DOWN THE REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

This weekend, my best girlfriends and I met at a lovely Greek restaurant. We watched the sun set over downtown in a cozy little booth eating hummus. Then our group of two became four and we connected from across wooden tables. I was dragging my friends out to see "Revolutionary Road", which apparently is only playing at the LandMark River Oaks theater in the greater Houston area at this time. Remarkable.

The first show was sold out and the evening found us all united in laughter at a recording studio "in the ghetto", surrounding by interesting people. After this, we sipped hot cocoa in a cappucino bar, then sat in stuffy theater for sad story. There are no happy endings here.

I read this book and I wanted to discuss it with my friends. It was a very thought provoking novel. The movie, not so much. The truth is in the details, and it is difficult to analyze something without all the facts. Just watching the movie, you don't get the tiny little facts.

However, I still want to analyze. I will post viewpoints here.

The first two questions deal with choices and roads...

MOVIES
So, with two small kids, etc, I really don't get a chance to see too many movies. Every once and a while, though...
Last night, I stayed up late and watched one that I wish I could take back.
FAILURE TO LAUNCH - uuuhh, it was terrible! I kept watching it because I kept hoping it would get better. Matthew McConaughey makes good eye candy, but even so, in this role I discovered him to be less appealing than usual. Sarah Jessica Parker plays the female lead and I also was realizing that maybe she is not as good of an actress as I previously thought. She seemed very "Carrie Bradshaw" in this film, even though the character was nothing like Carrie. Maybe Sarah is just locked in now to a type character that she can't break out of, or not enough of an actress to play someone other than herself.
At any rate, I thought at the beginning it was going to be a great romantic comedy, but it fizzles out very shortly after the opening scenes. Then you start wondering haven't I seen this before?, only it was another McConaughey movie in which he plays a noncommital guy who starts to fall for a girl who may or may not be actually tricking him into loving her, after which there is a confrontation and reconciliation, only THAT movie, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, was actually kind of good, and had some real chemistry between the actors, unlike this one, which seemed after a while like an incredibly long game of charades that you wish would just end so you could see who the winner was.

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

This one I thnk I really have seen before, only I am pretty sure it was on an airplane when I was too cheap, or too distracted, to rent headphones, so I caught everything but the dialogue. It seems pretty funny that in many ways, you can still understand what the movie is about, and what happens, without ever hearing the words. I knew what happened in the movie, but watching it with the dialogue added so much feeling and emotion to the story that I got caught up, all goofy and girly, into their love story. Maybe it's the music, too, that adds emotion to the story and makes us FEEL more than we see. Makes me wonder if people perceived the same difference when we switched to "talkies" during the beginning of film's golden age.

Anyway I wonder, when I watch that movie, about choices. If you were able to choose, like Diane Keaton's character, between a younger, handsome, adoring fan and an "old dog" who had learned some bad tricks, but seemed to be your soulmate, what would you choose? I think this film shows off Diane's dramatic talents - the scene in which Jack Nicholson's character says he is leaving to sleep in his own bed, and the camera flashes to her face, which shows a mature woman trying to compose herself while crumbling inside is priceless. I am not sure I would have handled things the same way as "Erica' did (and god, the sobbing, the endless sobbing when he left was about to make me not like her character anymore), but her acting is believable, the chemistry imaginable, and it allowed for romantic escape, which is why us women watch the movies we do in the first place.

This, because it's too cold to take the sick kids out geocaching, and my husband had a football game to go to. Hopefully I'll be too busy to lose myself in movies soon, but it is nice once and a while to recline and simply rest, and when I do, you better bet it's a chick flick I'll be choosing!

I'M WATCHING...

Okay, I'll admit that getting me to watch a movie is like pulling teeth. Sitting still for two to three hours is a difficult task for me. I have watched two movies lately, though, that have really entered into my consciousness and have me thinking about the deeper meaning behind the film, and the current of truth behind life, that which binds us together. My favorite kind of movie are the ones that enter your thoughts in this way.

