it's 2:30 am and i'm typing this on my dad's computer because mine's in the shop. ok, really, it's somewhere under fao schwarz at 59th street and 5th avenue, somewhere inside the gargantuan new underground apple store getting its dvd drive fixed. hopefully... the silence of the apple people irks me somewhat.
anyway.
so i guess to begin i should tell you about this movie i saw, last night. (if for some reason you can't see italics, that's the name of the movie: "last night." it is not the time i saw it). i'd heard about this movie ages ago, where exactly i can't quite remember. i seem to remember it pre-dated my move to new york, but there's nothing to really substantiate that. the premise is very very simple: the world ends at midnight on the particular day the story takes place. everybody seems to know why, and there seems to be nothing external that can be done about it, because everyone seems resigned to at least the fact that the world is about to end. its written/directed by this guy don mckellar, who also stars in it, so at times it feels a bit pointy. but among the otherwise unfamiliar co-stars is sandra oh, who almost eerily looks exactly as she does currently in grey's anatomy. the movie begins with her going to pick up some groceries at a raided and decimated grocery store; while she's there, a gang of people ruin her car. because of this she can't get back to her husband with whom she's made a suicide pact. she meets patrick, played by mckellar, who sort of takes it upon himself to find her a car. he's just come from his parent's house, where his mother has cooked a christmas dinner (though it is pointedly not christmas) and all sorts of family issues manage to muck up the end of the world, mostly that patrick has decided to spend the end of the world alone in his apartment instead of with his family.
but i don't really need to explain the whole plot of the movie, because it's the very idea of it that's so creepy and exciting. we all went through the y2k crap, and though we never believed it, i do seem to remember thinking fleeting (or, being 16, not so fleeting) thoughts about what it would be like if everything spun out of control. and i know we all saw the simpson's treehouse of horror from 1999, with the apt "life's a glitch, then you die" episodelette. incidentally, this movie is from 1998, so most likely steeped in all of that culty, hale-bopp related insanity... oh the late nineties...
the coolest parts of the movie were the subtle ways in which life had adapted to the end of the world. "the end" as it is commonly referred to, was known some time before (i think perhaps two months), and, as many people meet for the first time in the film, the polite conversation starter is not "what do you do?" but "what did you do before," because it's assumed that nobody is still working. there's a woman who is uncomfortably thin, who runs throughout the entire picture, announcing how much time is left, to which everyone around responds "shut up!" the local radio station is counting down the 500 best songs ever, with a low, sultry-voiced disc jockey delivering great lines like "we can't make time stop, but we can make it go a little smoother." one of patrick's best friends has turned his kitchen into a kind of shrine to all the things he wants to do before the end, that is, all the people he wants to do. and acts, and locations. it's all scrawled in insane asylum script, and there are various polaroids documenting various achievements. his first scene has him hosting a stunning black girl in his bedroom:
guy: what i was trying to say out there is that you're very beautiful... and that i knew that before.... i just want you to know that i'm not doing this just because you're black.
girl: yes you are. you don't have to lie.
guy: yeah.
my favorite moment in the film (and i hope you'll forgive me, because i'm sure i've given away most of the plot to the extent that none of you will ever have any reason to see it, but let's make sure i don't lose my point here) comes at about fifteen minutes to midnight. for the entire movie, which begins ostensibly at six pm, the sun has been out, and though it's peculiar, it's not prohibitively disturbing, so one sort of lets it go. so, it's fifteen minutes to the end, the two of them are sitting outside and sandra is having an intense conversation with patrick, trying to convince him to join her in her suicide pact (she's been unable to locate her husband). and all of a sudden, so casually, patrick says "it's times like these that i miss night." i don't know, maybe i'm just geeking out here, but... well, it was awesome.
so i finished the movie, and was all ready to go to bed (brushed my teeth and everything) and i look out my bedroom window and for a brief moment i think there's a ufo hovering over washington square park. it only took me another two seconds to realize that it was, indeed, only some sort of crane holding floodlights about a hundred feet in the air. but i could see the park was lit up as well, and decided that, not being really tired, and feeling meaningful after my movie, i'd take a walk around the park.
