Mooovies, changes and new musings on an old word
Moooovies again
Had the privilege of seeing the film "Capote" on Sunday afternoon.
THIS IS NOT A SPOILER SO READ WITHOUT WORRY
You know that famous film "Breakfast at Tiffany's"? Well this Truman Capote was the guy who wrote that. He was an outrageous character in 1950's New York, a writer for publication "The New Yorker", knew loads of famous people and later in life, outed his friends in writing which as you can guess, left him with fewer friends than he had before he did that. He wrote a book called "In Cold Blood" and this movie Capote, is about his life and in particular, the years in which he wrote that book "In Cold Blood".
Catherine Keener (plays Harper Lee - author of To Kill a Mockingbird) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (plays Truman Capote)
Good points of film:
- movie begins in 1959 and seems very authentic to the era, although if i saw one more Holly GoLightly lookalike i would have gotten cross
- story is SO interesting
- great going by director to make you end up feelng so conflicted about the main character
- nice chewy movie, gave you lots to discuss after
- glad that movies about gay characters have moved beyond the "they are pioneers and we must present them as perfect". Flawed human beings are interesting.
Bad points of films:
- gory bits (I didn't look away in time when the prisoner started describing his gruesome act, and those acts were re-enacted) ok this is my problem cos i'm a wuss, but i'm just saying this as a warning to any other wussy people on line. The gory bits were a small part of the entire film btw.
- Phillip Seymour Capote mumbles alot, don't go and see this when you're tired and not able to concentrate otherwise you'll miss alot of dialogue. I totally get the mumbling suited the character, where he was from etc, but i really think movies like this (and Brokeback Mountain) and any film using actors with twangy dialects (I am looking at the Glaswegians especially hard here) too! need subtitles. I love that dvd's offer the subtitles.
Stuff i am chewing over still
- wondering about the McCarthy Era (not sure if that was early or late 50's) and tolerance for "interesting" and very public characters like Capote - how did this work?
Comings and Goings
Tonight, at exercise class, the instructor, a wonderful person, announced that this would be our last class with her, as she is leaving to teach somewhere else on Monday nights. Change. Comings and goings. We will all miss her, not only a good instructor, but a lovely person. It's really hard to get an instructor to stay at a community centre, i imagine their pay is not very good.
A new slant on an old word
Ignorance. Normally that word is used to connote a negative. Today i was thinking how it can sometimes be a positive.
Once i have faced up to and accepted, I cannot know everything about everything, OF COURSE there will be loads of things i am ignorant about. That doesn't make me bad. It actually just makes me glad (in many instances) that there will always be new things to discover and learn about.
Like when i first joined the cc online forum, initially i felt really dumb if i didn't share cultural references with some people (i thought that meant i couldn't participate). Now i look on it as an opportunity to be introduced to new experiences.
So i will be saying loud and proud, yes i'm ignorant about X, but I'd love to learn about it.
I guess the only hiccup in this thought process is that some people discover you're ignorant on a topic, get all snooty about it and don't feel like sharing their knowledge, but other people just can't wait to "turn you on" to what they are really passionate about.
I am as guilty of this as the next person. Some beautiful jazz music came on at exercise class last week, a member of the group said "wow what is that music?" and after being told it was jazz, her response was "oh no it couldn't be, i hate all jazz, but i like that tune". I raised my eyebrows in "Are you crazy?" thoughts like "If that's not jazz, then i"m little bo peep". I must learn not to react so much when people display an ignorance about something that is so obvious to me. Remember that once, i was a jazz novice too.
Had the privilege of seeing the film "Capote" on Sunday afternoon.
THIS IS NOT A SPOILER SO READ WITHOUT WORRY
You know that famous film "Breakfast at Tiffany's"? Well this Truman Capote was the guy who wrote that. He was an outrageous character in 1950's New York, a writer for publication "The New Yorker", knew loads of famous people and later in life, outed his friends in writing which as you can guess, left him with fewer friends than he had before he did that. He wrote a book called "In Cold Blood" and this movie Capote, is about his life and in particular, the years in which he wrote that book "In Cold Blood".
Catherine Keener (plays Harper Lee - author of To Kill a Mockingbird) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (plays Truman Capote)
Good points of film:
- movie begins in 1959 and seems very authentic to the era, although if i saw one more Holly GoLightly lookalike i would have gotten cross
- story is SO interesting
- great going by director to make you end up feelng so conflicted about the main character
- nice chewy movie, gave you lots to discuss after
- glad that movies about gay characters have moved beyond the "they are pioneers and we must present them as perfect". Flawed human beings are interesting.
Bad points of films:
- gory bits (I didn't look away in time when the prisoner started describing his gruesome act, and those acts were re-enacted) ok this is my problem cos i'm a wuss, but i'm just saying this as a warning to any other wussy people on line. The gory bits were a small part of the entire film btw.
- Phillip Seymour Capote mumbles alot, don't go and see this when you're tired and not able to concentrate otherwise you'll miss alot of dialogue. I totally get the mumbling suited the character, where he was from etc, but i really think movies like this (and Brokeback Mountain) and any film using actors with twangy dialects (I am looking at the Glaswegians especially hard here) too! need subtitles. I love that dvd's offer the subtitles.
Stuff i am chewing over still
- wondering about the McCarthy Era (not sure if that was early or late 50's) and tolerance for "interesting" and very public characters like Capote - how did this work?
Comings and Goings
Tonight, at exercise class, the instructor, a wonderful person, announced that this would be our last class with her, as she is leaving to teach somewhere else on Monday nights. Change. Comings and goings. We will all miss her, not only a good instructor, but a lovely person. It's really hard to get an instructor to stay at a community centre, i imagine their pay is not very good.
A new slant on an old word
Ignorance. Normally that word is used to connote a negative. Today i was thinking how it can sometimes be a positive.
Once i have faced up to and accepted, I cannot know everything about everything, OF COURSE there will be loads of things i am ignorant about. That doesn't make me bad. It actually just makes me glad (in many instances) that there will always be new things to discover and learn about.
Like when i first joined the cc online forum, initially i felt really dumb if i didn't share cultural references with some people (i thought that meant i couldn't participate). Now i look on it as an opportunity to be introduced to new experiences.
So i will be saying loud and proud, yes i'm ignorant about X, but I'd love to learn about it.
I guess the only hiccup in this thought process is that some people discover you're ignorant on a topic, get all snooty about it and don't feel like sharing their knowledge, but other people just can't wait to "turn you on" to what they are really passionate about.
I am as guilty of this as the next person. Some beautiful jazz music came on at exercise class last week, a member of the group said "wow what is that music?" and after being told it was jazz, her response was "oh no it couldn't be, i hate all jazz, but i like that tune". I raised my eyebrows in "Are you crazy?" thoughts like "If that's not jazz, then i"m little bo peep". I must learn not to react so much when people display an ignorance about something that is so obvious to me. Remember that once, i was a jazz novice too.