called Before Stonewall, about the nascent gay community before the Stonewall riots. It was filmed in 1984--I would like to see when the followup, After Stonewall was filmed, because 1984 was Ground Zero for gay history because AIDS was about to hit the fan of mainstream consciousness. Surely they filmed the sequel at least 10 years later?

My throat hurts. I went to the doctor last week but she said it was a virus, not strep or anything. *Sigh.*

Tired. I actually went to bed at a reasonable hour but after falling asleep for 20 minutes, I jerked awake and then had a difficult time getting back to sleep (not least because Tatia draped herself across my back and neck, purring madly, and then kneaded my hair with her kitten-claws. Then she played steppy cat for awhile and eventually flopped against my face, still purring wildly. Yeah. It's hard to sleep through that).

I don't think I'll go to trivia tonight--I hate slogging through the rain and I'm going out for the next three nights. I need to go to bed early tonight. I'll hang out at my cozy apartment and watch Holiday Inn or White Christmas.

Rehearsal last night went well. I am pretty much completely off-book which is helping the second Juliet scene ("The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse..."). I can immerse myself into what I'm saying so much better. The last scene feels great.

Rehearsal last night went better than I thought, although there were three people waiting for me when I got home *sigh*. I taped A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Simple Life, The Real World Paris Reunion and Rich Girls. All my crap TV (with the exception of CB Xmas) all at once, and watched it all after everyone had left. So I got to bed kind of late, and then of course got called in to work this morning. The desk where I'm sitting is a huge mess--it's very difficult to find anything here and I keep knocking piles over. But at least the guy for whom I'm working is nice.

After all that I ended up ordering the Charlie Brown 3-disk Holiday DVD (with Xmas, Thanksgiving and Great Pumpkin) and the DVD for Shakespeare in Love. Cannot wait. They should arrive next week.

Got up very late today, around 12:45. Interesting because I actually went to bed around 1:00 last night so I must've been very tired. I just hope I can fall asleep tonight because I have to be up early tomorrow for the rest of "The Promise" shoot. (And of course I have to look all hot and frisky for Mark. Even if he's taken--which hasn't been established--there's no harm in looking good, n'est-ce pas? God, there's something about a redheaded man...Love the red hair. Love it.) I'd like to see Bend It Like Beckham but again with the schedule...

I rented 8 Mile the other night per Jordan's recommendation. A bit cliched but an interesting look into this truly dreary environment and existence. Much like Flashdance and Rocky. Dreary environment, trying to reach your dreams. Obligatory love subplot which fleshes out the story. I will say, as predictable as it was, I loved the battle at the end. And I loved the theatricality of it all--the posturing, the gestures. Interesting. Fuck Free World, 313, fuck Free World, 313... [OT]What is the hip hop obsession with area codes? Ruben on American Idol does the same thing with those damn 205 jerseys.[/OT]