it's actually a really nice night out. it's been cold the past few days, incrementally and impossibly so, in a way that says almost too happily "winter is coming, suckkkaaa!" i started walking down west fourth, and when i got to the corner of the park, i saw that it was roped off and being guarded by a bunch of twenty-something pas who looked both bothered and important by their job, while at the same time doing absolutely nothing. i couldn't decide whether i was jealous or intrigued or pissed off that i can't walk through my public park because someone's filming some goddamn thing or another. i kept walking on the south side of w4th, and at the corner of macdougal, i saw in front of me on the other corner about fifty people dressed in big puffy down coats. at first they looked like a disastrous group of upper east side women who had all accidentally purchased the same coat, but as i got closer, i saw they were all wearing a lot of makeup, as well as bald caps and what looked like full body unitards. i was thinking i could have asked them what was going on, but i almost preferred thinking that they were just there to be there, and that no big name celebrity had pulled them out at such an ungoldy hour in the cold.
as i kept walking, i received what i would like to go on record as saying more than my fair share of dirty glances from the production staff. okay, sure, it may have occurred to me that perhaps, due to some emergency, like a light falling on the writer or something, they'd need me to bang out a rewrite of a page. but the minute i thought it, i filed it away amongst the other impossible fantasies, like before i go to concerts, always imaginging they'll need some emergency backup singing. you know. fantasies. anyway, they all looked at me like the cool kids in the cool kids club and i was the guy with the retainer and the pocket protector. moreover, they all looked like they were totally ready to jump me if i stepped over the line.
it gave me pause, which is not a term i like using, but it fits here. pause about what the hell i want with a career that treats people like that. not that it's the only one that does--my dad told us some good academia horror stories at dinner tonight--but... i don't know. then i started to do a self-analysis thing that was only going to end in disaster, questions like, "do i want to do this because i like to be in clubs that other people are excluded from." well, as an older sibling, that instinct goes without saying, but when it comes down to it, i feel like i would be happy earning a teacher's salary doing writing... i mean, i have a hard time seeing myself saying no to something that would result in my having money, but i really do believe that i want the thing more than i want everything that comes with it.
on the other hand, it could be cool to have 250 people freezing their nuts off in the middle of the night in washington square park, just so something i wrote down can be put up on a big screen. then again, maybe not.
anyway.
so i guess to begin i should tell you about this movie i saw, last night. (if for some reason you can't see italics, that's the name of the movie: "last night." it is not the time i saw it). i'd heard about this movie ages ago, where exactly i can't quite remember. i seem to remember it pre-dated my move to new york, but there's nothing to really substantiate that. the premise is very very simple: the world ends at midnight on the particular day the story takes place. everybody seems to know why, and there seems to be nothing external that can be done about it, because everyone seems resigned to at least the fact that the world is about to end. its written/directed by this guy don mckellar, who also stars in it, so at times it feels a bit pointy. but among the otherwise unfamiliar co-stars is sandra oh, who almost eerily looks exactly as she does currently in grey's anatomy. the movie begins with her going to pick up some groceries at a raided and decimated grocery store; while she's there, a gang of people ruin her car. because of this she can't get back to her husband with whom she's made a suicide pact. she meets patrick, played by mckellar, who sort of takes it upon himself to find her a car. he's just come from his parent's house, where his mother has cooked a christmas dinner (though it is pointedly not christmas) and all sorts of family issues manage to muck up the end of the world, mostly that patrick has decided to spend the end of the world alone in his apartment instead of with his family.
but i don't really need to explain the whole plot of the movie, because it's the very idea of it that's so creepy and exciting. we all went through the y2k crap, and though we never believed it, i do seem to remember thinking fleeting (or, being 16, not so fleeting) thoughts about what it would be like if everything spun out of control. and i know we all saw the simpson's treehouse of horror from 1999, with the apt "life's a glitch, then you die" episodelette. incidentally, this movie is from 1998, so most likely steeped in all of that culty, hale-bopp related insanity... oh the late nineties...
