Movie Notes: Blue Jasmine and Gravity

Movie Notes:  Blue Jasmine and Gravity

Just saw Gravity at the I-Max at the Seattle Center.  I came away thinking this is what computer graphics should be used for rather than building bigger and better mega-battlemonsters.  The filmmakers did for space what Ang Lee did for the ocean in Life of Pi:  they showed us what these vast places are like, only more so.

But it wasn’t deep space in Gravity.  Instead it was really really high up.  The earth is there to locate everything, and as Matt drifts away he finds solace in the spectacle beneath him.

What a filmmaker has yet to show us is the horror of Nothing, no earth or heavenly body as a reference, only your space-suited arms and feet and blackness, I was going to say in all directions, but of course there would be no directions.

I’m not sure how much the experience was enhanced by the I-Max’s 3-D.  I was most aware of it when things like combs and Bullock’s tears drifted from foreground to close foreground.

The film is a lesson in how long sustained shots, one over ten minutes I think I read, create a convincing reality.  We don’t experience our lives in camera breaks to  different distances and positions.

 I don’t seem to be much of a Woody Allen fan.  I’ve probably missed his best films.  I’ve seen Match Point and Blue Jasmine, and felt both were well-acted but contrived and predictable.  The moment when the sister’s ex meets Jasmine and her new guy on the street and spills the beans was a feeble piece of storytelling.  I like Cate Blanchett a lot.  But I felt I was watching an accomplished actress Acting.  In Gravity I was watching a woman trying to cope with a series of frightening crises.  My Oscar goes to Sandra, not Cate this year.

There was one weak moment in Gravity, when Bullock almost misses the Chinese space lab and grabs it at the last possible opportunity.  Standard filmmaking suspense here.  But otherwise a splendid film tracking a convincing flow of events.

Oh, was anyone reminded of Das Boot?  Both present a frightening series of crises in claustrophobic metal cannisters as characters attempt to perform mechanical procedures while being pummelled by destructive outside forces.

High School Reunions

I recently attended a high school reunion in Spokane, my home town. 

I’ve gone to some of the reunions over the years, not all.  I tried to reflect on the differences from one reunion to the next.  To begin with, I’ve always been curious about the lives of the people I went to high school with.  Not everyone shares this curiosity.  I’m one of those people who can look at my first grade photo and name just about everybody in the class.  I’m no more “social” than the next person, probably less.  Why this curiosity, I wonder.

What I remember about my tenth reunion is that a couple of friends I stayed in contact with weren’t interested in going.  I think there was a fear that the classmates who had begun successful careers would flaunt their successes.  I don’t think that actually happened, but the tenth was a long time ago.

What struck me at the twentieth was the difference in ages.  Some of my classmates looked like weathered versions of their high school selves.  Others looked like they belonged to my parents’ generation.  True, the fact that some of the women had married older men underlined this perception.

What I remember about my thirtieth was that a live band played dance music so loud the only way you could talk was to yell into someone’s ear.  I wanted to talk to people, not listen to music or dance.  (I don’t think much dancing happened.) 

So what was my experience at the fifty-fifth?  First, that I was lucky to be part of a class with a handful of people, women mostly, who made an effort to keep the class together.  As with most volunteer organizations, it takes one or two people with energy and persistence to make things happen.  From a graduating class of six hundred plus, eighty were present.

Second, I realized as I spoke with people that time was the great equalizer.  The girls who had been pretty now looked about the same as the girls who had been homely.  The athletes were now no more athletic than the rest of us.  And now that most of us were retired, there was a similar tone in the summaries we shared with one another of our careers: some pride in the things that worked out, a wistful regret about the things that hadn’t.  A pride in what the grandkids are doing makes all of us equal.  Many of the women are widows.  Concern about health of self or spouse is another equalizer.

When I walked into the room I recognized only a handful of people.  So what do you do, make eye contact, walk up and gaze at the name tag and realize this is someone you never knew?  My strategy was to find a couple of people I went to grade school with—yes, some of us remembered the furniture and some of the routines of Miss Vermillion’s kindergarten class—and have them point out others from my grade school.

But the truth is that it was easy to talk to anyone, and I had a couple of dozen conversations before we left.  Almost everyone had acquired a social ease we didn’t have in high school.  Whether we’ve lived in the world or stayed in Spokane and raised our kids a few blocks from where we grew up ourselves, we all have pasts that are interesting to those who are curious.  Talking about ourselves and learning about others is a larger part of the lives of older folks than it was when we were younger.  Seems like a good thing.

Looking For Sports Heroes

Five months ago Lance Armstrong gave up his effort to conceal his use of performance-enhancing drugs and confessed on Oprah.

