The Curious Cases of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — 3 stars (out of 4)

No, that’s not a typo in the title, I would never do such a thing! I am actually referring to both the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. When I first heard about the movie, I honestly thought it sounded stupid. When I found out it was based on a short story by one of my favorite authors, I changed my tune completely.

Fitzgerald and Nick Hornby are my two favorite authors, but whereas I have read almost every letter put to page by Hornby, I have only read The Great Gatsby and a few of Fitzgerald’s short stories. (Granted, I have read The Great Gatsby several times.) I have decided it is time to change that and have found two of Fitzgerald’s other books which I shall attempt to read this summer, for summer is an exquisite time to take in the flowery language of Fitzgerald.

Last night, to kick off my summer of Fitzgerald, I read The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I liked the story but could not help but continually notice how it was nothing like the movie. The premise was the only thing the two stories had in common, a man is born in his 80s and ages in reverse. The movie uses its nearly three hour run-time to ruminate on the fleeting nature of life and love, something that seemed so very Fitzgerald-esque to me. The short story ruminated more on the acceptance of those who are different from us. The love story  within is brief and callous but exciting nonetheless. Thinking back on it, Fitzgerald does in fact make some points on the way we feel about love at different ages and stages in our lives, but they are more truthful than kind.

So in essence, the movie out-Fitzgeralded Fitzgerald. Even the character played by Cate Blanchett in the movie is named Daisy (Daisy being the name of the female protagonist in The Great Gatsby), while the name of the same character in the story is is Hildegaard.  And contemporary films or stories that are merely set in the past never quite capture the awkwardness of the characters or the decorum of the day the way stories written in the era do. (It’s always a little unnerving to me when a character “exclaims” something.) But both are lovely to look at, and interesting as ways in which the same story was told in different times.  

I wanted to mention one other thing about short story to film conversions, and that is the case of The Shawshank Redemption(s). Having liked the movie so much, I read the Stephen King short story on which it was based (this was a few years ago, at least) and was very surprised that in those 30 pages or so lie the entirety of the two hours and twenty-two minutes of film. There was not much that was left out or added in the film version. The complete opposite of Benjamin Button.

What’s your favorite print to screen conversion? Or your least favorite? My favorite is Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, and my least favorite is Nick Hornby’s About A Boy. Anything that’s better on screen than on the page? (My vote – Wonderboys.)

Advanced Cat Yodeling

Just because I thought it was funny.

 

 

Wendy & Lucy – 3 Stars

A few weeks ago I ranted about an independent film called Happy-Go-Lucky, by British director Mike Leigh. It was about a perpetual optimist, or in my opinion, really obnoxious woman. I did not give it a star rating because I was unable to sit through the whole movie.

Still, indie films can be quite terrific, so even though I suspected the film Wendy and Lucy might be similar in pacing to Happy-Go-Lucky, I gave it a whirl anyway.

Wendy & Lucy is in fact a slow-paced movie. Not a whole lot happens during its brief, 80 minute running time. But what happens is memorable and sticky and leaves a mark.

While similar in pacing, these two films could not be more dissimilar in tone. Wendy and Lucy is a very quiet film, with the underlying rhythm of the trains as its soundtrack. Wendy is down on her luck, trying to get to Alaska where she hears there is work. She has nothing to be happy about, except her lovely dog Lucy.

Normally I am quite the “joy junkie” and a feel-good film, as Happy-Go-Lucky is described, would be my kind of flick. But as I have said many times before, from science fiction to comedy to drama, what matters to me most is the story. And I have to hand it to Wendy and Lucy for weaving a memorable tale.

I could describe all that happens in this film in a few paragraphs. And that means a couple of things to me. It means that the pacing is a bit too slow at times. It also means that I remember most everything about the film, and that’s remarkable for me. Think of how many films you know you’ve seen but can’t remember more than one or two details. Wendy and Lucy is vivid and clingy and impressionable in its simplicity.

