Lessee now.
What got done today? Not that much.
I did pick up a cheap amplifier, but declined to wrestle the octopus of my A/V stack tonight. I discovered a friend had recently Switched, and left him a message of congrats. I also found that another old friend (an old friend from Seattle, mind you) is a MeFite. Here’s hoping he comes to the March 5 meetup. I also learned another old friend is having a wingding on the 5, but think that it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to combine the MeFi thing with the other event, which is really a shame.
I goggled to see an article in the NYT of a web-meme parodying “The Gates.” Not so much that the times would cover a quirky response to Christo’s work. Christo’s stuff nearly always provokes someone to imitate him in an ironic way; the imitations generally reinforce the success of the project they are intended to deflate or lampoon. What is striking is that it’s the first time I can recall the Times covering a web meme at the time of the meme’s rise (which, predictably, came as the large-scale Gates were unveiled last week).
Last night, Viv and I watched two well-reviewed films from 2004 on DVD. Our double feature opened with Shaun of the Dead and closed with Garden State. I didn’t really know what to expect – both films have been so appreciatively mentioned by both pros and acquaintances, I suppose I expected a letdown from one or the other.
Shaun is noticeably the tighter of the two; what a script! The film is almost in appropriately well-constructed. It stands out among its’ shambling forebears by its’ really quite remarkable slickness, from cinematography to story. I was amused to note that our double feature apparently self-organized around writer-performers; Shaun is played by the film‘s co-writer, Simon Pegg.
Garden State stars the film’s writer (and director), Zach Braff opposite Natalie Portman. At first I was a bit put off by the classic first-movie story base. He’s an actor, estranged from the folks, who comes home for his mother’s funeral. Then as the film picks up the pace, which mirrors the lead character emerging from a haze of antidepressant meds, I was more and more involved with the film. Portman, in particular, is a strongly engaging on screen.
Viv was unaware that Braff, who also stars, had both written and directed the film. She liked both films very much.
Which film is more ambitious? It’s hard to say. Both appear to be restricted by genre. In the case of Shaun, a good part of the film’s charm derives from the postmodern way the film frustrates zombie-movie conventions. It does so with a knowing wink at the audience, and as such, it’s hugely enjoyable. But the film’s finely-honed structure, which unfolds with the precision of a Stoppard play, is deeply at odds with the traditional shambolic nature of zombie films. You can get quite drunk while watching Romero’s Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead and you’ll effectively miss nothing, including the biting social satire that drives both of Romero’s seminal zombie flicks. But if you try that with Shaun of the Dead for a first or second viewing – well, you might at times find yourself as overwhelmed as the titular hero is by his day-to-day life before the zombies.
Garden State is affecting, and yet sort of, well… cute. The careful imposition of a structure on the garden-variety prodigal’s return does successfully distinguish this from other indie films about our culture’s absurdly extended adoration of adolescence, and the performances are uniformly fine. But despite my having enjoyed the film, the (possibly intentional) emotional blankness of the film left it somewhat less resonant than I suspect the filmmaker hoped for. Portman’s performance is what made the difference, lifting this film from okay to good.