I’m actually excited about a summer movie: Richard Linklater’s adaptation of A Scanner Darkly.

This is why I love the man.

Picture my disappointment as I realized that, for all the pizzazz of “Superman Returns,” its global weapon of choice would not be terrorism, or nuclear piracy, or dirty bombs. It would be real estate. What does Warner Bros. have in mind for the next installment? Superman overhauls corporate pension plans? Luthor screws Medicare?

and even better:

“Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and superman—a rope over an abyss.” That is Nietzsche, coiner of the Übermensch, and in “Thus Spake Zarathustra” he scorns what he calls “extraterrestrial hopes” in favor of those, rooted on earth, who struggle to overcome the weakness of their own humanity. That is a proper, if perilous, subject for grownup cinema, and I for one have grown tired of supermen, and superwomen, who start with such a flagrant advantage over the rest of us. Mind you, if Superman is such a paragon, how come he wants to save a species so universally dumb that not a single member of it recognizes him when he puts on a pair of glasses?

Bookslut points out a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story saying that the Mysteries of Pittsburgh movie might not be shot in Pittsburgh. That’s crazy. Pittsburgh used to be where people shot movies because New York was too expensive. And they just have to get the real Cloud Factory in there. When I read about that place, I knew exactly where it was; it’s a little factory in the ravine behind the Carnegie Library, and I used to park near there on Friday mornings in high school when I had that internship at Pittsburgh Filmmakers (just two years after TMOP was published, though it seemed like such a longer span of time then). I’ve had so many “Pittsburgh moments” within a quarter mile radius of there, I would just be personally wronged if the film Cloud Factory were in British Columbia.

But. What possibly irks me more is that the screenplay apparently munges the characters Cleveland and Arthur. That’s just not right. It’s been a while since I read it, but if I remember correctly, the two really kind of need to be distinct. Cleveland is an unschooled live-fast-die-young Neal Cassidy type. Arthur is a sassy, articulate gay bookstore co-worker of the hero (not really Allen Ginsberg-like, but let’s go with the parllel). The young hero is still figuring himself out and is attracted to both for different reasons, and that’s kind of a major part of the novel.

Oh, and it’s directed by the guy who did Dodgeball. What’s up with that, Mr. Chabon?

Marco wrote me to set me straight on his role in Zorg and Andy. He was mainly the production designer and only had a small part. Also, he sends this additional article, which has a bit more detail.

Also, he pointed out that while he was responsible for the Stephanie/Carrie Newcomer theory, he contends that it was only 10% creepy, and “The rest was all teacakes and sunshiny sweetness.”

Went to see The Misfits at the Brattle tonight, with an introductory conversation with Robert Brustein and Tony Kushner. The connection being that The Misfits was written by Arthur Miller (and features Marilyn Monroe), and Tony Kushner edited the recently published Library of America collection of his plays.

Kushner frustrates me; I agree with 95% of what he says, but he is so scattered and then there are these bizarre things, like introducing a movie he hadn’t seen (!), and then not sticking around to see it because he decided to go to dinner (!!) even though he just finished editing a collection which includes a novelization of the movie he was introducing and didn’t bother to see (!!!).

He is quite articulate, though. I was doing a small compare and contrast with the previous night’s activity, and was imagining a debate between Shane MacGowan and Tony Kushner.

“Mwahasdfjai. adkfm aiefnb!”

“Really, Shane, that’s extraordinarily perceptive of you, but I beg to disagree with your contention that…”

It’s funny, but then again, it’s not. A huge gulf exists between the two audiences, too, and it’s another indication of how segregated Boston is, even for white people. Last night, one of the opening acts were the Street Dogs, a local punk outfit of Irish-American kids from Dorchester. They sang songs about unions and had the mostly blue collar Boston Irish audience pumping their fists. I was wondering at tonight’s little event what would happen if one of the Street Dogs got up to ask a question during the Q&A. The entire audience would just freeze in their chairs even hearing the accent. Everybody in both camps is probably very far left of center; why do they seem so far apart? As Terri pointed out, this probably seems especially weird to us, being swing state babies.

We ran into Amanda, our former Cambridge landlady, there, and caught up with her. She’s opening an art gallery in Gloucester. She asked me, “Isn’t this nice? It’s all so… Cambridge-y!” I was thinking, but didn’t say, “yeah, kinda depressingly so.”

Oh, and there was a movie, too. Often, I love the Brattle and hate Brattle audiences. Tonight, that was the case. There was a stunning amount of that patented inappropriate Brattle laughter. Yeah, some of the performances are not so good, especially Marilyn Monroe, when she’s trying to hard to be a Serious Actor. Yeah, some of the dialogue is a little stilted, especially when Arthur Miller is trying too hard. So people laugh when these things happen, to tell us how sophistocated they are, to tell us you know that what you’re seeing is a little bit schlocky. Or worse, the laughter crops up when presented with something that a somewhat complicated emotion, something that’s beyond the pale of the viewer’s experience. Like when Clark Gable’s character, an aging cowboy whose gotten a little drunk bangs on the roof of a car and screams for his kids, and falls off into the dirt. Not funny. At all.

Kids, we go to movies to go beyond ourselves. Deal.

