Hangover F. Tompkins

I don't actually have a hangover. But I probably should. I sure drank a lot last night at the renaissance of The Paul F. Tompkins Show at Largo. It was cold and wet outside, so it was easy to seek comfort in glass after glass of Irish whiskey. I don't need excuses. I don't know why I should pretend to operate within the coolness of the shade they provide.

I was so (selfishly) glad to hear that Paul was bringing the show back. It was Martín's and my standing date the last Monday of every month for years. And then it ended in late 2006. After a period during which I had had to miss many of the shows anyway. So there has been a dearth of this tradition, and I'm terribly pleased to revive it. I've gotten to know so many people who work on and come to the show that it's like a reunion every time. And this one was all the more rewarding, as I've not seen many of these people since October of 2006. The most missed of which was Paul himself.

Have you ever had that feeling when you can't laugh hard enough? There is that scene in Scarface when the guy is about to get chopped up with a chainsaw, and his mouth is taped up, and you can see that behind the duct-taped silence, he's screaming as loud as he can. I don't know where that instinct comes from, but I do think that horrible things are altogether more horrible if you are robbed of your ability to let everyone nearby know it. That happens to me in dreams sometime. Also the thing where you can't run fast enough and you actually try and make yourself go faster by pulling on the edges of buildings. Like swimming. Anyway, my point is, sometimes I feel that way when something is so very funny, that I can't seem to get the relief(?) that laughing typically provides by merely laughing. This happens a lot at The Paul F. Tompkins Show.

Oh, my god. I almost accidentally watched Norbit. Crisis averted. Relief. Empire Strikes Back is halfway over but still. How are the whites of Yoda's eyes so white? No amount of Visine affords me that luxury for very long. It's dusk in Cloud City. What was I saying? Oh, right.

Sometimes Paul is so funny that I'm appalled at my inadequate ability to express amusement. Having expelled all the air in my lungs and heartily slapped my knees, having made eye contact with friends and established visually that we both think that was a good one -- it almost seems cruel for someone to be so funny that I'm left to evaluate my own impotence. But maybe this is more my problem than his.

Sometimes I think I like traditions. And sometimes I think I don't. Sometimes having a standing appointment with a good time feels like an oppressive obligation. And sometimes, saying such things makes a person sound like a sociopath. I remember having a standing appointment with The Paul F. Tompkins Show. And I'm glad it's back on the calendar. No matter how many Largo entrées I have to pretend I've eaten.

Labels: comedy, Paul F. Tompkins, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 4:41 PM | Back to Monoblog

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Anticipation in Disguise

I flipped off a poster of Optimus Prime the other day, and Rob wondered why. "Protect." "Destroy." I'm not sure the world is so binary. This comes from the Persians, you know. Ahura Mazda. Angra Mainyu. The Benevolent One. The Malevolent One. What about the other versions of the universe where bad guys and good guys coexist and are neither all good nor all evil. Where bad guys are sometimes good and good guys are sometimes bad, and there isn't one place that everyone of one kind goes. Like the Hindu gods. Or the Scandinavian gods. Or the Greeks and the Romans. The gods are just powerful. And sometimes they are reasonable. And sometimes they are right pricks. And sometimes they are playfully wicked. And sometimes they are deceptive and self-serving and cruel. Just like the rest of us. They just have the ability to appear to us as a bird and impregnate us if they want to.

This is one of the things that has often been unsatisfactory to me about comic book fiction and Star Wars and all of that. And maybe that's why most comic book heroes end up having an issue or two where they go bad. Maybe I'm not the only one who has trouble buying that the good guys are good because they have to be and therefore they can be nothing else. And maybe this is part of the reason I don't know whether I would be an Autobot or a Decepticon.

I haven't really been looking much forward to the new Transformers movie. I don't expect it to be any good, because of Michael Bay. And, also, I was never that much into Transformers, mostly because I was (and am) a girl. And I only really cared about a robot when at least part of it was being captained by a girl or -- even better -- a small child and when the girl or child and the robot all spoke Japanese. And even then, I only liked those shows because I lived in the Philippines, and we only got one English-speaking television station, and I would watch ANY cartoon that came on. Even Wait Till Your Father Gets Home.

So I haven't been counting down the days till transformation. Although, back in April, I was about to have dinner at Magnolia, and I took this picture of a Christo-esque wrap job promoting the Transformers movie on a building on Sunset.

And then, a day or two later, when it was windier than Los Angeles has any right to be, the entire business was in shreds, as documented by Rob's phone.





Special commendation for having a windshield that clean, Rob. My mom would be proud of you.

Anyway, I was in the gymnasium today, and I saw a commercial for the new Transformers movie, and I have to admit, a tiny, bitter, reluctant, unyielding part of me is mortified that I'm about to tell you that the commercial looked cool. But it did. And I am hopeful that it will be fun to look at it when I can hear people talking in the movie, too. Although I'm almost certain that will be the ruination part. Exciting visual effects shouldn't be enough to get people out of their houses. That shit is run of the mill at this point. You can see fabulous CGI in commercials for soft drinks these days. And wanting to recapture a piece of your youth shouldn't be reason enough, either. Because to be perfectly honest, with very few exceptions I prefer the cartoons I loved as cartoons. Even feature-length animated versions of those stories with the exact same character design and voice acting usually disappointed me. Can't we just love what we loved as it was and stop trying to put it on Burger King cups of the future?

That being said, I am about to embark on an attempt to adapt a novel (or two) from my adolescence into screen fodder. I never said I wasn't a hypocrite. I just said I don't like Michael Bay. And I stand by that.

Labels: movies, mythology, photos, Star Wars, Transformers

posted by Mary Forrest at 7:50 PM | Back to Monoblog

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Time Waits for No Man

A few weekends ago, I missed the Star Wars birthday. But I thought about it and watched a lot of zombies instead. And I began proving my hypothesis that bloody marys make time dilate on the weekends. As long as you drink them in the daytime, and as long as I'm the one who makes them.

I should have gone and bought those American flag cupcakes. They're always a hit.

The Jacaranda trees are in bloom, scattering their lavender blossoms over everything that lines the streets, leaving outlines where parked cars were, like crime scene chalk drawings. The value of negative space.

My father told me about how my mom used to admire our neighbor Pete's Jacaranda trees, and that Pete confided in him that they may be pretty, but they are a pain in the ass. We sold that house. And Pete moved back to the Midwest. And I notice that when you move away from a place, it disappears from the map for you. A great void where once a house was. Or a street. Or a town. That was the house I parked in front of when some kids went along smashing car windows (including mine) on prom night. And the house I parked in front of when I came back from failing my driving test and angrily yanked my hand brake so hard that my mom had to use a hammer to get it to release. I go back to the surrounding neighborhood because Beulah still lives around there, but I've stopped looking off in the direction of that house. The end of the earth drops off where my memories end.

That same weekend, I carried a camera the whole time, but never had much cause to use it. Except for the hours I spent at Tom Bergin's celebrating Tricia's birthday, half of which I spent wondering why my camera kept alerting me that my card was locked. And then I noticed that the card was in fact locked.

Jessie and I stopped for Damiano's after the party. Got the worst table service I've had in some time. But that didn't have the same quality of "it's so bad it's great" as the Taco Bell run we made the following weekend. When the drive-thru attendant handed me our food, the smell in the car was so atrocious, I asked whether one of us had accidentally ordered a Diaper Supreme. That didn't stop us from eating what we ordered. It just made us laugh a lot while we were doing it.

This went over well the other day.

Labels: photos, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 2:31 PM | Back to Monoblog

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"Usted nunca encontrará una colmena más desgraciada de la espuma y de la villanía."

I turned on the TV this morning, like you do. And I flipped to the programming guide and saw that Star Wars was on again. So I tuned to that. It was the cantina scene. I was about five minutes in when I realized I was watching the Spanish language broadcast. Like I had the movie playing for a good three or four minutes with Han and Luke and Obiwan dubbed in Spanish, and I didn't notice it at all. Weird.

Mayo la fuerza esté con usted.

Labels: Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 12:11 PM | Back to Monoblog

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Repetitive Motion Injury

Although it comes but once a year, it isn't lost on me that it comes every year, this Thanksgiving business. And that each new one I celebrate is piggybacked on all the rest that preceded it. And that maybe I'm getting tired of having all these milestones to mark my progress. Or regress. Or no-gress, as the case my be. Maybe it's just "gress" at that point.

Often with the hope of not being extremely redundant -- despite the fact that eating a turkey dinner every year at the same time seems prone to a redundancy that even Kurt Vonnegut couldn't dress up in disguise -- I end up reading over my previous writings on this subject. Now that I've been writing in this venue for over five years, there's more to pick through and more to tiptoe round. It wastes a bunch of time. And usually leaves me with the feeling that the thing I wrote last year or the year before was better than whatever I'm going to say now, and why didn't I ever get paid to write when I was saying clever things like that? And why doesn't it result in any palpable satisfaction to read something I've written and like it? Why isn't that ever ever enough? Anyway. I went back is my point.

I began my holiday on Wednesday, leaving town at precisely the stupidest possible time and having already been warned that there was some shitty-ass shit going on on the 405. But surprisingly, I really didn't suffer much. The big hubbub in El Segundo was still there, and many lanes were closed, but I probably had to slow down for ten or fifteen minutes, and then once I was through it, I was flying along at 75 the rest of the way. So I got to my parents' house with time to heft all my junk in the house, write my annual Thanksgiving email, feel very tired and contemplate not doing anything social, and then get myself into the car and on my way to Ono Sushi, where a typically super duper dinner was had. After sushi, I visited Nunu's, where I was treated like a princess -- as usual. I had hoped to stop by Jivewire at The Casbah, but the ranks of enthusiastic compatriots had thinned, and I guess I was tired enough that dancing would have done me in. So I'm glad that Nunu's was where we landed. My mom didn't even hassle me about not getting home until well after her Thanksgiving day preparations had begun. That's unprecedented.

Come to think of it, this year was different than previous years in a few ways. But it was also very much the same. Maybe with deliberation attached. Like my annual Thanksgiving nightcap at Nunu's. I've come to look forward to that, so I make a point of perpetuating it. This year, there were so many people there with me and other people there that I knew, it really did feel like it's own special holiday thing. And after a dinner of turkey and lobster -- yes, LOBSTER -- and more things than can be artfully put on a normal-sized plate at once without layering and overrun unless you serve your cranberry relish and yams and stuffing in tiny little tablespoonsful, like they might do at a chi chi restaurant. With like cilantro oil or a vanilla-infused truffle and balsamic vinegar reduction drizzled on the plate and a garnish of something like star fruit or caviar. That gives me an idea. Would anyone mind if I started calling poultry eggs caviar? I will serve turkey caviar at my next Thanksgiving dinner. And see if anyone notices. And if anyone wants to try and fit it on melba toast.

If I can recall properly, here was our menu:

Appetizers
Cheese Platter
- Aged Mimolette
- Huntsman (Stilton layered with Double Gloucester)
- Wensleydale
- one other one I didn't try
- every possible kind of cracker
Fresh Fruit
Marinated Mushrooms
Kalamata Olives
Picholine Olives
Wine: Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon

Dinner
Roast Turkey (specially brined and cooked to moist perfection)
Broiled Lobster Tails with Clarified Butter
Mashed Potatoes
Jansen's Temptation (a Swedish potato casserole, apparently secretly including herring -- yum)
Chestnut Stuffing
Mashed Yams with Apricots and Almonds (?), Topped with Bruléed Marshmallows and Coconut
Cranberry Relish (a special recipe that causes all others to be deemed inferior)
Green Beans (I almost called them Haricots Verts. And I can't remember if they were Amandine.)
Corn (It wasn't fancy, but it's still my favorite.)
Gravy (duh)
Wine: Stag's Leap Merlot and Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon

Dessert
Side by Side Pumpkin Pie and New York Cheesecake with Raspberries
Espresso/Cappuccino
Apéritif: Sambuca

I hope I've managed to make it sound fancy and perfectly planned and brilliantly executed. Because it was. And I noticed how proud and happy it made my mother to have everything go over so well. Big success. Big success.

Friday night, I went over to Beulah's, and we went shopping for groceries and treated ourselves to a variety of artery-clogging snacks. A lot of cheese and crackers and apples and pepperoni and stuff. But also Totino's Pizza Rolls. In case anyone was wondering if I've ever eaten poorly. Believe me. I have. And I do. We also watched The New World on pay-per-view. Essentially only because it's another flick Christian Bale is in, and Beulah is devoted as the day is long. We didn't like it. It was the slowest movie I've watched in a long time. Perhaps ever. Unbelievably slow. And the dialogue was so soft and so ickily poem-like that I often had to stop chewing and lean in to try and hear what was being said, only to find that what they were saying revealed nothing at all story-wise. The only way Beulah and I were able to enjoy it was in being so disappointed in it. We began to sarcastically wish it could just be slower. That Christian Bale and Pocahontas would just TAKE THEIR TIME. I once heard a comedian say that he was surprised that Finding Neverland had been nominated for Best Picture; he said the movie was so slow it should have been nominated for Best Photograph. I liked Finding Neverland, but I thought that joke was funny. Even funnier, however, was Beulah's exclamation during one of the sequences of inanimate objects being shot for long silent moments for no apparent reason: "This movie is a screensaver." It really is like a two-and-a-half hour poetry reading. And if you're into that, we probably shouldn't go to the movies together. Incidentally, Beulah's never seen Reign of Fire and was concerned that it, too, would suck. But I maintain that Reign of Fire is a terribly underrated film. As long as you let yourself buy into the whole dragons thing -- and as long as you can bear to watch Matthew McConaughey playing an insufferable wacko, which I further maintain is less insufferable than watching him play a love interest or a looker -- and if you allow that these kinds of grandiose fantasies might call for some grandiose acting, it's perfectly entertaining to watch. And it contains one of my more favorite Star Wars references. Which will do nothing to help Beulah want to watch it, I realize.

I performed in a couple of improv shows on Saturday night, spent the night at Beulah's place, then drove home to Los Angeles today, with not much traffic to grouse about, bookending a relatively painless travel experience. And while I was driving up today, I listened to nothing but Beatles music on the radio. First it was just Beatles Beatles Beatles, and then it was an hour-long tribute to George Harrison, the fifth anniversary of whose death is this Wednesday. Which made me sad, and made me marvel at how long it's been, because I distinctly remember when I heard he had passed. And the night it happened was an awful one for me, through no fault of George's. Golden Slumbers made me think of Tasha, which made me cry a bit. The rest of it made me think assorted things. I never give you my pillow. I only send you my invitation. And in the middle of the celebrations, I break down...Lying there and staring at the ceiling, waiting for a sleepy feeling...You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.....Everybody had a hard year. Everybody had a good time. Everybody had a wet dream. Everybody saw the sunshine...Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head. Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead...Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to, I will...Boy, you gotta carry that weight, carry that weight a long time.

Very little Guitar Hero was played. Very little sleep was had. There was an unfortunate -- and perhaps statistically unavoidable -- falling out with my mother. She was so happy with me for two straight days. That couldn't possibly have continued without somehow triggering the onset of Armageddon. I had a lot of work to do. I squeezed that in where possible. I edited and posted photos, despite drooping eyelids and flagging spirits. I didn't get to eat Thanksgiving leftovers even once. And I didn't bring any home, which is usually the case and an unfortunate one. I drove home wondering why I allow things to matter, particularly when I am doing it alone. And I felt thankful for a sense of history. Even though it's a sense of history that most often prevents me from ever having a sense of present.

Everybody had a hard year. Everybody had a good time. Everybody had a wet dream. Everybody saw the sunshine.>

Labels: Guitar Hero, Krissy, photos, Star Wars, Thanksgiving

posted by Mary Forrest at 11:10 PM | Back to Monoblog

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I play my red guitar.

I don't often go on and on about how nice my weekend was. But this past weekend deserves laudatory distinction. On Friday, Beulah drove up to see me do stand-up at the Comedy Store. She was one of twelve friends who showed up, but she drove the furthest. I was not horrified at my performance, but I was sapped of energy by the time I got to go up, which was hours after I got there and the third to last spot in the line-up. And I never even got a drink in me. Never not one.

After the show, a handful of us went over to the Dresden and then to Fred 62. So I got drinks and breakfast in my gullet and cigarette smoke in my lungs, and I went home very late feeling very pleased. Because I have lovely friends and an extraordinary sister, and the stress of doing a show was well behind me.

In between snatches of sleep and the odd meal and Borat and running lines with Jessie for the sketch we're doing at Garage Comedy, I spent much of the weekend playing Guitar Hero II and watching the Star Wars Marathon on Cinemax. I do love a marathon. Especially the kind I can leave on all night. Even while I'm sleeping. When I turned on the television on Saturday morning, the end credits for The Empire Strikes Back were rolling, and I was disappointed, but then Return of the Jedi came on, and I was actually able to pique Beulah's rather geek-hating interest when I pointed out that Han Solo is very clearly modeled after Rhett Butler. We had just watched Gone with the Wind a week or two ago, and she ranks it among her favorites. So when I pointed out the similarities between Captains Solo and Butler, it pleased me that she seemed marginally swayed into believing maybe -- just maybe she might be able to enjoy Star Wars after all. Those similarities, by the way, are as follows:

smuggler:blockade runner
rogue:rogue
not loyal to either side:not loyal to either side
profiteer:profiteer
thinks Leia wants to kiss him:thinks Scarlett needs to be kissed (and often)
handsome man's man:handsome man's man
competing with girlish boy:competing with girlish man

Mark Hamill went to my high school. In Japan. I stole the copy of the yearbook with him in it. I have it somewhere. I think I had forgotten about it entirely, but Beulah was telling Kerstin that fact, and it reminded me. And I furrowed my brow and wondered how many other little stories worth a "wow" I've failed to keep from being sloughed away in the great brain cell holocaust that occurs whenever I'm at a bar. Lots probably. It's dismaying. Also dismaying is how different Mark Hamill looked after all that reconstructive sugery. Poor guy.

I'm kicking the ass of Guitar Hero II, by the way. I'm good at less and less, but this is one of the things at which I am goodest.

I didn't get to do a number of things I had planned to this weekend. I missed out on parties and plans that I'm sure would have been worth the effort. But in the end, I had a lovely time. I even got to make use of my fireplace for the first time this season. And I had an egg nog-flavored something at the Coffee Bean. These are a few of my favorite things.

Labels: comedy, Garage Comedy, Gone with the Wind, Guitar Hero, Jessie, Krissy, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 1:28 AM | Back to Monoblog

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John Cleese was not wearing socks.

I don't know why I notice these things. But I do. He was wearing a nice enough pair of tan loafers, but that bare ankle skin kept glinting at me from between the hem of his jeans and the top of the shoe. I remember noticing his upturned polo collars in that show about the human face. I wonder why I feel so compelled to be critical of John Cleese's fashion choices. Why should I criticize him? I adore him.

I took Martín to see John Cleese's one-man show at Cal State Long Beach tonight. I don't wish to write a review. But I will note that I clapped my hands together when learning that he shares my love for Phil Silvers. I wrote down the joke about Norwegians. And I remember going to see Fierce Creatures in the theater the weekend that it came out. I also went to see the re-release of Star Wars. It was possible to do both, for the record.

I haven't been to Long Beach much. Only to visit Martín back when he lived there. To pick him up on the way to Disneyland or to stop off and have a meal with him when I had a lot on my mind and a long drive ahead. He wasn't terribly nostalgic about visiting his alma mater (which it is). I am always interested to see how much less susceptible to fits of grotesque sentiment others are than I. How freeing that must be.