the coolest parts of the movie were the subtle ways in which life had adapted to the end of the world. "the end" as it is commonly referred to, was known some time before (i think perhaps two months), and, as many people meet for the first time in the film, the polite conversation starter is not "what do you do?" but "what did you do before," because it's assumed that nobody is still working. there's a woman who is uncomfortably thin, who runs throughout the entire picture, announcing how much time is left, to which everyone around responds "shut up!" the local radio station is counting down the 500 best songs ever, with a low, sultry-voiced disc jockey delivering great lines like "we can't make time stop, but we can make it go a little smoother." one of patrick's best friends has turned his kitchen into a kind of shrine to all the things he wants to do before the end, that is, all the people he wants to do. and acts, and locations. it's all scrawled in insane asylum script, and there are various polaroids documenting various achievements. his first scene has him hosting a stunning black girl in his bedroom:
guy: what i was trying to say out there is that you're very beautiful... and that i knew that before.... i just want you to know that i'm not doing this just because you're black.
girl: yes you are. you don't have to lie.
guy: yeah.
my favorite moment in the film (and i hope you'll forgive me, because i'm sure i've given away most of the plot to the extent that none of you will ever have any reason to see it, but let's make sure i don't lose my point here) comes at about fifteen minutes to midnight. for the entire movie, which begins ostensibly at six pm, the sun has been out, and though it's peculiar, it's not prohibitively disturbing, so one sort of lets it go. so, it's fifteen minutes to the end, the two of them are sitting outside and sandra is having an intense conversation with patrick, trying to convince him to join her in her suicide pact (she's been unable to locate her husband). and all of a sudden, so casually, patrick says "it's times like these that i miss night." i don't know, maybe i'm just geeking out here, but... well, it was awesome.
so i finished the movie, and was all ready to go to bed (brushed my teeth and everything) and i look out my bedroom window and for a brief moment i think there's a ufo hovering over washington square park. it only took me another two seconds to realize that it was, indeed, only some sort of crane holding floodlights about a hundred feet in the air. but i could see the park was lit up as well, and decided that, not being really tired, and feeling meaningful after my movie, i'd take a walk around the park.
it's actually a really nice night out. it's been cold the past few days, incrementally and impossibly so, in a way that says almost too happily "winter is coming, suckkkaaa!" i started walking down west fourth, and when i got to the corner of the park, i saw that it was roped off and being guarded by a bunch of twenty-something pas who looked both bothered and important by their job, while at the same time doing absolutely nothing. i couldn't decide whether i was jealous or intrigued or pissed off that i can't walk through my public park because someone's filming some goddamn thing or another. i kept walking on the south side of w4th, and at the corner of macdougal, i saw in front of me on the other corner about fifty people dressed in big puffy down coats. at first they looked like a disastrous group of upper east side women who had all accidentally purchased the same coat, but as i got closer, i saw they were all wearing a lot of makeup, as well as bald caps and what looked like full body unitards. i was thinking i could have asked them what was going on, but i almost preferred thinking that they were just there to be there, and that no big name celebrity had pulled them out at such an ungoldy hour in the cold.
as i kept walking, i received what i would like to go on record as saying more than my fair share of dirty glances from the production staff. okay, sure, it may have occurred to me that perhaps, due to some emergency, like a light falling on the writer or something, they'd need me to bang out a rewrite of a page. but the minute i thought it, i filed it away amongst the other impossible fantasies, like before i go to concerts, always imaginging they'll need some emergency backup singing. you know. fantasies. anyway, they all looked at me like the cool kids in the cool kids club and i was the guy with the retainer and the pocket protector. moreover, they all looked like they were totally ready to jump me if i stepped over the line.
it gave me pause, which is not a term i like using, but it fits here. pause about what the hell i want with a career that treats people like that. not that it's the only one that does--my dad told us some good academia horror stories at dinner tonight--but... i don't know. then i started to do a self-analysis thing that was only going to end in disaster, questions like, "do i want to do this because i like to be in clubs that other people are excluded from." well, as an older sibling, that instinct goes without saying, but when it comes down to it, i feel like i would be happy earning a teacher's salary doing writing... i mean, i have a hard time seeing myself saying no to something that would result in my having money, but i really do believe that i want the thing more than i want everything that comes with it.
on the other hand, it could be cool to have 250 people freezing their nuts off in the middle of the night in washington square park, just so something i wrote down can be put up on a big screen. then again, maybe not.
posted by Charlie Beckerman at 00:08
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