So this film for me is very much the opposite of Happy-Go-Lucky. I wanted to like Happy Go Lucky but couldn’t even sit through it. After sitting all through Wendy and Lucy, I didn’t want to like it but I did. It’s not flawless, and it’s certainly not happy, but I can still easily recommend it. 

 

Eureka!

I hate to get all Andy Rooney on you here, but I have a pet peeve I need to express. Why must vacuum cleaners suck so much? (And not in the good way, where they would actually suck up dirt from the floor.) And who’s idea was it for a bagless vacuum anyway?

Last year, when Shaun and I were registering for wedding gifts, we knew we’d son be needing a vacuum so we looked over everything they had at Target and selected a Bissel Lift-Off Revolution Pet Hair Eraser. It is a bagless vacuum cleaner, which I have long been suspicious of, but Target had only bagless vacuums from which to choose. One of my cousins wrote in the card that accompanied her gift that if no one bought us the vacuum, we should buy it ourselves because she had the same one and she loved it. We used some of the gift money we received to do just that. How anyone could like this vacuum, or bagless vacuums in general, is beyond me.

Emptying the canister on a bagless vacuum is a dirty, dusty task which must be done every two or three vacuumings. Personally, I consider seeing all the crap the vacuum picked up from my floor completely unnecessary. Not to mention dumping the canister seems to release a bunch of particles back into the air. Then, the “conveniently” washable filters get clogged and need washing too, which requires you to touch all that dirt. And the way our vacuum cleaner told us it needed its filters cleaned was to blow the circuit breaker and shut off power to whatever part of the house I was vacuuming. I wound up in the dark more times than I can count, and when you have to stop in the middle of what you’re doing to wash the filters andlet them dry, well you’re done vacuuming for the day.

Oh but the canister and filters were not the only problem with this vacuum cleaner. The long handle on the attachment, instead of being two separate parts, was one part with a “locking mechanism” that stayed locked about as long as Amy Winehouse stayed sober. Then the hose part of the attachment was a thick, accordion style tube, and attempting to stretch the accordion even a little bit, to reach that dust bunny under the bed, tipped over the whole vacuum.

The vacuum itself detached into two parts, so that you could use it like a canister on the stairs. I thought that would be handy, having lots of stairs to vacuum. But the cord always got tangled up in the base of the vacuum.

The pet hair brush would frequently get hair wound around it and stop working. I unclogged it again a few days ago, but it decided that wasn’t good enough and stopped working altogether.

The “furniture bumpers” on the bottom part were in frequent use because it was hard to maneuver, any slight tilt upward would cause the brush to stop spinning, it was heavy and loud and also, extremely hot.

Yesterday, while attempting to use the attachment, the vacuum cleaner once again tipped over, but this time it hit me on the head. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I went straight out and bought a new vacuum cleaner. I’m not normally an impuslive person, especially when it comes to any purchase more expensive than a can of cat food, but I was fed up. I’m the only one who vacuums, so it’s in everyone’s best interest if I have a cleaner that doesn’t make me homicidal. Knowing for certain now what I did NOT want, I figured I was bound to get something at least slightly better.

Of course, not only was I notgoing to get a Bissell, I also didn’t want a Hoover, because my parents have had two of those with frequent problems, and consumer’s guide routinely calls them unreliable. Well there were only three bagged vacs to choose from anyway, so I went with a Eureka Boss Smart Vac. The reviews I read of it said it had powerful suction but was heavy, but most people liked it. One complaint they had about the Eureka was the step mechanism to get it to lean back required some force, but I’m just hoping that means it’s sturdier.

