WE GO OUT, WE COME IN
The time leading up to the San Diego con is always a pretty horrendous one, and this year was no different. Lots of rushing about, and my brain went pretty sideways over the weekend, culminating in me having to force myself not to turn my computer on this past Sunday, lest there be something there in my e-mail that might send my breakdown into overdrive. I contented myself to lots of movies instead, enjoying my returned freedom, of it just being me and the cat in the house.
Actually, my most interesting commentary on any of the things I saw was for a Saturday movie, Smiles on a Summer Night, directed by Ingmar Bergman (who just celebrated a birthday). It’s one of his mid-‘50s comedies, and it has a sort of light early-Hollywood feel, while at the same time being a tad more salacious. I think most people are unaware that Bergman made comedies, and even I was ignorant until I read up on his history on one of the features on the Criterion edition of The Seventh Seal. What’s most interesting, though, is just how looking at the two aspects of his artistic psyche reveals what a thin line there is between comedy and tragedy. The intro on TCM for this film informed the viewer that Bergman originally had the idea for the story as a drama, and with its cheating spouses, spurned lovers, and Oedipal scenarios, this could have easily been an intensely emotional film about the consequences of lust and its effects on familial bonds. But because everyone was scheming with a twinkle in their eye, it was all okay.
Other films I watched ended up having an odd, unplanned connection. The Bride Wore Black starred Jeanne Moreau and was directed by Francois Truffaut. Orson Welles’ Chimes At Midnight had Jeanne Moreau in a supporting role, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had Truffaut in one, as well. All were watched because they were recent purchases, primarily used ones. There was no planning. All three were amazing, though.
I actually had some DVD luck Saturday when I went to pick up some used DVDs I had seen at a local shop. One of them was Tarkosvky’s The Sacrifice, which the clerk started talking to me about. I don’t know if it was her appreciation of my taste or that I looked especially cute that day or something (I did have a new haircut), but I didn’t realize until after I left that she had given me half-off on two of the three discs. Nice! If it was that I was cute, I guess that disproves Chynna and Jenny’s theory that I look horrible in yellow, since I was wearing the Gorillaz shirt that so offends them!
Work related: I got Gravitation volume 4 in last night. What a fucked up book. I won’t spend too much time getting into why, as all the reasons would spoil plot and volume 1 isn’t even out yet—but there is some strange sexual psychology going on here.
Tomorrow: the con.
Current Soundtrack: The Coral, Skeleton Key EP
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