I hate how much work I still have to do.

Labels: Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 12:56 AM | Back to Monoblog

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Star War III: Backstroke of the West

Friends, allow me to share with you the funniest thing I have ever seen. It is this.

Thank you, Paul F. Tompkins, the Famous Comedian.

Labels: comedy, Paul F. Tompkins, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 2:40 PM | Back to Monoblog

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Memories of Comic-Con

I had what I would consider to be a largely triumphant experience at Comic-Con last week. It's unfortunate that the aftermath of it was total work swamp, the onset of a cold, and general inability to get anywhere near the business of blogging. All I can really offer is a pastiche of memory spurts. Sorry. I'll try harder next time.

Firstly, I decided this year that I would not allow myself to endure the misery of parking woes and traffic bullshit and the laziness that happens when you are staying with friends or family. So I booked a room at the Marriott and stayed luxuriously and conveniently close to all the hot nerd action for five days and four nights. That was the right choice. I will make that same choice repeatedly in the future. Because it led to me actually fully experiencing Comic-Con perhaps for the first time. In past years, the Con has always been a series of day trips, ending before sundown in exhaustion and sometimes performance obligations. If you go home after a day walking the dealer floor, and "home" is more than a mile from Downtown San Diego, chances are you're not going to go back out in the evening. That has been my experience in every previous year. But this time, tired as I may have been every single day, it was not at all difficult to drag myself out of my room and hit the town. And that is a blessing.

Beulah came down and visited with me on Wednesday night. We went out for sushi and drinks and shit talk, and then she spent the night in my hotel room. And when Martín arrived the next morning, we went down to the hotel coffee shop, where Beulah had breakfast, Martín had lunch, and I had four bloody marys -- all served with flair by our waitress Blanche. Before Beulah arrived downstairs, I phoned to alert her that I had just walked past Mark Ryden on the stairs. That was the first of perhaps thirty times I would see him in and around the hotel and the convention center. I realize that we were staying in the same building and attending the same event, but there was still an uncanny frequency to our proximity. I would literally see him enter the convention center and then see him ninety seconds later as I rounded the corner of an aisle. He was everywhere that I was. With nearly cosmic significance. And I know him to be awfully nice and sort of shy, so I didn't bother him at all. Which is to my credit, I hope.

Martín and I rounded out day one of the Con with drinks in my room (I brought a full compliment of liquor with me, of course), countless martinis at the hotel bar, a photo-taking stroll to Embarcadero Marina Park at what I call "golden hour," and then dinner at Morton's, where I ordered us an expensive bottle of wine that we drank nearly none of but then took with us to watch the screening of the special edition of Free Enterprise, during which we traded slugs of a fine meritage like hobos. Wealthy, wealthy hobos. Towards the end of the film, we snuck out onto the terrace for a smoke. And then, for some reason, we ended up venturing out into the Gaslamp to look for smaller bottles of whiskey to carry around during the next day's show. But we didn't find a liquor store. All we found was foot pain. We went from exclaiming, "Best Con ever!" between joyous bursts of laughter to whimpering, "Worst Con ever!" betwixt groans of agony. Then Martín spent the night in my room. And I think we were both grateful that that convenience was available to us.

Friday morning, Mindy arrived. And the three of us hit the Con together. It was sort of magical to be taking a Con newbie around. Especially a hot one with a passion for Star Wars and anime chicks. It's what I imagine it's like for parents whose love of Christmas is renewed by the wonder in the eyes of their children. Beulah and Yen came down that day, too, and -- as I always do for my friends -- I went to the registration area and picked up badges for them, so they wouldn't have to wait in that ridiculous line. I look at the people in that long-ass line, and I think, "Is it possible that none of you guys knows ANYONE who can hook you up?" None of my friends ever has to wait for a badge. It's part of my Con evangelism.

Jessie came to the show on Friday, too. So did Richard. We lost him when we were staking out a spot for the Adult Swim panel, which was great and also less than. My friends Tim and Eric were my heroes, but the question-askers were stupid and gay, and Cartoon Network didn't give away anything at the panel, which was a change from years past and the yearning for which is proof of my geekness. So many people to see. I have never had such a meeting-rich Con. It was grand-ish. Jessie and her friend Josh and I met at the hotel bar for a few drinks. And then I went back to the room to collect Mindy (after we caught some awesome fireworks off our awesome bay view balcony) and whisk her off to the Adult Swim party at the Wonder Bread Factory in Golden Hill. Eric had put me on the list. And that made me feel super extra special. And Mindy came as my guest. And we happened to find Jeff walking on the street towards the party when we were walking from our cab. So we all arrived together and made respective beelines for the restrooms and then the food tables. I guess it was The Prado catering the event, and there were these little Angus beef sliders that were unbelievably yummy and also tiny little deep dish pizzas that I later hated myself for not eating a hundred of.

The party was over too soon, and -- after a long curbside deliberation -- we all went over to the Top of the Hyatt for more drinks. Jeff and Mindy and I went downstairs for a smoke and ended up not being able to get back up to the club, as the elevators apparently respect last call more than most enthusiastic drinkers do. And we ended up bringing a whole gaggle of people back to my hotel room to continue with the drinking and the smoking and the general revelry. I ordered room service in the wee hours, and we ate pizza and hamburger and fries and shot craps in a drawer from my armoire and eventually had to encourage Jay and Tommy to make their way home, because the sun was coming up and we had a Con to get something from. Jeff ended up staying with me and Mindy. And he drew a picture of a giant frog. And I looked at it the next morning and said, "Oh, look, there's a little boy on his back," and Jeff said, "Look closer," and then I said, "Oh! It's me!" And it was. I could tell because of the rank insignia on the sleeve of my sweater. I'm a colonel or something when I wear that sweater that says "Destroy" on the front. You'd best watch yourself.

By Saturday, I had turned my ankle somehow. Probably the night before in some drunken situation. So every step I took on the convention floor was a bit ouchy. I had to rush in at the top of the day and get a pass for Jeff. And then I did the same for Krissy and her sister later in the afternoon. And when we went outside to find them, a guy with two ninja swords approached me and asked if he could take a picture of me. And I said, "Sure. But I'm not dressed as anyone." And I wasn't. He seemed convinced that I was. But really. I was just wearing my own clothes. Which is telling, I suppose. Later in the afternoon. Martín, Jeff, Mindy, and I were sitting out on the steps behind the convention center, and we decided to head down to that little sandwich shack down by the fishing pier, and as I stood up to leave, an older fellow with a disturbingly emotionless gaze said, "You look nice today." It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking to me. When I did, I said, "Thank you." And then I tugged my skirt down further and hurried on with my friends. We jeered the musketeers and bellydancer on the terrace. We're better than them and we know it. We ordered lunch, and I had the best nachos ever. And a hamburger that I so did not need after having eaten the best nachos ever.

By the late afternoon, we were plum tuckered out. And -- foolishly opting to miss the Tenacious D panel -- we headed back to the hotel, where we complained about our various pains and took brief naps and showers. Then we went out into the Gaslamp to find what turned out to be the worst Mexican food ever at La Fiesta on Fifth. After which, we met up with friends at Star Bar and drank cheaply until closing. At which time we headed over to the Westgate and continued on with our evening in resplendent Con fashion. Tim and Brendon performed an hilarious prank call for all of us, and I literally had tears rolling off the end of my nose. I'll never stop laughing about it. If I'm at a funeral and think of Tom Pickle, someone will surely think me rude. The same can be said for Tommy's thoughts on progressive cat math. And Jay's conviction that Mindy's sheets were made of orchestras.

By the end of the night. Mindy and Jeff and I piled into a cab with Tommy and the Poubelle Twins and made our way back to our various places of lodging. And I performed a dramatic reading from my email for Jeff and Mindy, and Mindy laughed a lot.

On our final day, we mostly just had breakfast, shopped, and went our separate ways. I took one of my favorite pictures ever of Mindy in front of a Han Solo poster. I also took a picture of Mindy with Caveman Robot, who seems to now recognize me as a friend and always wants a hug when our paths cross. When he hugs me, he grunts, "Woman. Urnh. Urnh." And I am charmed by it. One of his handlers gave me a free pin.

So that's about it, right? I yelled at the people at the bell desk. I attended one last panel. Then I got my car and my bags and drove to my parents' house to collect my dog and head home. Many pictures were taken. Many memories were made. Many opportunities were missed. I only wish it could be Comic-Con every week. I love it more than anything else in the world.

Labels: Comic-Con, Krissy, photos, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 2:10 AM | Back to Monoblog

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The War to End All Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg Collaborations

Spoiler alert: This movie is no good.

I saw War of the Worlds for the second time last night. Don't think that means I liked it. I didn't. I hated it the first time I saw it, but I wondered if it might just be that seeing it in a theater in Burbank where the common folk were so audibly annoying might have slanted my take. But alas, no. Last night, I confirmed my first impression. Incontrovertibly.

It's sad that this is true, but Steven Spielberg, who I used to consider to be fairly deft at playing at the human melodrama -- is apparently just as out of touch with the reality of human interaction as George Lucas. Beyond the admittedly very good visual effects, this movie just proves that some writers and some directors really just have no idea at all how people behave or how they talk to each other or -- and this is the most unbearable part -- what children do and say. If you ask me, Dakota Fanning is what's wrong with children in film and television. I mean, maybe it isn't her fault. She's a little kid who can play an emotion and memorize a line and hit her marks. And that's all right. But if you've ever seen her interviewed, it's just the scariest thing imaginable. She spends one portion of the chat showing you that she's about to lose a baby tooth and the rest going on and on about how a-MAZ-ing it was to work with so-and-so and how BRILL-iant this such-and-such is, and all in the emphatic, cocktail-party elocution of a queeny creative type in the heyday of Truman Capote. She's not just too old for her age. I would find this kind of person insufferable as an adult, too. Seeing it in a child is just too much. Maybe Spielberg was trying to recapture the charm he found in a young Drew Barrymore or that Heather whatshername who died. He does seem to have a penchant for casting pale little girls with stringy blonde hair. But Dakota Fanning has none of the naivete of a young Drew Barrymore. And god help us if she grows up to be any worse an actress than an adult Drew Barrymore.

