Today is my granddaughter’s second birthday. Well, it’s actually July 3, but where she lives it’s already July 3. It’s all rather confusing. Time zones. What’s the point of them?
At the end of the afterword of Flight or Fright, the forthcoming anthology I co-edited, I ask readers who see anyone in an airport or on a plane with the book to send us a picture. Reviewers have taken up the challenge. So far, I’ve received three photos from people on long flights reading the anthology. The most recent is Larry Fire, who is shown here reading it on a flight to Hawaii. Brave souls.
We don’t often give up on movies, especially ones that star the likes of Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu, but we were bored to tears by Let the Sunshine In (Un beau soleil intérieur) and turned it off after 45 minutes. It’s one of those films the critics loved (RT: 86%) and viewers like us didn’t (RT: 21%). To me it felt like there wasn’t a script, that the actors were placed in scenes and told to just talk. Ramble, more like—there’s one scene where Binoche’s character tries to ask her new coworker an uncomfortable question that goes on forever. It was almost farcical. Horrible, banal characters.
We were luckier on Saturday, when we watched Woman Walks Ahead and The Shape of Water. The former is based on the true story of an artist (Jessica Chastain) who travels West to paint Sitting Bull (Michael Greyeyes). She arrives when the military is trying to force the tribes to sign an accord that will have them giving up more of their land. Sitting Bull is mostly content to grow potatoes, but the artist helps him rediscover his former glory and he makes an impassioned speech when the tribes are called to vote. It’s a good film, but apparently it plays fast and loose with a lot of facts, especially concerning Catherine/Caroline Weldon, who is portrayed as a widow with no political motivations when she arrives. In reality, she was divorced twice, and had a 12-year-old son who she took with her to the Indian Territory who isn’t mentioned in the movie. Neither are Sitting Bull’s two wives. In the real world she had previously corresponded with Sitting Bull and was an active member of the National Indian Defense Association. Never let facts get in the way of a good story, I guess! And the film has Sam Rockwell, which is always a plus.
I’ve been wanting to see The Shape of Water for a long time. I wasn’t sure it was the kind of film my wife would enjoy, but we both loved it. I didn’t know anything about the story going into it beyond the trailer, so it was all fresh and exciting and new. Such great characters—even the supporting characters had entire little stories of their own. It’s the second thing I’ve seen in the past year where the monster eats a cat. Yes, Stranger Things 2, I’m looking at you.
