Sunday, June 25, 2006
What'd You Do This Summer?
So what do teachers do during the summer?
Everything they can't do during the school year because they're grading your kids' crappy research papers and worksheets.
Personally, I've been filling my time by sleeping in late, rebuilding up miles on my running regimen and watching World Cup soccer. And, I've resolved to catch up on all the films I've meant to see but haven't over the past year. This includes re-viewing some of my favorites from the recent past and there's no better place for this than one's local public library. The library system here in Norfolk is blessed with a pretty good DVD and VHS collection. You get them for a week and they're absolutely free. So, if you want to see "American Beauty" again, but can't justify the rental to yourself or others, or if you really can't decide if you want to commit financially to "Paradise Now," this is perfect.
Along these lines, we re-viewed "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" last night. If you missed it in 2004, check it out. It's worth the price of a rental at your locally owned video store (NO film is worth going to Blockbuster). If you liked Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura, rent that instead. He's great in "Sunshine" and understated, even by "Truman Show" standards. Practically everyone else in the cast is good too: Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo (shout out to Virginia Beach's First Colonial HS, Mark's alma mater), Elijah Wood, David Cross.
This is a drastic oversimplification, but the plot goes like this: Carrey plays sadsack Joel, who meets and falls in love with Winslet's Clementine. They have a falling out and she pays a doctor to erase Carrey from her memory. Everything's fine until Carrey finds out, gets pissed and decides to have HER erased from his mind, only to remember why he loved her in the first place and then trying madly to hang on to the memories of her even as the doctor (Wilkinson) and his colleagues are doing their work. (Great Dialogue: Joel: Is there any risk of brain damage? Doctor: Well, technically speaking, the operation IS brain damage, but on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss.)
Beyond that, suffice to say that the rest of the film consists of the characters' present-day selves reappearing in Joel's memories as they are falling apart or disappearing. It's really touching stuff, especially for those who have loved, lost and wanted to scrub their consciousness of certain people. Would you if you could? The film says that even if you did, certain things can't be erased. Wilkinson's character at one point had an affair with Dunst's and her memory was erased, but she is STILL attracted to him. Joel and Clementine, in a twist that disappointed some on the movie critic site rottentomatoes.com, end up together because they realize they were in love at some point.
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I too have been sleeping late.
If A History of Violence is on your list, skip it. It's awful. And I love me some Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen plays the lead in HoV).