I was listening to Paul Feig on Fresh Air with Terry Gross last week, and I just caught the very end of his interview, when he was being asked about what shows he liked growing up, what shows influenced him. And he made such a good point about how shows like Leave It to Beaver and The Brady Bunch were good because they featured children speaking the way children actually speak. Whereas shows today constantly portray children speaking in the way that their adult writers wish perhaps they could have spoken in their own tortured childhoods. The Jonathan Taylor-Thomas syndrome, in my mind. One of the trailers I saw before my first screening of War of the Worlds was for this new remake of The Bad News Bears. And it isn't just because I love Walter Matthau or because I hate Billy Bob Thornton or because I hate Billy Bob Thornton's embarrassing hair plugs that I despise the very idea of this film. There is a clip where a girl shows the taunting boys that she can pitch, and one little four-eyes says, "I think I just entered puberty." And I just wanted to crush something in my angry fists.

One of the things that rubbed me the wrong way when I was in the Burbank theater was how, to much of America, everything is apparently a comedy these days. This happened when I went to see Revenge of the Sith, too. Now, I'll grant you that Yoda is kind of funny-looking, and maybe seeing him wielding a light saber with angry resolve is a little ridiculous, but not if you are allowing yourself to believe that he is in fact a Jedi master and that some serious shit is going down, and I'm assuming you're allowing yourself to do that, as you just paid twelve dollars to see a movie called Star Wars. And yet every time Yoda was on screen, I heard swells of laughter. The same was true in War of the Worlds. Even in cases of graphic carnage or (intended) gravitas. People kept laughing. And I kept wondering what was wrong with them. Maybe it's because of movies like Blade 3, where the seriousness and humorlessness of the Blade character is inexplicably "spruced up" by the addition of Ryan Reynolds' wise-cracking, steroid-pumped, shit-talking sidekick. The Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 syndrome, if you will. To be fair, so many of the moments of high drama in War of the Worlds are so implausible and ridiculous that it makes sense that you might laugh at them. But not for amusement's sake. But I don't think this was wry laughter. This was the same disappointing laughter I heard when Kevin James dances in the trailer for Hitch. Shame on you, America. But then, maybe it isn't America's fault. Maybe America has just seen so many of these insufferable mood-lighteners and assumes that every uncomfortable moment is intended to tickle a little bit. Maybe it's the result of generation after generation of cinematic "bad touch." Maybe we're all going to end up strippers.

Oh, I have so many issues with this movie. The first fifteen minutes? Totally unnecessary. That sandwich shuffling scene? Waste of time. Morgan Freeman's opening and closing narratives? Largely uninformative. What did those aliens envy so much? What did they want with our planet? What was the value of the blood? And if it was so valuable, why vaporize so many people instead of sucking them dry? And while we're on that topic, the annihilation methods employed by these guys were hardly the portrait of good process flow. We have droves of more effective tools for mass murder. And certainly they could look to the Nazis for some lessons on efficiency in this area. Which brings me to another point, Schindler's List was only one of the many of his own films I saw Spielberg cribbing from this time around. Also on the list were Minority Report, E.T., Poltergeist, and -- if only in the sense that Robbie looked so much like Karen Allen -- Raiders of the Lost Ark. On the list of other people's films he cribbed from are Titanic, The Abyss, and Signs. And I should further note that I wrote the following in my notebook when I was about an hour into my first viewing: "Worse than Signs." If that is even possible.

This movie is a pastiche of convenient exit strategies in scenarios that have been painted to be impossible. It is also a multiple offender of a rule I learned in improv: If you introduce something, it had better pay off. If Tom Cruise picks up a piece of freezing cold asphalt and puts it in his pocket, that has to pay off later. Did it? No. If Dakota Fanning is shown to be a claustrophobic, that has to come into play at some point. Did it? No. Even when she was in a number of cramped spaces, including a basket filled with strangers freaking out and being sucked one by one into a big red rectum. She screams for no reason many times throughout the movie. She screams. Then stops. Then screams some more. There is no halo to the panic. It is both succinct and distinct. And therefore unnatural. But when she's actually in a small, suffocating area -- utter silence.

Even the music was evocative of Schindler's List in places. Especially when you're seeing a mass exodus of sad, trudging, hope-bereft people who have lost everything and have nowhere to run. But it was in one of those scenes that I wrote in my notebook, "No one would have minded if they were only here to kill the Jews."

Lord, do I have issues with this movie. Why did that marine decide to save Tom Cruise when he was getting sucked up into the thing and not the other guy that got sucked up into it only moments earlier? How did Tom Cruise know that there would be a grenade belt in that overturned vehicle? How did the pins for the grenade get into his mouth when he was hanging onto that marine the whole time? Why did that soldier at the end provide the narrative exposition about the erratic behavior of one of the tripods before hustling Tom and Dakota along as if he didn't have time to explain everything to a pair of meaningless strangers? Why did everything stop working when the electromagnetic pulse hit -- everything except digital cameras and camcorders? Why would an adolescent boy with a huge chip on his shoulder be able to convince his father to abandon him to certain doom by quietly insisting, "I need to see this. You have to let me go?" Why did everyone suddenly want to be on that ferry when the tripods showed up? What was so much safer about being corraled on a slow-moving boat than being on the shore? How many times did Tom Cruise escape death by mere millimeters? How did he get all that man ash off his leather jacket? Was that soldier at the end really able to say "Clear!" with any conviction when that alien's gelatinous hand went limp? Is he a space doctor all of a sudden? Was that TV news crew in the van even human? Come on.

Another thing that REALLY got on my nerves was the number of times characters in the film would speak to someone who would not respond, requiring them to just say the same thing over and over again. It was almost as infuriating as watching Tom Cruise say Matt Lauer's name to him over and over again in that ridiculous interview. "Dad. Dad. Dad." "Mike. Mike. Mike." "Robbie. Robbie. Robbie." "Ray. Ray. Ray." "Get in the car. Get in the car. Get in the car." "Get out of the car. Get out of the car. Get out of the car." Are these lines actually in the screenplay? Could it have been an accidental cut-and-paste glitch?

Oh, and that scene with the tripods scouring the scurrying masses with their searchlights could just as easily have been a Moonlight Madness event at Best Buy.

Speaking of the tripods, I know it's from the book and all, but these are as lamely unwieldy as the AT-ATs in Empire. You'd think they'd have vehicles that could like...fly or something.

I am so tired of the sameness of everything that is being churned out today. The few beacons of hope on the horizon are so very few as to be lost in the gaping black maw of everything else. Batman Begins was great, for instance (although I should write about that under separate cover and explain why it solidifies my misogynistic feelings toward nearly every ingenue in the superhero/action-adventure genre). But when trying to pick something to see last night, there were just so few titles out that were not guaranteed to actually hurt. I was left nearly no other option but to see this movie again. That's an algorithm the box office trackers probably don't factor in. Come on. Rebound? I'd rather be bitten by snakes. So I ended up seeing this movie twice. And no one is sorrier for it than I am. Although I have to say there is a certain sweet vindication in knowing that my first takeaway was not wrong. To my friends whose opinions I respect and who told me this movie was badass -- especially to the one among you who saw it twice and announced that it "holds up" -- I just have to shake my head, knowing that you and I probably want different things from a film. We can still be friends. And we can still play video games together and drink booze and stuff. But I can't really allow you to bandy your film recommendations so recklessly. Let's just get high and watch movies we already know are going to be bad. It's better for the friendship.

P.S. I think I like Christian Bale better emaciated. There is something wrong with me.

Trailer Watch

Stealth. Boo. I have managed to see this trailer on the big screen at least three times now, and it never ceases to cause me to make that face. First of all, are we really meant to believe that the three top pilots in America are a white dude, a black dude, and a chick? At least Top Gun was a little more honest about this. Face it. It would be three white dudes. Three white dudes with haircuts and ego trips and a tendency towards gum-chewing. Why do we have to be so beholden to diversity in our storytelling? If this was a movie where the world's top basketball players had to stop an unmanned fighter jet that had "gone rogue," they would be three black dudes. Period. Maybe one white dude. But really, probably not. I just love the way trailers these days give you every single important beat in the story right up front. We see the plane get hit by lightning. We hear them pronounce it sentient. We see that girl's ass. The only reason to go watch this movie would be to see if Jamie Foxx and that white guy accidentally touch each other's naughty parts in the mandatory three-way scene.

Narnia. I was excited at first. But it's already all wrong. What a shame. Every book from my childhood will be plundered before the end of it all. Who's slated to make the film version of Ferdinand the Bull? Probably Michael Bay. Fuck.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This may be the worst trailer in film history. It totally makes me not want to see the movie. It's possible the movie won't be horrible (although I'm leaning in the opposite direction), but the trailer is just this halting string of close-ups of Johnny Depp where the music cuts out just in time for him to utter an unamusing one-liner. And I don't think it's playing to his strengths to have him look so much like a girl.

Bad News Bears. I already aired my laundry on this one.

King Kong. The people on the island look like those freaks in The Thirteenth Warrior. And, although I want to see this movie, again I wonder at the logic of having the trailer expose every single plot point. Maybe Hollywood is just too used to promoting remakes. It's custom now to take it for granted that the audience might not know how the story goes. If The Crying Game were being promoted today, I'm sure the trailer would show Jaye Davidson peeing standing up. Not that that scene ever occurs in the movie. And, by the way, I hope I didn't just ruin the big surprise for you.

