TRH Movie – Changeling

Last night Fionna and I went to go see Changeling after having a pit stop at the Bloor Street Diner (very helpful in letting you get to the movie on time). First off, after cancelling (or not renewing) my EW subscription because I’m trying to be more fiscally responsible (and the redesign sucked; and I don’t ever care about the Jonas Brothers) and I get plenty of magazines through work, I feel very left out of the whole pop culture world. So when I saw the trailers for this film I sort of thought that there was a supernatural element to the film — you know, because it’s called Changeling. But there’s not, and because I don’t want to give away the gist of the film, I’ll just leave that observation at that.

Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins, a single mother living in the 1920s in Los Angeles. She works for a telegraph / telephone company. She raises her son, Walter. She gives sage advice: “Never start a fight but always finish them.” And explains that her husband left after opening up a big box of responsibility he just wasn’t prepared to face. Torn between her responsibility at work and spending the day with her son, who is her whole world, Christine goes into work one day only to discover upon her return home that her son’s missing. The police are called. Weeks go by and then he’s returned to her in a glorious (and heavily photographed moment) by the L.A.P.D.

Only there’s just one catch: he’s not her son. He’s three inches sorter and antatomically, ahem, different in many, many ways. And the more the police want her to say that it’s her son, the more she resists. She kicks up just enough fuss that the missing children chief simply tosses her into the looney bin because she won’t play along. Shocking, abhorrent, and utterly upsetting, despite her treatment in the hospital, she refuses all along to sign a paper saying that the boy the police returned was indeed her son.

It’s a complex, long film that not only addresses the mistakes the police made with respect to her case, but also the legal and sociological ramifications of their actions. Jolie’s excellent, but she usually is, and her role in this reminds me a lot of A Mighty Heart rather than her more kick-ass-type characters. All in all there’s just something about a Clint Eastwood picture: they’re a little bit too long but they never drag; he elicits strong performances from his actors, especially the ladies; and they just seem to wholly embody the time and place they’re representing. The art direction, the costumes, the general tone of speech — were all pitch-perfect.

Honestly, I enjoyed this picture so much more than I thought I would. Kind of like Pride and Glory. Huh, eh?

Oh, To Remember

Quite a few years ago now, I was living up at Yonge and Eglinton, my least favourite neighbourhood in the city, in an awful city-run apartment building with cockroaches and crazies. The rent was cheap. The commute was easy. I was also working in the financial industry and trying like mad to get some of my writing published so that I could simply call myself something other than a “customer service representative.”

My brother often stayed in the tiny apartment that I shared with another girl (keep in mind it was a bachelor; I don’t know how we all fit) because he was going to school in Toronto at the time and living in Markham. We were up late one night talking about war and Robyn said, “I don’t believe in war,” or something of the like. My brother turned to her and said that if it wasn’t for the Second World War he wouldn’t be here at all — and that’s just the plain truth of the matter.

My maternal grandfather fought, as his father had in the First World War, for the Allies. He met my grandmother in London, where she was born and raised, and they married even before the war had finished. I have copies of their letters to his parents and they are gorgeous. Full of the first blush of love and the kind of happiness that comes just after one gets married, the letters are a wonderful time capsule of their lives. Yet, they’re also so representative of the spirit of the times; I think, at one point, my grandfather writes, “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re fighting a war over here…” to his father. Young men in uniform and young women fighting beyond the homefront. Lives forever changed and generations existing simply because these young men and women were brave enough to make the sacrifice.

Living through a war, I would imagine, is not something one easily forgets. For years my grandmother did not waste anything. She washed and bent the tin cans so they could be easier reused. She made our clothes. She gave me cups of tea and a half an aspirin if I was feeling poorly. But she never really talked about the war. And because she died before I knew enough about the history to ask, I read her letters and feel as though I know her better. I miss her every day. So now when I listen to the pipers on Remembrance Day, I think of all of my relatives here in Canada and abroad who made it possible for me to type these very words you’ve just finished reading. Lest we forget.

The Ridiculous To The Sublime

I’m a little foggy-headed this morning so in between fiddling with HTML code for work, I surfed the rounds and discovered:

1. I am usually the last to see these things. That doesn’t make them any less disturbing (totally NSFW).

2. Like so many people in the world, I celebrated the results of the US election. But this picture / piece of art grabbed my attention because when you see so clearly the stunning truth of history in the making it’s really quite incredible.

Now I’m going back to my code.

TRH Movie – Pride and Glory

Not feeling happy with my own company yesterday, I needed to get out of the house. Feeling suburban and kind of exhausted, I drove myself out to the Queensway cinema to see Pride and Glory (sometimes you can take the girl out of Mississauga but you can’t always take Mississauga out of the girl). From the tagline and trailer you’d expect a fairly typical good cop vs. bad cop drama set on the gritty streets of NYC, and that’s pretty much what you get, but the script is good (save for a couple of quasi-lame, quite derivative sub-plots; tell me, why do all abandoned their “difficult” marriages cops end up living on boats?) and so are the performances.

