Reviews: 2 Movies and a Book

    Watched sex, lies and videotape on Saturday. I hadn't seen it in a very long time, probably since it was in theaters. It is disturbing on a visceral level, the kind of movie that builds tension throughout. James Spader is fantastic in it. Highly recommended.
    Last night was No Such Thing, directed by Hal Hartley. It's the story of a young journalist whose fiance is lost and presumed dead in Iceland while investigating the existence of a monster. It sounds ridiculous and it is, in some ways, but it's amazingly well done. Beyond the surface interplay between Beatrice (the journalist) and The Monster, the film contains a sharp critique of the media and of American culture generally. It's also a love story, in a sense, although certainly not the traditional one. The cinematography is wonderful--I want to see Iceland before I die! Outstanding.
    And I just finished reading Janet Desaulniers' What You've Been Missing. It won the John Simmons Award for Short Fiction. And it was so unremittingly depressing, I could barely push through it. Some of the language is quite beautiful , like this from "The Good Fight":

The familiar haunted her now--braiding her daughter's hair, stooping to tie her daughter's shoe. The more routine the gesture the more she was shaken by how deeply loss could touch her. That was why she asked Dutton to come, she realized, because he was not a part of her jeopardy. She wanted to believe her jeopardy had bounds, that there was some part of her life that could not be touched.

In the altogether, though, it made me want to sigh, over and over. Unless you need something truly sad, I wouldn't suggest this one.

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With that, I'm sneaking underground. The LSTA grant applications for FY2006 are due on Friday. I've yet to begin writing ours. (shit) I'll poke my head in again when I've completed the damned thing. Wish me luck!