Elizabethtown. Cameron Crowe movies are really just soundtracks at this point.

Labels: Dakota Fanning, movies, NCT, Star Wars, Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, War of the Worlds

posted by Mary Forrest at 10:27 AM | Back to Monoblog

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Threading the Spindle

For some reason, my journal entries have felt somewhat chore-like this past week or so. I let so many things slip through the cracks. Stories I don't bother to tell. I hear myself speaking them to the people I know and run into on a regular basis, and I lose my zest for making them permanent.

For instance, last week, I drove to Claremont to see a dinner theater matinee performance of A Chorus Line with my dad, who had bought tickets for himself and my mother only to later find that my mother was going to be out of town. So I drove fifty miles and joined him and this church group of older folks. They call themselves "55 Plus," but, let's face it, I'm closer to 55 than most of these people. "55 Plus Thirty" might be a better name. Anyway, when my father said it was going to be a church group and also that it was going to be A Chorus Line, I said, "Are you sure? Because you know there are some mature themes in that show." And he sort of shrugged it off. But sure enough, long before the number "Tits and Ass" even came up in the program, the pastor had excused himself out to the courtyard and apparently had no intention of coming back for the rest of the show. The fellow who organized this affair came back at intermission and told everyone that they were going to leave. And I was surprised to see my dad decide to leave with all of them, ditching me there, fifty miles from home and only halfway through a show I didn't really want to see so urgently in the first place. The people I told this story to heard me say things like, "Christians can be so immature," and make my case about the strange elitism they use to condemn all things secular. I talked about the idea of their being fishers of men, but apparently only of men who never talk about the unwanted erections they used to get in high school. My father is a right grown-up, and I don't think he would have left had he not been pressured to by all those cranky old skinbags. He even leaned over at one point and told me that one of the women on stage was really good. Clearly he can handle a little language, which is all there really was. I got into a frustrating debate with my Uncle Virgil about the content of the show. He threw around generalities that implied that the creators of this show put smut in it to make more money. And I had to object that I can't imagine paying a premium to hear the word "bullshit" said in a crowded room. I mean, if they put some horsefucking up there or something, then maybe. But mention of gonorrhea is no great shakes in my book. And he started telling me about how a show like this would never be done in a town called Branson. And it only got more inane from there. My dad even chimed in and supported me at one point when I was trying to say that the language and content are in there because of a desire to faithfully represent the community in which this show is taking place. Much like one might expect a play about the Navy -- and not Anchors Aweigh -- to have some language in it. And possibly horsefucking, as well.

I think I was going to call the blog entry I planned to write One Singular Sensation: Outrage. But I never got around to writing it. Anyway, bad as I felt about the cast coming back for Act Two and seeing this one table right down front empty of its former thirty occupants, I ended up leaving at intermission, too, because I decided I might as well beat the traffic back to Los Angeles, whence I immediately left for San Diego to drop Audrey off before my birthday weekend. Then I went and had some drinks, and I ended up driving back to Los Angeles at about three a.m. All told, I put about 350 miles on the car I am borrowing from my parents in one day. And I think I am still a bit tired from it.

That same day, I made a note that I've never been kicked in the yarbles, but I have fallen hard on the cross bar of a ten speed. I don't remember why I wanted to remember that fact. But I remember that it happened when I was in grade school and that there was actually some bruising.

I also went to see House of Wax last week, believe it or not. And it was really far less good than I could have ever imagined. Less good than House of a Thousand Corpses. Seriously, less good than that. And Paris Hilton gave an infuriatingly bad performance. Not that anyone else in the movie was particularly convincing or likeable. But Paris Hilton can't even convince you that something smells bad. And I'm not joking about that at all.

Tonight, I went to see Revenge of the Sith at The Arclight with Wayne Federman and Derek Hughes and Martín. I actually had a great time. I laughed at parts of the movie that were not meant to be funny. And I would look over at Martín from time to time as if to say, "What the...?" And he would nod in concurrence. He had already seen it twice before tonight. Which I appreciated, because there were a couple of times when I needed someone to tell me what had just happened that I couldn't discern with my logical brain. I don't want to write a lengthy review about it. I was made uncomfortable by the repeated use of the word "younglings." I was ever so disappointed in the Wookiee "battle" scenes, which had been far overhyped in geek discussion circles when the teasers first came out. And -- this will sound really awful of me -- but Peter Mayhew is too fat to play Chewbacca anymore. Unless we are to believe that twenty years later his metabolism finally hits its stride. There were a lot of battle scenes that reminded me perhaps too much of Starship Troopers. Or droids that reminded me of the Mondoshawan. Or of Captain Eo. And I tire of the trend in action films today for the combat to be so fast-paced that you can't see a single move distinctly from anything else that is happening. The lightsaber fighting looked like colorful windmills or maybe some sort of glowstick nunchaku thing at Burning Man. The art and elegance of swordfighting is utterly lost in them. When I was at the bar before the movie started, a greasy-haired youngling with one of those plastic, retractable lightsabers said this to his father, "Dad, I have a question. Do you think those lightsabers are real?" He was referring to something he had seen someone wielding outside the theater. And I found it both sweet and sad to overhear him ask, because it's great that children want so much to believe but he was clearly too advanced in years to be that naive.

But, really, in the gestalt, I enjoyed watching the movie. It was fun. And I didn't have anything at all riding on it being more than that. And my most stalwart advice for enjoying the movie in a zen sort of way is (a) have a cocktail or two before and/or during the screening and (b) don't let your brain start thinking about how good it could have been. I think the biggest letdown in all three of these films has been how obvious it seems to nearly any eye that the problems could so easily have been fixed. And if you don't lose yourself in the frustration of that idea, you can still watch it and be okay and not busy your brain with cutting dialogue from scene to scene or reworking premises when they make no kind of human sense. That's the way to play it, if you ask me. There is forgiveness in forgetting and forgetting in forgiving. And Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor both have a surprising number of growths on their faces.

Martín and I agreed that the moments when foreshadowing of continuity showed up were the greatest pay-offs for us personally. It satisfies something of the geek in you (read: "me") to hear names or scenarios mentioned that you know will be coming into play in the following episodes or to see the two suns of Tattoine and that weird little igloo house. And I am still a great fan of the music. That callback to "The Duel of the Fates" was pretty nice. I remember hearing John Williams conducting the L.A. Philharmonic in a performance of that at the Hollywood Bowl back in 1999. It's hard to believe this second trilogy is already that time-spanning. My, but how easy it is to throw a huge chunk of your life away on stories and stuff.

I haven't been feeling so hot this week. My vim is at a record low. Anxiety begets anxiety. Staying up all night makes it hard to sleep. I went to a few comedy shows early in the week and fulfilled my typical food to drink ratio for a night out, meaning I ate nothing at all and drank a bit more than that. I went to the Joe Jackson/Todd Rundgren concert in San Diego and stayed out until dawn playing cards and drinking and generally disregarding the fact that I had to drive back to L.A. the next morning. Sometimes, I expect to wake up in the morning and see that I've suddenly aged a huge number of years. Like the dude who chooses poorly in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I should take some vitamins. I don't have any desire to see what the bones under my facemeat look like.

Labels: Audrey, NCT, photos, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 4:58 AM | Back to Monoblog

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The Eve of the End

A lot of my friends with various industry connections have already seen Episode III. Cast and crew screenings and the like, filling their lucky calendars while I gather up the scraps of IM and text message they send, assuring me that I will be leveled by Palpatine (which I fully expect to be the case) and that I will be able to love the movie, even though there are parts of it that are shit. I was supposed to go see a midnight screening at the IMAX theater in Valencia tomorrow night, but I am holding off. I bought tickets a while back to one of the Arclight's Friday screenings, and I have learnt the hard way on a number of occasions that I might not actually want to see a movie twice in the same week and will end up either resenting or wasting the tickets I've already got. Also, I am being taken to see Joe Jackson on Wednesday night by my bartender friend Jeff, and that might be a good time. Piggybacked on the necessity of driving down to San Diego to pick up Audrey, who has been living with my parents for five days now and will probably be fat as a tick when I get her back. We've never been apart for this long. And I have to admit that I miss her enormously but that I also cherish the ability to wake up and not immediately have to leave the house to walk her and pick up her leavings with a little plastic bag. Plus, there's a guy that lives across the street from me who always manages to pop out his front door and accost me with overly familiar questions as soon as I leave the house. He's assured me that he's perfect for me and that my parents would be proud to have him as a son-in-law. But I'm pretty sure he's wrong about both of these things. He makes me wish I could be invisible from time to time.

Anyway, so Star Wars, right? Many of my friends will be watching midnight screenings tomorrow, and I envy them in a way. When the special edition re-releases came out, I queued up hours in advance for each of them and watched them on the big screen for the first time ever. And when Episode I finally occurred, I waited in line for twelve hours in a shopping mall with friends, taking turns to go shopping and get refreshments. And by the time midnight came around, we were tired but excited. I was just talking with Martín this weekend about how disrespectful some of the cinema-goers were at the screening of A New Hope, and he agreed and countered with his recollection of how comparatively respectful the audience at The Phantom Menace was. I hypothesized it might have been that they were too exhausted by the weight of their costumery to make much noise.

I don't know what to expect from this week's screenings. Will people be reverent? Wry? Hopeful? Cynical? Will someone yell out a sarcastic exclamation during a moment of relative quiet? Frankly, the product marketing that goes along with this film's release doesn't do much to encourage me about the respect people will have for the franchise. Darth Dew-flavored Slurpees? M&Ms insisting they won't go to "the Dark Side" and then changing their minds and agreeing to be made of dark chocolate before following in Captain Needa's well-asphyxiated footsteps. And what about that creepy face-off between Darth Vader and the Burger King mask? These commercial spots hardly present an attitude of reverence. I lived overseas and wasn't able to watch a lot of television when the original films were being released, so I don't know. Maybe the product tie-ins were just as weenie back then, too. I know they made C-3POs (the breakfast cereal) and stuff. It's not like they were treating it like a religion. Maybe it just seems weirder and more blasphemous now because so much of the character marketing centers around Vader, and maybe before he was the black hat, so kids were more inclined to buy things that were promoted on more lovable faces. I don't know. This is pure conjecture.