So it’s difficult to sort out what I really thought from all the nosie. But I know there was a lot of annoying stuff in it, including a lot of, “hey, check it out, that’s Marilyn Monroe, isn’t she H-O-T!? She’s my wife!” Montgomery Clift does a terrific job of playing a punch drunk young rodeo cowboy who’s taken one too many falls off a bull. Thelma Ritter, a great character actor, was great as always. Clark Gable really looked the part of the old cowboy, who is trying to live in a world that has changed in ways he doesn’t quite understand.

I can’t resist pointing out that his character’s name was “Gay”, so we have another precedent for a gay cowboy movie.

Marco, why did you not tell me you were going to be in Quentin’s new movie? I feel so out of the loop.

I really do love the film of Doctor Zhivago.

I just rag on it every time I mention it because I worship the book, and the film is just a very different thing. It would be better if I could just get past comparing them, or even of thinking of them as the same thing.

Good news, in case you haven’t heard yet.

As of February 1, 2006, the Brattle Film Foundation has signed a one-year extension on our current lease at the Brattle Theatre!

Terri and I are going to see next Monday’s double-feature of the The Awful Truth and Holiday. Holiday has Carey Grant marrying into a rich eccentric family (the older sister in which is Katherine Hepburn), and The Awful Truth features him and Irene Dunne as an almost-divorced couple who do a lot of witty verbal sparring but can’t quite sever the knot. Join us if you’re interested!

Went to see The Passenger at the Brattle tonight. The only other Anotnioni film I’ve seen was Blow Up; The Passenger made me feel much the same way: it’s a great film, masterfully made, it will stick with me, but I don’t really share an obsession with the issues he’s dealing with. It’s all about identity, and seeing, and reality, and truth, and escape. Oh, and sports cars. I think I prefer The Passenger. All the heady intellectual stuff came more organically from the plot and characters; Blow Up puts it backwards, and everything feels staged to get some ideas across. It was nice to see so much of Barcelona in 1973. One scene between Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider takes place on the roof of La Pedreira, apparently before it was museummified, because there were clothes hanging on a line and people living in one of the apartments. Can’t imagine that happening now. And, hey, Jack Nicholson was good back in the 70’s before he became “Jack Nicholson”, wasn’t he?

Currently? I am sitting on the couch with Suki on my lap (purring and occasionally sinking a claw into my chest out of happiness) with Storefront Hitchcock on in the background, just to hear “You and Oblivion”, with a nightcap of Maker’s Mark.

The Brattle email-only newsletter notes the following:

More big thanks go out to The Volcano Suns and Yo La Tengo who are contributing portions of ticket sales from concerts held last week to the Brattle’s campaign!

Unfortunately, their email newsletter is not reproduced online, so no linkery for you. I signed up for it last week, after I learned that despite my desire to help the Brattle, I somehow missed that there was a Twin Peaks watch-a-thon in early december that I could have signed up for!

Anyway, the Yo La Tengo schedule confirms it, and apparently, another beneficiary of that Hanukkah show was the Pittsburgh Filmmakers, where I took a one-friday-a-month internship during my senior year in high school. I had no real interest in being a filmmaker, but it was free, it was fun, I got to hang out in Oakland one Friday a month instead of going to school, and I had the occasionally wacky adventure. I don’t think I even bothered to pick up my last 8mm film from the processing lab.

“How is the Brattle doing, anyway?”, you ask. There was a Globe story last week with the update. Not as bad as the worst case, not as good as the best case. Maybe I’ll try to have some birthday festivities there next month.

Her Turniptude gives you the Garbo update so I don’t have to. But I will point out that John Gilbert’s character, the Spanish Ambassador, articulates what is sort of the RealFake credo when he meets the incognito Queen of Sweden in a tavern: “Well, that’s civilization. To disguise the elemental with the glamorous.”

As Terri points out, we are going to see Queen Christina at the Brattle tomorrow night. If you read this, you are officially invited!

In light of this, perhaps you should tear yourself away from your couch and actually get out to the Brattle more often. It’s got a long and storied history, and I’d hate to see it close its doors. Maybe I’ll give out memberships for Christmas, in time for our annual ritual screening of It’s A Wonderful Life.

Wow. Here’s a blast from the past. I stumbled into Google Groups from my Gmail account, and decided to see if I had made any Usenet posts in the past that could come back to haunt me if I ever run for office. The two posts for apartments are pretty innocuous. But then there’s this post from someone named Maggie, who ran the Squeezeboxes on the Silver Screen site, and who, if I recall correctly, was in a band called Polkacide.

Such a flashback to the pre-dot-com web, where a stuff like “a list of all the appearances of accordions in movies” was super cool, where people felt compelled to help out and send in additions to the list. And such a flashback to my hardcore accordion days! I forgot how into it I was.

The other funny thing here is that one of the sightings I sent in was about Fargo, which was on UPN today, and which Terri and I watched. I was wondering how they were going to show it on UPN with all the violence. They had no problem showing Steve Buscemi getting shot in the face, bleed profusely, get killed by an axe, and have his body shoved into a woodchipper. But don’t let the kids hear the F-word. (”Drop that f-ruitful bag!”)

Cute.