One for My Baby, One for the Road

That's the song on my player right now. I love the way Sinatra sings it. It does make one a bit gloomy, as the man says.

I don't know what it is exactly I did all day today, from my 6:30 a.m. wakeup, but I'll be damned if it doesn't feel like jack-squat.

I walked about two miles into town yesterday, and before my exploration could really get underway I got a phone call about lunch. The folks were kind enough to come retrieve me, as I was an easy 45 minutes from my house and car. I got a pick up in the middle of the boulevard, which cracked me up at the time and is making me smile even now. I was pretty much hijacked for the rest of the day, until I begged off between 9 and 10 p.m.

I had planned to watch some movies and stuff today. Instead I've done some online stuff, cooked*, took a bath in the lap pool that passes for my tub, talked to my Mom, assembled IKEA furniture, blah blah did-this-really-take-all-day-cakes?

(*Don't get excited, I just cooked two chicken breasts on the stovetop with my ONE PAN. This made for some salad for lunch, and waaaaaaaay too many dishes for the effort. Still, I can't recall the last time I cooked anything, so, not for nothing. . . )

I caught the last half or three quarters of Public Enemies, with Christian Bale and Johnny Depp. It's all about John Dillinger and the task force set up to track him down. It's an interesting story, and I'm going to research the whole subject further, because I think it might have been the beginning of what has developed into the interstate definitions of federal crimes. I need to see this whole flick, and can, with the magic of DVR! (This thing is going to ruin my life).

At any rate, I'm watching the movie and I was quite struck with a particular shoot out scene. The machine gun pops and rattles, the pings of bullets ricocheting off at odd angles, the decimation of the house walls into plaster dust, the random crackling that makes you think you could hear a gunfight and wonder if somebody wasn't setting off firecrackers somewhere. . . it seemed so real, so dimensional and contextually accurate. It was so the opposite of the usual cinematic gunfight.

I was then struck by the score (not something I normally notice about movies), and how the music truly evoked additional emotion in the scenes, adding lovely layers of subtext that informed the story.

Bale and Depp were, you know, okay and all. They can act, a little. I respect Depp as an actor, but he doesn't usually do a lot for me. He was magnetic in this. He portrayed a slick, self conscious charm that one would imagine an idolized outlaw to have, but it never veered into cartoonish territory. Dillinger was winking at his audience, but Depp wasn't winking at us.

So, realistic combat/gunplay, fantastic score, and amazing actors. What does this all add up to? I had to wait for the credits to find out and it was total facepalm: a Michael Mann movie. Of course! How could I have not known that? Mann is solid director, who occasionally hits one out of the park. Even if a work isn't his best, it's still good, in my experience. If you are not familiar with Mann, here are a few of his notables:

--The Last of the Mohicans: Perhaps the best living actor, Daniel Day Lewis, running around to an amazing score, and some serious carnage in limited doses. The lush scenery, charisma of Day Lewis, and incredible music help to weak dialogue and character development. There's a lot there, but it comes through because of the actor's amazing jobs, not because the dialogue allowed them to express much. I just got chills thinking of the scene where the younger sister rejects her ultimate fate with Magua. Also, my roomie at work called me Magua till the day he retired. Hope he's enjoying those smallpox ridden blankets I gave  him as a going away present.

--The Insider: Before he got trapped in having to be the sole focus and hero of each movie (damn ye, Ridley Scott and Opie!), Russell Crowe was acting his keister off in a wide variety of films. This is one he should have gotten an Oscar for, but they screwed up and then decided to give it to him for Gladiator the next year. The Academy is so revisionist history. Good story, good acting, and in a movie with not necessarily a lot of potential visual interest, Mann still throws in some great shots. There's one of Pacino standing in the ocean, on a cell phone, that has a simply gorgeous color palette. It's like a painting.

--Heat: Wicked incredible gun fights. A few actors of whom you might have heard: DeNiro and Pacino. Val Kilmer shows up and makes you want a side movie all about whatever is going on with him. Just a solid, engaging film filled with characters who have whole lives that are only hinted at.


He does others that I haven't seen, and did a quite a bit of television before moving on to feature film. In conclusion, Public Enemies is worth checking out. Sometimes Mann screenplays or dialogue can be a little anemic, but he knows how to work with his talent to pull out fantastic performances--performances that are all the more notable for their lack of flashy, Oscar-baityness. I'm going to rewatch Enemies. I wonder why I didn't hear more press on this one.

It's 5:18 now and completely dark in my apartment. I really need to get some floor lamps. I feel like I'm going blind in here.

Closing with When We are One, by Gabriel Mann. I definitely got some beautiful downer tunes.