the scarlett movie

monday night i watched spring, summer, fall, winter…and spring. it was really good. it’s pace is pretty slow, but it’s beautiful and i thought the minimal but spiritual story woven through the wonderful visuals was enthralling. the main characters are buddhist monks and there is obviously a very strong buddhist perspective in the storyline, but buddhism has some good things to say. if you can handle movies with a slow pace and don’t mind watching people make choices and view the world differently than you (most likely), enjoy the beauty and symbolism of this film. sometimes i wish contemporary american culture had a stronger spiritual sense, and clung more fervently to the concepts of honour, integrity, inner peace, tradition, etc.
tonight i headed downtown to the flying saucer for triva night, then went to the angelika and saw scoop, the new woody allen film. i can’t say i’m a big fan of his…out of the few movies i’d seen, most of them i didn’t like too much. this one, overall, was an exception. although it felt like a pretty typical woody allen film from my minimal knowledge, i found the humor to be funnier. maybe that means i’m getting older…or perhaps more snotty about what refined tastes i have in cinema. (a joke at the expense of a lot of what i tend to feel like are the typical woody allen fans.) i also enjoyed watching scarlett johansson. unfortunately, she continues to have a mark on her in my eyes because of the movie lost in translation.
perhaps i should explain a bit…it really isn’t ms. johansson’s fault. i thought that movie was beautiful, and i like sofia coppola’s work…but i was disturbed by the decisions and actions of the characters scarlett and bill murray played. this was at a time before i knew about tamara having the affair. we watched it together and tamara — in a change from the views she’d always held in the past (though she’d already changed a lot by this time) — seemed to accept their actions and think the movie was great and their choices were fine. it confused me and sort of made me upset she thought such behaviour was acceptable. of course, i’m pretty sure she’d wouldn’t have if she’d hadn’t been exhibiting (or contemplating exhibiting) such behaviour at that point in her life. six months before, maybe even three months before, she would have seen things very differently.
unless she was misleading me for years, which — after what happened — wouldn’t surprise me too much. behaviours and actions on her part happened too many times around and after the affair and divorce for me to be too surprised by much of anything by her. of course, as soon as i say this, i’ll be surprised by some new horrible thing she said or did or will say or do. that seems to be the way things work.
anyway, back to lost in translation, we saw it at 3:30pm on sept 19, 2003, at the same angelika theater (though not the same screen). i know this because i still have the ticket stub. becasue it disturbed me that much. less than one month later she confessed to me she was having an affair. the lost in translation ticket stub will be going on the back of my eternal sunshine of the spotless mind “would you erase me?” poster.
back to the present, and better days. i’m contemplating what things i may do to my new truck. i’ve already got three bumper stickers i’d like to put on it (one in hand, one in a known undisclosed location, and one at large), as well as the consideration of a phrase in big white old english calligraphy letters (phrase is known). plus personalized “classic truck” plates (several ideas are in the running). i might end up making it too busy and want to minimize, but for now all of these things are spinning around in the ol’ noggin. my poor motorcycle must be feeling completely unloved as i’ve shown much less attention to it lately. however, she’s still in good with me.
it’s the element that should worry.