I got up early Sunday morning and sat down and chatted a bit at the kitchen table, and then I slowly tapped out a longish, decently-phrased review of Birdman. I didn’t feel like writing about anything else because nothing else had really knocked me out except for The Imitation Game, but that operates on a much more conventional (and yet wholly satisfying) level than Birdman. I finally finished and was ready for my screenings around 1:30 pm. But my energy was really flat. The switch that was on during my Thursday travels and Friday and Saturday screenings, filings and schmoozings was suddenly sitting in neutral, and I couldn’t get going again. I went through the motions like a zombie. On top of which stiff winds were blowing and I hate having to grim up when wind assaults my face and blows my hair all over the place.
I’m sorry but I was just feeling pissy about everything, although I repressed that for the sake of social serenity and harmony with the people I ran into. But I strangely wanted to escape from Telluride and all this sparkling mountain air. I wanted to be on the streets of Manhattan or Toronto or Los Angeles…odd.
I saw Ramin Bahrani‘s 99 Homes, a passable if occasionally tedious drama about the oppression and exploitation of middle-class people who’ve lost their homes. I have plenty of sympathy for everyone who took it in the neck when the economy collapsed in late ’08 but I felt next to nothing for the folks in this film. Never borrow big-time to live in a place you really can’t afford and which is much bigger and splurgier than you really need. Too many Americans don’t get the value of spartan, spiritually-oriented lifestyles. They want indulged, abundant, pig-out diets and lives. They want their big pots of food and spending binges at the mall and big SUVs and all the rest of it.
I live cockatoo in more ways than one. I never invested in anything beyond work vacations and cool flat-screens and scooters and motorcycles and nice dinners and sojourns in Europe, and when the crash happened I weathered it just fine because (a) HE’s business was relatively unaffected and (b) I didn’t owe anything to anyone excepting taxes. Life is not a secure proposition. Bad weather and bad luck can come down on you anytime. Be ready for that. I’m not quite saying “don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk away from in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner”…I’m not saying that. But you can’t expect your life to be flush and burn-free all the time, and if you pack light and live with fewer financial burdens you’ll do better in the long run.
Before catching Mommy I also saw The 50 Year Argument, a smart, low-energy doc about the New York Review of Books from co-directors Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi. “The history and influence of the New York Review of Books“:…zzzzz. I’m sorry but the whole thing is on a low flame, and it made me feel like I was an Egyptian mummy. It’s actually a fitting cinematic corollary to the experience of reading the New York Review of Books. Obviously not unworthy but a little…I don’t want to be dismissive. It’s fine.
Then I saw Mommy at 8:45 pm and then caught an 11:45 screening of Birdman, which I was loving all over again until I suddenly felt a fatigue attack around 1 am. I ran out of the theatre and crashed around 1:45 am. I’ll be seeing Birdman at least another couple of times before the year is out.
