Novel Eye

The morning after we watched "Shoot 'Em Up" with Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti, I watched my rear view mirror as a woman put on her make-up in the car behind me. We were stuck in traffic, and she worked on it for about 10 minutes in start and stop traffic before we got on the highway. I don't know if she continued after she got on the highway. Meanwhile, the guy in front of me kept flicking ash out of his window with his RIGHT hand???? and finally tossed the cigarette butt out too. And I thought, "Man, I wish I were Mr. Smith right now." I loved this movie. Fantastic escapist fun and very, very visually clever. Owen plays Mr. Smith a mild mannered misanthrope who's catch phrase seemed to be, "You know what I hate..." When Mr. Smith sees a yuppie (is that still a term?) take a handicapped parking spot he steals the guy's car. He runs another off the road for not using his turn signals. Obviously I don't really believe in vigilantiism and ...

I was afraid of this film. We've had it from Netflix for something like a month which rather defeats the purpose of Netflix. I lived some of this once. That's all I can say for now. It was perfectly written, perfectly acted--I said or heard all of those things at that time. I was probably closest to the Clive Owen character. A little bit Natalie Portman. I've wished all my life I could be more like that kind of person--able to leave, travel light, reinvent oneself. Instead I have a few identities I cycle through day to day, have far too much stuff and regret too much. I almost made the mistakes of the Jude Law character in the last scenes, but stopped just in time. I don't think I was ever the Julia Roberts character--except in one thing that Owen's character says of her: that she can't let go of being a depressive, of being unhappy. Having that identity makes her happy. I've said all my life I didn't want to be depressed, and yet behavioral medicine mad...