Having owned and operated this vacuum for one day, I can tell you that it is definitely powerful, and while heavy is actually lighter than the Bissell. It is easier to pick up and carry around (no canister needed), the attachment hose is in two separate parts that stay together better than the locking mechanism, and even with significant force on the accordion hose, I was unable to tip the whole thing over. It maneuvers better, and because the bottom part is not so bulky, I can get underneath the bookshelves. It’s bare floor mechanism works better than the Bissell (a feature highly rated by users.) It’s quieter. And I know that I won’t have to physically touch each piece of dust it picks up. $1.50 for a replacement bag for that particular convenience is well worth it, in my humble opinion.

Vacuums, pheh. And don’t get me started on cell phones or the wordpress image uploader.

 

Bad Vacuum

 

Better Vacuum

Ser

Sonic the Drive-In

 The first I had ever heard of a White Castle was when Harold and Kumar went there. We don’t have White Castles ’round these parts. Nor do we have In ‘N Out Burgers nor Carl’s Jrs. And that’s just fine by me. So interested was I in a White Castle after Harold and Kumar that I tried a frozen one (the only kind you can get ’round these parts) and well, yech.

But what we do have now is a Sonic Drive-In. Here in my very own hometown of Puyallup. It’s the first of many in the Pacific Northwest they say. They also say that it’s part of Sonic’s Marketing Plan to run ads for Sonics in areas where they plan to expand years before they open, so as to create an insane demand. That’s certainly what happened here. According to the Tacoma News Tribune, Sonic started airing commercials in Western Washington in 2006, with the nearest Sonic in Vancouver, WA, 2 hours away. When Sonic opened here almost three weeks ago (May 2009), the wait was over 90 minutes. 90 minutes for fast food!

The wait at Sonic. I took this driving by so the real insanity of it is lost.

They may have started airing local commercials in 2006, but I must have seen commercials on cable channels even before that, because I went to New Orleans in February of 2005 and I was very excited to come across a Sonic. I really wanted to try one of their slushee – slurpee type drinks. So I insisted to my friend that we stop. This must have been a very weird Sonic because as far as I remember it wasn’t a drive-in, and we walked inside the restaurant to order. I ordered one of the drinks and was told they didn’t have them. Ooh-kay. So we just left. A few days later we found another Sonic in another part of town, a drive-in. This time I ordered and was served one of the drinks, but they must have made it with tap water because it tasted like chlorine.

So I was hopeful that when the Puyallup Sonic opened I’d finally get to taste one of these drinks as they were meant to be. But I certainly wasn’t going to wait 90 minutes. Like the Krispy Kreme from 2003, we figured it would take about three weeks for the scene to calm down. Shaun and I went mid-week, just before dinner time, a couple of days ago and wound up waiting about 15 minutes I think. At the time I was not hungry so I only ordered tater tots and one of the drinks. I ordered a slush, when I think what I wanted to try was the lime-ade. In any event, the two things I did eat were, well, yech. Shaun didn’t love his meal, but wants to go back to try something different, so I’m sure we’ll be back until I decree that I hate the place and I won’t go there anymore.

I’m not sure why places like Krispy Kreme and Sonic can create such insane demands. I also frequently puzzle at the nostalgia for old times. A drive-in sounds so novel and fun, but let’s be honest, eating in the car is far more uncomfortable than eating at a table. A couple of years ago Shaun and I went to a drive-in movie theater in Auburn because I had never been to a drive-in. It was a double feature. 4 hours spent in a tiny, cramped Subaru, watching a blurry picture on the screen and listening to distorted audio via AM radio waves. Mr. & Mrs. Smith was never better.

When Shaun and I lived in Redmond, I would pass a BurgerMaster drive-in on 520 on my way to work. And since I am not immune to nostalgia or gimmicks, I insisted we try it. We wound up going to this place a few times, because it was actually good. Unlike Sonic. Wouldn’t it be great if we could create demand for a local, homegrown restaurant or chain and just said who cares to corporate crap like Sonic? BurgerMaster is a Seattle chain, with five locations in the greater Seattle area. If you’re nearby any of them, get your drive-in fix there! Don’t bother coming down here for Sonic.

