June 2, 1995
Dear Everyone:
An editorial note: “Jeannie”
objected to an item in last week's Letter.
She was annoyed at my use of the
word "irked". Says she's never
use that word in her life. Funny,
I use it all the time.
“Jeannie” has been buying things. Useful
things, like a vacuum cleaner, which tends to be very useful if you
happen to have cats. This was
actually a couple of weeks ago, after several forays into department
stores to check out prices. It
was on one of these vacuum-hunting expeditions that we found the wind
chimes that I sent Mother for Mother's Day.
Having found the vacuum cleaner of her dreams, it turns out to come in a
large box. Clearly,
Some Assembly would be
Required.
We worked on it together.
“Jeannie” found the right kinds
of screwdrivers and kept the cats out of the picture.
I deciphered the instructions.
The vacuum cleaner is working
splendidly.
“Jeannie” has also purchased a phone. Two
phones, in fact, one of them a cordless model.
Someone was having a sale.
Happily, telephones do not arrive
with Some Assembly Required.
Movies…
Saw two over the long weekend.
Johnny
Mnemonic. Set in the
future, a young man acts as a courier of information by carrying it in a
disc implanted in his head. Lots
of people want the information and don't mind taking just the head to
get it. Much running around and
action shots, most of which are so badly lit that you can't tell who's
who. Like
Blade
Runner, it has a very dark vision of the future.
The characters are cardboard, at best; but it's nice to know that "Darwin",
the artificial dolphin from TVs seaQuest
DVS, found summer work. When
you find yourself counting how many times
Keanu Reeves
uses the same mannerism (body turns, head follows), you realize that
you're just marking time until the ridiculous ending.
Passable.
If you just want to see Reeves,
go rent
Speed
or Point
Break instead.
Second movie: Braveheart.
Mel
Gibson as the legendary Scottish hero,
Sir William
Wallace. One reviewer warned
that it was only for the brave of stomach, so I left “Jeannie” out on
this one. When a claymore
connects with a man's head, the special effects guys feel compelled to
make it look as real as possible. Fortunately,
they did not attempt to show the single most common cause of death for
medieval soldiers, which was
dysentery.
Nevertheless, if your one great
goal in life is to see a man
hung,
drawn and quartered, for real, this is probably the closest you'll get.
The movie is billed as "historical adventure", which means that yes,
there really was a man named Wallace; and yes, there really was a
King Edward I
of England. All else is up to
interpretation. Gibson not only
stars in the film (his Scottish accent slipping only some of the time),
he also produced and directed it. Now,
when an actor decides to direct, it's generally for one of two reasons:
1.
He really wants to direct
2.
He really, really wants to
make the movie, and can't talk anyone else into directing it for him.
This case looks like the letter. Another
director probably could have found a way to bring the movie in in under
three hours, although I didn't check my watch nearly as many times as
during the much shorter (and less memorable)
Johnny Mnemonic.
Dramatically, it has a lot going for it, dashing hero and all that.
Historically, it’s ludicrous.
While the French princess,
Isabella,
did turn against her possibly homosexual husband,
Edward II, to suggest that William Wallace fathered the great
Edward III is
truly going off the deep end. And
I have reservations about re-enacting the Miracle of
Stirling Bridge
(in which Wallace defeated the much larger and better equipped English)
and completely omitting the Bridge.
Movie-wise, this is The Year of the
Kilt.
First
Rob Roy
and now Braveheart. From a practical
standpoint, the kilt was always a sensible garment.
One-size-fits-
(nearly)-all. Just wrap it
around your waist, fasten with a belt and tossed the leftovers over your
shoulder. Walking through the wet
heather, trousers would soon be soaked, but a kilt avoided that problem.
If it rained, you could cover
your head and shoulders. Doubled
as a blanket or, after a bracing dip in a freezing cold loch, a bath
towel. It also identified, at a
glance, your family associations and political affiliation.
Try spotting a Democrat just by
his tie in this day and age.
This is also The Year of Dumping on the English.
First, there was the
aforementioned Rob Roy (rotten
English overlords). Then there
was The
Englishman Who Went Up a Hill, but Came Down a Mountain (rotten
English cartographers who say a mountain’s not a mountain unless the
English say it's a mountain).
Now we have
Braveheart (rotten English king with his rotten English army).
Of course, being one-fourth each,
Scot, Irish and Welsh, it's my genetic right to dump on the English
anytime I feel like it.
The weather continues to be as bizarre as ever.
Hot one day, cold the next.
We even had a day where it was
overcast, windy, muggy and 80
degrees. Hey, we don't allow that
kind of thing in California!
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |