Blaaaahhh...!

For the first day in over two weeks, I didn't have to go to work. I was REALLY looking forward to spending the day doing stuff I wanted to do and having fun.

And then I woke up in the morning and was sick with a fever, sore throat, runny nose...the works. I was lethargic all day and got nothing done.

Of course in some ways it is good that I was sick on the day I didn't have to work, but it still sucks not having the energy to do anything but lie around and be lazy. Now I'm feeling a bit better, but of course now I have to go to work tomorrow! Oh well.

I didn't completely waste the day though. Like a good film student I watched Akira Kurosawa's "Ran," the only one of his films I've seen that is in color. One of Kurosawa's major strengths is his use of light and shadow in his black-and-white films, and he utilized color very well here too. However I found the movie to be the least engaging of his films I've seen (and I've seen most of his best I think). Perhaps this is due to the absence of Toshiro Mifune's awesomeness.

Of course, while I've enjoyed every Kurosawa film I've seen, my ranking of them generally goes opposite of what everyone else seems to think. "Seven Samurai" is considered by most to be his best, whereas I didn't like it as much as his others. And hardly anyone I know has ever seen "Red Beard," which I personally thought was his best.

Anyway, as a rank-o-phile and just for kicks, here's my Kurosawa list as it stands now:

1) Red Beard
2) Yojimbo
3) The Hidden Fortress
4) Sanjuro
5) Rashomon
6) High and Low
7) The Seven Samurai
8) Ran

Adios. And stay healthy! (not like me right now...sniffle cough cough)

Skies

Just when you think you've recovered, she shows up again and it all gets complicated. But in an airy, light-headed way...

I just re-watched "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" with my dad. Mom and sis are gone for the weekend, which means Dad and I can freely watch action movies or whatever without being persecuted. Woo!

Today was also my first REAL day as a swim coach. The other coach and I are playing "good coach, bad coach" to a degree, and I've been the good coach (surprise!). It's a lot of fun (AND I get paid a lot). It actually makes me MISS those old days of hauling my ass out of bed just so I could go freeze it in a pool before the sun comes up.

Speaking of the sun, there is a HUGE fire in the Cuyama valley North of us. It is far enough away not to be any danger to our home, but the smoke has been casting an eerie red shadow over the sky. The sky generally still looks blue, but the sun is a deep orange and everything looks like it has been lit with indoor lights (even though it is outdoors). Tonight I went and did some star-gazing, and the stars didn't seem to twinkle right. There isn't much of a moon, and yet it all seems dim...it's like I'm trying to stargaze back in LA again.

Well, maybe it's not THAT bad.

You wish, Godfather...

Sergio Leone's final film, "Once Upon a Time in America" leaves me practically speechless. It is a masterwork in EVERY sense of the word.

While not as entertaining as "Once Upon a Time in the West" (my favorite of his three films I've seen), at the moment I cannot think of a single movie that handles itself with as much elegance and grace (with the exception of a couple of rape scenes contained in the movie which I found unnecessary and perhaps should have been left out in my opinion).

I am a huge Beatles fan, and the song "Yesterday" has always been my favorite of theirs. The song plays twice in this epic story. I think now that if I ever hear the song again (especially a version that is only instrumental) I will be reminded of this movie, especially in the final scene, which is one of the most poignant and haunting things I have ever witnessed on-screen.

Many film students probably don't have the patience for a movie like this (it clocks in at about four hours) and they'll give up on it, even though nearly every scene is handled with sheer mastery. To be fair I had to watch the film in two sittings, but those who stick with the entire feature will be rewarded beyond their wildest expectations.

I never have been one to like gangster films. I have seen a number of them, but I have always found it hard to sympathize with the greedy duplicitous characters the films contain. That is not the case here. In my opinion "Once Upon a Time in America" runs RINGS around "The Godfather." Coppola doesn't even come close.

God (or Gaeia) save us from ourselves...

I'll start with the light stuff. This weekend was fun. Saturday night/Sunday morning I hung out w/ many ol' high (and even elementary!) school buds, and we gorged ourselves on raw cookie dough and watched "Aladdin" and "The Sword in the Stone." Hey hey, my my, 2-D animation shall never die!!!

However, just now I got back from "An Inconvenient Truth." The movie didn't REALLY show me anything too new that I wasn't already aware of to at least some degree, but then again, I am a big tree-hugger. It's very good that others will see this thing. Personally, however, I'm ashamed of myself. I feel I've lost my sense of duty somewhere...

There was a time when I remember these issues were my main concerns. Generally all I could think about was nature and the environment. However, these important subjects were eclipsed by high school (and beyond) hormones and my continuing fascination with filmmaking. And of course in going to LA it is VERY easy to lose touch with one's sense of nature a bit.

This isn't to say I'm ashamed in my love for filmmaking or anything...I believe I will always be passionate about movies, and I'm proud of that. But I also feel that my passion for environmentalism has gotten buried a bit in the shuffle. Is it possible to become a born-again environmentalist? This sounds funny, but hang on one moment...

I remember during college freshman year a Catholic aquaintance of mine (not Eric though!) accused me of "having no religion! Your religion is just dinosaurs and crap!" or something along those lines. I was pretty infuriated since I am a fairly SPIRITUAL guy at least. But at the same time, what IS a religion anyway other than a higher ideal to devote yourself to? Something you put your FAITH into? I don't really know if I believe in a conscious entity that controls us; for me "God" is just the miracle of our own biology and the marvels of how the universe works. Nature (dinosaurs included!) IS what gives me spirtual satisfaction. I hope that I never lose this side of myself, and I must remember to devote myself to the green side more than I have in recent times.

That having been said, "Inconvenient Truth" is not without its problems. Some concepts were glossed over a bit, and the film focuses too much on Al Gore's personal life, slowing things down. The exciting, important stuff is the hard data he's giving, not his own anecdotes. And such tangents will also turn the film off to Republicans, who need to take the warnings of global warming to heart as much as anyone else.

Yet what I found most worrying is the fact that "An Inconvenient Truth" offers little in the way of a solution to save our planet. While certainly the first step in such a plan is to simply inform people of the crisis (of which the film does a very good job) it would also be encouraging to know that we can actually save ourselves. I know that many scientists I have encountered really DO feel that we are doomed and that it is already too late.

However Gore quickly says at the end of the film, "We can stop this!" but I don't know if we can. He fails to give a whole lot of hard data supporting the claim that "EARTH IS NOT BEYOND SAVING!!!" (Batman--or Captain Planet?--voice), and of course this MAY be due to the fact that the point of the film is to address the problem, not the solution. Even so, it worries me.

Still, I guess all we can do is put our faith in humanity on the line. One of my credos is to always try as hard as you can, even when you think you are screwed to the zillionth degree. If in the next several decades we manage to pull ourselves together like we've done multiple times throughout history in other situations, I MAY indeed become a religious person, even in a more "real" sense of the word. Because it's going to take a miracle to dredge us out of the mess we've caused.

Peace out. Seriously.