Lonesome Quill

Me + Netflix streaming = movies movies movies. It’s so much better than television! Unless by television you mean Top Chef and Say Yes to the Dress, of which I pretty much can’t get enough.

1) Mira Nair made a movie of a Jhumpa Lahiri novel and I didn’t hear about it? That was my first thought when the The Namesake popped up in my Watch Now options. And then I Watched Nowed it. And, well, yeah.

It’s actually very similar to the novel in that there is nothing wrong with the individual scenes; everything is neatly composed and working fine. But as a whole it’s lifeless. Why?

I couldn’t really figure it out about the novel, either. I think possibly it’s that she’s trying to cover too much ground and should have hewed mainly to one or two characters and time periods. But . . . Tolstoy?

But don’t you think the central metaphor just never really registers the way it should? There’s supposed to be all this sturm und drang around Gogol’s name, which is supposed to stand in for the identity struggle, but he never seems very exercised about it to me.

2) Love Story. I know. But it was “free.” Here’s my question. Was this movie pure  redonkulousness when it came out in 1970, or did people take it seriously? And did Ali McGraw become famous after this role, or was she famous before? Because her performance is kind of shockingly tone-deaf. Or, again, 1970? I’m so confused.

One thing I will say: Boston looks really depressing to me. Sorry, Boston friends. I know it has its charms. But it’s so brown. (I know: It’s not like I personally created Northern California. I’ll shut up now.)

3) The Business of Being Born. Holy f’ing ess. If you’re pregnant or know someone who is or might be at some point, I think you want to see this movie. Because my guess is that pretty much everyone assumes that the hospital model of birth makes sense and is based on science and, you know, health care, as in, caring about health. And it isn’t.

I’ll spare you the rant to which I subjected a very patient but tired John last night. Maybe you could just see the movie, and then together we could lament the state of “health” “care” in our country. However, I don’t recommend immediately thereafter reading the latest Atul Gawande piece in The New Yorker about end-of-life care, because it could prompt a total loss of faith in hospitals entirely.

Shyeah.

All right then.

Carry on!

1. What was all the fuss about Junebug? Amy Adams’ performance? She was good enough, but it seemed like the kind of extremity-of-feeling role that isn’t as hard as the subtler day-to-day stuff.

Anyway, Junebug is slow and emotionally nonsensical. I don’t understand what we’re supposed to believe/feel about George, the errant husband and prodigal son. The movie seems to ask us to like him, when he’s just a boring and uncommunicative (albeit sexy) jerk.

2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, on the other hand, is a funny, sweet movie. The previews made it look like a Superbad-esque journey into juvenile gross-out humor, so I’d put it off for a while.

Not that I am against Superbad. I just have a limited tolerance.

In fact, I mostly adore Jonah Hill and feel that the ways in which he is both like and unlike Seth Rogen should be humorously broken down by someone in a blog entry. But not me.