Like chopping garlic; or, Love in the Modern Age

It's been almost a week since I saw "Her" and I still think about it. I was putting up new curtains this morning, and I thought about Theodore and Samantha; I started to wonder what Spike Jonze's favorite color was, or if he preferred grapes to pears, like I did.

I guess it's one of those things that stay with you, or that would suddenly cross your mind while you're in the middle of doing something totally dissimilar, like chopping garlic, or putting your shoes on.

Like other great films, "Her" prods you toward introspection, pushes you to confront your own central beliefs (no matter that you have to chisel your way down to your own untraveled depths), dares you to ask questions you have difficulty constructing. In this case, you may start with "what is love?", a question that has seemed to acquire various elements of the commonplace--largely because it has so often been thrown out with so much familiarity, at times, even in jest--but is really, on closer inspection, one of this life's deals that have yet to be clinched, despite numerous attempts to do so.

So, "Her". And this documentary, "chronicling reactions to Spike Jonze's Oscar-nominated film, Her. The documentary, directed by Lance Bangs, features stories and reflections from writers, musicians, actors and contemporary culture experts, including Olivia Wilde, James Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis, on the film Her, and their thoughts on love in the modern age."



Thanks to Mr. K. for the alert.

Go talk to someone.

You're at the grocery store. A Lady Gaga song is playing, and you're trying to decide which brand of canned peaches to buy.

You remember a particular writing assignment one of your teachers had asked the class to do. This was from ten years ago, and the exercise had nothing to do with a grocery store, Lady Gaga, or peaches.

You find yourself wishing you could have a chat with that teacher. You wonder where he is now, and if he does his own groceries, like you do.

And the nominees are...

"Sometimes, I feel I'm fighting for a life that I just ain't got the time to live. I want it all to mean something."

- Ron Woodroof, Dallas Buyers Club

The wee hours after the Golden Globes have ushered the Oscars season in. Here are my one-and-a-half-cents' worth:

"Captain Phillips" bored me. I think I dozed off somewhere in the movie. Maybe it's just me.

Michael Fassbender shines in "12 Years a Slave". Vicious like the villain that his role is, his presence is both loathsome and commanding, as expected. Or maybe I'm simply biased. After all, how can someone as good-looking as he is not be brilliant everywhere else? Ugh, yes, maybe I am biased. But, think Daniel Day Lewis. 

photo from collider.com

"Her" is a beautifully rendered rumination on consciousness and being; on loss and the emotional debilitation it often entails; on ennui and confinement; and on how, in this age of volatile, fragile relationships and, even with so many ways to connect to and with people, loneliness really--and still-- stems from the inability to communicate, if by the term "communicate" we want to highlight being understood. Spike Jonze is one of this generation's best screenwriters; he's a genius in my book. And why doesn't Joaquin Phoenix have more movies? Or maybe I just haven't seen enough.

"The past is just a story we tell ourselves."

- Theodore Twombly, "Her"

"The Wolf of Wall Street" is one prolonged, graphic paean to sex, drugs and alcohol. Or maybe I'm missing the point, perhaps somewhere along the lines of how a life of excess will, eventually, come snowballing down on he who lives it, yadda, yadda, yadda. I must be, for the phrase that comes to my mind, where this movie is concerned, is sensory overload. Though Leonardo DiCaprio's acting is superb, Scorsese's seat may have been a little too hot, as his instructions came out just a tad overblown. If we were on more intimate terms, I just might be tempted to tell him to google "restraint". Ah, well. Maybe I'm just getting old.

My money's on "Dallas Buyers Club". Matthew McConaughey disappeared into the character, the movie evaporated into the story, and I was entirely drawn in. And don't even get me started on how luminous Jared Leto is. There are no movie actors in this film, just people. Well, maybe except for Jennifer Garner. But what am I doing, making bets this early?Maybe I should watch the others first. 

"American Hustle", "Nebraska", and "Philomena" are still, and next, in my bucket, so maybe I ought to shut up and stop being stupid. "Blue Jasmine" wasn't nominated for Best Picture, but I'm watching it, anyway, just because it's a Woody Allen film, and Cate Blanchett bagged the Best Actress (Drama) award at the Golden Globes. For some reason, I don't at all feel inclined to watch "Gravity".

But maybe I should.