Entries from July 2004 ↓

I drove to the airport yesterday afternoon even though I wasn’t going anywhere or picking anyone up. I just needed a little inspiration.

I enjoyed a $9 diet Coke and soggy turkey on rye from “The Landing,” the only eatery-type place with tables before you have to show them IDs and tickets and take off your shoes and shit. This area is as far as non-flyers can go, and I have a spectacular view of the pool of people waiting and the river of people arriving.

To me, there are few places better than an airport. I love them for the obvious reasons.

The people on their tippy-toes, peering over scores of bobbing heads, straining to see the face only they recognize. I love the man that was beside me at another table lecturing his wife on American history. He said, “George Washington was totally untrustworthy and had no respect for anybody.” I watched the pilots, heads down, bored with it all. I love being there for the girl with the amazing ass who full-body hugged her boyfriend by wrapping herself around his leg and torso and shoulder. She’d been anxiously bouncing as she waited for him to appear from the mass of people. They kissed for a long time in front of one of their mothers, then he wore her down the escalator like a pair of overalls.

A lady in a purple sweatsuit waved her bejeweled and red-painted hands in the air for almost a minute before the person she was meeting disappeared into a bathroom, never having seen her. She shouted a loud “motherfucker!” right in front of a squawking toddler who was being denied a piece of chocolate cookie time and time again.

A middle-aged couple strolled toward the baggage claim with arms interlocked, both of them wearing leis. They were loaded down with the shopping bags they’d carried on. A tanned, beefy young man in a too-tight t-shirt and do-rag nearly tripped the lady in the lei due to his frantic pacing. He’d been furiously dialing out on his cell phone, to no avail, and furrowing his brow a lot.

Minutes passed, and a bespeckled teenaged redhead greets her girlfriend with a loud smack on the ass. They hugged and chattered loudly about how they were going to get SO FUCKED UP tonight. A squat woman wearing a zebra-print scrunchie informed her husband she hasn’t been able to talk to their son yet that day, and she wasn’t sure which flight he was on. Once again, she clicked disapprovingly, he’d made another assumption.

He smiled at her tenderly, said he was sorry and that he would try to call their son in a few more minutes. Then he kissed her on her forehead, and led her somewhere else.

I joined a gym. Yes, I did. Well, I re-joined after paying but never going. You know that drill. Anyway, I joined the Green Hills YMCA and man am I getting my money’s worth. I get a reduced rate since they charge on a sliding income scale, which rules, and for just over $20 a month I have access to hundreds of cardio machines anad Nautilus machines and free weights and two pools and a yoga room, which is seperate from the aerobics room. It is huge. It’s is big enough for a parking garage.

Anyway, I’ve just gotten back into working out and I am loving it, but I’m all out of songs for my workout CD mixes. And since you all were so good about suggesting things, I thought I’d let you keep it up. This post is basically an open call for high-energy, fast-beat, explosive-type songs. My dumbass just discovered how much help the right music can be for one’s endurance, and I’m hooked.

Nothing too long. I like to keep my workout songs short and varied. Otherwise, go nuts.

Boyfriend: So, he was listening to all these mysterious short wave recordings of people saying numbers and all those weird noises while he was driving through Death Valley at night. Said it freaked his shit out.

Me: I would have driven my car off a cliff!

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11. But it was on Saturday, rather than on opening Friday night, like I said before. That’s because all shows were sold out. As far as I know, the single theatre in Nashville that is showing Michael Moore’s new documentary was sold out through the middle of the week. It was on two screens and was filled up at every show time.

I fandangoed some tickets on Friday night for a matinee the next day. We had to wait in the enormous around-the-building line, which was horribly inconvenient despite a $1 convenience fee. There was no kiosk so we had to get our pre-bought tickets from the overwhelmed ticket teens at the gates. By the time we made it into theatre 15 the only seats available in pairs were on the second row. I accepted my future headache as taking one for the cause and settled in.

* * *

All of what I just told you has made it very difficult for me to critique in writing a movie like “Fahrenheit 9/11.” How do you give a movie with so this much hype a fair review? Should you even try? Should you attempt to critique the film based only on its elements, trying to leave out all the talk about death threats and egotism and lies masquerading as truth? Is a film review richer and more esteemed becuse it considers as many internal and external facets of a film as possible? Reviews that take into account all aspects of a film turn into tomes that are unpublishable in conventional mediums for film criticism. Whether you are writing a 7″ column in a daily or churning out a 8,000 word yawner for Film Comment you have to eliminate, unfairly, a lot of information and consideration.

So, with this film, where does one begin to start?

I guess I’ll start with the fact that despite everyone’s insistence that I do so, I’d never before seen a Michael Moore film. I’d heard he was a big, fat liar and, conversely, that he was a brave revolutionary. I think I decided he was a provocateur that I knew little about. Then I read about the standing ovation at Cannes and how it snagged the Palme d’Or. So, now that I live 7 minutes from the only theatre showing it, rather than 37, I went.

But dammit, if I can’t write a coherent review of what I saw. It’s the strangest thing. Moore’s film made me cry three times. So much of it is moving and powerful and so incredibly tragic. Extended footage of wailing mothers who’ve lost children, both American and Iraqi, segued into silly, voiced-over images of Bush & Co. as the cast of “Bonanza.” It is an information packed, emotional rollercoaster, that jerks the viewer from disgust to outrage to disheartened to laughter and back. The film is not especially consistent in tone, which made the manipulation of such a movie all the more evident. I found Moore’s outright mocking of Bush’s accent a severe error in judgement. This President and his administration have propogated enough atrocities and barbarous acts to warrant 100 of these movies, so why Moore spent time making fun of the President’s drawl is beyond me. But it’s disappointing.

I was impressed by how much I didn’t know before watching Fahrenheit 9/11, though. I read the news just about every day, and while not a total news junkie, I consider myself relatively informed. And there were so many things I hadn’t realized until this documentary poitned glaring at them. I wasn’t aware of the extent of the Saudi ties to W. and his dad, and I certainly missed the story about dozens of planes being summoned when ALL THE AIRPORTS IN THE COUNTRY WERE CLOSED to carry the bin Ladens out of the country.

Granted, I take every fact from the this film with an enormous grain of salt. I don’t consider this film as a source of news. It wasn’t intended as such. Moore admits it is an unfair and unbalanced piece of work meant to unseat one of the worst Presidents ever to take office. He doesn’t have to play fair, since one of the overriding themes of his picture is that this administration has an above the law mentality, a money-hording at the sake of innocent lives agenda and doesn’t bother to hide that fact. It didn’t take Moore years of researching and digging to find the footage and “facts” that he did. They were all right there for that taking, it’s just our so-called independent press in this country does not report it. The evil of this administration lurks behind the thinnest excuses and fakest smiles.

I think judging a film based on it’s intent is fair. And since Moore’s intent is to make Bush a one-term president, I hope he succeeds in his intent. Time will tell that.

It will be at that time I give Moore my standing ovation.