I can also offer some strong-ish opinions about the disappointment so many have felt in the continuation of the Star Wars legacy. I don't think it's fair to dismiss it as fanboy overenthusiasm that landed wrong. It's true that people were sorely disappointed in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones because they had banked so many youth-spanning hopes on the revival of this story arc and the promise of it somehow reconnecting them with a hero's journey that had once packed their boyhood minds with dreams of valor and redemption. But I don't think it's fair to say that people were bummed only because the pedestal was too high. Truly, those first two prequels were pretty awful. I maintain that if you just sit and listen to the dialogue in Attack of the Clones, not bothering to look up at the breathtaking digital landscapes, you won't be able to bear it for long. You'll beg for a chance to reread Silas Marner instead. It's bad. Empirically. Badly written. Badly acted in places. Implausible and plodding. The redeeming factors in both of those movies is that Star Wars films still have some of the best music ever, and George Lucas sure knows how to make fake stuff look real. And that's not nothing. But I don't think you can -- even with the addition of time and perspective -- assess these films and say that the world overreacted when they gave them the raspberries. They're just not nearly as fun to watch as the other films, even if you only want jaunty entertainment out of them and not an elevated sense of the importance and meaning of the universe. I think I can speak to this with candor and accuracy. When The Phantom Menace came out, I didn't have that much riding on it. I loved Star Wars, but I really hadn't gotten to see the whole trilogy until long after it came out. I saw A New Hope for the first time on network television in Guam, with commercial interruptions and everything. And back then, television programming in Guam came from The Mainland via postal service on VHS tapes. It was hardly the finest cinematic reproduction. But we taped it on our Betamax and watched it again and again. Even my dad liked it. Or maybe he was just tired of how many times we had already watched The Wizard of Oz and Quarterback Princess. My point is I never had a Star Wars lunchbox. I never had an R2-D2 trashcan or hamper. I did not know Admiral Akbar's name until I was already able to get into bars legally. And even I was disappointed in the first two prequels. Genuinely disappointed in them as movies. Not as Star Wars movies or as a religious experience but as actual movies. So I don't buy this philosophy that it's only bad because of how much people wanted it to be good. It took some of my other die-hard friends as much as a week to come around and admit that The Phantom Menace was kind of crap. Some as much as a year. Some never did come around, but I secretly believe they never saw it.

All the same, I sincerely want Revenge of the Sith to be awesome. I will not die if it isn't. I am not expecting or demanding transcendence. But I totally do look forward to hearing that music again. And hearing the crowd cheer when the words start scrolling off into the vacuum of space. And maybe I'll even get weepy when the theme plays in the end credits. Maybe.

Looking back on it, that screening of the special edition of A New Hope was among the first two or three times I ever even saw Martín. He came from work, wearing a blue dress shirt, suspenders, and his Tigger tie. He had just recently (and fortunately) cut his hair. I was already in line, having eaten dinner at Taco Bell. And I was wearing a skirt too short for sitting on the ground, but I sat just the same. Now, all these years later, he and I still talk about droids and alien species and ships and blasters. We still argue about whether Return of the Jedi is better than The Empire Strikes Back (note: it isn't). We still feel pity when we pass the Uncle Owen autograph-signing booth at Comic-Con. And I guess I can trace all of that back to San Diego and Noel Coward and hot tub parties and road trips and special edition re-releases. It's not the basis of our friendship, but it certainly poses as underpinning in places. What a long time ago that was.

Labels: Audrey, Comic-Con, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 9:48 AM | Back to Monoblog

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in order to prevent the passions from showing

These are harmless excerpts from emails to friends. I find I write more that is worth saving these days when I am writing to someone actual and not just to the fish in the sea or to the back of my hand. I have written a great deal in the past few days, but not all of it has found its way onto anyone's eyeballs. This is my way of making that not be true.

Of course I missed hearing from you. Sometimes my life is like a prison -- self-imposed though my consecration to it may be. And the voices from the outside that find their way to me are glimpses of freedom. All the better if they have interesting and eloquent things to say. Most of them just want computer help.

I have been writing lengthy letters when it was called for. And it reminded me of how much I missed our early correspondence. People like you bring out the try in me. And it leads to more of the do. And sometimes some of the sentences are worth saving. Especially the ones with clumsy Star Wars and Star Trek references in them.

The stirring is just to occupy the silences. The contemplative, suggestive, downcast-eyes, French-movie silences. I will buy you an espresso and a coffee. One to drink. One to stir. Or it can be a glass of water, if you like. With a spoon in it.

Recently it does seem that I catch myself watching from outside my head and I feel as if I am careening out of control. Babbling on when I should just breathe deeply and be serene and mysterious. When I hear myself thinking, "I have only myself to blame," I also realize that maybe I prefer it that way. I'm Encyclopedia Brown over here, twenty-four seven. My brain never shuts up. And I'm always frustrated that the answers aren't in the back of the book.

And whenever I try to be less than a hopeless romantic, I find that I don't know how to handle myself. I can feign callousness in certain venues. I can pretend to be above it. And I can move on and get past things. But the failures live on in the museum of my mind, and I am never able to close the door on them, because closure is not a real part of human existence, and that is a cruel fucking truth.

So when things don't keep to that pattern, I get confused. And I worry that the noodles will not come out right in the end. And I should be more flexible, because I know more than anyone that you can skip the package directions and still come up with something edible. I do it all the time. Because I am lazy when it comes to reading in general, and I eschew reading directions in particular because I am arrogant and certain that I have no need of them. And because I rebel against authority. Even in written form. I would put postage stamps on the wrong parts of letters if I didn't believe it would hamper the delivery of my very important correspondence and payments.

I'm drifting out here. And I don't know if I even truly want to correct that. I almost think that the drifting is fine. And maybe even better. Maybe the point is that I can't keep wasting so much effort and energy and emotion and analysis. I wonder how productive I might be if I wasn't so busy trying to steer ships at the bottom of the ocean. For someone who is tempted to eat food out of the trashcan rather than see it go to waste, I sure do throw away a lot of perfectly good time.

And if I were to tell you all these things in my real voice with my hands tugging at the longest parts of my hair and my feet fidgeting under a bar table, you'd probably notice that I'm smiling when I say it, and that even my most abysmal moments are usually assessed wryly and with whatever humor I can muster, however sardonic. I laugh a lot when I talk. I really do. And it isn't always a sham when I do it. Sometimes, surely. But not always.

I'm fairly certain that, given the right circumstances my previous boyfriends would describe me as someone good and kind and generous and worthy. As long as it didn't make them look bad to admit those things. I'm pretty sure that's how they see me. I was a good egg. But it's the fact that those assessments are paramount that is so flawed. I am living my life for the report card I generate. And then all I want to do is sit and stare at the grades. Moving forward is difficult for me. I ruminate like crazy.

When things are obvious, they are exactly that.

That Churchill fellow was on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight, and he really did not get his point across at all. He did however mention Hannah Arendt once. And I felt slightly pleased that I know who she is and what he was referring to. But, shit, he could have gotten what he was saying from the first three pages of the book. What a cheater. It wasn't really a very good episode of the show, frankly. Even though Dave Foley was a guest and Janet Reno. They were both good, but Bernadine Healy makes me want to see how long she can stay underwater with my hands around her throat. She's just one of those simpering false ones who wants to kindly disagree, and because she's being nice, you feel bad about having to say, "Woman, you're full of shit." But she's totally full of shit. And someone should say so. Dave Foley's mention of our nation's clandestine policy of extraordinary rendition prompted me to finish reading an article in The New Yorker about it that I had recently begun. I liked him for having done his homework. And for doing a great take when Bill asked if he believes in reincarnation.

I'm competitive when I shouldn't be. Like, ever since the first time I saw Marion Ravenwood outdrink that fellow in Raiders of the Lost Ark (I want to call him a sherpa because of the setting, but he was clearly like Yugoslavian or something), I've thought to myself, "I could do that."

To Catch a Thief is on. I suppose it's a Cary Grant week or something. And, yes, I adore Charade. As much for Walter Matthau as for Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. She's wonderful to me. Even when she's not great. I just find her so lovely and naive and girlish. Paris When It Sizzles makes me want to write. And Sabrina makes me want to have my heart broken in New York.

What I often learn when I do go back and find and reread old books I used to read is that they are shockingly smaller and shorter than I recall. Pamphlets, really. Barely worth dog-earing if you don't finish them in one sitting. The Mary Poppins books had this effect on me. I was like, "That's it? Crap." But I'm still glad to have them. Just disappointed in their girth. Maybe the Disney people added all those songs just to fill the thing out a bit, huh?

Mary, what a jerk

Today is my mother's birthday. I will drive down to San Diego and celebrate it with her, and then I will return to see what manner of cake I can bake. I feel as if I have been swimming in sameness. Organ-grinding. Pushing buttons on an old defunct console. It will get better. It will get glorious. And then it will get back to whatever it was. I can't complain too mightily about the baseline. It is never as bad as it could be and seldom as bad as it seems. I'm not saying that I'm all sunshine and paper hats. I'm just saying that I'm still able to feel it when my teeth have been pressing too hard against each other, and that means I am still capable of telling when to stop biting down.

Labels: Star Trek, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 4:26 AM | Back to Monoblog

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Laughter. Like Medicine.