I am still coming to terms with my disappointment.  Not that it was a surprise.  Lance should never have “consulted” with, or had anything to do with, Michele Ferrari, the infamous “Doctor Dope.”  When accused of doping his response was always  that he was the most tested athlete in the world.  Never the simple statement, “I have never used performance-enhancing drugs.”  I, like many others, hoped and feared in equal measure.

But still.  How excited were we cycling enthusiasts during those Tours.  We added cable to our TV package for the month of July so we could get up at five AM and listen to the incomparable Phil Liggett describe the drama of the stages.  Lance was a great story.  And we took a kind of pride in seeing our sport, cycle racing, minor league at best in the US, rise to prominence in the American sports world.

So I’m left wondering about my lifelong desire to find heroes to admire, models to aspire to be like.  Sports may or may not be a good place to look for them. 

When I was seventeen my hero was the Marquis de Portago, race car driver, bobsled racer, and dashing figure in the European social world.  When I was eighteen it was Jack Kerouac.  (I’ve never gone back to my tattered paperback copy of “On The Road,” not wanting to experience the likely disenchantment.)  Then it was a handful of professors in the Berkeley English department.  I gradually learned that their admirable specialty knowledge was imbedded in lives of petty grousing, envy and frustration, struggles with areas of life where they weren’t that competent.  Like all the rest of us, in other words.

What I admire today is a blend of three things:  a talent, the development of that talent through persistent hard work, and freedom from self-importance. 

The reason we look to the sports world for models is that it does present a series of individuals to the public in a way that lets us evaluate them over time in all three of these ways.

My current hero is Roger Federer, though I’m not much of a tennis fan.  He was plonked at the French Open yesterday, but gracious as usual to the winner of his match.

I hope he keeps winning.  I hope he doesn’t dope or have a string of mistresses.  I’m hoping, but I know we live in a world of clay feet.

Two Obituaries in This Morning's NY Times

It was a striking coincidence for me that the two leading obituaries in this morning’s NY Times were for  two people who played very different roles in my young life.

The first was Dean Jeffries.  In the ‘50’s and ‘60’s he and Von Dutch were the premier hot rod pinstripers. 

Pinstriping goes back to the early years of the automobile.  A fine straight line in a contrasting color follows a major fender contour and finishes with a design flourish.  In the fifties, the Golden Age of the hot rod, pin striping became the finishing detail of choice, and Von Dutch and Jeffries were the California gods.

I tried a little pin striping myself.  I did my buddy Skip’s 1951 Pontiac dashboard.  Not bad, but no Jeffries-level work.  The challenge of pin striping was the center point in the middle of the rear deck or the nose of the hood where the striping on the two sides of the car came together.  Those center flourishes had to be symmetrical.  No stencils, this was all done freehand.  It’s really tough to get the swoops and teardrops to exactly mirror each other.

I find myself still doodling pinstripes during meetings, trying to get the arcs and curves on each side of a centerline to match.

The second was Herbert Blau.  He was the director at ACT in San Francisco when I attended SF State College in, let’s see, must have been 1962.  He also taught at the college, and filled in one day for Mark Harris (Bang the Drum Slowly) in the creative writing class I was taking.  He commented on a story I had submitted.  I can’t recall exactly what he said, but it mattered that he took what I wrote seriously enough to think about it.

Blau was the driving intellect behind the appearance of Waiting for Godot and the works of Beckett and other avant garde playwrights on major American stages.  I was surprised to find that he passed away in Seattle, and had last taught at the UW.  If I’d known I might have looked him up and said thanks for a word of encouragement fifty years ago.

Does anyone not as old as I am find any of this interesting?

A Farewell to Bakeries

I didn’t realize how much I loved bakeries until I stopped going to them.

My wife has been gluten-free for a couple of years.  I decided to give it a try and see if there were benefits.  I don’t have a wheat allergy, as she does, but after two months I’m finding a benefit.  When I’ve gone for training runs or swims in the past, I’ve needed to know exactly where the potties were.  You don’t need to hear the details, but let’s just say that a smoothed-out GI process is a good thing for me.

But I suffer from fantasies about cinnamon rolls, currant scones, and the real-deal old-fashioned maple bars.  I imagine standing at the display case at Macrina’s on McGraw gazing at morningglory rolls and bread pudding.  Or biking back from Edmonds and stopping at Larsen’s to pick up an almond twist as a reward for a hard ride.

Gluten-free baked goods are getting better.  I’ve had some pretty decent brownies—maybe the best wheat substitute is chocolate.  But I’m toying with the idea of a gluten-free vacation day once every couple of months.  I could spend a week deciding whether to have a cinnamon roll, scone or maple bar for breakfast.  Abstinence makes the stomach grow fonder.