Ed Norton wears a jagged scar on his cheek and a clean cut “cop” goatee. He’s a very serious detective who made a bad judgment call a ways back and now atones for that sin toiling his time away in Missing Persons. The entire 31 division (is that right?) is playing a football game when the call comes in that there’s been a terrible incident in Washington Heights that’s left four cops dead. Pulled back into mainstream cop life by his high-up cop father (Jon Voight), Ray Tierney (Norton) joins the task force and starts pulling down the cards supporting the “house” and revealing some pretty crooked business. The trouble? His brother, Francis (Noah Emmerich), is the CO and any wrong doing will end up stacked high on his shoulders. Toss in the fact that the trouble is somewhat caused by his brother-in-law (Colin Farrell) and suddenly this the “blue family” of cops now has bloodlines and baby sisters and all kinds of other sibling rivalry to cope with on top of the usual ideals of loyalty.

See, when I spell it out like that it all comes across as a little cliche, but the film itself is pretty good. It’s not an over-bloated epic like last year’s We Own the Night but it’s certainly not as complex and intriguing as The Departed. Yet, I liked the movie because the performances were honest, Norton and Emmerich play brothers, and while a lot of the action may be stereotypical, neither give a performance where they’re “playing” cops, if you get my meaning. There’s a particularly poignant scene where Emmerich simply stands up to become the kind of man his wife expects of him (she’s sick; you know where that’s headed and where it’s came from; there’s nothing new there) and it’s subtle, effective and somewhat moving. On the whole, it’s a solid picture, exactly what you’d expect from those involved.

#63 – Hunger

In my last post about the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list, I was full of resentment over having slogged my way through American Pastoral. With Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, I’ve now forgiven the list. As the unnamed protagonist wanders around Christiania (Oslo) starving and half-mad, he narrates the decline of both his physical and mental states. Hunger is a striking, captivating novel that feels utterly modern in its conception with echoes of the stream of conscious-type narratives that I am ever-so fond of reading.

Originally published in 1890, the struggles of the writer to simply live, to find a warm, dry place to sleep, to keep his body protected, to find food to satiate the most basic of the body’s expectations, seem beyond him for many reasons. He has no money because he hasn’t sold an article (he has sold many articles to the pawnbroker, though). He’s been evicted because he can’t pay the rent. His appearance deteriorates as the novel continues leaving bits and pieces of his hair all over the city (it’s always falling out!). While respite comes throughout the book in various different places, the overall suffering and consistent starvation of the narrator, his awful living conditions, and the fact that at one point he resorts to sucking on wood chips ensures that he never really comes through the other side.

In a life where a few pennies (øres?) would make a world of difference, the writer clings to a sense of his own morality. He refuses to steal any food for survival. He pays back his debts (even if it means he’ll starve once again). He believes entirely in the value of his written words if only he could get his mind to work. He simply never asks for help. Then, driven to the brink of madness, the writer finally sacrifices his freedom for survival, and it’s a bittersweet moment.

Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920, and from what I can discern from the biography in the back of the book, his own struggles to make a living from his work inspired aspects of Hunger. The author’s strength of character comes through (sitting atop a train after being diagnosed with tuberculosis and breathing in as much air as humanly possible) both in terms of the power within this novel but also in his personal story. Balancing out the basic needs of life with the kind of hard work the narrator resigns himself to just in order to survive, the entire book feels like a testament to the kind of men who value ideals of strength in character above all else. All in all, it’s a magnificent book. One that I would have never discovered had I not embarked upon the whole 1001 Books Challenge in the first place.

READING CHALLENGES: Killing two challenges with one book: Norway for Around the World in 52 Books and another 1001 Books title.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: My second-hand copy underneath my 1001 text, which has a far superior jacket image.

Psychic Reading

I am forever amazed at the seemingly psychic ways that reading makes its way into your life. How sometimes, books just choose you. Yesterday after picking my brother up from the hospital, I was driving back to work (and I never drive to work) and noticed how windy it was in the city. The multicoloured leaves were strewn (and continually blowing) all around the streets and it was an amazing site to be seen. You know, it’s one thing to know that the seasons are changing, to see the treetops from the 20th floor and to remark about the prettiness of it all. But it’s quite another thing to experience the seasons: to stand on Bloor Street as the wind whips you into next week, to put out the recycling and kick a pile of leaves around at the bottom of your stairs, to smell the cold, autumn air. It’s so easy to forget the importance of noticing these things as the days get busy with life, stress and (in my case) seemingly never-ending drama (and, well, trauma).