Last night at Largo, Paul F. Tompkins had a bit to say about the Oscars and about Sean Penn and his apparent humorlessness in taking offense on Jude Law's behalf to what Chris Rock said about how many movies he was in last year. I was sorry I hadn't actually gotten to watch the show, because some amount of the jokes may have been lost on me, and that is a grave concern of mine. My powers of inference and extrapolation are considerable, thankfully. So I doubt I was ever entirely left in the dust, but there's really no way of knowing at this point. Tonight I watched The Daily Show and heard Jon Stewart lampooning the same incident, and I got to see Sean Penn's actual "performance," followed by Jon Stewart's epilogue to the incident, which went something like this: "Penn added, 'And while we're at it, Mr. Youngman, I would not like to take your wife, as I already have one. And, Mr. Seinfeld, regarding your query, in re: The Deal with Airplane Peanuts, the answer is economies of scale render it fiscally imprudent to distribute them in larger packaging. Let's get to the nominees.'" And that amused me greatly and also made me think that, despite his acting talents and impressive head of hair, Sean Penn must just be no fun at all to live with. I wonder what would happen if he ever happened on to a televisation of a celebrity roast. I'll bet there would be tears and broken things very soon after.

My friend Adam sent me a very well-written and thoughtfully-reasoned assessment of the show, too. And all of this just compounds in force and focuses like a laser on my sense of inadequacy at having not bothered to watch or form any opinions of my own. Sometimes I miss things. And, yet, I managed to watch Equilibrium in its entirety. Yes, I was working the whole time, but it's not like I didn't look up ever. Christian Bale is awfully distracting. Even when he's fulfilling the gargantuan cliché of experiencing an enormous welling-up of emotion at the first hearing of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I mean, yeah, it was the Fourth Movement, but it was right at the beginning of it. Not anywhere near the Ode to Joy. No one cries at that opening part.

Anyway, at least I managed to not see The Counting Crows at all. You have no idea how much I go out of my way to not be exposed to them.

So, yeah, the PFT Show was awesome as usual. I wonder what I would say in the event that it ever wasn't any good, but my imagination just isn't that keen. My friend Tom and I were talking today and couldn't remember how it was that Paul got off on an interesting tangent regarding skeletons just before the show wrapped up -- right before Danny Boy and the excellent reference to 1995's Se7en, a.k.a. Seven (alternative spelling). But Tom felt that the declaration, "Skeletons, you take the cake," was the topper.

And before we left, I gave Martín an opportunity to defend his assertion that Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is the best of the original trilogy to Wayne Federman, as Wayne and I had just been discussing the comparative superiority of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (the Star Wars: prefixes are implied) a couple of nights before. But it was just as I suspected. Even Martín is enough of a grown-up now to admit that Return of the Jedi can be his favorite without actually being the best. Everyone knows the death of the franchise started with that movie. I invite your dissension on this topic, should you find that it inexplicably exists.

Coincidentally, while we were driving to Largo, I asked Martín if he ever feels like a grown-up these days, and we had a short chat about that phenomenon. As I often feel as clueless and flailing as I did in high school, and, aside from having my own bank account and a private residence and stuff, it amazes me on a daily basis that I'm allowed to do anything unsupervised. I'm better today in many ways than I was when I was a youngster, but in many ways I am shockingly the same. And I wish every meal came with a toy.

Labels: Adam, comedy, commercials, Paul F. Tompkins, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 2:06 AM | Back to Monoblog

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Absence and What It Makes

I went to the Brendon Small Show tonight. It was great great. I can't wait to put up a sketch show I can really get excited about. Well, when I say I can't wait, I'm being somewhat extravagant. Sure I can wait. And I will. As with everything. I live my life on a train station platform, bags in hand.

This is a photo of my little one. Martín called her "Audrey-D2." Her shirt says, "Star Wars." (I had it made for her at Neighborhoodies.com. Let's be honest; I had a few things made there.) Even my dog has to subscribe to my geek chic. Poor thing. Anyway, it's the cutest thing in the world, seeing her in it. And it's soft and cuddly and keeps her from getting quite so much fur on my clothes. Plus, if she's embarrassed, it doesn't show. She's a cooperative little angel.

I was thinking about how we say we are missing something or someone. How it sounds materially as if the something or someone has been excised, amputated, cut out. That it must have been an actual part of you in order for it to be missing from you. So that explains the tenderness. The soreness. The hurt. Even when they cut your leg off, you keep feeling it ache. And it throws things off kilter when you expect there to be more people in the picture than actually show up for the shot. You can't leave room for the no-shows. The picture would be full of holes.

I say I am missing things all the time. Whether it's a pair of sunglasses or a dear friend. I'm always noticing the holes. I'm always counting the empties. I'm always taking stock of the inventory that never made it to the shelf. I wonder how huge and enormous I would be if I had everything with me that has fallen away over the years. Maybe that's why certain handbag animals molt.

I don't think absence makes the heart grow at all. I think it makes it shrink and shrivel like an unattended piece of meat. But I'm no scientist.

The world is full of phantoms.

Labels: Audrey, photos, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 1:47 AM | Back to Monoblog

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Next Year in Mos Eisley

I love watching Star Wars with Martín. We had the most fun and made the best comments and the best jokes. I remember when the special edition releases came to the cinema and we made such a big deal about going to see them on the days they opened. I think I had to take the day off from work to be able to see Empire in that big theater in Mission Valley that has since been turned into a church. When the opening titles for A New Hope began to play, I asked Martín if he was feeling a sudden thrill, and he admitted that he actually was. I love that we both still get boners over Star Wars. That we're cool enough to not feel the need to divorce ourselves from that piece of our history. And that we're cool enough now that we can notice the things that don't make sense or that need making fun of.

Eventually, we were joined by Beulah and Justin and Matt. And Steve held his cell phone up at the El Rey so I could hear William Shatner "singing." I got the best of all worlds. We didn't make it through to Jedi. Beulah doesn't approve. But the night was full, and that's what counts. And I laughed a lot. And Martín will be sorry in the morning, but sometimes that's the price you pay.

Labels: Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 4:01 AM | Back to Monoblog

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Star Wars Trilogy, Fuck Yeah

Martín and I are getting drunk and watching my Star Wars DVDs, instead of everything else I thought we were going to do tonight. It's the best thing ever.

Labels: Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 8:06 PM | Back to Monoblog

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Blood is yuck.

I hurt myself today. Pretty badly. I shaved off a piece of my finger. And when I say "shaved," I mean as in "with a razor." The kind meant for smoothening the gams of lovely ladies. Curiously, they are as deft at removing a piece of knuckle as they are at decimating leg hair. I was in a hurry and rifling through my overnight bag for my toothbrush, and I forced my hand downward too quickly and found the triple-blade of my Venus shaver. Of course, I began cursing immediately. And then I began to panic. I was in a hurry because my orchestra call time was 6:30, and now all of a sudden I'm wrapping wads of toilet paper around a throbbing wound that won't stop welling up red. Krissy made a wad of paper towel into a sort of absorbent doughnut around my finger and taped it in place with scotch tape. And then I drove to the theater, where I could be seen squatting down beside the first aid kit, fumbling with the bandages and antiseptic wipes and making those sharp sucking in "s" sounds you make when something really stings. Because it did.

It was my bow hand, so it wasn't as painful as it could have been to play tonight. But it sure did get cold out, and that didn't make things any better. My bandage is soaked through and my finger is sore to the touch. Who am I kidding. It's sore to the thought. And all I keep doing is running the scenario through my head and thinking of all the ways I could have avoided the injury in the first place. It's a thing I do. When I told my friend Joe about it, he said that habit was very Run, Lola, Run of me. I liked that.

I stole a few bandages from the first aid kit. Krissy doesn't keep them. That's why the paper towel doughnut. In my house, all the bandages have pictures on them. Hello Kitty. Star Wars. Disney Princesses. I'm glad that the bandage manufacturers of the world recognized this opportunity to make wounds more fun. I know, at least for my part, that stopping the bleeding with Jar Jar Binks is better than stopping it with plain. The only case where I don't think a character version is better is with pancakes. If you get suckered into ordering the Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes, just realize that the places where his ears and face have to be defined are the places where you got robbed of pancake. In terms of value, round is the only way to go. With pancakes anyway.

I used to prefer plain wound dressing. Particularly that time I woke up in the fourth grade with a neck so stiff that I couldn't raise my ear from my shoulder. My mom took me to the infirmary, and the doctor put one of those spongy beige neck braces on me. The kind that fits with velcro. And -- as a favor to me -- he didn't send me back to school before using a black magic marker to draw a bow tie on the cloth, right where an actual bow tie would have been, had I been wearing one. Well let me just tell you, that was one of the worst days in my fourth grade life. Not only did I not get any sympathy for my troubles when I got back to school, at lunch, this one bullyish older boy named Bill Roberts (a very pale-headed blond fellow who liked to wear an orange windbreaker and talk a lot of shit) ridiculed me relentlessly. He wasn't so clever as to link my look to Vaudeville or anything, but his audience wasn't so very discerning. I was just lucky it was super taco day in the lunch room, or my shame might have held their attention for more than twelve or thirteen seconds. When I got home, my mother and I figured out that the brace was reversible, and I was spared the shame of having to wear the clumsy trompe l'oeil a second time, but the damage was done. We never did find out what was wrong with my neck. But it went away, so we forgot about it.

No one made fun of my finger tonight. But I didn't draw a picture on the bandage, so who knows.

Anyway, ouch. And good night.

Labels: Krissy, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 2:57 AM | Back to Monoblog

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The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

I never quite got my fingers around the neck of today like I would have wanted. If I had, I would have shaken some sense into it.

But I did get to see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and I'm grateful for that. A strange thing happens for me with these movies. I am a devotee of the books, so I often have to try and curb my nitpickiness in order to try and enjoy the films in their own right. And, because my disappointment flared in the previous episodes only to later be assuaged in the special edition DVD releases, I tend to reserve absolute judgment altogether, lest I waste a great deal of vitriol on things that are destined to right themselves. It will take a year for me to be able to properly weigh what was wrought, and by then, I'll likely have forgotten a lot of what once hagrode me. The ire is temporary. And it seems to cauterize in its wake.