SEABISCUIT

For about two years, I have owned a copy of the movie "Seabiscuit", but I never watched it until a couple of weeks ago, the evening after hiking the Four Cache Loop. It was the story of the jockey, Red Pollard, that I found most intriguing (however, after reading more about his life, I see that the movie was historically inaccurate and simply leads one to believe falsehoods). The idea that this broken down jockey, and trainer down on his luck, also all happen to meet Seabiscuit, a horse ruined by bad training and sold for $8000 to Charles Howard, an automobile enterpreneur with a broken heart, is an amazing example of "kismet" to me. These forces combined in an overwhelming display of mutual healing. The belief and understanding that they all showed in each other combined to make Seabiscuit the greatest racehorse of his era, even beating a much larger and stronger opponent, War Admiral, in the match race Seabiscuit supporters finally obtained.

Overall, it is a movie about redemption, and this is why I love it. I love the idea of redemption. It speaks to my heart about fairness. Eventually, the whole world can see the good in someone, something that has been broken down, but never gave up trying to be perfect. Finally the heavens open up and illuminate the golden aspects of the subject in a moment of triumph. In this movie, it is the last Santa Anita Handicap, with Pollard back in the saddle after suffering potentially career-ending injuries and Seabiscuit recovered from a torn ligament the following year. They healed themselves together on Howard's ranch, with Pollard joking that they had "four good legs between them", and Seabiscuit ended his career soon after, with the horse that nobody wanted now, in 1940, horse racing's all time highest money winner.

INTO THE WILD
The second notable movie I watched recently is "Into the Wild", of which is the subject of a video I posted below. Eddie Vedder was nominated for several awards for his musical score for this movie, and I think the song in this video is the best song of the soundtrack, and most concisely sums up the concepts embraced by Chris McCandless, the subject of the movie. This is a movie based on a real life story of an extraordinary man who decides to take on the Alaskan wilderness, after finding little about city life, material wealth, and his screwed up family to keep him interested in staying engaged in that reality. After graduating from Emory University with grades "good enough to get into Harvard Law" and a substantial college fund still intact, he instead walks away from all of that and goes "on the road". In many ways, this movie is a road movie, with part of the fun trying to guess where he is now with geographical clues.

The truth of McCandless is beset with controversy, especially his last days. In the end, what we want is redemption, but it is not granted here. There is no happy ending, no resolution to his quest, no reconciliation with his family, no triumph over wilderness. There is only the stuff of legend - Bus 142, on the edge of the Denali National Park, where Chris spent his last 189 days, and where people come pay their respects to a man who embraced the ecological vision and love of a simple life of the authors he admired - Thoreau, Tolstoy, and London.

The movie is breathtaking and incredible, introducing us to complex characters that he meets during his journey, and showing us his struggle to transcend his demons and survive with little more than a bag of rice and a gun in the Alaskan frontier. We see him reading, writing, struggling, hunting, foraging, and experiencing ups and downs. The part I liked best is his open armed embrace of the wilderness - a moment where he stands, arms outstretched, taking it all into his heart. I have felt like that before, I know that feeling of bliss when surrounded by natural beauty. For me, it is also a moment of wonder, thanks, and closeness with My Creator, a feeling of being One with God, but I don't know if McCandless felt that way.

After reading more about his life later, I find it intriguing that only a quarter of a mile from his "magic bus", where he was finally trapped in a cycle of starvation, was a tram that could have given him safe passage over the river that kept him from heading back to civilization when his luck turned. Safety and survival were only a brief hike further away, a fact that he missed because he apparently had a poor map and was inadequately prepared. Some people condemn him for all he didn't know, and I am not sure what side I agree with the most. I do think that if you are going to take on an experience like that, it is best to be as prepared as possible. He did educate himself beforehand, but then also had too much to learn yet before the true test.