I’ve been reading Oryx and Crake, slowly and it’s reminding me of The Road. Anyway, the edition I have is hardcover and I didn’t want to lug it all the way to work so I picked up Knut Hamsun’s Hunger this morning instead. I bought a second-hand paperback when we were in NYC this summer because it’s been on numerous ‘to be read’ lists that I’ve made over the years. Imagine my delight at finding this sentence: “The fall had come, that cool delicious time of year when everything changed colour and died.”

Just perfect.

Page A Day?

Now that I’m in between assignments, I’m thinking I’ll get back to my page-a-day work schedule that made up the bulk of the first draft of the manuscript. I’m also going to have to get back into the habit of writing on my own stuff instead of a) wasting time blogging and b) wasting time putting myself into an internet coma. Even if I stretch out a few sentences before failing myself in front of the television I’ll at least get back in the habit of working on the book. Next to my family and my RRHB, writing is the most important part of my life. It’s strange how the time slips away around it and I just can’t get there these days.

Deep breaths, right?

TRH Movie – Pack Oops "Body Of Lies"

I skipped out on work early this afternoon and went to see a matinee. Normally, one of my favourite things to do, but even my heart wasn’t it in today. There was an older woman sitting beside me who obviously snuck in from another movie because she didn’t arrive until a good third into the film eating potato chips through the entire picture. With each crunch I did nothing but picture my own depressing future.

And then I’d slap myself out of it in my mind and get back to watching the atrocious Body of Lies. Some of the things I noticed:

1. Leonardo’s character is supposed to be “the” US / CIA guy in the Middle East, and sure he speaks Arabic and wears some pretty bad silver jewellry but he’s a terrible spy. And gets beaten up like every five minutes in the picture.

2. If you’re a spy, one guesses one should probably, um, blend in and not try to start up a really inappropriate relationship with a Muslim nurse as she’s giving you a rabies shot. Suuurree she believes that you’re a “political advisor.” Yawn.

3. When a big-time Jordanian intelligence officer says to you, “Don’t you ever lie to me,” that’s Hollywood code for everyone in his immediate surroundings telling whoppers for the remainder of the film and getting their comeuppance. Double O Yawns.

4. Does every single “action” movie need to have a damsel in distress? I’m so over it.

5. Shut up Russell Crowe and stop calling him “Buddy.”

6. Torture is bad. I get it. No, really, I get it, we don’t need a torture flashback within the torture scene, it’s okay, we’ll remember the half-naked Arab guy getting his knees knocked worse than any sh*t Hollywood used to put the Irish through.

7. Why oh why would you go unprepared to a meeting with a terrorist organization without so much as a knife hidden somewhere in your spy gear underwear? Why just surrender? Syndey Bristow had more sense and she’s a girl. At the very least, don’t forget your hat. It’s hot in the desert.

8. Race to save the girl. Sacrifice yourself for the girl. Run around acting like a fool because the girl’s life is in jeopardy. Seen it all before. Saw it on the way down and barfed it all back up again.

9. For the smartest “spy,” Leo sure makes a lot of rookie mistakes that get a lot of people killed, but he’s got contact lenses, dark hair and a southern accent (please, no more accents, please) so that’s supposed to make you think that he knows what he’s doing.

10. Does anything actually happen in the movie? No, wrong way of writing that, let me re-cast: does anything change at the end of this movie? Nope. Nada. Zilch. Can I have my Scene points back?

Too Early On A Sunday

Over the past few days I’ve been finding it harder and harder to sleep. I’m averaging about five hours a night, which is better than nothing but still means I’m not getting any better in terms of the cold that seems to be hanging on for dear life. I’ve now been sick since the week my mother died and it’s like trying to live through a constant, pressing hard wind. The more I push myself forward, the more it presses against me. The cough rattles through like turbulence and it shakes me around in its wake at all hours. The wakefulness is one thing: I know what to do with it. But my body seems unable to rest no matter how many hours I spend at home.

Last night, after spending the afternoon with my husband’s family for our niece’s third birthday (and what fun that was despite the above), I came home, did some work, and then settled down to watch HBO’s Recount. The film stars Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary and a whole host of other people, and dramatizes the events surrounding the Florida voting fiasco from the 2000 presidential election. Knowing now what a complete and utter mess W.’s made of it, the film almost feels a bit self-congratulatory in a way, as it’s told from the point of view of the Democrats (who obviously lost the court battle to finish the Florida recount), who have the advantage of the moral high ground. Regardless, like so much of modern history, the truth will consistently be bifurcated by the teller (sue me; I’m still a post-modernist!), but that sure makes for solid entertainment even if the film feels more like a Michael Moore picture than a feature film (again, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing). And the performances were stellar (Denis Leary, Tom Wilkinson, Laura Dern in particular). All in all watching Recount was a perfectly good way to spend a lonely Saturday night coughing and crumpled up on the couch.