So, I watched and I wept (I do that a lot at the picture show -- dabbing at my eyes with the coarse corners of popcorn-soaked napkins and trying not to look a great fool) and I tried to remember the things that I know I would have wanted to remember. But as soon as a line would want to stick, it would occur to me that I'd already forgotten the last line that was supposed to be in the sticking place. Maybe I only have room in my head for one note at a time. Fortunately, in a matter of hours, the manic fanbase will have made a transcript of the movie available online, and I can go plumbing those depths at my leisure. See how easy it is to return a mountain to its molehill state?

To see a trilogy in annual succession in this way is also unique in that it spaces out your experiences and gives them these convenient markers. Each of these films came to me in the wintry times of my Los Angelism. The first year, I felt far from home. Alone in a new city. Cold and unsure of parking protocols. The second year, I knew my way to the theater, but there was the looming possibility that I would be leaving this city to go back to the one I previously called home. I couldn't let myself take root. And this year, here I am again. Or rather still. Still in the same zip code. Having just signed a new lease. Knowing I will be here for at least a little while longer. And yet I'm still in that waiting state. Not quite knowing how to pocket the holidays. Opening mail with a blank expression. Noticing when the sky is darker or lighter than usual but not going out into it very much. I live here, but I don't. In a way, I feel as if I don't live anywhere. Maybe because I sometimes feel that I don't live at all. That the light has gone out in me. Or the curtain has come down. Or the long-wearing mascara has called it a night. And then there are times when I thrill to each breath. Am dizzy with distraction and fervor and the way everything sort of flies past you like a fast-moving parade. Sometimes I look around and start to feel the room spinning, and I can't tell if I'm standing still. But all of it is fleeting. The drudgery and the delight. Inspiration. Deprecation. Despair. Demons. A kitchen that needs cleaning up. None of it lasts forever. None of it lasts for very long. You get through the worst things by knowing that they can be gotten through and that there is something on the other side worth seeing. Otherwise, no one would ever make it all the way to the Sistine Chapel. It's a long walk through many galleries -- many with prettily painted ceilings of their own. If you don't tell yourself there's something worth seeing up ahead, you might just sit right down in the middle of the place. And that would pose a nuisance. And you would miss out on lunch.

I suppose people who watched the original Star Wars trilogy may have similar spans marked for them, but the movies were released so much further apart that it would be hard to lay the spans down side by side and make anything of them. I never saw any of those films in the theater in their original releases. I was either too young or too living overseas or too the child of parents who don't take their kids to the cinema much. But when the special editions were released in 1997, I had the luxury of seeing them all on the big screen with only a month's wait separating them. It was good to get the whole scoop all at once. I had always felt a little left out. When dudes in my classes were carrying around Return of the Jedi lunchboxes, I didn't know what the word "Jedi" meant. The first time I saw Star Wars: A New Hope, it was airing on Guam network television on the one channel we got, and we taped it on our Betamax, commercial interruptions and all. And I watched it many times and noticed that my dad didn't seem to mind watching it with me. He used to get good and riled up during the final raid on the Death Star. He's a fan of action, my dad. For the record, I also did not see Grease until I was in my 20s. I think my sister and I assumed we weren't allowed to go to PG movies for a reason. When kids at school were singing about being born to hand jive, I assumed that was something dirty. And when the boys would sing that line from Greased Lightning, I had no idea what chicks creaming meant. I also had no idea that Greased Lightning was the name of a car. And that year my Halloween costume was made out of a paper bag. Just so you know.

Anyway, despite my nearly rabid dedication to the original texts, I really am so glad I got to see these movies. Glad that they were made. Glad I had the chance to have my love for the stories rekindled and reaffirmed. I realized at a young age that nothing shores up your convictions more than having to defend them. So even the things in the movies that jog my patience are good in that they force me to remember what I read and to tell myself what about it was important to me. Sparking debate is no kick in the teeth. I love to talk about this sort of thing. I could go on and on long into the night if I'm in willing company. Having those spots in my brain stimulated ranks in the height of pleasure.

And this third film did not disappoint me outright. Or raise my hackles to maddening levels. I did drop my jaw in a few places. I did occasionally peripherally peek at my companion to see if I was the only one bothered by this or that. I did laugh in places where laughing may not have been the desired response. And I did sigh in frustration once or twice, but in my defense, it was very late in the film and it could easily have sounded to others like yawning rather than the passive aggressive making of a scene. But so much of the movie touched me. So much that was missing from it or added to it prickled me. But I have reread the books recently enough that I can fill in many of the blanks internally and none of the meaning is lost. What a massive tool of metaphor is this tale. How many ways it can be applied to nearly anything that ever happens. I treasure the words. The ancientness of their cadence. I adore the universality. I embrace it and want to wrap it up in a giant squeeze of a hug. I want to draw it close. Because it is full of things that I feel and know and believe. In the end, Frodo asks, How do you go on when you realize there is no going back? And I got that feeling I get. That feeling I get when something is true. I think when things are true, they have a certain poetry to them. Effortlessly. When you find the way to say what is real, the words have a way of becoming a song. And songs have a way of sticking in your head.

I look for things every day -- in every moment of my life in every aspect of my experience -- that will guide me. Maybe the reason I love books and films about the seafaring life is that I envy a man who can work a compass and sextant. I envy a fellow who can trust his calculations and know exactly what course to take. To have that measure of certainty seems a great luxury to me. A great great luxury. I always feel as if I am reaching out in front of me as I enter a dark room with lots of debris on the floor, batting at the air with untrusting hands, afraid all the while that I am about to run into something and that it will be painful and humiliating. But sometimes, when I'm watching a movie, I get these little flashes of wisdom. Something makes sense to me for the first time. A puzzle piece falls into place. I relate. It also happens with books (which is why I keep a pencil handy for underlining) and with art and with music and with television. Sometimes, I feel as if a message is being sent to me personally, and I wonder if anyone else in the room is getting the same idea I'm getting. I'm so often disappointed to learn that something that meant a great deal to me had nearly no impact on someone close to me. So often frustrated to know that someone I care about can't see where I'm coming from or doesn't have that desire to step over and try to experience the sensation I'm having. I'm so busy wanting to share it all that I forget some of it is just for me. But that's why I never liked birthday parties where cupcakes were served instead of birthday cake. Individual servings can be so alienating. And they marginalize the competitive spirit inspired by more than one person wanting the corner piece or the frosting rose. If we take these things from children, how will anyone ever want to grow up to be president?

I make things mean more than they need to more often than not. I infuse moments with sentiment and assign absolute values to trivial details. I think it's how I keep the edges of things sharp. I worry about everything going into soft focus. I worry that, if I don't struggle to sustain everything that exists at any one time, I will lose it. Some of it or all of it. And what if I don't keep track? How will anything have meant anything at all if I don't pay close attention and put it all away someplace safe? Living in the moment has its vogue cachet, but I don't like to discount the importance of living in the past and in the future as well. If you can manage to be all of these places at once, surely you will have something to show for it. If I say the phrase "flux capacitor" now, it's only to further endear me to people who like me because I say things like "flux capacitor."

I received a bit of unwanted email from one Defecates L. Accumulation. Is there some proper name randomizing agent being used by the members of the spammers' guild these days? Annoyed and amused. That's me.

Labels: photos, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 1:29 AM | Back to Monoblog

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"Irving Berlin."

There was one word that kept coming into my head while watching Star Trek: Nemesis, and that word was derivative. I will have to elaborate on another day. I have many thoughts, but they are painfully disorganized.

I saw it in the big theater at Grauman's Chinese. I think my last foray there was on account of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. The Lil Bow Wow trailer that night garnered hilarious booing from the packed house. The trailer for The Core before today's screening contained a few things worth booing, too, coincidentally. Most noteworthy is the fact that the ostensible protagonist of this thematically nuclear-science-centric story can't pronounce the word "nuclear." I cringe just thinking of sitting through two or so hours of that guy saying "nucular" this and "nucular" that. If that ever becomes an accepted variation of the word, I may be forced to swallow a lump of coal. Then, there's the announcement that the catastrophe cannot be avoided. Someone says something to the effect of, "What can we do to fix it?" and someone else says, "We can't," and then Stanley Tucci says, "What if we could?" What a world this is. The world of The Core. "You will never win the lottery, Fergus." "Yes, but what if I did." "Ah, well, you make a good point there." Who's scoring this debate?

Oh. And in other news of trailer debacles, I can't imagine why the trailer for Daredevil is as bad as it is. I'm sure the movie will be bad. But trailers are usually such inaccurate harbingers of that sort of truth. In the background of visual imagery of Ben Affleck in mussed hair and/or a rather unimpressively-made and ill-fitting superhero costume, there's a ridiculous hip hop song playing. Both times I've seen this trailer in the theater, I haven't been able to keep from laughing. Are the lyrics "supercalifragilistic monkey dropping go ballistic"? Because if they're not, they might as well be. What?

I got a spot of Christmas shopping done. And I had a nice dinner and a nice lunch and a lot of laughing and gadding about. For some reason, I was freakishly giddy today. I was flustered and going at everything at a fevered pitch. It was partly crazy and harried and out of control. And it was partly buoyant and wonderful. I've been going for nearly a full round of the clock. And I suspect I shall still experience difficulty getting sleep to overtake me. I may have to seduce sleep with some challenging reading. Or barbiturates.

Today was a real bit of L.A. And possibly a bit of Christmas, too.

Epilogue: Apparently, it's "Supercalifragilistic. When we drop, we go ballistic." You're a better person for knowing that.

Labels: Star Trek, Star Wars

posted by Mary Forrest at 4:02 AM | Back to Monoblog

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