As a parent, I am bothering by his lack of consideration for other people. Characters coming into his life repeatedly ask him to reconcile with his family, or at least let them know he is okay. His parents went through extreme emotional distress when he simply disappeared, without forewarning, explanation, a phone call, nothing. To me, this shows an incomplete transcendence over his past. His healing was not complete, his heart was not love, yet. A letter, a postcard, one simple gesture to acknowledge his family, even though he was still angry at what he considered the falseness of their lives and marriage, would have gone a long way towards easing their deep anguish over losing him. No matter what happens in this life, no matter what roads we take, our parents love us, and the love of family is a truth that supercedes this life.

In the end, perhaps he did overcome this, as suggested in the movie when, in the end, he scrawls out this message in a Tolstoy novel - "Happiness is only real when shared". We find true happiness only in our connection with others, and it is love, only love, that is the true meaning to our existence on earth.

The movie will make you think, and will overwhelm your senses with natural beauty and the desire to seek it, like McCandless did. Live, truly live, by going wild and taking it all the earth has to offer, with the lightest carbon footprint possible. Take it all in, all the natural wonders God has created here on Earth.

But prepare yourself properly first....

And check out the video, listen to the words and see the images. It was an incredible movie.

Dinner and a Movie

The Dinner: Meat Ravioli in Mushroom Sauce

The Movie: No Country for Old Men

I was so happy with the way the meal turned out. Restaurant Quality, all done in under 15 minutes time including prep. I could not stop thinking about how good it was after we ate, and this remembrance lasting about 24 hours. It is really easy to make, let me guide you through it.

First you heat some oil in a skillet on the stovetop. Slice up some onion and press some garlic, and throw it in there once the oil is good and hot. Let that cook for about three minutes until it is all golden brown, then throw in a half cup of fresh mushrooms, quartered. Stir it all together until the mushrooms are lightly coated with oil, then throw in a couple tablespoons of flour and stir that until you can't see the flour anymore. Add a can of beef broth (14 oz) and a 1/3 cup of dry red wine - I didn't have any of that but I used red wine vinegar, same difference - and bring it to a boil over medium high heat. Add in some parsely, basil, and pepper. Once it is boiling, add some fresh ravioli. The recipe I was using (out of Easy Meals in Minutes) suggested a beef ravioli, but for some reason the store I was shopping in had none of that, and the only meat version I could find was a chicken and herb fresh ravioli. It was killer.

The movie...well, it won four Academy awards...and based on the content, I guess you could say it was killer, too. I was a little uncomfortable with all the bloodshed and I am not sure I like the ideas presented in the movie. It is actually quite dark. Some amusing parts of the evening, though - Tommy Lee Jones in the "extras" part stating that the movie "was a comedy really", and feeling like my mother for a a few moments. She says she always has to explain movies to my father, and sometimes it is wearisome for her. She has to choose movies for them to see that won't be over his head.

Well, first of all the end of the movie kinda snuck up on us. We had just readjusted ourselves and made a comment that it was a long movie, and then out of nowhere the credits are rolling. I was not expecting that to the be the last scene but it does make the point. Anyway my husband turns to me and says "So what happened to the dude?" I'm thinking that if he didn't catch the part where it shows "what happened to the dude", then how the heck did he make sense of the rest of it from there out? I ask him this and he says he has no idea what this movie is about. Rewind, catch up to what happened to the dude, and then there is the conversation with Tommy Lee Jones' character and his old friend he goes to visit. I tell my husband "THIS, this is what the movie is all about" and it turns out he had just tuned that all out. After all, it's just people talking, he is used to tuning out conversation. I mean, he lives with me for pete's sake! I'm trying to go back and explain to him how the conversation he has with the large cop in the coffeehouse, the old friend, and his wife are all connected to the main idea of the movie, which is just depressing really, and my husband is rewinding it all to catch the parts he didn't understand. I wasn't going to stay up all night for this, so I took a bath and read my book in the hour it took him to make sense of it all finally. The movie runs deep, with the statements about luck, life, faith, the frailty of human life, and the scenery, especially in the beginning, is interesting. Today, though, all I could think about when I thought of the movie is blood gushing from the dude's side. I did have the ravioli again for lunch, though.