 

Sonic's Menu Board

Gender Bender

When I was in high school and college, I spent a lot of time in the flute section of bands and orchestras, and immediately after college I spent a year or so working in the public library. These are the domains of women. I worked at three different branches of the Public Library and of the dozens of people I worked with, only two were men. Two very creepy men. And in any situation where one gender far outnumbers the other, there’s a certain dynamic in the room that you can feel, particularly if you are in the minority.

Television production work tends to be fairly balanced overall, but there are more women producers than men, and far, far more male editors than female. So for the past few years I have found myself in the minority. Oh there have been a few women editors that have come and gone. There was the crazy German woman. Then there was the crazy French woman. And occasionally there’s Cecilia, who’s half-French and very nice. But most of the time, it’s just me and the guys. And most of the time, it doesn’t bother me. I realized in college I got along better with men than women. And one of the reasons I am always happy to return to this particular job when there is work available is because I like all of the people, the men and the women. However,  because I work in the office where all the men work, I mostly hang out with the men. (Actually, if you ever read Dave Barry, you’ll know what I mean when I say they’re not really men, they’re actually guys.)

The latest joke amongst the guys comes courtesy of the local gas station. Every afternoon at least two of the editors make the trek down the street for an A.D.S. (All Day Soda – one of the giant 44-oz fountain drinks.) Well about a week ago they found a piece of sausage called a “Lil Chub” and they haven’t stopped talking about it since. This doesn’t actually bother me. Crude humor can be funny, though I’m more of a “That’s what she said” kinda gal. (“That’s what she said!”)

But every once in a while the gender dynamics creep back in the room. Last week I took a hard hit to the ego concerning my voiceover (VO.) As an editor, it’s part of my job to read a “scratch track.” It’s the dialogue or voiceover that will eventually be provided by the talent, but not until the show is almost finished and any revisions to the writing have been made. I have found reading VO to be kind of a humbling experience in general. First of all, until you get used to the sound of  your own voice, listening to your own scratch track is excruciating. Second, when I was reading VOs for my first show,  Gardening By the Yard, I realized early on I was talking WAY too fast. This is a problem because when you finally get the voiceover track from the professional, you want them to match as closely as possible so as not to screw up your timing. So I had to start reading much slower, and to keep myself in check, I wound up taking all the emotion out of my voice. If I didn’t get excited or try to act, I could concentrate more closely on leaving enough time and pronouncing all the words correctly. (Something else I realized very quickly was just how many words I gloss over in everyday speech. All that time I thought I was so eloquent. Try it someday, you might find the same thing.) However, an emotionless VO is a boring VO and can affect the energy of the show. So I’ve have spent some time up-ing my game so that I can read slower but still with emotion. I’ve gotten better, and one thing that helps is my current show (Sell This House) has a female voiceover anyway, so it’s much easier for me to imitate her cadence.

Last week one of the online editors was teasing me about my VO. How it sounded just like the professional’s, and how he would only talk to me if I used my voiceover voice. I protested that the VO voice was just my normal voice, but he called me on it saying “no it’s not, it’s different.” Well he’s right. It is different. How could it not be? Another male coworker from my days on Gardening came down and joined the fun, hassling me about the VO from the emotionless days.

I am not a great voiceover artist. If I were, believe me I’d be looking for work because it pays very well. But I’m not and my point here is that no one else is either. We have one editor who has done actual paid VO work and he’s pretty good, but the rest of them are just like me. Not great but acceptable for what it is. And no one makes fun of them. I don’t mind being made fun of, it’s par for the course and actually I rather like it because then I’m allowed to give as good as I get. But sometimes that dynamic just kicks in. It feels different when they pick on me for my voice. It feels like they’re picking on me because I’m a woman. Also, the two people who were picking on me for my VOs never have to read VOs themselves.   

