This past weekend was pretty fun. Aside from having to lure Annie outside while people were blowing up small pieces of the neighborhood, it was a good time.
I took Thursday off work to hang out for a few hours with a couple friends in from out of town. We took a tour of the Auditorium Theatre, which is basically about the history and architecture of the building. Those of you who saw Public Enemies saw Johnny Depp standing in the lobby of the theatre for a minute or two. It's truly an amazing building and I am awed every time I am inside.
We got to go up to the Gallery seating area, which is above the 5th balcony, about 72 feet in the air. The Gallery is grandfathered into building codes now, but the new codes would never allow these seats to exist because they are arranged on a 41 degree incline and you seriously get vertigo looking down at the stage. I didn't take any pictures up there - they would not have captured the feeling.
Friday I went to New Buffalo, Michigan and went sailing with the same friends & their family. I'd never been out on an actual sailboat before, and it was a perfect day to be out on Lake Michigan. We went out for a few hours and then went back and had dinner. I got off the train downtown about an hour after the Grant Park fireworks had ended (1 million people crammed into a space of maybe 10-12 square blocks). Thankfully, most of the crowd had dissipated before I got downtown and I was able to get on the El very easily.
Movie Review #1: The Taking of Pellham 123
Saturday I went with 'the boy' to see the Taking of Pellham 123 and I was actually quite pleased with the movie. It was better than I had expected because they did a very good job with character development. We both pretty much had the plot figured out from the beginning, but still thought it was a decent movie. It's a remake of a 70s movie and the plot is basically a hostage situation involving a subway train. John Travolta plays the leader of the hijackers, and the bulk of the movie revolves around him talking to Denzel Washington, a transit dispatcher, over the radio. The interactions between the characters is well done and I'd recommend seeing it if it interests you. The thing I like about movies like this is that there is no clear black and white distinction between the "good guys" and the "bad guys." All of the characters have grey areas, and that makes them much more interesting.
Movie Review #2: Towelhead
A few weeks ago I rented Towelhead, which interested me because it was supposed to be a coming of age story about a half-Lebanese, half-American teenager living in the United States. The title, which was supposed to draw attention to racism and insensitivity, and all the reviews I read indicated that it was supposed to be about the prejudices she faces and that other characters grapple with when cultures, generations, and identities collide.
It is not that.
I hated this movie. I kept watching it just because I thought it might get back to the point, but no. Spoiler alert, I am not hiding anything in this review because I want you to know what you're getting into. If you don't want to know, skip this.
While it is a coming of age story about is Jasira, a 13 year old half-Lebanese girl whose mother sends her to live with her Lebanese father in Texas, it honestly has very little to do with racism or even identity, which is merely a sub-plot. Jasira is sent to live with her father because her mother is a selfish bitch who doesn't believe Jasira when Jasira tells her that her mother's boyfriend was basically molesting her. He only got as far as 'shaving' her, but her mother sees it as her fault and sends her away. From this point on, Jasira's character is nothing but an exotic sexual object - and she's only 13. She lives with her father and is then molested by the father of a kid she's babysitting, who is your stereotype of a conservative, flag-waving, Army reservist Texan. Of course, he and her father both have misconceptions about the other (another bit of the racism subplot). She begins a very inappropriate relationship with this character - which in addition to her dating a black boy in school (there's another little bit of racism in the plot), is the main focus of the plot. It's horrifying to watch this character be used as an object. Now, this is based on a book by the same title, written by an Arab woman. Maybe the book is better and less involved with the sexualization of a teenager. I also have to point out that Alan Ball, the screenwriter for American Beauty, adapted the book for the screenplay. What is it with that man and stories about adult men having inappropriate relationships with teenage girls??? Don't get me wrong, I love American Beauty (a far, far superior movie to this one), but it really makes me wonder why this man is drawn to stories of this kind.
If you're expecting a thoughtful and insightful movie about conflicting identities in America, this is NOT it.
Movie Review #3: Let the Right One In
This was recommended by a friend, so I rented it last week. While the storyline was very interesting - a teenaged vampire (Eli) befriending a bullied boy (Oskar) and the strange relationship between them as Oskar starts to realize what Eli really is, the movie itself was very, very slow. I recently heard from someone else that the book is much, much better (surprise there, right? When is that not the case). I would have liked a lot more character development and backstory. Pretty much the budding relationship between Eli and Oskar is peppered with incidents with the school bullies and myserious disappearances of townsfolk. I will say that the storyline, characters, and style of the movie are very original. I just wanted more to happen.