Batchin' It

So, K. is gone for a couple weeks property-scouting and in Eugene looking over a few things. That means it's just me and Smokey. With Mrs. Fu gone, it's just "us boys" and we're doing what we can to keep ourselves busy using our testosterone. Mowing the lawn, edging, cleaning the gutters, getting rid of those dead grass-plants on the front lawn, chopping wood and eliminating the wood pile on the east corner of the property, watering the plants. Then there's the stuff I'm doing: trying to get a shot of those hungry hummingbirds, making phone-calls and checking the internet for work, doing that freelance stuff, donating the "cat stuff" we don't need anymore (this is the first time I haven't lived with a litter box in my house in 30 years!), smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain (Kang) Kangaroo, now don't tell us, we've nothin' to do. Tuesday, we went to the mainland to get some supplies (and met up with FarmerScott at Costco). Then there are those Emmy video's piled up on Smokey's crate. We've gone through all the Animal Planet and True-Life Adventure stuff on the Discovery Channel DVD's. Smokey falls asleep on the stuff I've been watching--which includes a couple of Netflix, the reviews of which are below. He went to the vet earlier this week. Sunday in a fetching-frenzy, he ran into a bush with his mouth open and got a stick jammed in the roof of his mouth. There was some bleeding, but no slivers, so he's on an anti-biotics regimen for a week (they go down mighty smooth coated in peanut butter and it's always fun to watch your pet eat peanut butter). He's kinda bugging me about seeing the live-action "Underdog" movie. I'm thinking about teaching him to play poker.

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Notes on a Scandal

There's a sub-category of movies that always sends K. and I into fits of giggles. It started when we saw (take a breath) Kenneth Branagh's film of Francis Ford Coppola's production of "Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein.'" (whew!) We'd enjoyed Coppola's "Bram Stoker's 'Dracula,'" and liked Branagh's earlier films. But something about this "Frankenstein" went seriously off-the-rails. It seemed like every performance was delivered at fever-pitch (except for John Cleese, who drastically underplayed to avoid Python-esque associations), Branagh's direction was a combination of Brian DePalma swoop-and-carousel moves and Michael Bay "shudder-shots," and Brian Doyle's score was dialed up "to 11." After awhile, she and I turned to each other with our eyes wide, and I said "I think everybody in this movie needs a good night's sleep!" and from then on, we couldn't take the movie seriously anymore.

Everybody in "Notes on a Scandal" needs a good night's sleep. It's a bit like "Snow White" done as an urban British drama. Except "Snow" isn't quite as pure. Here's the gist: Judi Dench plays Barbara, an embittered veteran school teacher, who develops a fixation on Bathsheba (Cate Blanchett), a new art-teacher in school. Sheba, as she's know, begins an affair with one of her young students, which becomes known to Barbara quite early on. Barbara then devises a scheme to blackmail a relationship with Sheba and drive a wedge between her and her family, with the aim of having Sheba for herself. It's a joy (and a scary thing) to see Judi Dench turn on the after-burners and go into full "battle-axe" mode. Her Barbara is the creepiest creation since Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, with the added element of a pathetic (calculated?) vulnerability, and she's matched by Blanchett's distracted portrayal of the flibbertigibbet Sheba. There's one scene where both women go into an acting fever-pitch and its a bit like watching the performances fuse into one that's fascinating to watch, but makes you want to pull the "Emergency Stop" cord. And the hysteria is pushed at every hint of motion by Philip Glass' galloping score, even when it seems entirely gratuitous. It makes you want to back away slowly, get behind a locked door...and get a good night's sleep.

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The Good German

It's Cate Blanchett! Back to Back!

This was the second of Blanchett's (erk!) "Christmas" movies. And it's a fascinating little experiment, but not a satisfying movie. In it, Steve Soderbergh attempted to do a film in the old "Warner Brothers" style. It's in black and white, done on back-lots with incandescent lights, and tube microphones and back-projection. Stylistcally, it looks a lot like Michael Curtiz's staging of "Casablanca," while in the many instances of conflict it resembles Orson Welles' in-your-face direction. The story, which takes place in a divided post-war Berlin is a bit like the cynical "Third Man" crossed with the more romantic "Casablanca." But it has the modern sensibility of more natural acting, language, nudity and hyper-cynicism. And it's like the two don't go together, there's such a cultural disconnect between the "silver-screen presentation" and the story that ultimately they're working at cross-purposes. It's tough to care about the machinations of the script when you're admiring the technique, and playing "identify that shot." Plus, the stars are ill-served by the conceits. Clooney is forced to be a bit more broad, which has never been his strength, and poor Tobey McGuire just can't cope--it doesn't help that he's playing drastically against type. The character actors fare better with more theatrical performances, and Cate Blanchett channels the languid sensibilities of Dietrich and Bergman to get by. Still, it's not an incompetent film--it's very accomplished. But the directorial decisions undercut the story, and one wonders why Soderbergh decided to pull off these stunts (which couldn't have been easy and certainly flew in the face of what studios think generate box-office) when a more straight-forward presentation might have served the story better. Whatever joys the old techniques generate (one of which is hearing Thomas Newman score a movie in the style of his father, Alfred) aren't worth torpedoing the film.