People also pick on my car (you know, the world’s best car) which is fine because I choose to drive that car and I like it, but two other people there – men – drive Corollas and no one ever makes fun of them. I’m just saying.

I wish I had more of a moral to this story, but I guess this is where I have to realize I’m just sharing part of my day. How about you, wide world of readership? Can you shed any light? Do you ever feel the dynamic? Do you, like me, watch film credits to see the names of editors? The latest Star Trek film was edited by two women!

Writing about writing

I said in my previous post about the new Star Trek film that it is my long-held belief that the “real rewards in storytelling lie in crafting an interesting and compelling story out of domestic, quotidian material.”

I later read a blog post by a friend of mine in which she stated she aims for five new posts a week. She struggles with the same issues I have when contemplating what to write, not wanting posts to get too boring (8 a.m. – Cocoa Puffs. 8:15 – Chocolate Milk), but not always having the time or material for a polished, focused essay. She does an excellent job with her material. Though I can’t say I keep up with her blog five times a week, what I read is interesting and well done. I suppose if I didn’t know her at all it would be less so, but I haven’t seen her since high school, so much of her current life is completely foreign to me. That possibly makes it more interesting, but the point here is she is able to able to craft interesting posts about domestic material.

I on the other hand have settled into a mode of mostly movie reviews. I’ve done this because I’m not a terribly active person, particularly right now when work is scarce and money is low. My husband is not very active either, preferring to play video games or work on his Mame arcade. What a domestic, quotidian life we lead. 

Well I’ve taken to heart my own advice and been inspired by my friend. Though on my very best days I think I reach about 3 people with this blog (Not even my mom understands the point of blogs and apparently could care less what I am doing), so if only for you three and myself I present to you a day in the life of an editor…

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it…

One thing that I like to make prominently clear about myself is that I do not like science fiction or fantasy. And while I have never and will never see the Lord of the Rings, my disdain for the genres actually comes from experience. My mother is and always was a real sci-fi geek and for a very long time I engaged in watching those sorts of movies and reading those types of books. Then one day I realized I didn’t like them. I can’t remmeber exactly when, but it was at some point later in high school when I started writing for my own enjoyment and I realized the real rewards in storytelling lie in crafting an interesting and compelling story out of domestic, quotidian material.

Needless to say, I really had no desire to see the new Star Trek film, the reboot as they are calling it. No desire until I saw that Simon Pegg was in it. Simon Pegg! He’s a funny guy. So I decided to be nice for once and accompany my husband to the show. We went to see the film at the “IMAX” (ha!) in Southcenter. And though I didn’t really want to, I really enjoyed this film.

Now while there are many things I have not seen in the genre, I have seen my share of Star Trek. Mostly The Next Generation which was big when I was in high school. And I believe it was Deep Space Nine that made me realize just how much I hated the genre. But I don’t know much about the original series or storyline and that did not matter in the new film. I found it completely understandable with my rudimentary knowledge of Star Trek and the Trek aliens. And the thing I liked best about this film was the establishment of the characters. We saw what brought them to Star Fleet Academy, and how they became friends (or enemies) and they were all around real and likable characters. Characters, not caricatures, in a Star Trek film. Imagine that.

And one decision I really applaud is the one that kept Kirk in plain black clothes and out of the ridiculous Star Fleet uniform for most of the picture. It really helped establish his character and set him apart visually.

The downside is the character storytelling falls by the wayside about halfway through the film to advance the Trek plot involving aliens, time-travel and planetary explosions. But even that was well paced and not so mired down in lore to be unintelligible. In fact, I completely agree with Simon Pegg in his infamous line playing in a trailer near you…”I like this ship. It’s exciting!” Indeed it is, Mr. Pegg. (More of him, next time, please.) There is plenty more room for character development in subsequent films and should they keep telling that side of the story, I will continue to watch. Because these are people I want to know more about.

Oh yeah, one more thing… Nuclear Wessel!