Movie leftovers, not so good. Dinner leftovers....yummy.

Sylvia, The Movie

Last night I watched this movie on the Ovation channel, where Gwyneth Paltrow plays the famous poetess Sylvia Plath in the story of her life. I kept thinking I was going to turn it off because it was past my bedtime, but between the story of her life and the book I was reading on the commercial breaks, I was completely sucked in.

At first what was intriguing me about the movie was her courtship with fellow poet Ted Hughes, the story of how they fell in love. It was making me think about a blog I read regularly, and a piece this week on whether or not women should settle. In my comment response to the entry, a point I was trying to make is that sometimes it doesn't seem like settling initially, but over time in a relationship people evolve, and a woman might find herself trying to make a decision whether to accept or not certain things that maybe were not present early on but became present during the years.

I had been discussing that idea further over lunch today with a female co-worker. I asked her if when she was walking down the aisle, did she have full belief that she had found Mr Right? Conversely, at this point, I am guessing about twenty years into the marriage, does she still think she has found Mr Right? I am curious about other married women's perspective on this. From my own experience, I know that when I walked down the aisle, I felt like the luckiest woman to be marrying that man. I had never loved someone so completely. Yet at this point in my life, although I still love my husband, I know and have known for years that he is not the best romantic partner I could have chosen.

In that respect, I really related to Sylvia's story. In the early phase of her relationship with Ted Hughes, it was great and golden. The movie shows them cavorting on the beach in the sunshine, taking boat rides, sharing a passion for poetry, supporting each other. Then she has a baby. She struggles with finding time to pursue her dreams in the face of motherhood and household responsibilities. She makes sacrifices for her husband's career. They begin growing apart, there is another child, and then there is an affair, and she kicks him out. I'm not saying I share exactly the same situation she did, but I do understand the disappointment of her relationship.

Gwyneth does an incredible job in this movie portraying the subleties of mental instability on Plath's part. My opinion is that Plath probably suffered from depression or bipolar disorder. She certainly felt things emotionally at a deeper level than most people, which I believe was responsible for her ability as a poet. This undercurrent that drove her literary success probably drove her to make the choice she makes to end her life. I know I am giving a lot of movie spoilers; however, if you know or read at all about Plath's life, you can't avoid learning of her death as well, and that is the part that really impacted me about this movie.

I was really bothered by the fact that her husband had gone to live with his mistress and she was left responsible for the two little children, despite the fact that he was quite aware she was not emotionally stable. I also got upset when I saw her making buttered bread and leaving that and little cups of milk in the room with her sleeping children, then seal the door. I knew what was coming, and I felt for those little kids, who would wake up in the morning with their mother gone from their lives forever. I could not relate. I would never make a decision that would take me away from my children who need me. I've been that depressed, but no matter how unhappy I have been with my life, my children are my anchors that keep me on the shore. I would never leave them, and their happiness, their desires, their needs will always come before mine.

When I finally came to bed, I was sobbing. My heart was breaking for Sylvia, for her children, for the fame she acquired after death, when the her husband published her last manuscript. My husband woke up and I talked with him of all the things I felt about the movie, and finally about my anger in the betrayal I saw in Ted Hughes, how he left her with those little kids knowing how she was, and my anger in general that love never stays golden and true, that most of my married friends struggle with the decision to stay married when love doesn't always match their expectations. Why is there so much sadness in the world? I lamented. Why can't men live up to our dreams? Why why why I asked, as tears streamed down my cheeks.

My husband said I should stop watching those movies because I know they get me worked up, and can't we just go to bed already? I went to sleep dreaming of Sylvia, and poetry, and the dream of the perfect man.