A Dream of Sweet Illusion

So for the second night in a row, I'm doing a movie review.

Today we hit the Museum of Flight, something that managed to completely recharge my love for airplanes in one fell swoop. It wasn't nearly as large, and didn't have as many planes, as the Air Force Museum (I used to live just a couple of miles away from it when I was a wee lad), but the exhibits were much better and in-depth. I suppose that's the difference between corporate and government backing. The result: once we get this computer room cleared out, I'm going to set up a desk in here, dig out some of those models I never did, and do them.

Then we met up with Angela and saw Garden State. I had originally suggested seeing I Heart Huckabees (I'm not going to try to make a stupid heart image in the browser), but since it wasn't here, I thought of Garden State, since a couple of people recommended it.

It's good. It's really goddamned good.

Most of the time, I find that independent films - well, most films - are too damn self-aware. Its like somehow, either in the writing, the acting, the directing, or something, someone is trying too hard, like they know they're in a movie. On one level, it ruins the versimilitude of escaping into the film, but on another, it's substituting ego for talent. The movies that don't do this are rare - off the top of my head, I can think of The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, and American Splendor - two of which are Sofia Coppela movies. But Garden State pulled it off wonderfully. The dialogue was down to earth, the directing was nice and tight, and there was an underlying sense of capturing life rather than recreating it, which is really what moviemaking is all about. And the soundtrack was dandy, too.

That's all I've got as far as movie reviews go. I'm going to sleep early, again. Tomorrow, I have a room to clean and a table to set up.